Word: icbms
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Calling the ABM move a political decision made to "deprive the Republicans of a defense issue," Lapp suggested that the U.S. should instead use its long-established deterrent policy to protect itself against possible ICBM attack by China in the 1970s. His proposal: a China Polaris patrol armed with high-yield nuclear weapons programmed to hit specific Chinese targets...
...best estimates are that China will not achieve perfected ICBM capability-and the range to hit the U.S.- until 1972 or even 1975. Before that day, the Chinese will have to conduct extensive testing of the 5,000-mile missiles, and they have only two directions in which to fire. One is into the Pacific Ocean, where the precedent for testing has been established by other nuclear powers. The other is the Indian Ocean to the southwest...
McNamara did his best to minimize the impact of his disclosure. He argued that FOBS is considerably less accurate than ICBMs, which was the primary factor in the U.S. decision against building its own FOBS several years ago. Further, he said, the U.S. has developed an over-the-horizon radar capable of tracking a missile from the moment of blast-off at Russia's Tyuratam ICBM complex; the new radar will be fully operational in February and will give Washington 30 minutes' warning of a potential attack. The new three-stage Spartan anti-ballistic missile will also increase...
Timing. The Pentagon's current impression is that the Soviet orbital bomb is principally designed against vulnerable American bomber bases. While admitting that there is no foolproof defense against massive Soviet ICBM and FOBS attacks on cities, McNamara argued, as is his wont, that the best deterrent continues to be the immense target killing powers of the ground-based U.S. ICBM arsenal, the roughly 600 nuclear-armed strategic bombers and 650 Polaris missiles...
...House Minority Leader Gerald Ford & Co. got their anti-ballistic-missile system. In the midst of an otherwise eloquent address on the danger of a new arms race. Defense Secretary McNamara announced that the U.S. would begin to deploy a $5 million "thin" system principally to protect our Minuteman ICBM silos...