Word: mcnamara
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...addition," said McNamara, "we have duplicative facilities which will in the future include the capability of launching each individual Minuteman by a signal from airborne control posts." The mobile control posts are KC-135 jet tankers of the Strategic Air Command which have been converted into communications centers under the control of an Air Force general officer. Such an officer could, from his airborne headquarters, launch the Minuteman flights...
...McNamara said, work on most of these problems could be carried out without the atmospheric atomic tests that would be banned by the treaty. Atmospheric tests would surely be useful in perfecting a warhead for an antimissile missile, but McNamara insisted that satisfactory progress could also be achieved with the underground tests that the treaty permits. As for solving the blackout problem, which cannot be duplicated without actual atmospheric testing, McNamara only said lamely: "We will be able to design around the remaining uncertainties...
Caveat to Cheaters. But what might be the effect upon today's U.S. nuclear superiority of Russian treaty cheating? McNamara argued that the U.S. could almost certainly detect any Russian nuclear tests of a size worth conducting. He conceded that the Soviets might get away with a test in deep space-20 million or more miles away from the earth -but such tests "would involve years of preparation, plus several months to a year of actual execution, and they could cost hundreds of millions of dollars per successful experiment." Anyway, he said, the U.S. plans to launch within...
Still, what if the Soviets suddenly abrogated the treaty and started testings without attempt at concealment? McNamara, again, was reassuring: "The consensus is that the Soviets could not in a single series of tests, however carefully planned, achieve a significant or permanent lead in the strategic field, much less a 'superweapon' capable of neutralizing our deterrent force." More important, McNamara promised that the U.S. would maintain "the vitality of our weapons laboratories" and "the administrative and logistic capabilities required to conduct a test series in any environment...
...addition to Secretary McNamara, those testifying last week before the Senate committeemen on behalf of the test ban treaty were: Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Glenn Seaborg, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Maxwell Taylor, and Central Intelligence Agency Director John McCone. The case they made was convincing-even though it did not relieve some Senators' doubts...