Word: megaton
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Looking toward the big year of 1964, politicians of both parties tried to assess last week's off-year elections in terms of the explosive power of the civil rights issue. The results were inconclusive. The issue had no megaton power - yet. But even though it cast its sparks in all directions, it plainly was much more than a Fourth of July plaything...
...General Curtis E. LeMay, Power's predecessor as commander of SAC, demurred to any degree: "I would think that I would have been against it." Among the things bothering LeMay: lack of an effective U.S. anti-ballistic missile, failure of the U.S. to develop a 50-to-100-megaton bomb. Said LeMay, whose blue uniform set him apart from his three khaki-clad colleagues: "There are net disadvantages from the military standpoint." Still, since the treaty had been initialed, LeMay was now willing to go along...
McNamara, while admitting that the treaty, by barring atmospheric testing, would prevent the U.S. from developing a 100-megaton bomb, told the Senators that without any testing the U.S. "can develop a warhead with a yield of 50 to 60 megatons for a B-52 delivery," and with underground tests could develop "a 35-megaton warhead for Titan...
Doubling the Megaton. The U.S. is -and has been for several years-committed to such "saturation" strategy. In its simplest terms, this means avoiding reliance on a few huge bombs, peppering an enemy nation with hundreds of relatively small ones. Since devastation does not increase arithmetically with megaton power, two 10-megaton warheads properly placed can do almost as much damage as one 100-megaton giant. The Pentagon goes under the assumption that accuracy-even in saturation-is the key to success, that if a missile's accuracy is bettered by 20%, it is equivalent to doubling the megaton...
...Army's upcoming Pershing missile-a 400-mile supersonic "tactical" weapon that can be zipped around combat areas via truck, helicopter or airplane. It can be set up, aimed and fired from its portable launcher in less than an hour; it delivers a bang of up to one megaton -which makes it a threat to entire cities, if needed...