Word: minuteman
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...near-flawless display of precision rocketry, the U.S. last week added two formidable new weapons systems to its nuclear arsenal. The Navy's fleet ballistic missile Poseidon and the Air Force's powerful Minuteman III ICBM, both on their maiden tests, winged like homing pigeons to their targets from two launching areas at Cape Kennedy. Their dual success was remarkable, but what distinguished the solid-fuel missiles even more was their potential. Each is designed to carry Multiple Individually-Targetable Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV), comprising as many as ten separate nuclear warheads ticketed for preselected targets...
...rising sun. Leaving a psychedelic trail of ionized gases, it streaked away. Barely 10 minutes had elapsed after lift-off when it was announced that Poseidon had sped to a perfect splashdown, 1,150 miles away down the Atlantic missile range. Then came the taller, three-stage Minuteman III. Launched at 4:30 p.m. in a geyser of orange flame, it raced 5,000 miles to another brilliant on-target splashdown near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic...
After further testing, the 2,800-mile-range Poseidon will go into 31 of the nation's fleet of 41 ballistic-missile sub marines, which now carry the Polaris. Minuteman III will replace 700 Minuteman I's (currently operational along with Minuteman II and Titan II) in hardened silos. Poseidon may carry as many as ten separately targetable warheads, and Minuteman perhaps three, along with decoy chaff and penetration devices to fool enemy anti-ballistic mis sile systems. Together, they could raise the U.S. single-strike capability to a formidable maximum of 7,500 nuclear warheads...
...LARGER FORCE OF ICBMs. Air Force leaders want additional missiles to reinforce the present Minuteman series and ensure penetration of the new Soviet ABM defenses being installed around Moscow. Foster argues that the U.S. still has several hundred more ICBMs than the Soviets and is improving its silos, the better to withstand any Soviet first strike...
...Vietnam military budget today is, by normal standards, an austerity budget. All military construction in the U.S. has been stopped. Pay-increases to military personnel have been deferred. There have been surprising declines in contract awards to aerospace industries and other businesses, Eckstein notes. The procurement of the Minuteman-three has been postponed for eleven months. In addition it has been officially announced that the extra $3 billion of Vietnam spending in the current fiscal year will come entirely from the reprogramming of non-Vietnam military expenditures...