Word: skybolts
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...Europe would not forever accept total U.S. control of nuclear weapons, the U.S. offered more than two years ago to give them a voice in their disposition and use-but left it to Europe to devise a formula. It was not until the Kennedy Administration canceled the bug-ridden Skybolt missile project last December that the U.S. was forced to take the initiative. In place of Skybolt, the Administration reluctantly offered at Nassau to supply Polaris missiles for an independent British submarine force...
...answer, which has been very popular in Britain, maintains that Kennedy deliberately cancelled Skybolt to eliminate Britain from the nuclear club. The period of humiliation was designed, so the theory goes, to forceably impress upon the English, as well as DeGaulle, that the U.S. was running the nuclear armaments show and did not welcome competition. This explanation concurs with statements by both Kennedy and McNamara on the necessity for a "unified NATO command," which is today U.S. command. Enticing as this theory may sound, it does not quite square with the final outcome of the Skybolt affair. For the Polaris...
...second theory seeks to explain the clumsiness and apparent indirection of the U.S. policy from the time McNamara first announced his decision until the Nassau meeting. It maintains that McNamara acted independently of the rest of the Administration. After deciding to cut Skybolt for budgetary and technical reasons, McNamara made the cancellation announcement without having allowed anyone else time to fit his decision into a coherent foreign policy. The Administration's behavior seemed so muddled because it was essentially a reaction to McNamara's fait accompli. The fact that Secretary of State Dean Rusk and McGeorge Bundy figured nowhere...
...approach turns on the rather hopeless assumption that no one in the State Department was aware of McNamara's moves throughout the time leading up to his announcement. As early as November 19th, however, Aviation News and Space Technology reported that the Department of Defense was planning to cancel Skybolt. Agents of the State Department sit in the Pentagon for the express purpose of relaying news of projects in the Defense Department in order to study their effect on foreign policy. Besides, we must assume that McNamara is an extraordinarily naive man to formulate and execute such an important decision...
...plausible motive heretofore skirted is that of Kennedy's domestic political objectives. The Administration's private struggle with Congress and the Pentagon probably shaped its strategy as much, if not more, than any other factor. McNamara planned Skybolt's demise while still smarting from the attacks launched at him last spring when he had tried to stop development of the B-70, a Mach 2 superbomber. Primarily on the strength of the testimony of the Air Force's General Curtis Le May, Congress reprimanded McNamara's action and threatened to "direct" him to reverse himself. He eventually had to concede...