DEFENSE: Atlas at the Gap?

Up before the U.S. Air Force's top-level air staff for consideration this week is a new proposal for bridging the so-called "missile gap" in the early 1960s—the period when the U.S., by Defense Secretary Neil McElroy's estimate, will be outgunned 3 to 1 by the Communists in intercontinental ballistic missiles. The new proposal: double the U.S.'s planned production of ICBMs by mid-1963. Planning now calls for the deployment of 90 Atlas ICBMs and 110 Titan ICBMs in 20 squadrons of ten missiles apiece by mid-1963. The U.S., under the new proposal, would add 200 more Atlas ICBMs to the...