Defense: The Space Bomb

For 14 months U.S. space and intelligence experts have intensively analyzed a secret series of Soviet orbital experiments, suspecting from the start that Moscow was building a new space weapon. Last week, in a surprise Pentagon press conference, Defense Secretary McNamara confirmed that assumption.

Though the evidence is not yet definitive, he said, the tests clearly "relate to the possible development by the Soviet Union of a Fractional Orbital Bombing System, or FOBS."

This conclusion was reached by Washington after tracking eleven Soviet launchings since Sept. 17, 1966, in which attempts were made...

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