Defensively speaking, the atom is potentially no farther away than the air space over a neighbor's backyard, the U.S. learned last week. "The Department of Defense," announced Secretary Charles Wilson, "has begun deployment of nuclear weapons within the United States for air-defense purposes." In plain words, the Continental Air Defense Command now has added the sinew of the nuclear warhead. Atom-armed air-to-air rockets and surface-to-air missiles deployed in strategic places in the U.S. can, if need be, thunder into the path of any known enemy bomber.
Warheads on air-to-air rockets, which can be carried...