DEFENSE: The New Weapons System

Top U.S. Navy planners last week were fairly hopping a hornpipe over a new weapons system that stands to reshape longstanding concepts of naval warfare —and, for that matter, seriously influence all current U.S. military and diplomatic thinking. The new idea, as radical as the development of the atom bomb, combines two new Navy weapons: the swift, deep-swimming nuclear submarine, and the intermediate-range, shipboard-type ballistic missile, Polaris. Such a mating would permit the far-ranging nuclear subs, lying submerged offshore at vital points around the Eurasian land mass, to launch thermonuclear missiles...

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