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Coming Up. Right up to the countdown on Operation Dominic, the President offered to halt the whole massive operation if Khrushchev would sign on the controlled-test-ban line. The nyet left it all up to JTF-8—and the pragmatic Bill Ogle of U.S. science. Throughout most of the summer, the results of their work will glow in Pacific skies in some 35 explosions with a force up to 15 megatons to prove the reliability of present U.S. weapons, improve the efficiency of developing missiles, test the nuclear vulnerability of the nation's multibillion-dollar radar defenses. Polaris missiles will gush out of the ocean from submarines, Minuteman ICBMs will roar off island launching pads—and, unless the weapons theorists have been wildly wrong, their nuclear payloads will ignite as planned.
Hopefully, in the shots near the mid-Pacific's Johnston Island, the U.S. may progress toward the anti-ICBM missile, possibly by setting off a nuclear blast in the path of an Atlas missile speeding 40 miles high. As the testers testify, such experiments are both fascinating and frightening. But there is no choice.