Archie to SAM: A Short Operational History of Ground-Based Air ...

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE
tion Kennedy’s campaign issue of the “missile gap”). The new
secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara, studied the ABM
program and in April concluded that the system could not
handle a massive attack or decoys and that the program would
only prompt the Soviets to build more ballistic missiles. Despite
these misgivings, and probably for political purposes,
McNamara allowed about $250 million for ABM research and
development. 18
A few months later in 1961, the secretary requested estimates
of an ABM production program. In September, he approved
the first of a three-phase program that would protect
six cities with 12 batteries with just fewer than 1,200 missiles
for about $3 billion. McNamara briefed Kennedy on the proposal
in November, and the president gave it his tentative approval.
But budget talks in December 1961 convinced the president to
forego this interim deployment. 19
By this time, American engineers developed two technologies
that promised to overcome two of the difficulties (penetration
aids and sheer numbers) that doomed Nike-Zeus: the phased
array radar and a new high-acceleration missile. 20 McNamara
directed development of the newer missile system in January
1963, which was named Nike X in February 1964. The system
would employ the Zeus missile, renamed Spartan in January
1967, to intercept incoming missiles at ranges of about 300 nautical
miles (nm) and altitudes of 100 nm (fig. 81). 21 A new closein
defense missile, the Sprint, would use the atmosphere to sort
out the warhead from decoys and debris, as these would decelerate
at different speeds due to atmospheric friction. It would
then intercept these surviving warheads between 5,000 and
100,000 feet at a maximum range of 100 nm (fig. 82). The missile
first flew in November 1965 and then underwent flighttesting
in 1965–70, during which time 42 Sprints were flighttested
with results significantly better than the requirements. 22
Phased array radar was the system’s other innovation and
a major improvement. In contrast to the Nike-Zeus radars that
could only track one target and one interceptor missile at a
time, the new radar could handle many more objects and serve
more than one function simultaneously. Another advantage of
this radar was that it operated in the UHF spectrum that was
186