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

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE
April 1967, 17, 24; Halperin, The Decision to Deploy, 63; and Walker, Martin,
and Watkins, Strategic Defense, 26. See also “The ABM Debate,” 129–31, for
example.
30. McNamara’s predecessor, Thomas Gates, was also against deployment
because he believed the public would not support the required shelter
program. See Jayne, “The ABM Debate,” 90; and Howard Stoffer, “Congressional
Defense Policy-Making and the Arms Control Community: The Case
of the Antiballistic Missile” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1980), 117.
McNamara’s position on the limits of the ABM system remained constant.
The Kennedy administration had pushed through a shelter request in August
1961 but had difficulties with follow-up programs the next year. One DOD
study in the early 1960s concluded that shelters could save a life for $20
versus $700 per person for the Nike-X. See Briggs, The Shield of Faith, 252;
and Jayne, “The ABM Debate,” 182, 230.
31. The arguments for and against the ABM during this period are most
clearly set out in Halperin, The Decision to Deploy, 79–81. See also Baucom,
Origins of SDI, 23; Betts interview, 4; Stryker, “A Bureaucratic Politics Examination,”
104; Briggs, The Shield of Faith, 285; and Walker, Martin, and
Watkins, Strategic Defense, 29–30.
32. Betts interview, 8; Halperin, The Decision to Deploy, 78, 83; Jayne,
“The ABM Debate,” 309, 359; Stryker, “A Bureaucratic Politics Examination,”
171, 181–82, 208, 227; and Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, “Staff
Memorandum on Current Status of the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Program,”
90th Cong., 1st sess., March 1967, 2.
33. Baucom, Origins of SDI, 33, 34; Halperin, The Decision to Deploy,
84–86; and Jayne, “The ABM Debate,” 360.
34. Baucom, Origins of SDI, 34; and Jayne, “The ABM Debate,” 372.
35. Casualty estimates for a small Chinese attack against the United States
were about 6 to 12 million without defenses, 3 to 6 million with terminal defenses,
and zero to 2 million with terminal and area defenses. See Jayne,
“The ABM Debate,” 302; and Halperin, The Decision to Deploy, 89n.
36. Baucom, Origins of SDI, 35–37; Briggs, The Shield of Faith, 286, 327;
Jayne, “The ABM Debate,” 249n38, 374n2; and Walker, Martin, and Watkins,
Strategic Defense, 33.
37. James Bowman, “The 1969 ABM Debate” (PhD diss., University of
Nebraska, 1973), 127–32, 170; McMahon, Pursuit of the Shield, 45, 47; Stoffer,
“Congressional Defense Policy Making,” 149; Walker, Martin, and Watkins,
Strategic Defense, 33.
38. Jayne, “The ABM Debate,” 413–14; Thomas Longstreth and John
Pike, A Report on the Impact of US and Soviet Ballistic Missile Defense Programs
on the ABM Treaty (n.p.: National Campaign to Save the ABM Treaty,
1984), 4; and McMahon, Pursuit of the Shield, 45.
39. Baucom, Origins of SDI, 38; Bowman, “The 1969 ABM Debate,” 178;
Briggs, The Shield of Faith, 299; Erik Pratt, “Weapons Sponsorship: Promoting
Strategic Defense in the Nuclear Era” (PhD diss., University of California,
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