Armacost, Michael. 1969. The Politics of Weapons Innovation: The Thor-Jupiter Controversy. New York: Columbia University Press.

Review Gene Giannotta 10 August 2011 Despite the unification of the military services following the Second World War, and the ostensible unity of purpose engendered by the threat of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, there was still occasion for conflict within the defense establishment. Armacost (1969) presents a thorough examination of the interservice rivalry between the Army and Air Force over the development of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (or IRBM). The Air Forces dominance of the nuclear arsenal forced the Army into a position of competition, for influence in larger issues of strategy as well as budgetary support. This conflict pervaded defense politics for much of the 1950s and 1960s, and Armacost details both the relations between the services as well as the attempts by the Defense Secretaries to get a handle on the rivalry as a means of asserting their own control over the department. Following the spin-off of the Air Force into its own independent service in the late 1940s and the unification of the

Giannotta 2 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review armed forces into one Department of Defense, conflict arose over the response to the Cold War threat posed by the Soviet Union. Air Force doctrine was closely identified with the official military policy that promoted deterrence through a strong nuclear arsenal (1969, 103), and so the Army was forced to find ways to achieve its own niche. The desire to have a monopoly over the intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) provoked a vigorous competition between the Army and Air Force during the mid-to-late 1950s, because of the inherent tensions between the services as well as the leadership style of those in the Administration (1969, 82). Armacost points to the ambiguity of [Defense Secretary] Wilsons public and private statements and his willingness to equivocate on the roles and missions problem faced by the Army and Air Force with regard to the IRBMs, as part of a larger strategy of provoking competition that could be exploited to reinforce the urgency with which the Army and Air Force sought to overcome the imponderables of missile technology (1969, 83). As the 1950s wore on, the conflict over IRBM development took a number of turns, although there would never be an ultimate decision on a winner. The Eisenhower Administrations desire for economy made the redundant nature of the two missile programs odd, yet as noted above it also played into a desire

Giannotta 3 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review for competition as a means of ensuring effectiveness. In Armacosts telling, however, neither the Thor nor the Jupiter were on the cutting edge of military technology. By the time the decision was made to proceed with both in 1957, it was primarily a function of the entrenched nature of the programs in the congressional budgetary process and, perhaps moreso, the very recent and salient Soviet launch of Sputnik I (1969, 172-179). So many parochial interests were involved in the production of both IRBMs, not least of which were the services themselves, and the Sputnik had provided a crisis convenient for all of these interests in that it gave decision-makers a reason (or excuse) to put off the difficult choice and concede to production of both. In the words of one Assistant Secretary of Defense, If the Defense Department suggested cancelling the Air Forces Thor program, a Congressional delegation from California would be down our necks. And elimination of the Army Jupiter program would have half the Alabama delegation plus a couple of representatives from the Detroit area fighting us. (1969, 177) This was not the only example of research and development decisions being driven by political concerns over congressional response. Armacost also points to Army General John Medaris, who

Giannotta 4 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review advised his staff that it was fighting a losing game if it presented budget requests for conventional items that may be needed, but failed to play to the congressional biases toward whatever might be the next big thing, but it is far easier to justify a budget with the modern items that are popular (1969, 44). Following the November 1957 decision, the next step was offering the missiles to European allies as a means of bolstering the NATO alliance and strengthening the doctrine of deterrence. In some cases, like that of Turkey, the missiles were accepted thankfully, while in other countries the offer was less graciously received. In Britain, for example, the government was quick to accept the American offer and thought it an obvious decision; it would not only provide them with IRBMs and a deterrent, but also a way to reconnect and strengthen the special relationship with the United States (1969, 192-3). Parliament and the public, however, did not see it that way and when announced, the plan faced strong opposition, based variously upon technical reservations, political apprehensions, and pacifist emotions (1969, 195). The unforeseen complexities of the diplomacy of deployment, as Armacost terms it, caused some headaches for the Eisenhower Administration, with missiles only being deployed to Turkey and Italy. Armacost says that it

Giannotta 5 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review was a source of some embarrassment to the United States that a benevolent gesture caused such political turmoil (1969, 199). Interestingly, from a longer-term perspective, the deployment of the missiles to Europe may have been a key causal factor in the Cuban Missile Crisis (along with the Bay of Pigs debacle). The Jupiter missiles in Turkey, after all, were removed as part of the deal to end the crisis and clear the Soviet missiles from Cuba. Out of all this came the reorganization of the Department of Defense in 1958, which saw the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, situated in the Office of the Secretary. ARPA, with its centralized position as a subordinate of the Secretary and not any one service, was intended to facilitate the elimination of wasteful duplication and respond to the humiliation of Sputnik with an effectiveness that the previous regime was unable to accomplish (1969, 228). Roy Johnson, ARPAs first director, is quoted by Armacost as telling the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, It is almost impossible to tell the Air Force that, You have got to have the Army and Navy working for you. But it is possible to tell ARPA to get the Army, Navy and Air Force working for you. This is a matter of psychology which is very important (1969, 230). ARPA thus served a valuable function in promoting unity of

Giannotta 6 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review effort, at least in theory, through centralizing decision-making authority regarding new undertakings, and would avoid the problems that arose in the Thor-Jupiter debacle. But ARPA alone did not make the research and development process clear and straightforward. Calls for a missiles czar had been resisted for a time, but in November 1957, William Holaday, who was Special Assistant for Guided Missiles, became Director of Guided Missiles. While on paper, [his] new responsibilities appeared impressive, this apparent promotion only served to muddle the picture even further, leaving virtually everyone, including Holaday, uncertain as to what his prerogatives under the new mandate were (1969, 232-33). The Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1958 was intended to make lines of command clear, reflecting Eisenhowers desire to cut wasteful spending and eliminate the public impression that service rivalry was pervasive and harmful. The President also felt that the existing structure of largely independent services would not be conducive to effectively fighting future wars (1969, 234). To this end, the Act strengthened the Secretary of Defense, giving him clear authority over research and development decisions, and also established six unified and two specified commands...under the direct control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the line of

Giannotta 7 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review command was altered so as to eliminate the Service Secretaries as intermediaries (1969, 236). This effectively weakened the individual services, making them supply agencies of the joint commands (1969, 236). The creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) would prove to create further conflict, although this took on more of a civil-military flavor, as the new civilian agency found itself working to transfer Army missile engineers to its employ and thus created some ire within the Air Force, who saw NASA as a new competitor (1969, 238-44). Ultimately, Armacost argues for an understanding of weapons development and military policy-making as a clear example of a typical political process like any other. At each stage in the Thor-Jupiter controversy, he says, critical decisions were influenced by the interplay of power (1969, 250). Robert McNamara, in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, would take greater control over the Department of Defense, ensuring that disputes like those that flared in the 1950s over the IRBM programs would be nonexistent or out of public view. Armacost calls this functional unification of the defense establishment a subtle and rather oblique process under McNamara (1969, 288). While this transformation was significant and some of the particulars may prove lasting, Armacost also notes that as he writes a new administration is undertaking the demands of

Giannotta 8 ! Armacost Politics of Weapons Innovation Review defense policy-making, and there is no guarantee that the relative calm of the McNamara era would persist under new leadership. The process of making crucial military decisions like whether or not to develop and produce a missile, like in the case of the Thor and Jupiter IRBMs, is full of potential political pitfalls. The interplay of play persists in all aspects of government, and the Department of Defense and its undertakings cannot be said to be immune from the laws of politics. It would be interesting to extend such a qualitative analysis of technical defense policy into the McNamara years and through the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the practical implications of the war on terror or the response to cyberwarfare - in terms of technology development or private force contracting and their connection to rivalries between the services and among the branches of government - could benefit from a deep analysis along the lines of Armacosts detailed study. Especially as the United States finds itself in the midst of an apparent revival of the economy drive pursued in the 1950s, with defense a major part of the discussion, the intricacies of defense spending decisions are a worthwhile avenue for study, both in terms of a theoretical and practical appreciation of the politics of the budgetary and national security policy-making processes.