How The Ground-Launched ICBM Was Born

By Peter Huessy, Warrior Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst

Nearly 70 years ago General Curtis LeMay, who would come to be the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force from 1960-65, told Congress when head of the US Strategic Command, he was deeply concerned about the survivability of the United States nuclear deterrent.

At the time, the US nuclear deterrent was primarily made up of US strategic bombers which ultimately numbered over 750 B52s, with the first model entering service in 1954 and the last H model delivered in 1962.

The problem was the nuclear weapons which these strategic bombers carried were stored in just 14 depots in the United States of America.

General Lemay was concerned that the Soviets, by attacking just those 14 depots, could eliminate the US nuclear deterrent by attacking not the bomber platforms, which carried the nuclear bombs, but the various bomb depots.

Remember at the time the US did not have the TRIAD insurance of solid-fueled, high alert land or sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.

LeMay and the other senior military officers and civilian scientists thought there were two options that should be explored. One would be to put missiles on submarines at sea and the other would-be putting missiles in silos below ground.

Most experts considered both options highly improbable.