The Rise and Fall of Safeguard: Anti-ballistic Missile Technology and the Nixon Administration (2010)
The Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system was the first (and up until 2002 the only) system deployed to defend the USA from nuclear-armed ballistic missile attack. It was finally declared operational in September 1975 after many years of development and fierce controversy over both its feasibility and its desirability. However, almost immediately Congress voted to close the system down and it was dismantled within a few months. This paper draws on documents available in the Nixon archives to describe the complex intertwining of 'politics' and 'technology' that meant that a system that involved huge investment, and that had been portrayed as central to US defense policy, became apparently dispensable almost overnight.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Stern, Sheldon M.;
(2012)
The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths Versus Reality
(/isis/citation/CBB001212706/)
Article
Jameson, Robert P.;
(2013)
Armageddon's Shortening Fuse: How Advances in Nuclear Weapons Technology Pushed Strategists to Mutually Assured Destruction, 1945--1962
(/isis/citation/CBB001212162/)
Article
Gainor, Christopher;
(2013)
The Atlas and the Air Force: Reassessing the Beginnings of America's First Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
(/isis/citation/CBB001253141/)
Book
Mahnken, Thomas G.;
(2008)
Technology and the American Way of War since 1945
(/isis/citation/CBB001230638/)
Article
Schwartz, Norton A.;
(2009)
The Air Force's Enduring Legacy of Nuclear Deterrence
(/isis/citation/CBB001030852/)
Book
Henry Richard Maar III;
(2022)
Freeze!: The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB798931618/)
Book
Susan Colbourn;
(2022)
Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO
(/isis/citation/CBB508430688/)
Article
Alvandi, Roham;
(2014)
The Shah's Détente with Khrushchev: Iran's 1962 Missile Base Pledge to the Soviet Union
(/isis/citation/CBB001421831/)
Article
Parr, Helen;
(2013)
The British Decision to Upgrade Polaris, 1970--4
(/isis/citation/CBB001201572/)
Book
Hunley, J. D.;
(2008)
Preludes to U.S. Space-Launch Vehicle Technology: Goddard Rockets to Minuteman III
(/isis/citation/CBB000830829/)
Thesis
Pomeroy, Steven Anthony;
(2006)
Echoes That Never Were: American Mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles,1956--1983
(/isis/citation/CBB001561625/)
Book
Monteyne, David;
(2011)
Fallout Shelter: Designing for Civil Defense in the Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB001212463/)
Article
Heefner, Gretchen;
(2007)
Missiles and Memory: Dismantling South Dakota's Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB001030814/)
Book
Edward Kaplan;
(2020)
To Kill Nations: American Strategy in the Air-Atomic Age and the Rise of Mutually Assured Destruction
(/isis/citation/CBB328020999/)
Book
Elisabeth Roehrlich;
(2022)
Inspectors for Peace: A History of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(/isis/citation/CBB775978058/)
Book
Sheehan, Neil;
(2009)
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
(/isis/citation/CBB001032645/)
Book
Hargittai, Istvan;
(2010)
Judging Edward Teller
(/isis/citation/CBB001023155/)
Book
Spires, David N.;
(2012)
On Alert: An Operational History of the United States Air Force Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program, 1945--2011
(/isis/citation/CBB001550026/)
Book
Stamm, Thomas;
Wolf, Reinhard;
(2004)
Raketenrüstung und internationale sicherheit von 1942 bis heute'; (Rocket armament and international security from 1942 to today)
(/isis/citation/CBB001180300/)
Book
Lawrence Badash;
(2009)
A Nuclear Winter's Tale: Science and Politics in the 1980s
(/isis/citation/CBB411724298/)
Be the first to comment!