to the Air Force and Navy for operations but disagreed with granting equivalent priorities to the IRBM and ICBM. He believed that the highest priority for the ICBM, which had been established by President Eisenhower, was sound and should not be changed. The Air Force Chief of Staff also opposed assignment of overall management of both versions of the IRBM to the Western Development Division, which was already heavily occupied with the ICBM.31 At this point Admiral Burke swung over to support the general position now taken by the Chief of Staff, Air Force, and the Chairman, but the Army Chief of Staff maintained his original stand.

Accordingly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff forwarded divergent views to the Secretary of Defense. The majority position was that the Air Force and Navy had a valid requirement for IRBMs in the light of currently assigned roles and missions, whereas neither the existing nor the foreseeable assigned missions of the Army justified such a claim. The Western Development Division of the Air Force, which was at work on the ICBM, was considered the logical agency to develop the landbased version of the IRBM, which was expected to fall out of the ICBM program. With regard to the sea-based version, the majority adopted the Air Force view that the Navy should undertake full responsibility for it, with such assistance as the Air Force could furnish without impeding its own ballistic missile programs. The majority position on the priority to be assigned the various ballistic missile projects was the one advocated by the Chairman. Equal priority should be given the ICBM and the two IRBMs; if conflicting claims for facilities and materials arose, the Joint Chiefs of Staff could recommend the order of priority.

General Taylor, in presenting the Army case, contended that all three Services had a requirement for IRBMS in the light of their assigned missions and that all three had current ballistic missile programs that could be expanded into IRBM development programs. He held that missiles developed by any Service should be available to all on the basis of need and that, therefore, roles and missions should not be the determining factor in assigning development responsibility to a Service. In what might be considered a departure from this line of argument, he then recommended that "in view of the Army requirement and development capability . . . and in view of the Navy capability to use the IRBM..., the 1500mile IRBM should be assigned jointly to the Army and Navy." 32

Secretary Wilson, in his decision announced on 8 November 1955, accepted some of the elements of both sets of recommendations. The Department of Defense, he said, would pursue two IRBM development programs. IRBM #1, a land-based weapon, would be developed by the Air Force at the Western Development Division as a by-product of the ICBM program. IRBM #2 would be a joint Army-Navy effort designed to produce a missile that would be both an alternative to IRBM #1 and a shipboard weapon. The two Services would divide responsibility so that the Army, employing the Redstone Arsenal, would develop the missile and the land-launch system, and the Navy would develop the sea-launch system. To give overall supervision to the ballistic missile program, including the ICBM as well as IRBMs #1 and #2, Secretary Wilson directed the establishment of an OSD ballistic missiles committee under the chairmanship of the Deputy Secretary of Defense. Similar committees were to be orga

nized by the Services. In the Air Force, a committee under the Secretary of the Air Force would manage the ICBM and IRBM #1. To manage IRBM #2, a joint committee with the Secretary of the Navy as chairman and the Secretary of the Army as vice chairman was to be established.

With regard to priorities, the Secretary of Defense accepted the recommendation of the JCS majority and established the IRBM programs on equal priority with the ICBM pending further clarification of the matter by the NSC. On 1 December, the NSC recommended that President Eisenhower approve this disposition. After further discussion with Secretary Wilson, the President approved the granting of equal priorities but directed that serious conflicts between IRBM and ICBM programs be referred to him.33

All three Services now pressed ahead to achieve an IRBM capability as rapidly as possible. The Army effort was assigned to the newly activated Army Ballistic Missile Agency located at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, which then designed the Jupiter. Already in hand was the proven Redstone 200mile missile. The Jupiter was to be developed initially by equipping specially modified Redstones with Jupiter components. The first such missile, designated Jupiter-A, underwent successful tests in September 1956.4

The Navy's Special Projects Office meanwhile pushed development of the sealaunch system for Jupiter. The technical difficulties involved in launching a liquid-fueled rocket the size of Jupiter (58 feet long) from a ship at sea led the Navy to investigate the feasibility of a smaller and simpler, but equally effective, missile. The Navy was examining the feasibility of a solid-fuel rocket about the size of Jupiter, when, in the summer of 1956, nuclear experts predicted that a much smaller warhead would be available by the time the missile became operational. Acting on this prediction, Navy scientists conceived Polaris, a relatively small submarine-launched solid-fuel missile equal in range and destructive power to the liquid-fuel missiles under development by the Army and Air Force. From September on, the Navy was debating whether to continue with the Army in the Jupiter program, or place entire reliance on Polaris.35

The Air Force assigned responsibility for its IRBM program to the Western Development Division, which was engaged in developing the Atlas ICBM. Contracts for Thor, a derivative of Atlas, were let in December 1955. The first tests of the missile were scheduled for late 1955 or early 1956; the weapon was expected to become operational in late 1958.36

Interservice contention over responsibility for the development and ultimate employment of the IRBM appeared once again in the fall of 1956. As with several other aspects of the missile programs, it was the memorandum by Air Force Secretary Quarles, dated 17 August 1956, that opened the matter to discussion. He suggested that a missile of 200-mile range was adequate for Army purposes; therefore, the Army should discontinue development of all missiles capable of shooting greater distances, except to the extent that the Navy placed a requirement on the Army for ship-launched missiles. Addressing the argument that the Army should continue IRBM development as a back-up for the Air Force missile, Secretary Quarles maintained that the Air Force was now clearly ahead in the

race to produce an IRBM, and that, in the interest of economy, the Army program should now be dropped.37

On the basis of actual tests or firings, at least, the Air Force could offer no evidence to support this claim. No Thor had yet been static-tested or fired. The Army, on the other hand, while it had not completed a Jupiter IRBM, was about to begin tests of components in Jupiter-A.38

Secretary Wilson referred the Quarles memorandum to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 17 August with a request for their views on its recommendations. Unable to agree, they returned four individual views on 25 October. There was, however, one point of agreement. None of the JCS members believed that the time had come to discontinue development of either IRBM #1 or #2. They all thought that both programs should continue in order to perfect a weapon as soon as possible. But they could not agree on the nature of these development programs. Admiral Radford and General Twining maintained that IRBM #2 should now be limited to shipboard use. Admiral Burke and General Taylor argued that the #1 and #2 programs should continue on their present basis until one or the other had been perfected. Admiral Burke, however, maintained that the purpose of these development programs should be merely to make a propaganda demonstration of US capability in the IRBM field at the earliest possible time. Then both #1 and #2 should be dropped in favor of an IRBM system designed specifically for use at sea, which could be made available to the Army or Air Force for use on land. In support of his proposal the Chief of Naval Operations said that neither of the liquid-fueled giants was suited to shipborne use, whereas a weapon designed primarily for use at sea was readily convertible to use on land. Although he did not identify the shipborne weapon to which he was referring, Admiral Burke apparently had the Polaris in mind.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were even more deeply divided over the employment of the IRBM than over the conduct of the programs required to develop it. Admiral Radford and General Twining, adhering to the opinion expressed nearly a year earlier, said that only the Air Force and Navy required the IRBM to carry out assigned roles and missions. General Taylor, who had previously held that all Services needed the IRBM, now maintained that only the Army and Navy should employ it. He readily conceded the Navy requirement for a ship-based missile, but he opposed Air Force employment of a missile based on land. His argument was that, to be secure against enemy attack, IRBMs should be mobile and widely dispersed in rough terrain. Only the Army had the capability to make such deployments, General Taylor asserted.

Admiral Burke, who had previously agreed with Admiral Radford and General Twining, now maintained that while the Army and Air Force might ultimately require an IRBM, the emphasis should be placed on a ship-based version designed primarily for naval use. He believed that such a weapon best fulfilled the national requirement for a nuclear striking force reasonably invulnerable to surprise attack and able to penetrate enemy defense without unacceptable losses.39

On 26 November 1956, Secretary Wilson announced his decision in a memorandum to the Armed Forces Policy Council, ruling that operational employment of land- and sea-based IRBMs would be the sole responsibility of the Air Force

and the Navy respectively. The Army was not to plan operational employment of any missile with a range greater than 200 miles.40

Secretary Wilson's decision paper did not affect the equal priority currently given to the ICBM and IRBM development programs, and it made no change in the dual (Thor-Jupiter) approach to attainment of an IRBM capability. A few weeks later, however, the Navy received the Secretary's permission to withdraw from the Jupiter program and concentrate on Polaris. Both Jupiter and Thor continued under development, both were tested successfully in 1957, and both entered into production and were turned over to the Strategic Air Command for operational use in 1958.41

Controversy Over the Place of Army Aviation

The

The establishment of the US Air Force as a separate Service in 1947 had been accomplished by withdrawing most of the existing Army Air Forces from the Army. The National Security Act of 1947 prescribed that the Army "shall include land combat and service forces and such aviation . . . as may be organic therein." The forces of the Army, including its aviation resources, would be "organized, trained, and equipped primarily for prompt and sustained combat incident to operations on land." Thus a new area of jurisdictional consideration was opened, since it was necessary to preserve a clear distinction between the functions to be performed by Army aviation and the roles of the Air Force.

The functions of aviation organic to the Army were spelled out five years later in a memorandum of understanding between Secretary of the Army Frank Pace and Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter. By the terms of the Pace-Finletter agreement, signed on 4 November 1952, the Army would employ aircraft to perform the following functions: aerial observation; control of Army forces; command, liaison, and courier missions; aerial wire-laying; transportation of Army supplies, equipment, personnel, and small units; aeromedical evacuation; and artillery and topographic survey. The combat zone in which Army aircraft was to operate was defined as being "normally... from 50 to 100 miles in depth," to the rear of the point of contact between friendly and enemy ground forces. The agreement did not specify how far forward into enemy territory from this point of contact the combat zone would extend.

The Army aircraft to perform these missions were to be either rotary-wing helicopters or fixed-wing airplanes. No restriction was placed on the physical characteristics of Army helicopters, but the airplanes were not to exceed an empty weight of 5,000 pounds. This weight limitation, however, could be adjusted by the Secretary of Defense in the light of technological developments and assigned missions upon request by the Secretary of the Army or Air Force.42

The question of the role of Army aviation was reopened during the spring of 1955. The reappraisal resulted from an Army proposal, made at an Armed Forces Policy Council meeting on 10 May, to procure a number of T-37 jet trainers for reconnaissance purposes. Secretary of the Air Force Harold E. Talbott objected

and recommendend disapproval of the proposed procurement. Secretary Talbott contended that procurement by the Army of T-37s would be an infringement on the Air Force function, assigned by DOD Directive 5100.1, of providing tactical aerial reconnaissance for the Army. Secretary Wilson on 8 July ordered the Army to suspend all procurement of T-37s and referred the Talbott memorandum to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with a request that they examine not only the question of the T-37s but also review the entire Army aviation program in light of DOD Directive 5100.1.43

Addressing the narrow question of Army procurement of T-37s first, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were able to find an answer with relatively little difficulty, although the initial JSPC report contained split views. There the Navy and Air Force members substantially endorsed the recommended prohibition of Army procurement of the aircraft. The Army JSPC member was content merely to state that the use of jet aircraft for aerial observation, as distinct from aerial reconnaissance, was within the scope of the functions assigned to the Army.44

On 12 August the Army Chief of Staff elaborated this sketchy statement. In a memorandum supplying Army views to be substituted for the ones in the JSPC report, General Taylor explained that the Army had no intention of encroaching on the aerial reconnaissance function performed by the Air Force but needed a modern jet-powered aircraft to perform the accepted Army observation mission against greatly improved air defenses of a potential enemy. He pointed out that the Army did not consider the T-37 to be adequate for the task but wished to procure a number of them for test purposes.45

Thereupon the Air Force Chief of Staff offered to loan T-37 aircraft to the Army for tests. The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved this proposal and concluded, therefore, that Army purchase of T-37s would not be necessary. They notified Secretary Wilson of their conclusions on 26 August.46

The review of the entire Army aviation program raised more difficult issues. After more than a year's consideration, the Joint Chiefs of Staff failed to reach agreement and forwarded four individual views to the Secretary of Defense.

From the very beginning of the review of the Army aviation program, the Services were in disagreement. On 22 September 1955 General Taylor submitted a document entitled "The Army Aircraft Program" to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the recommendation that they advise Secretary Wilson that it was in consonance with DOD Directive 5100.1. This document described each Army aircraft model and listed the number on hand as of 30 June 1955 and programmed for delivery through FY 1958, but it did not describe the roles and functions of Army aviation.47 After several weeks of consideration, the Joint Strategic Plans Committee submitted a split report in early December. The Navy and Army members concluded that the Army program was in consonance with DOD Directive 5100.1. The Air Force member, while conceding that the program conformed to the directive so far as it went, claimed that the Army submission did not lend itself to objective analysis because it did not include aircraft in the development stage or a concept for controlling Army aircraft in the combat zone. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, on 26 January 1956, accepted the Air Force position and returned the report to the Joint Strategic Plans Committee for revision based on the entire Army aviation program.48