11. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, by Neil Sheehan, pp. 261-278

Book V: Winning a President, 41. An Assault From an Unexpected Quarter; 42. A Sense of Adventure; 43. No Time for Family; 44. Getting to Ike

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The "unexpected quarter" was Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott, who was put in a cover-your-ass situation by President Eisenhower. Schriever and his team had settled on a production method that relied on redundancy: They would build two prototypes, so that if the first one failed they would have a second to fall back on. And they chose another California firm to produce the rocket engines for the fail-safe ICBM. But Eisenhower was concerned that too much of the military's production work was taking place on the East and West Coasts, which were, he thought, more vulnerable to attack than places in the heartland, and that California's economy was growing too heavily dependent on military-industrial work. So Talbott flew out to tell Schriever that he should cancel his contracts with California firms and find places elsewhere in the country to do the research and development work.

When Schriever, who knew that the expertise he needed was at this time available only in California, balked at the order, "Talbott lost his temper and threatened to fire him on the spot and reduce him in rank." Schriever dug in his heels, however, and went ahead with his plans, telling Gen. Power that he was doing so. Power didn't object, and later in the year Harold Talbott was forced to resign because of a conflict of interest scandal. The ICBM project was also eventually granted exemption from Eisenhower's dispersal order.

Schriever's commitment to the project was based not only on a sense that the rockets being developed were necessary for strategic warfare, but also that they would be valuable in exploration of space. The capsules that the first astronauts rode in were in fact modified versions of the original warhead. As for strategy, in an address to the RAND Corporation in 1955 Schriever conceived of the ICBM as a weapon that "would have the 'highest probability of Not being used,'" that if it was successful "It would have 'deterred Total War.'" He "was articulating a concept that would subsequently become known as Mutual Assured Destruction." The rockets could also be used to send spy satellites into space, which "would deny the Soviets the possibility of a surprise attack, of a nuclear Pearl Harbor, the dread of which haunted many, including Eisenhower." His commitment to the project was so intense that it was straining his relationship with his wife and family, which now included a third child, Barbara Alice, born in June 1949.

The confrontation with Talbott had made it clear that what Schriever really needed to do was to get Eisenhower in line with what they were doing. He was chafing at the bureaucracy, and had his staff count how many agencies had to sign off on any request: forty-two. Convinced of the urgency of what they were doing, they wanted a "streamlined decision-making process," a separate budge and "a designation of the highest national -- not just Air Force or Department of Defense -- priority.... Only Eisenhower could give them these privileges." So they began to scheme how to get to him. Vincent Ford was the chief strategist in this mission, and Schriever and Gardner set to work wooing the powerful Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson with continued briefings on the top secret details of the missile program. Ford worked on members of the Presidential Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) and its subcommittee, the Technological Capabilities Panel. In February 1955, the panel presented a report "warning of the strategic consequences if the Soviets achieved an ICBM capability before the United States," and urging the National Security Council to endorse the ICBM "as a nationally supported effort of highest priority."

But nothing happened until Ford made connection with Carlton Savage, the executive director of the planning council of the Department of State, who arranged a briefing by Gardner and von Neumann for senior officials in the department, and another for William Yandell Elliott of the Office of Defense Mobilization. And in June 1955, Eisenhower received a letter from two senators, Jackson and Clinton Anderson, who was the chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, recommending a separate budget and a designation of highest national priority for the ICBM project. The letter had been written by Ford, Schriever and Gardner. Eisenhower agreed to a briefing at the next meeting of the NSC, which would take place after a summit meeting in Geneva with the leaders of the Soviet Union. 

10. A Fiery Peace in a Cold War, by Neil Sheehan, pp. 231-260

Book V: Winning a President, 37. A Schoolhouse and a Radical New Approach; 38. The Guru of Rockets; 39. A Problem With Tommy Power; 40. How Greed Corrupts

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Schriever's new ICBM project set up in a converted Catholic boys school in Inglewood, Calif., so the team that worked there became known as the Schoolhouse Gang. Convair, sensing a serious threat from this new project, proposed that they continue to work on the rocket it already had underway, but von Neumann and his committee opposed the suggestion. It became clear that the new approach to creating an ICBM "would amount to a revolution in the Air Force's relationship with the aviation industry." Ramo would be the chief engineer and the chief scientist, but his firm would be barred from actually manufacturing components for the missile. Convair's reluctance to be cut out of the deal set Schriever up for a power struggle.

To work on development of the rocket engine, Schriever selected Lt. Col. Edward Hall, a rocket propulsion expert at the Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson. (Neither Schriever nor Hall knew that Hall's younger brother, Ted, was a spy for the Soviets.) Hall had distinguished himself during World War II by his skill at repairing aircraft damaged in their sorties from England over Europe. While stationed in England, he became interested in the German missiles, the V-1 and V-2, and collected pieces of them from the sites where they had exploded. He claimed in an unpublished memoir that he had actually been to the site where the missiles were built, at the Nordhausen slave labor camp, on a secret mission, but the claim is unverified. After the war he was sent to the Air Development Center and then to Caltech to study for a master's in aeronautical engineering. He returned to the Air Development Center's Power Plant Laboratory to work on ramjets and rockets. Under his supervision, North American Aviation's Rocketdyne division produced a test engine that Wernher von Braun selected for the Redstone missile, essentially an upgraded V-2.

Hall also claimed in his memoir that he had faked an intelligence report about a giant Soviet rocket engine in order to keep his work from being eliminated in budget cuts. He received the funding he needed for work on the ramjet engines for the Navaho intercontinental cruise missile, which was actually a cover for work on rocket engines for an ICBM. Hall persuaded Maj. Sidney Greene, head of the New Developments Office at the Air Development Center, to let him have $2 million to work on modifying the Navaho design to include a rocket engine. The money was originally designated for Convair, which protested but was overruled. Together with the engineers at Rocketdyne, Hall developed a successful prototype engine, a step toward the more powerful one that Schriever was looking for.

Schriever's next obstacle was Gen. Thomas Power, head of the Air Research and Development Command, who had succeeded LeMay as head of SAC and therefore was disinclined to approve of the ICBM project over which he had authority but no control. The consequences of the failure of Schriever's project would be a mark against Power. A meeting with Power left Schriever shaken: "If he did not succeed in allaying Power's worries, no amount of intervention from Gardner would suffice to protect him. Power would find a way to sack him in order to save his own hide." Power demanded written documentation on everything the project did: "He was preparing a defense for the investigation that would be certain to follow if the project failed -- men eminent in their fields had urged these actions on him and he had no logical recourse but to accept their advice." Schriever therefore took it on himself to woo Power by giving him everything he wanted and more -- and when he learned Power was "a keen golfer," he used that tool in his arsenal as well.

Golfing with Convair, however, was not an option. Its president was a retired general, Joseph McNarney, and the Atlas project was being overseen by Thomas Lanphier Jr., who was close to W. Stuart Symington, the former secretary of the Air Force who was now a senator from Missouri and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. McNarney and Lanphier "started a campaign against Ramo and Wooldridge in the trade press, accusing them of stealing technicians for their new rim from Hughes Aircraft in order to corner the ICBM business." Schriever saw that Convair was motivated by greed because of their disregard for the opinion of the scientific community represented by von Neumann's committee. When Convair tried to get Symington on their side, Schriever countered with presentations from the Schoolhouse Gang that convinced the senator that he should stay out of the crossfire.

What Schriever had run up against was the moral corruption that had become endemic to the U.S. military industry as a result of the Cold War and its demand, year, upon year, upon year for new weaponry.... U.S. military industry, particularly the aircraft industry, had been coddled for so long that its leaders were like spoiled children. They had come to expect profits as a virtual right.

(Anyone reminded of the oil industry?)

Finally, however, Convair yielded to pressure and agreed to Schriever's terms, with one concession: They would manufacture the airframe and assembly and participate in the testing, and would provide the control mechanisms for the missile. Schriever got Convair to create a work force dedicated only to the Atlas at its San Diego plant. But Ramo reported that Convair was not hiring properly qualified engineers for specialized parts of the project, and it took another sit-down with the brass to bring them in line.

As for Power, he had been converted to Schriever's cause by the information he had been receiving and the persuasion of von Neumann. He recommended Schriever for promotion to major general. "From this point on Schriever no longer had to worry about the wary three-stars in Baltimore. Power was now behind him."