Missile gap
Encyclopedia
The missile gap was the term used in the United States for the perceived disparity between the number and power of the weapons in the U.S.S.R. and U.S.
ballistic missile
arsenal
s during the Cold War
. The gap only existed in exaggerated estimates made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and United States Air Force
(USAF). Even the CIA figures that were much lower and gave the US a clear advantage were far above the actual count. Like the bomber gap
of only a few years earlier, it is believed that the gap was known to be illusionary from the start, and was being used solely as a political tool, another example of policy by press release
.
on 4 October 1957 highlighted the technological achievements of the Soviets and sparked some worrying questions for the politicians and general public of the USA. Although US military and civilian agencies were well aware of Soviet satellite plans, as they were publicly announced as part of the International Geophysical Year
, Eisenhower
's announcements that the event was unsurprising found little support among a US public still struggling with McCarthyism
.
Political opponents seized on the event, and Eisenhower's ineffectual response, as further proof that the US was "fiddling as Rome burned." John F. Kennedy
stated "the nation was losing the satellite-missile race with the Soviet Union because of ... complacent miscalculations, penny-pinching, budget cutbacks, incredibly confused mismanagement, and wasteful rivalries and jealousies."
Kennedy, and other officials, stated claims that exaggerated Soviet missile counts by as much as 1,000 times what actually existed. Instead of having thousands of functioning missiles, the Soviets actually only had four prototypes. The fear generated by these false claims allowed a massive expansion of spending and authoritarian cold war measures that may otherwise have been impossible to justify to the voters.
claimed to be producing them "like sausages", the numbers started to inflate. A similar report gathered only a few months later, NIE 11-5-58 released in August 1958, concluded that the USSR had "the technical and industrial capability ... to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs" some time in 1960, and perhaps 500 ICBMs "some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962." None of these estimates were based on anything other than guesswork.
Beginning with the collection of photo-intelligence by U-2
overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, the Eisenhower
administration had increasing hard evidence that claims of any strategic weapons favoring the Soviet Union were false. Based on this evidence, the CIA placed the number of ICBMs closer to a dozen. Continued (sporadic) flights failed to turn up any evidence of additional missiles. Curtis LeMay
argued that the large stocks of missiles were in the areas not photographed by the U-2's, and arguments broke out over the Soviet factory capability in an effort to estimate their production rate.
Joseph Alsop
even went so far as to describe "classified intelligence" as placing the Soviet missile count as high as 2,000 by 1953.
It is known today that even the CIA's estimate was too high; the actual number of ICBMs, even including interim-use prototypes, was 4.
lists the first use of the term "missile gap" in 14 August 1958 by John F. Kennedy
: "Our Nation could have afforded, and can afford now, the steps necessary to close the missile gap." According to Robert McNamara
, Kennedy was leaked the inflated USAF estimates by Senator Stuart Symington
, the former Secretary of the Air Force. Unaware that the report was misleading, Kennedy used the numbers in the document and based some of his 1960 election campaign
platform on the Republicans being "weak on defense". The missile gap was a common theme.
Eisenhower refused to publicly refute the claims, fearing that public disclosure of this evidence would jeopardize the secret U-2 flights. Consequently, Eisenhower was frustrated by what he conclusively knew to be Kennedy's erroneous claims that the United States was behind the Soviet Union in number of missiles. But knowing the truth that America was substantially ahead in missiles, and confident that Americans would not believe that a professional soldier like him would ever leave America vulnerable to an enemy, Eisenhower chose not to publicly refute Kennedy.
Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
were made aware of the differing estimates in a CIA briefing by the Director, Allen Dulles, in July 1960. Dulles later summarized the briefings in a letter to Eisenhower in early August 1960. McNamara noted that Kennedy was embarrassed by the whole issue. Kennedy had already admitted as much publicly, The Listener
, 19 April, 1962 noted "The passages on the 'missile gap' are a little dated, since Mr Kennedy has now told us that it scarcely ever existed."
and senior Soviet military figures began to believe that Kennedy was a dangerous extremist who, with the American military, was seeking to plant the idea of a Soviet first-strike capability to justify a pre-emptive American attack. This belief about Kennedy as a militarist was reinforced in Soviet minds by the Bay of Pigs invasion
of 1961 and led to the Soviets placing nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962
. (Kennedy was informed the missile gap was "a fiction" in January 1961.)
Warnings and calls to address imbalances between the fighting capabilities of two forces were not new, a "bomber gap" had exercised political concerns a few years previously. What was different about the missile gap was the fear that a distant country could strike without warning from far away with little damage to themselves. Concerns about missile gaps and similar fears, such as nuclear proliferation
, continue, with most recently the aggressive missile testing between India
and Pakistan
.
in which a Doomsday device
is built by the Soviets because they had read in The New York Times
that the U.S. was working along similar lines and wanted to avoid a "Doomsday Gap". Also in the movie, the President of the United States is warned by his generals against allowing a "mine shaft gap" to develop when the idea of moving people of the world into safety in mine shafts is being decided upon.
Missile Gap
is also the title of a science fiction
book by Charles Stross
, which depicts an alternate resolution to the missile gap situation and subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis
.
, a professor at the University of Chicago
, accused the CIA of systematically underestimating Soviet missile deployment, in his 1974 foreign policy
article entitled "Is There a Strategic Arms Race?" Wohlstetter concluded that the United States was allowing the Soviet Union to achieve military superiority by not closing a perceived missile gap. Many conservative
s then began a concerted attack on the CIA's annual assessment of the Soviet threat.
This led to an exercise in competitive analysis, with a group called Team B
being created with the production of a highly controversial report.
According to then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
by 1976 the USA had a 6-to-1 advantage in the number of nuclear warheads over the Soviet Union.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ballistic missile
Ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
arsenal
Arsenal
An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, issued to authorized users, or any combination of those...
s during the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. The gap only existed in exaggerated estimates made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
(USAF). Even the CIA figures that were much lower and gave the US a clear advantage were far above the actual count. Like the bomber gap
Bomber gap
The "bomber gap" was the unfounded belief in the Cold War-era United States that the Soviet Union had gained an advantage in deploying jet-powered strategic bombers. Widely accepted for several years, the gap was used as a political talking point in order to justify greatly increased defense spending...
of only a few years earlier, it is believed that the gap was known to be illusionary from the start, and was being used solely as a political tool, another example of policy by press release
Policy by press release
Policy by press release refers to the act of attempting to influence public policy through press releases intended to alarm the public into demanding action from their elected officials. The practice is frowned upon, but remains effective and widely used...
.
Introduction
The Soviet launch of Sputnik 1Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 ) was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space...
on 4 October 1957 highlighted the technological achievements of the Soviets and sparked some worrying questions for the politicians and general public of the USA. Although US military and civilian agencies were well aware of Soviet satellite plans, as they were publicly announced as part of the International Geophysical Year
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
, Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
's announcements that the event was unsurprising found little support among a US public still struggling with McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
.
Political opponents seized on the event, and Eisenhower's ineffectual response, as further proof that the US was "fiddling as Rome burned." John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
stated "the nation was losing the satellite-missile race with the Soviet Union because of ... complacent miscalculations, penny-pinching, budget cutbacks, incredibly confused mismanagement, and wasteful rivalries and jealousies."
Kennedy, and other officials, stated claims that exaggerated Soviet missile counts by as much as 1,000 times what actually existed. Instead of having thousands of functioning missiles, the Soviets actually only had four prototypes. The fear generated by these false claims allowed a massive expansion of spending and authoritarian cold war measures that may otherwise have been impossible to justify to the voters.
Fact vs. fiction
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) 11-10-57, issued in December 1957, predicted that the Soviets would "probably have a first operational capability with up to 10 prototype ICBMs" at "some time during the period from mid-1958 to mid-1959." After Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
claimed to be producing them "like sausages", the numbers started to inflate. A similar report gathered only a few months later, NIE 11-5-58 released in August 1958, concluded that the USSR had "the technical and industrial capability ... to have an operational capability with 100 ICBMs" some time in 1960, and perhaps 500 ICBMs "some time in 1961, or at the latest in 1962." None of these estimates were based on anything other than guesswork.
Beginning with the collection of photo-intelligence by U-2
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "Dragon Lady", is a single-engine, very high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency . It provides day and night, very high-altitude , all-weather intelligence gathering...
overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, the Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
administration had increasing hard evidence that claims of any strategic weapons favoring the Soviet Union were false. Based on this evidence, the CIA placed the number of ICBMs closer to a dozen. Continued (sporadic) flights failed to turn up any evidence of additional missiles. Curtis LeMay
Curtis LeMay
Curtis Emerson LeMay was a general in the United States Air Force and the vice presidential running mate of American Independent Party candidate George Wallace in 1968....
argued that the large stocks of missiles were in the areas not photographed by the U-2's, and arguments broke out over the Soviet factory capability in an effort to estimate their production rate.
Joseph Alsop
Joseph Alsop
Joseph Wright Alsop V was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from the 1930s through the 1970s.-Early years:...
even went so far as to describe "classified intelligence" as placing the Soviet missile count as high as 2,000 by 1953.
It is known today that even the CIA's estimate was too high; the actual number of ICBMs, even including interim-use prototypes, was 4.
Playing for the public
In 1958 Kennedy was gearing up for his Senate re-election campaign and seized the issue. The Oxford English DictionaryOxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
lists the first use of the term "missile gap" in 14 August 1958 by John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
: "Our Nation could have afforded, and can afford now, the steps necessary to close the missile gap." According to Robert McNamara
Robert McNamara
Robert Strange McNamara was an American business executive and the eighth Secretary of Defense, serving under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968, during which time he played a large role in escalating the United States involvement in the Vietnam War...
, Kennedy was leaked the inflated USAF estimates by Senator Stuart Symington
Stuart Symington
William Stuart Symington was a businessman and political figure from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.-Education and business career:...
, the former Secretary of the Air Force. Unaware that the report was misleading, Kennedy used the numbers in the document and based some of his 1960 election campaign
United States presidential election, 1960
The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th American presidential election, held on November 8, 1960, for the term beginning January 20, 1961, and ending January 20, 1965. The incumbent president, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, was not eligible to run again. The Republican Party...
platform on the Republicans being "weak on defense". The missile gap was a common theme.
Eisenhower refused to publicly refute the claims, fearing that public disclosure of this evidence would jeopardize the secret U-2 flights. Consequently, Eisenhower was frustrated by what he conclusively knew to be Kennedy's erroneous claims that the United States was behind the Soviet Union in number of missiles. But knowing the truth that America was substantially ahead in missiles, and confident that Americans would not believe that a professional soldier like him would ever leave America vulnerable to an enemy, Eisenhower chose not to publicly refute Kennedy.
Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
were made aware of the differing estimates in a CIA briefing by the Director, Allen Dulles, in July 1960. Dulles later summarized the briefings in a letter to Eisenhower in early August 1960. McNamara noted that Kennedy was embarrassed by the whole issue. Kennedy had already admitted as much publicly, The Listener
The Listener
The Listener was a weekly magazine established by the BBC in January 1929 which ceased publication in 1991. The entire digitised catalogue was made available online to libraries, educational and research institutions in 2011....
, 19 April, 1962 noted "The passages on the 'missile gap' are a little dated, since Mr Kennedy has now told us that it scarcely ever existed."
Effects
Later evidence has emerged that one consequence of Kennedy pushing the false idea that America was behind the Soviets in a missile gap was that Soviet premier Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
and senior Soviet military figures began to believe that Kennedy was a dangerous extremist who, with the American military, was seeking to plant the idea of a Soviet first-strike capability to justify a pre-emptive American attack. This belief about Kennedy as a militarist was reinforced in Soviet minds by the Bay of Pigs invasion
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful action by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support and encouragement from the US government, in an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The invasion was launched in April 1961, less than three months...
of 1961 and led to the Soviets placing nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
. (Kennedy was informed the missile gap was "a fiction" in January 1961.)
Warnings and calls to address imbalances between the fighting capabilities of two forces were not new, a "bomber gap" had exercised political concerns a few years previously. What was different about the missile gap was the fear that a distant country could strike without warning from far away with little damage to themselves. Concerns about missile gaps and similar fears, such as nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
, continue, with most recently the aggressive missile testing between India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
.
Popular culture
The whole idea of a missile gap was parodied in the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the BombDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, commonly known as Dr. Strangelove, is a 1964 black comedy film which satirizes the nuclear scare. It was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and featuring Sterling...
in which a Doomsday device
Doomsday device
A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon, or collection of weapons — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth...
is built by the Soviets because they had read in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
that the U.S. was working along similar lines and wanted to avoid a "Doomsday Gap". Also in the movie, the President of the United States is warned by his generals against allowing a "mine shaft gap" to develop when the idea of moving people of the world into safety in mine shafts is being decided upon.
Missile Gap
Missile Gap
"Missile Gap" is a 2006 English language science fiction novella, originally published in the anthology One Million A.D. by British author Charles Stross. It won the Locus Award for best novella of 2006...
is also the title of a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
book by Charles Stross
Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a British writer of science fiction, Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. He was born in Leeds.Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera...
, which depicts an alternate resolution to the missile gap situation and subsequent Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
.
1970s
A second claim of a missile gap appeared in 1974. Albert WohlstetterAlbert Wohlstetter
Albert Wohlstetter was an influential and controversial nuclear strategist during the Cold War. He was major intellectual force behind efforts to deter nuclear war and avoid the further spread of nuclear weapons to more nations...
, a professor at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, accused the CIA of systematically underestimating Soviet missile deployment, in his 1974 foreign policy
Foreign relations of the United States
The United States has formal diplomatic relations with most nations. The United States federal statutes relating to foreign relations can be found in Title 22 of the United States Code.-Pacific:-Americas:-Caribbean:...
article entitled "Is There a Strategic Arms Race?" Wohlstetter concluded that the United States was allowing the Soviet Union to achieve military superiority by not closing a perceived missile gap. Many conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
s then began a concerted attack on the CIA's annual assessment of the Soviet threat.
This led to an exercise in competitive analysis, with a group called Team B
Team B
Team B was a competitive analysis exercise commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1970s to analyze threats the Soviet Union posed to the security of the United States. Team B, approved by then Director of Central Intelligence George H. W. Bush, was composed of "outside experts" who...
being created with the production of a highly controversial report.
According to then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
by 1976 the USA had a 6-to-1 advantage in the number of nuclear warheads over the Soviet Union.