(^368) Chapter Ten
proved unusually intense.^5 Not surprisingly, the so-called “missile
gap” became a point of controversy in the presidential election of
I960. The new Democratic administration that took office in 1961
was committed to surpassing the Soviets in rocket technology,
whether on the moon or on the earth.
The Russians, on the other hand, tried to exploit their technical lead
by asserting full equality with the United States the world around.
However, in October 1962 Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s scheme for
installing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba, where they would have
been capable of attacking most American cities, failed when the
United States Navy prevented delivery of some of the necessary
equipment. After a tense confrontation, the Soviets backed down and
agreed to withdraw their missiles from Cuba. But this humiliation
triggered a vast expansion of the Soviet fleet in the following years,
aimed, clearly, at equaling or surpassing American power on and espe
cially underneath the sea.^6
Arms competition between the USA and the USSR therefore at
tained a new and enlarged scale in the 1960s. Emphasis was on new
technologies and new weapons. Research and development mattered
more than current capabilities. A breakthrough in the future, whether
defensively or offensively, might alter or even upset the balance of
terror that arose in the decade after 1957 as the two countries installed
hundreds of long-range missiles and so became capable of destroying
each other’s cities in a matter of minutes.
The United States government responded to the new sense of
danger by pouring money into research and development with a prod
igal hand. Not all was military, for the men directing national
policy—especially those deriving from Harvard University and
MIT—believed that the ultimate test of American society in its com
petition with the Soviets boiled down to finding out which contestant
could develop superior skills in every field of human endeavor. En
tering upon such a competition, a wise and resolute government could
expect to commission task forces, composed of suitably trained and
supremely ingenious technicians, to develop an unending succession
of new devices for peace and war. This would guarantee prosperity at
home and security abroad. But success would come only if skill were
- Robert A. Divine, Blowing in the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate, 1954–1963
(New York, 1978) explores these political and psychological strains persuasively. - Donald W. Mitchell, A History of Russian and Soviet Sea Power (New York, 1974),
pp. 518–19. For a convenient summary of divergent interpretations of the Cuban
missile crisis see Robert A. Divine, ed., The Cuban Missile Crisis (Chicago, 1971).