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...mission, NORAD's commander, General Dean C. Strother, 57, can muster a force of more than 100,000 men, a Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS, pronounced bemuse) that stretches from Alaska to England, squadrons of missile-armed jet fighters, and flocks of Bomarc, Hawk and Nike-Hercules ground-to-air missiles. By its very definition, NORAD is a defensive force; by very obvious design, it adds immeasurably to the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Its buried COC is designed to survive any sneak attack; its trained staff will be able to make almost instantaneous assessment of continent-wide damage while...
...radar sites by the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment System (SAGE), which guides them straight to their targets, does everything but fire their weapons. ADC also mans six Bomarc surface-to-air missile squadrons in the northeastern U.S.; two Bomarc squadrons in Canada and hundreds of Army Hawk and Nike-Hercules missile batteries in the U.S. are under control of the parent NORAD command...
...officers are pushing for at least three new defense systems: 1) the 2,000-m.p.h. YF-12A manned interceptor; 2) the Airborne Warning Control System (AWACS), using high-flying radar planes to detect low-flying bombers that try to sneak in under regular radar; 3) the Army's Nike-X system (TIME, June 18), designed to destroy enemy missiles. So far, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has not given a go-ahead on any of the three...
Revolutionary Radar. Nike-X's brain is a revolutionary, Army-developed multifunction array radar (MAR), which uses lightning-fast electronic switching instead of the conventional radar an tenna to direct its beams, thus can "see" 360° at a glance. The Army now has a prototype MAR installation at White Sands, N. Mex., is building another on Kwajalein Island in the Pacific. MAR can 1) detect incoming missiles hundreds of miles away; 2) determine which of the missiles have warheads and which are decoys; and 3) track the missiles as they streak toward their U.S. targets...
Worth the Gamble? Nike-X would use two types of missiles. One is the Nike-Zeus, a long-range, supersonic bird that, in tests, has already proved its ability to intercept and down an ICBM traveling 18,000 m.p.h. far above the atmosphere. The other is Sprint, a shorter-range missile with a tremendous but highly classified starting power. Sprint has months, or even years, of testing to go before it can even begin to be considered operational. But the idea is that the Nike-Zeus would go off first, seek out and try to destroy all incoming, outer-atmosphere...