MISSILE TO BOMB CITY AFTER CITY PLANNED BY U.S.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300080050-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 9, 2006
• Sequence Number: 50
• Publication Date: December 14, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300080050-2
MISSILE TO BOMB
CITY AFTER CITY
PLANNED BY IJS
Craft Could Drop Warheads
in Flight Over Enemy Land,
Defense Aide Discloses
BY EVERT CLARK
Special to The NOW York Times
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13-A
space vehicle that can drop off
thermonuclear warheads city by
city as it flies over enemy
territory is being developed by
the United States, a top Defense;
Department official said to-;
night.
John S. Foster Jr., Director oft
Defense Research and Engineer-
ing, said one of the craft, fired
by a single missile, could carry
"many individual re-entry vehi-
cles with thermonuclear war-
!heads." He referred to the craft
as a "space bus."
Each warhead could be de-
livered to "a different city or,
if desired, all can be delivered
within one city," he said.
The. vehicles would be car-
ried by Minuteman 3 land-
based 'and Poseidon submarine-
launched missiles, he added.
...,..,..,. - ..ro+duaurc. came the counterthreat of American
in+ a speech prepared for de-
(MMcNa missiles.
livery in Dallas and made avail- offensive
able here by the Pentagon. He Mh mara ap me argu-
spoke before the Dallas chapter -ter have used the same
of the Association of the Unite: meat with respect to the recent
es Aand the Dallas Soviet development of a "frac-
Sates Army World hefas at tional orbital bombing system
Council the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel. (F.O.B.S.)," saying in effect that
there is no shield against such
Counter to Soviet Union a weapon and adding that the
He called the vehicle "a only answer to it is to have
major breakthrough in missile
technology" and said it was
intended "to counter the Soviet
deployment of additional bal-
listic missiles and defense
against our ballistic missiles."
"After the main booster has
cut off, the bus keeps making
minute adjustments to its speed
land direction and after each
adjustment it ejects another
warhead," Mr. Foster said.
Observers here believe these
disclosures are intended at
least partly to offset criticism
of the Administration for re-
fusing to deploy a full-scale
more American arrows.
A ballistic missile climbs 600
to 800 miles on a parabolic tra-
jectory that makes it possible
to track and intercept it with a
defense missile. A F.O.B.S.
weapon goes into a partial orbit
of the earth at the relatively
low altitude of 90 to 100 miles,
which enables it to skip in
under conventional missile ra-
dar warning systems.
The Administration has been
criticized increasingly in recent
months by those who fear Rus-
sia's buildup of offensive mis-
siles, its deployment of anti-
missiles and its development of
the fractional orbital system.
While Mr. McNamara has said
anti-ballistic missile system to that the latter is not much of
counter the threat of Soviet an added threat in view of
missiles. Secretary of Defense Russia's other missile power,'
Robert S. McNamara has said some lawmakers and others
consider it an important po
that the only effective foil to tential "terror weapon" in a
the Soviet striking power is category with the German V-1
and. V-2 rockets of World
Continued on Page 18, Column I War II.
Called Major Breakthrough
Mr. ' Foster, the Pentagon's
top research official, thus added
a new dimension-multi-city
(bombardment by. a single
t discussion
weapon-to recen
of new United States and So-
viet strategic weapons.
While work on multiple war-
heads for a single missile has
been'discussed publicly before,
most official statements have
indicated'. that the warheads
Wgu;d, he; P .betted at. several
targets', hin one-smalj`area.
See Psychological Impact
These critics believe that the
psychological impact of orbit-i
ing bombs or sub-orbital war-:,
heads that can evade all but'
the newest radar detection sys-,
tems is too great to be ignored.
There was some speculation~
s
here tonight that the Pentagon
is offering the new vehicle as ;
its own "terror weapon" to
1F
counter +e1k
f t e fra
tio
na
1
o
c
1
The multiple warhead devel2i
opment has been known until)
now as MIRV, for multiple, in-
dependently dependently trageted re-entry
vehicles.
The general impression has
been that its warheads would!
be delivered in one area, like
a load of buckshot. Mr. Foster's
statement that the weapon cant
be delivered to a number of
cities makes the MIRV ap-
proach sound more trheatening
and more lifficult to counter
than mast ohservers here have
believed; it was.
mr. roster's speech indicated
that t11e new vehicle, which he
called a space bus, is still in
the ttelopment stage. He de-
scribed the new threat as two
separate major developments-
a "space bus" for the Minute-
man 3 land-based missile. and
one for the Poseidon missile,
which will replace Polaris mis-
siles on submarines.
But he also lumped the two
developments under the name
of MIRV "for those of you who
love acronyms," and under the
term space bus "for others."
The new weapons on the
Minuteman and Polaris "will
multiply the capabilities of our
missile systems manyfold," he
said.
"They will assure penetra-
tion of Soviet anti-missile de-
fenses and can deliver unac-
ceptable damage to the Soviet
Union even after we have suf-
fered an all-out nuclear attack,"
he declared.
This ability to survive a first
strike by an enemy and still
destroy the enemy is the key-
stone of Pentagon strategic
plaAni;ag- .
Approved For Release 2006/01/30 : CIA-RDP70B00338R000300080050-2