The history of the American mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) reveals the interactions of strategy, technology, and context. Its tale began with nuclear strategists demanding second-strike weapons to ensure national survival. Many, including Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan, drew confidence from ICBMs housed within underground silos. Others, among them Air Force General Bernard Schriever, Princeton mathematician John von Neumann, and Presidents Ford and Carter, thought...
