ICBMs and Formation of the Inglewood Complex

Missiles, particularly ballistic missiles,38 disrupted the air force’s culture, oper­ations, and organization in several important ways. First, and most obviously, missiles had no pilots, relegating humans to only pushing a button. Second, maintenance and long-term operations of missiles amounted to storage and occasional refurbishment, as opposed to the ongoing repairs typical for air­craft. Third, because missiles were used just once, missile testing required the creation of a missile production line. Unlike aircraft, where a few prototypes could be built and tested with dozens or hundreds of flights each, every mis­sile test required a new missile. This implied that the fly-before-you-buy con­cept, where aircraft could be tested before instigation of full-scale production, no longer applied. For missiles, testing required a production line. Finally, missiles involved a variety of challenging new technical issues, as described in the previous chapter. Simply put, many of the air force’s existing organiza­tional and technical processes did not work for missiles.

Ballistic missile programs languished at a low priority during and after World War II, as the air force concentrated its efforts first on manned bomb­ers, and then on jet fighters for the Korean War.39 The rapidly escalating Cold War provided the impetus to transform the loosely organized missile projects. Successful testing ofthe Soviet atomic bomb in 1949 spurred the United States to develop a fusion weapon. In March 1953, Assistant for Development Plan­ning Bernard Schriever learned of the success of American thermonuclear tests from the SAB. Recognizing the implications of this news, within days Schriever met renowned mathematician John von Neumann at his Princeton office. Von Neumann predicted that scientists would soon develop nuclear warheads ofsmall enough size and large enough explosive power to be placed on ICBMs. Because of their speed and in-flight invulnerability, ICBMs were the preferred method for nuclear weapons delivery, ifthe air force could make them work. Realizing that he needed official backing, Schriever talked with James Doolittle, who approached Chief of Staff Vandenberg to have the SAB investigate the question.40

The Nuclear Weapons Panel of the SAB, headed by von Neumann, reported to the air force staff in October 1953. In the meantime, Trevor Gardner, assis­tant to the secretary of the air force, volunteered to head a Department of De­fense (DOD) Study Group on Guided Missiles. Gardner learned of Convair’s progress on its Atlas ICBM and met with Dr. Simon Ramo, an old friend and head of Hughes Aircraft Company’s successful air-to-air missile project, the Falcon. Based on the results of his study group, Gardner and Air Force Sec­retary Talbott formed the Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee, or Teapot Committee, to recommend a course of action for strategic ballistic missiles.41

Von Neumann headed the group, and Gardner selected Ramo’s newly cre­ated Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (R-W) to do the paperwork and man­age the day-to-day operations of the study. Ramo had partnered with fellow Hughes manager Dean Wooldridge to form R-W.42 In February 1954 the Tea­pot Committee recommended that ICBMs be developed ‘‘to the maximum extent that technology would allow.’’ It also recommended the creation of an organization that hearkened back to the Manhattan Project and Radiation Laboratory of World War II: ‘‘The nature of the task for this new agency re­quires that over-all technical direction be in the hands of an unusually com­petent group of scientists and engineers capable of making systems analyses, supervising the research phases, and completely controlling the experimental and hardware phases of the program — the present ones as well as the subse­quent ones that will have to be initiated.’’43

On May 14, 1954, the air force made Convair’s Atlas its highest R&D pri­ority. Because Convair and the majority of the aircraft industry hailed from

Southern California, the air force established its new ICBM development or­ganization, the Western Development Division (WDD), in a vacant church building in Inglewood, near Los Angeles airport. Air force leaders placed newly promoted Maj. General Bernard Schriever in command on August 2, 1954. Because the Teapot Committee had recommended creation of a ‘‘Man­hattan-like” project organization, one of Schriever’s first tasks was to see if this made sense and determine who would oversee the technical aspects ofthe project.44

Schriever rejected the Manhattan Project organization because ICBMs were significantly more complicated than the atomic bomb.45 Because neither he nor the scientists believed that the air force had the technical expertise to manage the program, Schriever could hire Convair as prime contractor, or he could hire R-W as the system integrator, with Convair and other contrac­tors as associate contractors. The air force used the prime contractor proce­dure on most programs, but this assumed that the prime contractor had the wherewithal to design and build the product. Schriever was already unhappy with Convair because he believed Convair kept “in-house” elements such as guidance and electronics in which it had little experience, to the program’s detriment.46

Scientists with whom he had worked for nearly a decade also deeply influ­enced Schriever. Von Neumann and his fellow scientists believed the Soviet threat required a response like the Manhattan Project a decade earlier, bring­ing together the nation’s best scientists to marry ballistic missiles to thermo­nuclear warheads. Schriever later explained:

Complex requirements of the ICBM and the predominant role of systems engineering in insuring that the requirements were met, demanded an across – the-board competence in the physical sciences not to be found in existing orga­nizations. Scientists rated the aircraft industry relatively weak in this phase of engineering, which was closely tied to recent advances in physics. The aircraft industry, moreover, was heavily committed on major projects, as shown by existing backlogs. Its ability to hire the necessary scientific and engineering tal­ent at existing pay-scales was doubted, and with the profit motive dominant, scientists would not be particularly attracted to the low-level positions accorded to such personnel in industry.47

Organization of the Inglewood complex: the Western Development Division, the Special Aircraft Projects Office, and Ramo-Wooldridge.

Many years later Schriever described his admiration of the scientists: ‘‘I be­came really a disciple of the scientists who were working with us in the Penta­gon, the RAND Corporation also, so that I felt very strongly that the scientists had a broader view and had more capabilities. We needed engineers, that’s for sure, but engineers were trained more in a, let’s say a narrow track having to do with materials than with vision.’’48

To capitalize on the vision and expertise of physical scientists and mathe­maticians such as von Neumann and von Karman, Schriever created an or­ganizational scheme whereby the leading scientists could guide the ICBM program. Following the von Neumann committee recommendations, Schrie­ver selected R-W for systems engineering and integration.49 Free of civil ser­vice regulations, R-W could hire the requisite scientific and technical tal­ent. The air force could more easily direct R-W than Convair, because R-W had few contracts and no production capability. The aircraft industry dis­puted this unusual arrangement, fearing that it established a precedent for ‘‘strong system management control’’ by the air force and also that it might create a powerful new competitor with inside information about air force con­tracts and contractor capabilities. On both counts, the aircraft industry was correct.50

Selecting the best and brightest technical officers from ARDC, Schriever’s talented staff quickly took charge of ICBM development. Because AMC re­tained procurement authority, it set up a field office known as the Special Air­craft Projects Office (SAPO) alongside Schriever’s ARDC staff in Inglewood. By September 1954, air force headquarters approved Schriever’s selection of R-W, confirming the triumvirate of the WDD, the SAPO, and R-W. Schriever’s next battle would be to establish the authority and credibility of his team in the face of skepticism at air force headquarters and the outright hostility of the aircraft industry.51