gent program to build up its ballistic-missile forces. The U.S.S.R. 
embarked on the same kind of program even earlier. Missiles were 
originally contemplated as fixed devices on land. 
At roughly the same time, however, the Navy undertook a program 
to develop a nuclear submarine and mounted a highly concerted and 
highly inventive weapon systems’ development program to adapt 
ballistic missiles to it. The system, named Polaris, consists in essence 
of a small, solid rocket-ballistic missile launchable from a submerged 
nuclear submarine. Polaris, with a high degree of invulnerability, 
has become a fundamental building block for strategic forces. In- 
deed, a thought often expressed at the time was that ultimate nuclear 
stability would have both the U.S.S.R. and the United States equipped 
only with invulnerable Polaris forces and that neither side would have 
a ballistic-missile defense for population centers. In that way the out- 
come of a nuclear exchange would be clear and unmistakeable, and 
the possibility of a first nuclear strike even in critical times would be 
minimized. 
The effectiveness of the submarine-based missile force is highly 
contingent on concealment, dispersion, high mobility, and very long 
patrol time. It is precisely for this reason that key interests of ocean- 
ography and the Navy, reflected in the development of the submarine- 
based strategic-missile force, have so much in common. With this 
relationship in mind the Navy instituted a special program of long- 
range research support for academic oceanography and intensified 
field studies by its own laboratories and ships. Even so, oceanographic 
research needs continuous and vigorous support from the Navy. 
This research must cover on a massive scale the entire technological 
spectrum from basic and applied research to marine engineering. For 
example we must be able to verify that no presently unknown (to us) 
physical effects in the ocean environment make nuclear submarines 
susceptible to continuous tracking and location. Because of the pos- 
sible increased emphasis in our strategic-defense capabilities in terms 
of the Navy’s submarine-based missiles, and because this emphasis 
would only be well placed in the absence of any degradation of the 
submarines or of the enhancement of detection capability, the Navy 
must support a program which continuously explores all aspects of 
the ocean environment which conceivably could be exploited or utilized 
to allow continuous targeting of such submarines. If Polaris sub- 
marines could be continuously targeted, they would be open to premp- 
tive attack by ballistic missiles with relatively large warheads. 
As enemy missile accuracy improves and as enemy missile payloads 
become more sophisticated, concealment and mobility become relatively 
more important. As we become increasingly concerned with pene- 
trating enemy ballistic-missile defense, larger and more sophisticated 
payloads for our own strategic forces become increasingly important. 
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