chief of staff for development, testified that he favored “summary destruction” of such satellites.[1] His testimony was directly contradicted by the testimony of Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles, who shortly thereafter stated, “I can only express the Defense Department’s view of it, that, if they did place in orbit a satellite that had such reconnaissance possibilities, we would consider that it was inoffensive in the sense that (they were) in outer space where (they) could do us no harm and we could not object to it.”[2] Clearly, General Putt’s position was diametrically the opposite of the Eisenhower administration’s goal of achieving freedom of passage in outer space particularly for spy satellites.[fn 1] The fact was that the Eisenhower administration was pursuing a “far more sophisticated, secretive, and complex path than many at the timeappreciated” and had no intention of racing the USSR into space.[3] Air Force leaders opposed the Eisenhower administration’s prohibition against the deployment of space based weapons and viewed the limitation as “dangerous and self-defeating.”[4]
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Following the Sputniks, the US military perceived that it was caught in a dilemma between Eisenhower’s space-for-peace policy and its perceived traditional obligation to protect the United States. Hence, in a February 1958 press conference, President Eisenhower assured the nation
- ↑ Ironically for eight years, beginning in November 1950 when he endorsed an early RAND recommendation of a reconnaissance mission for satellites. Putt had been the most consistent Air Force and Pentagon proponent of such a satellite reconnaissance program.
- ↑ Jerome H. Silber, Office of the Assistant DOD General Counsel for International Affairs, to chief, Air Force Division, Directorate for Security Review (OASD/PA), memorandum, subject: “Preventive Self-Defense in Space,” by Maj George D. Schrader, Case No. 66-3923, 11 May 1966.
- ↑ House Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, Hearings: House Report 11881, testimony of Deputy Secretary of Defense Donald A. Quarles, 85th Cong., 2d sess., 30 April 1958, 1107-8.
- ↑ Spires, 30.
- ↑ Ibid., 272.
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