The Double Game: The Demise of America's First Missile Defense System and the Rise of Strategic Arms Limitation

Abstract

Spanning three presidencies, from 1961 to 1972, James Cameron's important study meticulously untangles a diverse array of factors and actors to reveal how each administration played a “double game,” advancing a confident public position on the nation's strategic posture that was increasingly at odds with private anxieties. This double game culminated in 1972 with the outlawing of a nationwide antiballistic missile (Abm) system, the acknowledgement of strategic parity, and the official acceptance of the logic of mutually assured destruction (Mad). While the standard narrative explains the double game as the outcome of a new formulation of the nuclear-strategic calculus, Cameron convincingly argues that key American decision makers privately accepted the logic of Mad much earlier but hid their views from the public due to a changing combination of bureaucratic and domestic political considerations. Cameron begins his analysis with John F. Kennedy and Robert McNamara's effort to maintain a rational superiority in nuclear weapons. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962, however, prompted them to question privately the strategic utility of maintaining nuclear superiority. Moreover, they privately considered that mutual vulnerability may actually enhance stability. Significantly, this acceptance of the basic tenets of mutually assured destruction occurred ten years prior to the signing of the Abm treaty. Despite these misgivings, leading officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations continued to assert publicly that the United States must maintain its strategic edge.