General Bernard Schriever: America's Missile Man

General Bernard A. Schriever, dubbed “America’s Missile Man” by Time magazine in 1957, would pave the way for America’s dominance in space and further United States Air Power in the 1960’s with his achievement of building and sustaining an intercontinental ballistic missile force. General Schriever was born September 14th 1910 in Bremen, Germany. In 1917 Schriever, along with his mother and brother, escaped the First World War and emigrated to New York to join Schriever’s father who had worked as an engineering officer on an interned German ship line (93). According to the class text, “in 1923 Schriever became a naturalized United States citizen” (94). In 1931 Schriever began his military career eventually being promoted to Colonel, in the early 1940’s he was made Chief, Scientific Liaison Section, Deputy Chief of Staff, Materiel where he lead the Scientific Advisory Board originally formed by Hap Arnold in 1944. According to the class text “Schriever’s engineering and

There were debates over which branch of the military should have control over the intercontinental ballistic missile programs. According to the text though this wasn’t an issue for long as “Washington granted the United States Air Force the charter to develop both the intercontinental ballistic missile and intermediate-range ballistic missile” (97). There was also an issue finding military leaders who saw the priority in a new weapons system. Though with Schriever’s team, government backing and a newly designed “lighter” nuclear warhead these issues would be laid to rest. The nuclear warhead would weigh 1,500 pounds at most solving the issue of the intercontinental ballistic missile being too heavy to travel and accurately hit its target. In 1959 Americas first intercontinental ballistic missile, the SM-65 Atlas, was deployed and the program was considered a