Neil H. McElroy
Former United States Secretary of Defense
Education
- Bachelor's degree in economics - Harvard University
Overview
Neil Hosler McElroy was United States Secretary of Defense from 1957 to 1959 under President Eisenhower. He had been president of Procter & Gamble.
Secretary of Defense:
On October 4, 1957, just four days before Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson left office, the Soviet Union launched into orbit the world's first satellite (Sputnik I), suggesting that the Soviets were ahead of the United States in missile development. This event, which raised important questions about the U.S. defense program, served as a backdrop to the swearing in, on October 9, 1957, of McElroy as Secretary of Defense. Although a well-known businessman, McElroy's only experience in the federal government prior to 1957 had been as chairman of the White House Conference on Education in 1955–56. Given his background in the industry, and given President Eisenhower's predominance in defense matters, McElroy's appointment was not unusual. He spelled out his mandate the day he assumed office: "I conceive the role of the Secretary of Defense to be that of captain of President Eisenhower's defense team."
The launching of Sputnik I and a second Soviet satellite a month later prevented McElroy from easing into his duties at a deliberate pace. To meet the concern generated by the sputniks, McElroy attempted both to clarify the relative positions of the United States and the Soviet Union in missile development and to speed up the U.S. effort. Placing considerable emphasis on the intermediate-range ballistic missiles the United States then had under development, McElroy argued that with proper deployment in overseas locations they would serve as effectively as Soviet intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Without waiting for completion of final tests and evaluations, McElroy ordered the Air Force Thor and Army Jupiter IRBMs into production and planned to begin their deployment in the United Kingdom before the end of 1958 and on the European continent shortly thereafter. McElroy also ordered accelerated development of the Navy solid-fuel Polaris IRBM and the Air Force liquid-fuel Atlas and Titan ICBMs. In February 1958, he authorized the Air Force to begin development of the Minuteman, a solid-fuel ICBM to be deployed in hardened underground silos, with operational status expected in the early 1960s.
McElroy did not believe that the Sputnik success represented a major change in the world's military balance, but he acknowledged that it had a significant impact on world public opinion. The launching of the Sputniks indicated that "the Soviet Union is farther advanced scientifically than many had realized" and that "the weapons of the future may be a great deal closer upon us than we had thought, and therefore the ultimate survival of the Nation depends more than ever before on the speed and skill with which we can pursue the development of advanced weapons." McElroy had to spend much time explaining the missile programs and trying to allay congressional anxiety about a so-called "missile gap" between the United States and the Soviet Union.
McElroy shared some responsibility for the missile gap controversy. When asked whether the United States was behind the Russians in the satellite and missile fields, he responded affirmatively. Later he qualified his statement by noting that while the Soviet Union was ahead in satellites, it was not necessarily ahead in missiles, and he repeatedly pointed out that U.S. IRBMs deployed overseas were just as much a threat to the Soviet Union as Soviet ICBMs deployed in Russia were to the United States. But charges of a missile gap persisted. When he left office in December 1959 McElroy stated that the two nations had about the same number of ICBMs, but that if the USSR built missiles up to its capacity and the United States built those it planned to build, the Soviet Union would probably have more missiles than the United States during the 1961-63 period. The missile gap debate lasted throughout the rest of Eisenhower's term and became a prominent issue in the presidential campaign of 1960.
Early Life
Neil H. McElroy Born October 30, 1904 in Berea, Ohio, to school-teacher parents, McElroy grew up in the Cincinnati area. He received a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard in 1925.
Career
- United States - Former Secretary of Defense