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At this points, very few in the CIA or the Air Force were willing to
take these extraordinarily low estimates seriously.  For one thing,
the politics of the situation seemed clear: the Army and Navy competed
against the Air Force for scarce budgetary resources; if the Soviets
had only a few ICBMs in the works, that would deny the Air Force its
chief rationale for building several thousand ICBMs and would, thus,
leave more for the non-nuclear forces of the Army and Navy.
		-- Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of
		   Armageddon, p. 166

Tags: icbms cia estimates airforce wizards rationale armageddon severalthousand soviets nuclearforces budgetaryresources fredkaplan armyandnavy