equipment. If this  were done, the first firing unit with two launchers and four missiles could be ready for deployment by July 1958. To achieve that goal, REDSTONE ground  equipment would be converted and oncoming REDSTONE personnel scheduled for unit training would be trained and used to initially employ the JUPITER.  Training would start immediately for Air Force personnel, and they could take over the firing unit about January 1959. The balance of the first firing group,  consisting of either six or 15 launchers, could be manned with Air Force personnel or a mix with Army personnel by the end of the first quarter of 1959. From  there, squadrons or mobile groups could follow at the rate of one per quarter, beginning with the second quarter of 1959 53 . For a time, it appeared that the program might go along the lines suggested by the General, even to the point that a Holaday paper was circulating in Washington  to the effect that Army personnel could man the first employed missiles. The Air Force immediately complained of this matter to the Secretary of the Air Force,  who, in turn, went to Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy and the Holaday paper was recalled. At that time, the situation was rather fluid, as the Air Force was in the process of a reorganization. Previously, AFBMD was to have exercised operational control over the IOC missiles, but, in early December, this responsibility was  about to pass to the Strategic Air Command (SAC). Thus, a deployment manner was almost impossible to determine. One item, however, appeared a certainty, as  the Air Force, in general, did not favor the Army's mobility concept based on the alleged fact that the countries in which the missile  _____________________________

53. DF, Cont Off to Dev Opns Div, et. al., 25 Nov 57, subj: Early Opnl Capability, Hist Off files.