Editing Army Ballistic Missile Agency (section)

=== Army to Air Force ===
[[File:Charles Wilson at GM.jpg|thumb|upright=1.0|right|Secretary of Defense Wilson attempted to solve internecine fighting by canceling Army deployment of Jupiter; the launch of [[Sputnik 1]] would cause many of his limitations on Army missile development to be removed.]]

As the Air Force's arguments against Jupiter grew more vocal, the argument came to encompass several other ongoing projects that the two forces had in common, including [[surface-to-air missile]]s and [[anti-ballistic missile]]s. By the middle of 1956, both forces were engaged in [[Tit for tat|tit-for-tat]] attacks in the press, with the Air Force calling the Army "unfit to guard the nation" on the front page of ''[[The New York Times]]'' and sending out press releases about how bad their [[Nike Hercules|SAM-A-25 Nike Hercules]] missile was compared to the Air Force's [[CIM-10 Bomarc|IM-99 Bomarc]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Air Force Calls Army Unfit to Guard Nation|newspaper=The New York Times|date=21 May 1956|page=1}}</ref>

Tired of the internecine fighting, Secretary of Defense Wilson decided to end it once and for all. Examining a wide variety of complaints between the two forces, on 18 November 1956, he published a memo that limited the Army to weapons with a range of {{cvt|320|km}} or less, and those dedicated to air defense to half that.<ref name=larsen>{{cite news|first=Douglas|last=Larsen |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1798&dat=19570801&id=DuIiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=x4oEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7135,197246|access-date=18 May 2013|title=New Battle Looms Over Army's Newest Missile|newspaper=Sarasota Journal|date=1 August 1957|page=35}}</ref> Jupiter's {{cvt|2400|km}} range was well over this limit, but instead of forcing them to cancel the project, Wilson had the ABMA team continue development and the Air Force to ultimately deploy it.{{sfn|Walker|Bernstein|Lang|2003|pp=27–30, 37}} This was precisely the plan that Schriever had rejected the year before.

The Army were [[Apoplexy|apoplectic]], and let the press know it.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2506&dat=19570628&id=kJFJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OwwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=842,4674573|access-date=18 May 2013|title=Nickerson Accuses Wilson Of 'Grave Errors' On Missiles|newspaper=The News and Courier|date=28 June 1957|page=B-14}}{{Dead link|date=August 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> This ultimately led to the [[court-martial]] of Colonel [[John C. Nickerson Jr.]], after he leaked information about various Army projects, including the then-secret [[MGM-31 Pershing|Pershing missile]].<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Nickerson Case|magazine=Time|date=18 March 1957 |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,809178,00.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19570225&id=6z1SAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OnYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3794,4964354 |access-date=18 May 2013|title=Army Weights Court-Martial Over Missiles|newspaper=[[Tampa Bay Times|The St. Petersburg Times]]|date=25 February 1957|page=1}}</ref>

The Air Force were no happier, as they had little real interest in anything other than Atlas, and didn't see a strong need for one IRBM, let alone two.{{sfn|Mackenzie|1993|p=127}} Through 1957 the situation between the Air Force and ABMA was almost nonfunctional, with ABMA requests for updates on the project going unanswered for months. The Air Force did, however, reduce the production rate from two missiles per month to one. They then began a review process with the thinly disguised goal of canceling Jupiter.{{sfn|Kyle|2011|loc=Air Force Gains Control}}