The Missile Gap

U.S. Air Force Film Report 103, "Development of the Soviet Ballistic Missile Threat," 1960, produced by Air Photographic and Charting Service, Secret
Air Force Index Card
Source: National Archives, Motion Pictures Unit, Record Group 342

This film, depicting a once secret Air Force briefing on the prospective Soviet missile and bomber threat in the years ahead, illuminates the difficulties of intelligence analysis.

Delivered by Director of Warning and Threat Assessment, Office of Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Col. Linscott A. Hall, and one of his assistants, Lt. Colonel Joel Parks, the briefing was representative of Air Force intelligence thinking at the height of the "missile gap" controversy over the degree of the Soviet ICBM buildup. The intended audience for the briefing may have been other intelligence agencies, senior officials in the Pentagon, and possibly civilians and officers who worked on nuclear targets, so they would have their agency's angle on the prospective threat.