Missile Gap

Missile Gap - the real sparks flew within the American intelligence community, particularly between the US Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency. Each The Air Force agrueing that the Soviets had hundres of missiles and the CIA stating that they only had twelve. In reality they only had four. This controversy leaked to the press, where Democrats argued that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower was not spending enough money on national security and was therefore placing the country in danger. In the 1960 election campaign John F. Kennedy echoed these charges—allegedly because he did not have access to the intelligence data. Soon after Kennedy was elected he changed that opinion saying in fact that the US was far more prepared that the Soviet Union.

The Missile Gap, for those who are unfamiliar with Cold War history, was a controversy that raged soon after Sputnik concerning the number of Soviet ICBMs. Did the Soviets have hundreds of ICBMs whereas the United States had not yet deployed its own?

The Soviets had few operable ICBMs; in spite of this Khrushchev publicly boasted of the Soviets' missile programs, stating that Soviet weapons were many and numerous. The First Secretary hoped that public perception that the Soviets were ahead would result in psychological pressure on the West and political concessions