by John T. Mason (With)
From 1956, when the U.S. Navy first awarded the development contracts, to 1960, when the first UGM-27 Polaris missile was launched from Cape Canaveral, the Navy was in the thick of a pioneering project that forever would change the way such epic undertakings were approached. The Navy's first submarine-launched ballistic missile, the Polaris upped the Cold War ante and played a vital strategic role -- not only for U.S. forces but in the service of allied fleets as well -- through the 1960s and beyond. From 1972 to 1974, U.S. Naval Institute oral historian John T. Mason Jr. interviewed numerous Polaris Program key players, from the CNO to the Secretary of the Navy to the project director to sundry civilians involved in manufacturing the groundbreaking weapon. Collectively, their oral histories recount the inside story of a remarkable technical achievement.