Though large antiwar demonstrations and racial disturbances were a common part of the American scene when I was in the Army between 1968 and 1971, they weren’t demanding all my time by any means. One project that I devoted a lot of time to in 1969 was a counterintelligence study related to the Army’s Safeguard anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system then under development. I was appointed to a working group in downtown Arlington, Virginia tasked with understanding the counterintelligence issues associated with the Army’s new Safeguard ABM system. Safeguard was a successor to earlier Nike missile systems. Nike had been designed to intercept Soviet nuclear bombers. Safeguard was to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). My contribution to the group’s work was to make a detailed analysis of the counterespionage and counter-sabotage threats to the Safeguard system’s functionality.
