The Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense 1945-1960

American concerns over air defense of the continental United States were at their most grave in the 1950s. The descent into cold war in the late 1940s, the confrontation of two hostile political systems in distant Korea, and the Soviet development of atomic weapons earlier than expected by American military experts came together to stimulate popular pressures for a shield against manned bombers reaching the American heartland from the North Pole. The effect on the newly independent Air Forc...