Soviet tests of a fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) attracted the interest of the US intelligence community because of the unique challenges it posed to defenses. At that point, August 1967, the US had no means to detect a FOBs attack but INR noted that a satellite detection system would be operational during 1970. This was a reference to the secret Defense Support Program (DSP), which would use infrared technology to detect missile launches and reduce any surprise advantage from the FOBs. The Soviets recognized this and later retired their twenty or so ICBMs with FOBs capabilities in 1983.

A prospective Chinese MRBM force led INR to consider whether Beijing would believe that it had more freedom of action to step up its involvement in the Vietnam War: it “might feel freer in extending aid to Hanoi and becoming more involved in the war if US pressure on the North Vietnamese seemed to require it.”

Years before Beijing actually deployed an ICBM in 1981, US intelligence estimated the possibility of the deployment of a “few operable, though probably relatively inefficient missiles” as early as 1971.

Despite new information that the Soviet Union was deploying anti-ballistic missile defenses around Moscow, the United States had not yet decided to deploy its own ABM defenses (although a decision would be made later in the year) and there was some hope that U.S.-Soviet talks would prevent an ABM race. If, however, talks failed, some NATO allies worried about the “adverse consequences” of an ABM race, especially whether having an ABM system might incline Washington toward risk taking.

Prepared by Edward Hurwitz, a Foreign Service officer and future ambassador then on assignment to INR, this report treated ICBMs as China’s main weapons goal, an eventual means for a “credible threat” to Beijing’s U.S. and Soviet “arch enemies.”

Concerns about the credibility of US nuclear deterrence generated Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Lauris Norstad’s proposal for a NATO-controlled medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) force. This lengthy report represented INR’s assessment of “present and future European interest in national or multinational nuclear weapons capabilities,” including the MRBM proposal, and the extent to which an “enhancement of NATO's nuclear role” could “deter national or multinational European nuclear weapons programs.”