50 YA: USS George Washington launch

Today marks the anniversary of the launching of the USS George Washington (SSBN-598), which was destined to become the first submarine ballistic launcher of the Polaris type missile. Our nation has depended on the Ballistic missile submarine concept to keep us safe from enemy nuclear attack, for over 45 years now. The idea behind putting the missiles on the submarine was, of course, that the enemy could never know where your missile subs were, and thus would be afraid of attacking the US in the first place, not knowing how soon we would retaliate with more terrible missiles.