Recently declassified U.S.Defense and State Department documents have shed new light on the motivations for Western missile deployment proposals. In some cases, conflicting political and military objectives were complicated by the technological challenges of creative deployment schemes as well as the competitive nature of Defense Department funding. This article examines the U.S. Army's Iceworm intermediate-range ballistic missile deployment concept of the early 1960s to show how interservice rivalries, strategic considerations, technological developments, and the competition for a share of funding af-fected decisions on U.S. nuclear forces and the defense of Western Europe.