Teapot Committee The Teapot Committee was the codename of the Strategic Missiles Evaluation Group to evaluate strategic missile s of the U . S . Air Force . Establishment . In October 1953 , the Assistant Secretary of the U . S . Air Force for Research and Development Trevor Gardner established the committee to study strategic missiles including the Snark , Navaho , and Atlas all of which were Air Force projects . Gardner recruited eleven of the nation ' s leading scientists and engineers : Dr . John von Neumann served as chairman , and the Ramo - Wooldridge Corporation ( forerunner of TRW ) was hired to administer the committee ' s work . The founders and chief officers of Ramo - Wooldridge , Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge , were also full members of the Teapot Committee . Simon Ramo had known Trevor Gardner since before World War II , when both had worked for General Electric at Schenectady , New York . After the war , Ramo joined Hughes Aircraft as head of electronics research and eventually rose to the position of Director of Guided Missile Research and Development ; both Ramo and Dean Wooldridge had gained acclaim for their work on the Air Force ' s Falcon missile . Ramo had become Director of Operations and Executive Vice President when he and Wooldridge , in September 1953 , left Hughes to form their own company . Other members of the Teapot Committee were Clark Blanchard Millikan , Charles C . Lauritsen , and Louis Dunn ( all of Caltech ) ; Hendrik Wade Bode ( Bell Telephone Labs ) ; Allen E . Puckett ( Hughes Aircraft ) ; George Kistiakowsky ( Harvard ) ; Jerome B . Wiesner ( MIT ) ; and Lawrence A . Hyland ( Bendix Aviation ) . The committee ' s military liaison was Colonel Bernard A . Schriever , the Air Staff ' s Assistant for Development Planning and a brigadier general selectee . Deliberations . Meeting first in November and twice more afterward , the Teapot Committee rendered its report on February 10 , 1954 . Originally , the Teapot Committee had favored eliminating the Snark , but in its report recommended only that the Snark ' s guidance system be simplified and that development continue . Members contended that Snark ' s primary usefulness was as a decoy for the manned bomber force . Similarly , the Teapot Committee was not enthusiastic about the Navaho as a strategic weapon because of the inadequacies of ramjets . Nonetheless , the committee supported continued research in certain technological areas , especially in the propulsion systems , in which the Navaho project provided direct benefit for ICBM development . The Teapot Committee centered its attention on the feasibility of developing the major subsystems for the Atlas - that is , propulsion , guidance , airframe , and warhead . Given the reported Soviet lead in intercontinental ballistic missile s and the countervailing advantage offered by the American nuclear breakthrough , the committee concluded that it was imperative to accelerate Atlas development . However , the speed up and early delivery of the Atlas ICBM could be accomplished only by embarking on a " crash program " that would include changing drastically the missile ' s specifications and creating an entirely new management organization . In its summary , the Teapot Committee called for a " radical reorganization of the . . . project considerably transcending the [ existing ] Convair framework . " Foremost among the committee ' s recommendations to accelerate the ICBM program , was the call to revise the Atlas ' s requirements in conformity with the new realities created as a result of the thermonuclear breakthrough . The promise of lighter , higher - yield weapons was later confirmed during the Operation Castle nuclear test series , that began in March 1954 . As a result , the stringent accuracy requirement for Atlas was reduced to between 2 and . This revision would also permit slashing the missile ' s weight and diameter . As a further benefit , the lower accuracy requirement eased the Atlas ' s guidance problem and prompted an investigation of an advanced , on - board , all - inertial guidance system . In the management area , Committee had questioned the contractor ' s ability to complete the Atlas work , based on Convair ' s current development approach and the competence of its scientific and engineering staff . Further , members recommended that the Air Force undertake a thorough review of up to a year , if necessary , to determine how best to achieve the earliest possible operational capability . Pending such a review , the Air Force should curtail all production of full - scale flight test vehicles and detailed design of the guidance system . On the other hand , the committee members encouraged continuing basic research in guidance systems , North American Aviation ' s rocket propulsion work , and the preparation of instrument flight test facilities . At last , the Report concluded that the Atlas program could be accelerated only if it was entrusted to " an unusually competent group of scientists and engineers capable of making systems analyses , supervising the research phases and completely controlling the experimental and hardware phases of the program . " Unfortunately , no single company currently employed persons of that caliber ; they would have to be recruited from among several industry , university , and government organizations . Looking ahead , the committee also noted that this proposed new development - management group would have to be free " of excessive detailed regulation by government agencies . " Finally , the Committee believed that , if it was assigned such a crash basis priority , the Air Force could obtain an operational Atlas ICBM in 6 to 8 years - that is , sometime between 1960 and 1962 . The Committee recommendations nearly duplicated those of a Rand Corporation study issued two days earlier , on February 8 , 1954 . The Rand study , headed by Dr . Bruno W . Augustein , was begun in September 1953 for the purpose of finding ways to accelerate ICBM development . Not surprisingly , then , the Teapot Committee used and based much of its findings on Rand data . In connection with these studies , Trevor Gardner advised Assistant Secretary Donald A . Quarles that an emergency operational capability could be attained as early as 1958 , if enough money and priority were provided . Gardner meant that , in an emergency , contractor engineers in lieu of Air Force personnel could launch the Atlas . Gardner ' s claim was facetiously dubbed a " PhD " type capability .