Origins , head of the Special Projects Office. On September 13, 1955, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower directed the Navy to design a ship-launched
Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) similar to the Army's
Jupiter IRBM.
John H. Sides, director of the guided-missile division in the office of the chief of naval operations, and the Navy protested that liquid-fuel rockets like Jupiter were too dangerous for shipboard use and pushed instead for
submarine-launched solid-fuel rockets for tactical use against enemy submarine bases. However, on November 17, 1955,
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson ordered the Navy to join the Army on Jupiter development, and specified that all such missile development would not be externally funded but would have to be carved out of the existing Navy budget. Despite strong support from the
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral
Arleigh Burke, the program ballistic missile system for the fleet did not develop well, also due to the resistance of the bureaucracy in the Navy. Desiring to strengthen the status of the program and accelerate the development of its own missile, the Admiral created the Special Projects Office (SPO), independent of other technical offices, whose sole task was to support the work on the marine ballistic missile. At the head of the Special Projects Office was appointed Admiral
William Raborn, a former Navy pilot, chosen by Burke due to his personal qualities and belief in the military, rather than his vision on the technical run of the program. It was connected with the formal initiation of the small solid-fuel missile, which has been accepted by the Secretary of Defense in December 1956.
Program Evaluation and Review Technique PERT Program Evaluation and Review Technique PERT was developed for the U.S. Navy Special Projects Office in 1957 to support the U.S. Navy's Polaris nuclear submarine project. and
Program Evaluation Research Task, Summary Report, Phase 2. In a 1959 article in
The American Statistician Willard Fazar, Head of the Program Evaluation Branch, Special Projects Office, U.S. Navy, gave a detailed description of the development, that led to the Program Evaluation and Review Technique. He explained: For the subdivision of work units in PERT another tool was developed: the
Work Breakdown Structure. The Work Breakdown Structure provides "a framework for complete networking, the Work Breakdown Structure was formally introduced as the first item of analysis in carrying out basic PERT/COST."
Renamed the Strategic Systems Project Office Due to changing interests in the naval programs, in 1968, the Special Projects Office was renamed the Strategic Systems Project Office and its tasks had been extended. == Selected publications ==