[3][4] Although a well-known businessman, McElroy's only experience in the federal government prior to 1957 had been as chairman of the White House Conference on Education in 1955–56.

To meet the concern generated by the sputniks, McElroy attempted both to clarify the relative positions of the United States and the Soviet Union in missile development and to speed up the U.S. effort.

Without waiting for completion of final tests and evaluations, McElroy ordered the Air Force Thor and Army Jupiter IRBMs into production and planned to begin their deployment in the United Kingdom before the end of 1958 and on the European continent shortly thereafter.

McElroy also ordered accelerated development of the Navy solid-fuel Polaris IRBM and the Air Force liquid-fuel Atlas and Titan ICBMs.

In February 1958, he authorized the Air Force to begin development of the Minuteman, a solid-fuel ICBM to be deployed in hardened underground silos, with operational status expected in the early 1960s.

McElroy considered the most important aspects of the 1958 reorganization to be the replacement of service executive agents by the JCS in directing the unified commands and the creation of a strong director of defense research and engineering including the Advanced Research Projects Agency headed by Roy Johnson, a vice-president of General Electric.

Although the Eisenhower administration maintained a determined interest in controlling expenditures and balancing the budget, McElroy did not place economy above preparedness.

You can have the best, most modern sprinkling system in your factory but it will be useless if you don't take steps to prevent fires from getting out of control before they reach your plant."

In spite of public concern about preparedness in the wake of the Russian Sputnik and pressures from Democratic critics to spend more money, the Eisenhower administration did not panic.

While it shifted some expenditure priorities, especially toward missile development, production, and deployment, it did not support a drastic increase in the defense budget.