This was a time when the US Airforce was overrun with incompetence. Almost every program designed during this time ended up being useless or near useless.

This resulted in the US Navy making a comeback and producing ballistic missile submarines. The USAF was so incompetent that the Navy was able to produce a fully functional ballistic missile sub before the USAF even had a single operational ICBM.

Even then the USAF abandoned the missile and had to restart because it took 6 hours to launch and the missile was sitting vulnerable on the pad, while the Navy missiles could be launched quickly and safely.

The USAF abandoned the few programs that did work, like the B-58 Hustler and Bomarc, and the replacements completely failed and left the USAF without a supersonic bomber or functional missile defense.

When Vietnam began they found that basically all of the new tech was useless, and had to redesign nearly every system, and completely retrain crews because the training had been completely useless. In fact, the squadrons began their own training programs in the field because the training pilots received back home was so completely useless.

Eventually the pilots who went through this insanity became generals and transformed the USAF. They started designing aircraft based on real world experience, and massively changed pilot training so that they knew how to fight in real world situations.