The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit to Captain Roderick O. Middleton, United States Navy, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States from 15 January 1957 to 20 July 1960 as Head of the Missile Branch, Special Projects Office. Responsible for the design, development, testing, evaluation, and production of the POLARIS missile, Captain Middleton personally directed the vast effort required to successfully achieve the development and test of the Navy’s first ballistic missile. This was an immensely complicated task involving thousands of missile parts, ensuring compatibility of these in the missile, and the missile with all other subsystems of the Fleet Ballistic Missile Program.