Nov 012015
A General Dynamics magazine (“Missiles & Rockets,” to be exact) ad for the Atlas missile, from 1959. This sort of thing can really only be assumed to be public relations… you’re certainly not going to sell an ICBM to Joe Schmoe, and anyone in a position to actually procure an ICBM is certainly already aware of the Atlas.
However: the idea wasn’t to actually directly convince people to buy the Atlas, but instead to just keep a positive image of the Atlas in the eye of the public. In this case, the “public” would be the kind of people who would read M&R magazine… aerospace workers and military men.
