Short answers, pulled from the story.
The MGM-31 Pershing was a solid-fueled two-stage theater ballistic missile designed to serve as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable theater-level weapon. It replaced the PGM-11 Redstone missile and, in its 1a variant, also replaced MGM-13 Mace cruise missiles operated by both the U.S. Air Force and the German Air Force in Europe. Its maximum range was 740 km.
Martin Marietta built the MGM-31 Pershing. The company, then called the Martin Company, was selected after a competition against six other firms including Chrysler, Lockheed, and Douglas Aircraft. The contract was a cost-plus-fixed-fee agreement awarded under the technical supervision of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. The company later became Martin Marietta following a merger in 1961.
The Pershing carried a W50 nuclear warhead with three selectable yield options: the Y1 at 60 kilotons, the Y2 at 200 kilotons, and the Y3 at 400 kilotons. A conventional explosive warhead option existed but was never deployed. In 1987 a study found it feasible to replace the W50 with the W85 warhead from Pershing II, but the INF Treaty ended that plan.
The first launch of a Pershing 1 R&D test missile took place on the 25th of February 1960. The Pershing 1 system was deployed operationally in 1963, and the improved Pershing 1a was deployed in 1969. Production of the MGM-31A missile ended in 1975 and briefly reopened in 1977 to replace missiles used in training, with a total of 754 MGM-31A missiles built.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was ratified on the 27th of May 1988. Withdrawal of Pershing missiles began in October 1988, and the last missiles were destroyed by static motor burns and crushing in May 1991 at the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant near Caddo Lake, Texas. West Germany agreed unilaterally to destroy its Pershing 1a inventory even though those missiles were not directly covered by the treaty's terms.
Phil Crosby, the quality control manager for the Pershing program at Martin, developed the Zero Defects concept during his work on the missile. The approach held that production defects were preventable through worker awareness and precision, and it improved both the production quality and reliability of the Pershing system. Crosby later became widely recognized for applying this philosophy beyond the missile program.