At the time, the physicists and engineers were able to offer a nuclear solution to any question asked of them.
Just as the NDB offered a catch-all solution to the submarine threat, the air to air N option would stop any conceivable red threat from over the pole.
At a time when there was conceived to be a real threat from a perceived bomber imbalance, the air to air N option was a sensible counter force.
We can't always review the decisions of the past throught the spectacles we wear today.