LONDON — “It looked like one of those things where you get free pizzas through the post,” Hilal Bozkurt said, describing the innocuous-looking leaflet that came through her mail slot recently. “But this was like, free missiles.”

The leaflet was from the Ministry of Defense, and it briskly informed Bozkurt that her building, Fred Wigg Tower, part of a sad-looking public housing project in a depressed neighborhood in an unloved corner of this city, had been selected as a possible front line against terrorist attacks during the Olympics. Because of the 17-story tower’s strategic location and “excellent all-around view,” the leaflet said, the military was considering installing a “high-velocity missile system” on the roof.

“The air defense system will be manned by fully trained, professional soldiers,” the leaflet said, adding in the “frequently asked questions” section that it would “improve your local security and not make you a target for terrorists.”

Bozkurt said she did not think a residential apartment building, even one made of concrete and built in the pugnacious Brutalist style of the 1960s, was a suitable place for a pop-up military base featuring surface-to-air weapons able to travel at three times the speed of sound and hit targets more than three miles away in less than eight seconds. “It does frighten you,” she said.

The Ministry of Defense says it has not made a final decision on whether to use Fred Wigg Tower, in the borough of Waltham Forest, as a missile site, although “it would be sensible to be prepared for the worst,” Gen. Nick Parker, commander of the British Army land forces, told reporters.

In any case, officials say, the air defense systems are only one piece of a broad program to keep the Olympic Park, with its proximity to residential areas, safe from attacks via land, water or air. Recent exercises to test the Olympics defense program included placing dummy missiles on the roof of Fred Wigg Tower and on another building, the Lexington Building water tower, in the borough of Tower Hamlets. The missiles — bolstered by larger ones on the ground — would be used only as a final line of defense, the Ministry of Defense said.

During the Olympics, which open July 27, the Royal Navy’s largest ship, HMS Ocean, will be docked in London at Greenwich, and about 13,500 members of the military are being called on to reinforce the police and security forces. London’s airspace will be patrolled by jets and helicopters, with other crafts on standby equipped with early-warning systems and carrying snipers.

The rooftop plan has received the most attention, with some experts questioning the wisdom of using a missile-defense system in such a densely populated area.