Cold War Casualty
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| Cliff Naylor |
| 11/20/2009 |
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| During the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of nuclear warheads were buried deep beneath North Dakota`s fertile farm land. The mystery surrounding the top secret military bases, strategically positioned across the state, has now been unearthed in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. Thousands of farmers and rural residents have driven by the Ronald Reagan Minuteman missile site the past 35 years, but they were never allowed to set foot inside this strategic nuclear installation. But this year public access to this symbol of the Cold War was opened up. "The sites were built with nuclear war in mind, to win and survive so the engineer and construction that went into them is pretty unique," says Mark Sundlov, the Ronald Reagan missile site supervisor. The command center to launch Minuteman III missiles aimed at the Soviet Union was located 60 feet underground. "Basically the Minuteman III could reach anywhere, almost anywhere in the world and it`s going to get there in less than a half hour," says Sundlov. This intercontinental ballistic missile launch facility was turned into a historic site this past summer and now students and tourists can tour a military base that was once off limits to most of the population. Casie Murry and the rest of her classmates took a field trip through this missile field. "Going 60 feet below the ground is pretty scary," says Murry. "At its peak during the cold war North Dakota within it`s borders had 300 nuclear missiles, 30 launch control centers and it also had B-52 bombers out of Grand Forks, those bombers were also capable of being loaded with nuclear weapons," says Sundlov. Seeing the cooperative launch panel, where the turn of a key could have launched a nuclear war is usually the highlight of the tour. "When it comes time to launch those missiles, the deputy is going to insert this key into the panel, turn the key in unison with another controller and launch those missiles," says Sundlov. President George H. Bush and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991 which led to this base being decommission in 1997 and ultimately turned into a history lesson on The Cold War. When the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile site was operational, 10 soldiers were stationed at the base, which was part of the 321st missile wing from Grand Forks. |
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