Planting ICBMs in Farm Fields during the 50s and 60s

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_06.html

In farm fields all across rural America during the late 50s and 60s, the U.S. Air Force was planting a new crop -- Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs, tipped with nuclear warheads. To keep up with a perceived "missile gap" with the Soviet Union, the Air Force was working feverishly build underground launch complexes and get missiles in them. It was an effort that involved billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of workers, thousands of acres of land and more than 2,000 companies across America.

The first ICBMs to be deployed were Atlas rockets based on old German V-2 designs. The second were named Titan. Both Atlas and Titan rockets were liquid fuel designs that had to have fuel loaded on the rocket just before it could be launched -- a two-hour process. So, a crash research program was funded to develop solid fuel rockets -- the Minuteman for the Air Force and the Polaris for the Navy.

The first Atlas missile silos were operational in 1959. The Polaris was deployed on missile submarines in 1960. Both the Titan and the Minuteman missiles were deployed in 1962, with the mobile Peacekeeper in 1986. A map of where underground missile complexes were located is further down this page.

Military planners explicitly decided to build most of the land-based missile complexes in rural areas away from population centers. They also chose sites mostly in the West were there was a lot of public land available. It was easier to build missile silos where the government already owned the land. But that was not always possible. Often, land had to be purchased from farmers and ranchers.

[Wapsie B]

1. I remember someone from North Dakota telling me in the 70's

that at the height of this madness ND was a nuclear super-power all by itself.

[Kali]

2. there is (was) a titan silo on our state lease

yee haw

[Warpy]

3. Lots of them were decommissioned

and badly secured, as the tour here shows: http://www.triggur.org/silo/site.html

Intrepid (or paranoid) people are buying some of them and converting them to residences: http://www.missilebases.com/ Most are being destroyed to confirm to treaty requirements, a tremendous waste of billions of dollars squandered in the 50s and 60s.

The whole history of Cold War paranoia and stupidity is almost too much to take in, and it's still going on with Arabs as the bad guys.

If you didn't think the Pentagon has to be chopped down to a reasonable size, learning the history of the massive ICBM program and its inherent waste should do it.

[Wapsie B]

5. And many who were in favor of this spending spree will never admit to being wrong about this.

Today as you said it's going on with the Arabs as the evil empire. How many times do people have to be on the wrong side of history before they get a clue they've been snookered?

[DefenseLawyer]

14. The contractors that got the money didn't think it was wrong- still don't.

And they not only get the checks, they also write the checks.

[MadHound]

4. Which made those sections of various states prime targets in case it all went wrong

It was in jr. high that I realized that if the big one came, I was going to die a horrible death since my state was high on the target list for the USSR.

Most of the silos have been decommissioned over the years, though still a few remain, and we're probably still fairly high up on the targeting list.

[The_Commonist]

6. There was a decommissioned silo for sale...

...on eBay a few years ago.
I think they were asking $3 million for it.
It was pretty cool!

[Selatius]

7. It really wouldn't matter if they placed missile silos in rural areas. Bases would be hit, too.

And a few miles from my house, lies Keesler Air Force Base. Further west is the seabee base. To the east? The ship yards, the same ship yards that repaired the USS Cole after it was struck by a suicide bomber.

There are no missile silos anywhere near my residence as far as I know, but I do fucking know the Soviet Union likely had a nuke targeted at every major military installation inside the continental United States, including those around here and at the old Strategic Air Command base near my university four hours north of here.

When you have several thousand nuclear warheads in your stockpile, you can cover a lot of ground. The area where I live would either suffer direct destruction from targeted warheads at these installations I mentioned, or it would suffer significant nuclear fall-out from those that did hit.

I would not survive in this location if it came to nuclear war.

[havocmom]

9. Used to ponder all those targets in my area when I was a kid

Had lots of 'ponder-time', doing those silly "DROP!" drills in the hallways at school. Yeah, that'll save us! I knew it was a lie then. Why did so many adults believe?

[kristopher]

12. Your advantage would be that all those are tertiary targets...

You'd have the luxury of knowing a full hour or so in advance that it was all over.

I spent 2 years at Keesler, used to love floating around the bayous N. of Gulfport tossing out a cast net. Never caught much and never really cared...

[MineralMan]

8. Actually, those silos probably weren't primary targets for

Russian ICBMs. Given the likelihood that the DEW line would warn us of a massive launch from the USSR, the silos would be empty by the time the Russian ICBMs arrived, so there would be no point in targeting them as primary targets. Once the missile inside them had been fired, they were of no interest.

The strategy of the USSR was to take out strategic targets, such as military bases, and major population centers, which were often located near those strategic targets.

The folks in Kansas probably didn't have to worry that much. Those silos would be empty by the time the crap hit the fan. Of course, it wouldn't matter all that much, since all-out nuclear war would have destroyed both nations quite effectively.

[havocmom]

10. As a kid, I always figured targets would be any airstrip long enough for a B-52 to land

Living between two of those and one of the biggest (at the time) Navy bases on the west coast, I figured no lingering radiation sickness death for me in event of trouble.

Duck, cover, kiss ass good-bye. Worked it out at age nine. Don't know why it took so long for everyone else to see the light.

edited for typo

[MineralMan]

11. Yes, those were targets, along with every major population

center. If a nuclear war had happened, the concept was to wipe out the other nation, destroy its population and economic centers, and end that country's civilization. It would have worked, too, and would have destroyed western civilization.

MAD was the acronym, and it was also the nature of the idea. It was utter madness. Scorched earth just never works out very well, and the plan was to scorch the whole of North America and Europe, leaving nothing of the 20th century behind.

Folks in the rural midwest were probably the most likely to survive, at least for a while. But the society would be gone. It'd be back to scratching the earth with sharp sticks to plant stuff within a decade. The entire infrastructure of the US would be gone or unusable. No fuel, once what was already refined. No economy. No transportation. Nothing. Back to a medieval agricultural culture.

Thank goodness it did not happen.

[kristopher]

13. That isn't how I recall it...

There was no shortage of warheads on either side and the first wave targeted all offensive capability - including known silos. Perhaps you're forgetting the submarine based missiles. Also such an assumption as you describe simply wouldn't be applied, it could cost entire cities if you were wrong and you COULD have hit the target before launch.

[The Midway Rebel]

15. Awesome thread! The thought of those silos permeated my thoughts

like the smell of cigarette smoke on a wool sweater when I was growing up in the 60's. The duck and cover drills were a monthly reminder to consider the possibilities. I often wondered that should ever I see one of these strange crops arise form the ground while I were out playing one day, or out camping one weekend, whether I should ever even bother to try and go home. I had nightmares.

It was ironic that as an adult I would move to a spot that is a scant 4 miles from a decommissioned Minute Man silo.

I once read an article where these silos fill with ground water and people scuba dive in them.