Visitors will see banks of radio equipment and two obvious working areas, as well as bunks on the wall, a microwave oven and a bare toilet." "The pod is absolutely lined with very old computer technology, circa 1970s. The control pod, which housed two missileers for 48 hours at a time, measured a mere 12 feet by 28 feet, Mills says. "They'll be cramped down there," says Marianne Mills, chief of resource education at Badlands National Park. Tour guides dressed as "missileers' will lead no more than six visitors at a time 30 feet below ground to see the push-button technology that could have ignited World War III. Next, they'll take a bus to the launch-control facility. There, they will be introduced to the Cold War through such means as newsreel films of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963. Visitors will likely start at the interpretive center, to be located just off the interstate. As many as 10 permanent jobs will be created and an estimated annual operating budget is about $400,000. The national historic site will kick up some economic activity for the area. Even ranchers who gave up land to house the underground missile sites in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana have not complained. "I have heard some people say this is a waste of money, but it's not widespread," Pavek says. It's an untold story that's very exciting."įew opposed the designation. "Most people have never seen the nuclear sites we've hidden underground. "We'll be able to bring people to a site that was on alert just a few years ago," he says. For the first time, the American public will be able to see the secret world of the ICBM."īill Supernaugh, superintendent for Badlands National Park, welcomes the added responsibilities the new unit means for his staff. We won't simply interpret the Cold War technology represented at the site we'll interpret the Cold War in its broader context, as a significant aspect of our social fabric. "You cannot deny that the Cold War greatly influenced corporate America and the American people, from our economics to our social life. This is an education site," says Tim Pavek, the Minuteman II deactivation manager from nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. The treaty required a deactivation of some Soviet and American intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), including 450 single-warhead Minuteman II nuclear missiles.Īlthough the location of the Minuteman site was chosen, in part, to draw tourists from along Interstate 90 connecting the South Dakota badlands and the Black Hills, supporters contend the new historic site is not meant as a tourist attraction. The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by the United States and the former Soviet Union turned the site away from war preparedness.
President Kennedy called the missile system his "ace in the hole." Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who says the Minuteman silo and launch facility best represent America's land-based nuclear arsenal from the Cold War. The 25-acre unit includes a deactivated Minuteman II missile silo, its launch-control facility, and a yet-to-be-built Cold War interpretive center. In December, President Clinton signed a bill creating the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, to be administered by Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota. Soon, it will welcome visitors from all over the world: Ten years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, a peace dividend of sorts is being collected in South Dakota. Just a few years ago, this remote land held the ingredients for mass destruction. Beyond, white-faced cattle clip away at blue grama and buffalo grass, and in the distance, the plains slice into the dramatic landscape known as the White River Badlands. Wind whistles through a 16-foot-tall chain-link fence at the Delta-09 MX Missile Site, east of Wall.
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