Historical Marker Society of America

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Picture Courtesy of Greg Parkes

Picture Courtesy of Greg Parkes

The Front Lines of the Cold War

…with the Russians maybe breathing down our neck, it was probably pretty clear to everybody that we had to do something.

Tim Pavek, Ellsworth Air Force Base, Minuteman Program Deactivation Manager & Missile Engineer

But do what? Planting 150 Minuteman II missile sites across South Dakota was part of the answer. Within two years these Cold War weapons stood ready to stop the Soviet Union from launching its nuclear weapons to strike American cities and military targets. Each Minuteman II missile could deliver a payload equal to 60 percent of all the bombs used during World War II. And the Soviets knew it.

The sparsely populated Great Plains provided an ideal place. The missile fired from a Soviet sub could not take out a Minuteman missile before it was launched at the Soviet Union – just 30 minutes flight time over the horizon.