Introduction
This article tells the story of how 15 nuclear missiles were deployed in underground concrete silos across the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. It took displacement and flooding to reach them. The article addresses the troubled relationship between the Native American population and the U.S. government and how these nuclear weapons ended up on reservation land. It also provides some historical and legal facts related to the topic.
How Did the Missiles Reach the Reservation?
Between 1961 and 1963, the silos were built on the reservation. At that time, many of the residents of the Fort Berthold Reservation were children. When I asked my grandmother if she remembered the time the silos arrived, she could not. In fact, she still does not know what is inside the silos. Therefore, I consulted historians and scholars to shed light on this complicated story.
Cold Tensions and Nuclear Preparations
In the early 1950s and early 1960s, there was a period of intense cold tensions. The Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in 1957, prompting the United States to develop land-based ballistic missiles in 1958. The U.S. Air Force was preparing to deploy 1,000 nuclear missiles, each carrying a high-yield warhead, across six bases in the northern plains, including 150 in Minot, North Dakota, near our reservation.
Environmental and Legal Impact
The Garrison Dam was built in 1953 near our reservation and resulted in the flooding of a quarter of the reservation. The flood destroyed 95% of agricultural land, homes, towns, and cemeteries, forcing people to move in and out of the reservation and reshaping the landscape for decades. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for building the nuclear missiles and used the same contractor that constructed the Garrison Dam. In the next installment, we will discuss the U.S. Air Force’s plans to refurbish the silos and load them with a new nuclear missile while keeping them operational for 60 years.
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