July 14, 2014 6:08 PM
COOPERSTOWN, NORTH DAKOTA —
The United States plans to shrink the total number of land-based nuclear missiles by 2018 to comply with an arms treaty signed with Russia in 2011. North Dakota has been a traditional home to many of those land-based missiles. It is a part of the state’s Cold War legacy that officials - and tourists - embrace.
Among amber waves of grain in a remote part of North Dakota, the fate of millions hinged on the deployment of the lethal object housed below this concrete and metal barrier.
Code-named November-33 during the Cold War, this site was home to an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear-tipped warhead that once waited to launch death and destruction to a destination unknown.
“I think there was kind of a standing joke that North Dakota was actually the third largest power in the world in terms of the nuclear capacity that we had here," said Alvin Jaeger, North Dakota Secretary of State.
Additional story at: http://www.voanews.com/content/cold-war-legacy-a-tourist-atraction-in-rural-north-dakota/1957475.html
(VOA)
(photo: history.nd.gov)