Cold War Missiles in North Dakota | Video

Van Tieu | 2/10/2013

The Cold War may have ended in the early 1990s, but remnants of the era remain in North Dakota, especially as the state played a crucial military role in the country`s defend and deter nuclear strategy.

The supervisor of the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site near Cooperstown gave an in-depth look of the Oscar-Zero Missile Alert facility, which was a command and control center for 10 nuclear missiles in the eastern part of the state.

"North Dakota was basically on the front lines of the cold war, which is a unique thing... if the nuclear conflict would have come, these locations were where we would have been launching missiles from, and likely where the Soviet strikes would have been coming. So I think people kind of underestimate the importance that the state played during the cold war," said Mark Sundlov.

The event is a part of Second Sundays, sponsored by the North Dakota Heritage Center, which features programs on North Dakota`s History.

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