Who doesn’t want a missile in their backyard?

The “military-industrial complex,” as Dwight Eisenhower called it, refers to an unnecessarily high amount of military spending to establish a large arms industry. Eisenhower was adamant that the U.S. needed to maintain a balance between defense spending and the needs of the economy. This was harder to do in practice. As the new president Kennedy became more involved in the Cold War, nuclear technology was given priority, through the creation of programs like the Minutemen Missiles in South Dakota. In order to try to heed Eisnehower’s advice to keep spending down, places in the midwest like South Dakota were chosen as sites due to their pre-existing silos and the fact that “ten Minuteman missiles could be monitored by just one LCF” (Heefner). Not only were these cost savings extremely important to the defense spending budget, but the Minutemen missile programs actually helped to contribute to the Cold War economy. In the small town communities of rural South Dakota, organic job creation had always been limited. However, cold war deployment promised an economic boost. The Minutemen missile project “promised $60 million in construction contracts alone” (Heefner). This shows how the Cold War economy focused on catching up to the Soviet Union in nuclear technology, when managed correctly, could be beneficial to the local community. 

I think that it was important to preserve the silo from the Minuteman system because of its role in the Cold War and how it can contextualize that part of history in relation to the local experience. It would be very easy to overlook all of the small communities whose lives were actually significantly impacted by the Cold War. It also shows the integral role of technology in the war. Due to the nature of the war not having real battlefields or traditional “heroes,” the technology and the people who invented it were the ones who deserved to be commemorated (Heefner). By turning the silo into a national historic site that people could visit, the National Park Service not only managed to preserve a piece of the past, but also memorialize it and connect it to the present. 

I think that having a monument like the silo still doesn’t really seem to do justice to the fact that we, as a nation, had nuclear weapons housed all over the U.S. This was the same technology that could cause essentially total annihilation for an entire country in just thirty minutes (Heefner). The fact that the locals of places like South Dakota had to make room for the missiles in their towns and in their lives and live with the knowledge that they would be a prime target if the Soviet Union ever attacked is astounding to me. In my opinion, they should definitely get more recognition in the history books and when it comes to commemoration like the physical historic site. I understand that the narrative of national history is important, but I find that also being able to focus on how individuals are impacted by historical events is arguably more meaningful due to the personal connection.