| During the Cold War the United States Air Force deployed 1,000 Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles across the Great Plains, sometimes quite literally in a family's backyard. As one South Dakota senator proclaimed, it was "foreign policy coming home to Main Street." This is the first scholarly consideration of missile deployment and its cultural, social and political consequences. Combining political and military histories with national security and cultural studies, The Missile Next Door provides a novel interpretation of the domestic Cold War. Beginning with the development of the missiles in the late 1950s and tracing the story through the dismantling of the missiles in South Dakota, this project reveals the intimate and sometimes stunning ways that Americans were transformed through interaction with the national security state. Particular attention is paid to the ways that small, rural communities near missile sites were integrated into the military-industrial complex, creating long-term dependencies and transforming politics in the American West. It was there that long-held ideas about property and citizenship collided with the imperatives of global Cold War. Residents of the missile fields did not always acquiescence the way the Air Force expected. Many were radicalized and their response would have important ramifications for politics in the 21st century. The arming of the heartland also highlights the uneven sacrifices required in the Cold War, reflecting the peculiar face of American militarism. Finally, this project demonstrates the ways in which the U.S. government promoted nuclear weapons and the idea of deterrence. Widespread public acquiescence was needed to bury ICBMs in the heartland, just as it took work to make the Minutemen invisible across the Great Plains. The Minutemen were designed as more than just strategic missiles. They were also meant to help persuade Americans that the threat of Armageddon was an acceptable means of keeping the peace. |
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