War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; 105; About Our Missiles

The nation's heartland, the broad rolling plain, fruited with wheat, a product of the toil of men, and the generosity of nature. Wheat, the stuff that bread is made of, the fatten's cattle, the stuff that makes Americans stomachs full, and lives productive. This pastoral scene could be misleading. The wheat field is peaceful, idyllic, tranquil. But scattered in this vast sea of grain, in little concrete covered plots of land not much larger than the lot on which your own home is built. Our missile sites, intercontinental, nuclear-tipped missiles. The missiles are on the ground. They make no noise to frighten your cows, your chickens, your children. They just wait, poised, waiting. And that's what they do best, because that's what they were made for.

If you were to see one, or a hundred of them, leave from their underground hiding places, up through these amber fields of grain. Then they would not have performed their true role, and we would have failed to keep the peace. The timelessy days of automobile transportation were many years ago, and they hold fond memories of more quiet, less hectic days. We've come a long way, haven't we? The timelessy days of the ICBM, the intercontinental ballistic missile, began just a little over a decade ago, on the sandy beaches of Florida's east coast at Cape Canaveral. The day is December 17, 1957. The Atlas missile, with the weight of the free world on its shoulders, roared and rumbled from its launch pad for the first time.

The Atlas, since it was a pioneer effort, was not without its problems. From this kind of experience came knowledge. We had to creep before we walked. We had to walk before we could run. We gained experience. We learned our trade on the Atlas, and because we had learned well, the big A became the launch vehicle for our nation's first manned space venture, Project Mercury. Mercury astronauts will always remember the reliability of the Atlas, as they took their first steps toward the moon.

Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming was the base of the first full squadron of Atlas ICBMs in August 1960. This new breed of deterred weapon systems was stored in concrete structures and directed when fueled in preparation for launch. A later version of the Atlas was stored in underground silos to give it greater protection from possible attack. Since the Atlas was the 10 lizzy of the missile age, newer, more powerful, and more sophisticated missiles would have followed soon. This is the Titan 1, stored and fueled in underground silos, and raised by elevator to its launch position. The Titan 1's first successful launch came on February 6, 1959. Its power and accuracy were impressive, but it took too long to load it with fuel to bring it up to launch position and get it off the pad.

We might not have the luxury of that much time in an all-out war. Thus was born the Titan 2, which entered the operational force in June of 1963 and remains the biggest, most powerful missile in the strategic force. New fuels we call hypergolic can be successfully stored in the missile for long periods of time, and instead of being raised to the surface, it is fired directly from its underground silo to targets over 6,000 miles away. The strategic missile force was coming alive. We had reduced reaction time. We had improved survivability. We had learned much about missiles, and that knowledge gave us a leg up in the manned space program. The Titan would be the booster for the Germany program. Beginning in April 1964, 10 successive manned launches were never a malfunction or failure by the Air Force Titan 2.

The basic Titan booster sandwiched between two powerful solid fuel boosters comprise the Titan 3, not a weapon, but a space booster, in Air Force Jargon, a standard launch vehicle. It has performed such tasks as placing eight communication satellites into space in a single launch. The solid fuel boosters give the Titan 3 its big lift off the pad, and solid fuel propulsion was the technology advance that revolutionized with ICVM force. When the solid fuel Minuteman missile was introduced to the public for the first time in 1959, General Thomas White, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, said,

We should have a mix of offensive systems such as manned aircraft, manned aircraft with bombs, air-to-surface missiles, big missiles, the Minuteman missile in quantities, the polaris, and so on. In order to complicate the enemy's defensive problem and also to make it much more expensive for him, so that he puts ever into defense that he can't put into offensive weapons. Events moved rapidly in Minuteman development. In September 1959, a tethered launch to test the first stage engine as it was to the full scale missile from an underground launch pad at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The first full ICVM range flight from Bannonburg Air Force Base took place on 28 September 1962, and successive day and night firing from both the Atlantic and Pacific test ranges proved its reliability.

This is a Minuteman nose cone entering the target area some 5,000 miles from its launcher. While we tested the missile, we built the sights that would shelter them. Where, in the older missiles like the Atlas and Titan, there was a launch crew for from one to three missiles. The Minuteman, because of its less complicated propulsion system, would have a two-man crew for every ten missiles. We could afford many more missiles, complicating the enemy's defense problems. The first Minuteman became operational in October 1962 at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana.

Today, in sights like this, we have a thousand Minuteman missiles scattered in six areas of the nation's heartland. They include the early Minuteman 1 and the more advanced Minuteman 2, which began modernization of the Minuteman Force in 1967. Many people who live in these areas are only vaguely aware of the powerful weapons that crouched deceptively beneath the amber wheat fields. An occasional sign, a small but unusual convoy, or a security team passing on the highway, what perhaps an actual launch site near home, these are the only evidence of the missile force. The distances between launchers is great, and unless you're part of the SAC missile team, even though you may live in the area, you probably do not know the location of more than two or three launch sites.

But then why should you? They don't make noise. In fact, until they're launched, missiles are offering you. They're not big as compared to the intercontinental bombers we frequently see, and here. That doesn't mean that there's not activity in the missile business. To prove the missile's reliability and that of the men who maintain and launch them, the strategic air command has a realistic test program. It works this way. Selected random one of the missiles, waiting beneath those great planes, wheat fields, extracted carefully from its launch silo. Transport it to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where the western test range begins. Maintenance crews place the missile in its launcher, and then through carefully predetermined steps, bring the missile to a combat ready condition.

The only thing missing is an actual nuclear warhead. Instrumentation replaces the nuclear components for test purposes. When the maintenance crews are confident, all systems are grow. The missile combat crew takes over, they wait in their underground launch control facility, rehearsing their intricate procedures, anticipating a no notice message to come from strategic air commands underground control center near Omaha, Nebraska. This time there are two-minute man missiles ready to test the salvo launch concept that could be employed should we ever go to war. In other words, the missiles don't necessarily go one at a time. They can go Hamas. These tests from Vandenberg and others from actual operational launch sites.

Keep our force planners convinced of the reliability of the minute-man solid-fueled missile system, and the important role it plays in our nation's policy of operating its military forces from a base of sufficient strength to deter any enemy from making an unwise move. We have planned well. One of our hip pocket options to complicate the enemy's task of covering our force is the airborne launch control center. Here, thousands of feet in the air and practically invulnerable to enemy missile attack is a sack minute-man launch control team. From here, the minute-man can be launched if the alternative should become necessary. What of the future? Soon to replace the early minute-man one missile is the advanced minute-man three. It can carry a larger warhead, one that incorporates multiple weapons, as well as penetration aids to hammer the enemy's warning and defense systems.

Minute-man three began tests in August 1968, and is now entering the acting force. What else in the future? We change missiles, we change our systems, but the wheat fields don't change. They remain constant. A symbol of the dedication of our people to peace. The co-occupation of the land, where stand our most devastating machines of war, speaks to the world of our dedication not only to peace, but to the resolve that this nation, under God, shall not perish from the earth.