GUIDED MISSILE TOUR
Katt, Barb & Laforge, John
A Guided Missile Tour TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY KATT AND JOHN LaFORGE Tower City, North Dakota December 8,1987 Fog obscured the outlines of our first missile silo. The sun never really rose, the...
...You can't see the half of it," one attendant told us...
...The Zell family farms the land surrounding missile silo P-l...
...The guards on the silo took defensive positions, kneeling with their rifles, while a security team awaited us at the access road...
...We got an ice-cold, stone-faced reception John LaForge writes 'No More War' and 'Feed the World' on a munitions bunker in Bronson, Nebraska...
...One day, near the town of Inkster, John approached the fence to get a closer look at the goings-on at missile silo G-16...
...The bunker that might someday launch the ultimate war this night was decorated for the Prince of Peace...
...The flat-sided cars—not much bigger than pickup trucks—are painted olive drab...
...We walked around the fenced enclosure, leaving our footprints in the snow and mud, peering through the wires at the humming thing inside...
...Tomorrow we were due in Omaha for a demonstration at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command—nerve center for the missile fields...
...As we approached the likely area, we saw Christmas lights in the windows of a well-lit building in the distance...
...Before leaving, in what would become a ritual for us, we burned a sprig of sage, an herb traditionally employed to cleanse and purify...
...Or could it be a cry of pain from the weight of this dreadful crown...
...Driving slowly, we stopped in front of the young men in camouflage uniforms long enough to snap a photo...
...They've been working on this silo for a week," she said, pointing to another place on the map...
...Several times he was required to uproot fruit trees planted over cables leading to the silo...
...Whenever we spotted a boxy green armored car— a peacekeeper vehicle—we knew a payload transporter, carrying nuclear warheads to or from a silo, was not far away...
...The rock crags and shelves surrounding the nests were littered with the remains of many an eagle meal: gopher and rabbit bones, skulls, femurs, spinal columns, jaws, feet, pelvises...
...A smaller sign said Warning: Radio Frequency Radiation Hazard...
...The rubber tires are solid, rather than inflated, so the enemy can't shoot them out...
...John asked...
...Tons of steel and concrete were brought in for reinforcement...
...Even after dozens of such meetings, neither of us could overcome the fear and revulsion that accompanied our encounters with the Air Force's payload transporters—on busy highways, on the streets of small towns, and sometimes poised above the tip of a Minuteman missile...
...It was one of twenty-eight silos and three launch-control centers we saw on our first day...
...With any luck we would be there in time...
...You took some pictures of a sensitive operation this afternoon...
...They love 'em," the waitress replied...
...We remembered the words of the school bus driver pleased with the smoothness of the roads near the missile silos, of the waitress thankful for the new jobs, of a teacher who remarked to us, off-hand-edly, "Well, if anything happens, at least I'm toast...
...A third sign appeared on all four sides of the facility...
...He was friendly...
...The gate is chained and padlocked...
...Could we have the film from your camera...
...The concrete and steel walls were three feet thick...
...Little Horse Creek, Wyoming April 8 Last on our list of missile silos to check were the fifty in Wyoming—Flights P, Q, R, S, and T—where the Boeing Corporation, under contract to the Air Force, has been replacing Minuteman with MX...
...A huge warehouse-sized structure three stories high loomed for miles in the range-land north of Great Falls, Montana...
...We liked to share hot coffee from the thermos and read the morning paper to each other during the long cold drives to the first missile...
...Its bold red letters warned us that this was a Restricted Area, that it was unlawful to enter without permission of the Installation Commander, and that while on the installation all personnel and their property were subject to search...
...But no one attempted to interfere with us...
...We explained, and she pointed out her home on our map...
...They are prominently featured at the Strategic Air Command museum in Bellevue, Nebraska, and on the road approaching SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, where a stained-glass window in the chapel depicts a tumultuous scene: the President's red telephone, Air Force bombers, a mushroom cloud, and an adoring pilot calling out, as in the Bible, "Send me, Lord...
...The stench of natural gas filled the air and oil rigs were everywhere on our way to missile silo 0-5, also known as "Oil Can Harry...
...The nonchalant security team let us take all the pictures we wanted and then advised us helpfully to call the Air Force public-relations office for more information...
...The teacher...
...Are we going to have a protest...
...The roads with the missiles on them are a lot better maintained...
...We ourselves...
...Amidst unimaginable destructive power, the illusion of normality is tightly held...
...Cables snaked their way across the ground, connecting the trailers to a long barrel, looking somewhat like a cannon, pointed skyward...
...They behaved, strangely, as though we weren't there...
...He almost blocked our exit route...
...We decided to verify the location of Charlie Zero that night...
...The plateaus were semi-arid, and where a plow had broken the sod the topsoil was blowing away—great drifts of it—into the ditches...
...We would tell them we were checking missile silos—and we would show them our map...
...Seeing us, a second armed guard ran between two Air Force trucks, calling to the workers and manipulating his hand radio...
...We found a rural elementary school in session just a thousand yards from missile silo J-6, where a work crew was transferring nuclear warheads from a payload transporter as casually as though they were sacks of potatoes...
...They had never seen a missile silo...
...A jackknife from a hitchhiker in Montana, a handmade doll from a friend in Kansas City, pine cones from the Black Hills, bones and feathers from the eagle's nest, a dozen other trinkets...
...This article is adapted from their report, published this fall in "Nuclear Heartland," by Nuke-watch, 315 W. Gorham Street, Madison, WI53703...
...Clouds of dust blotted out the sun...
...Barb walked over to where the two young men sat stone-faced and motioned to them to open their window...
...The sensor of D-38 was a tall white pole with a conical tip...
...Barb offered him a silo map and explained our project...
...Sometimes gas-station attendants would ask us what we were doing out here...
...Murphy lost the case...
...His headdress is a white, three-stage rocket—a bonnet of feathered nuclear missiles...
...Then we heard another guard say, "Call the marshal...
...I know...
...We shook hands and explained our interest in the silo on his land...
...We decided it was time to leave...
...The giant art works are an Indian medicine wheel, an ecology symbol, and a peace sign...
...But within an hour, a peacekeeper vehicle was crowding our rearview mirror...
...The occupants peer through narrow slits...
...Nervously, Barb explained our project...
...The tight-lipped guard just smiled...
...With the concrete lid rolled out of the way, crews inside the trailer have free access to the missile's nose cone and thermonuclear payload...
...Of almost a thousand nuclear missile silos we'd seen in four months, this was the first one we'd found with the lid open...
...he asked with a grin...
...Large, bug-eyed headlights glare, even in the brightest weather...
...Let's go," John said, loud enough for all to hear...
...Just then an Air Force truck stopped behind our car and an officer, with binoculars facing in our direction, cried out, "There they are...
...You must be selling something," said Earl Murphy as we approached...
...Then came a legal order forbidding him to put up a building in a place he had leveled and landscaped...
...We waved and left...
...We drove away a bit unnerved, wondering if the marshals would soon be on our tail...
...Designated officially as a "Minuteman Payload Transporter," a vehicle such as this looks much like other eighteen-wheelers except for the bold, diagonal black stripes on the rear doors...
...Security guards clambered from their armored trucks, some shouldering automatic rifles...
...Come here," she commanded...
...We found the owner of the land working nearby, tending fruit trees...
...Here in Dahlen, near launch site G-20, we found little more than railroad tracks, a grain elevator, a few houses, and a row of shops that had been boarded up or left open and empty, their windows broken...
...Across the road is a small abandoned house with a south-facing porch...
...It quickly dawned on us what was happening at B-20...
...Everywhere we went, the Air Force went too, even waiting outside a restaurant while we ordered pizza...
...So many have been torn down you can't even imagine how many little farms there used to be out there...
...Maintenance vehicles—invariably dark blue with gold lettering on the doors—ranged in size from pickups to bread trucks...
...We visited twenty-four missile silos today, all silhouetted by the Black Hills on the distant southern horizon...
...The open silo lid was one of many anomalies we encountered in missile-silo country...
...His mouth is open in a yell, or possibly a war whoop...
...He seemed to be telling them to hide...
...This afternoon we drove out to N-l 1, near Odessa, Missouri, with Ursula and Martin Braun, two young West German volunteers at Shalom House, a Catholic Worker House in Kansas City, Kansas...
...Kammerer, a "rancher for peace," has long opposed the military presence in South Dakota...
...its underground sabers...
...We shut off the car motor and for a minute just sat there staring...
...Soon the Air Force told him it wouldn't allow trees to be planted so close by—"snipers could hide in them...
...We ignored him, maneuvering instead for a better shot of the Minuteman payload transporter parked on the silo...
...The big metal doors had been removed, leaving the building to the pigeons...
...Then we heard the radio operator ask, "Should we call this in...
...We laughed to see the launch site emerge slowly from the retreating mist...
...Our mood lightened, and we celebrated...
...What caught our attention were the garish insignia on these vehicles...
...Mount Carmel, North Dakota December 14 Here, just a few miles from the Canadian border, we met the U.S...
...At silo N-5, just off highway 1-70 east of Kansas City, we encountered our first PMT—the "Periodic Maintenance Team" trailers with which the Air Force polishes Boeing employees work on a silo hatchcover at a missile range east of Lewistown, Montana...
...Missiles are displayed proudly in most of the missile-silo fields...
...Then he wanted our names and some identification...
...Trailers with two huge rotating satellite dishes were parked near five trailers sprouting oddly shaped antennae...
...from the driver of an Air Force maintenance truck, with five guards aboard, who discovered us parked near the gate of missile silo F-5...
...We had a long way to go still...
...No one was present at silo S-4 when we arrived on a Sunday afternoon...
...The Air Force crews who tend the instruments of destruction...
...There's quite a large number of us here, and we have done sermons on these silos...
...On this year's spring equinox, we gathered there with thirty people—as many children as adults...
...While John backed our car up in preparation for a getaway, Barb approached the Air Force truck, trying to be friendly...
...T-3...
...On top is a round hatch cover that opens behind a flip-up shield notched for a rifle...
...Ma'am...
...So we set our minds to looking for "C-0" (Charlie Zero), one of the fifteen launch-control centers, each controlling ten missiles, in the 150-missile Grand Forks Air Force Base complex...
...The Minuteman missile system has cost over $ 13 billion to date...
...We poked through the small concrete rooms lining one wall, examining the shelves and bunks and other fixtures that never had been put to use...
...It followed us from town to town and from silo to silo...
...Eight silos and several hours later, we stopped for a nap in a small meadow under a rugged yellow butte...
...Brings in jobs...
...She tells us she remembers watching the Air Force put in G-20...
...On the silo itself, a flurry of activity was taking place around a large, white semitrailer...
...We were beginning to notice subtle differences in the poles, gauges, and other machinery that gird the massive concrete lid of an underground missile silo...
...That's an historic peace church...
...Just then, two maintenance workers crawled out of the silo hatch...
...I'm a member of the Church of the Brethren...
...Murphy told us how he took possession of the land in 1986 and began planting an orchard of several thousand trees...
...Yes ma'am" was the only response...
...We rattled the gate of D-38 and left some sage to purify the ground...
...We gave him a map and our names but refused to produce I.D...
...The sight of such chaos in the presence of an ICBM was so unusual that we got out of the car to take pictures...
...The low hum of the air-conditioner makes it sound as if the rocket itself, anchored five stories below ground, is ready to take off...
...Evidently we were noticed from a long way off...
...The last silo...
...I drive by there every day...
...Occasionally we would remark on the hundreds of empty farm houses in this part of the country...
...Seeing us return unexpectedly, they backed up hurriedly, turned around, and disappeared into the night...
...But what was funny...
...We learned from Marvin Kammerer, who ranches at the end of the Ellsworth Air Force Base runway, that the equipment was for monitoring practice bombing missions...
...We lit some sage and sat a long while in silence...
...Who is responsible for the thing that could happen...
...Use of Deadly Force Authorized...
...At a Presbyterian church here we heard a message from Father George Zebelka, spiritual adviser to Catholic crew members of the plane that bombed Hiroshima...
...The trailer is fitted with hinged panels which cover the silo lid when the vehicle is parked directly above it...
...We took pictures as the guards stood watching, feet set apart, rifle butts on their hips, barrels aimed skyward...
...We drove away wondering what sort of diabolical space-age weaponry we'd found...
...He said, "We must stop making war respectable...
...Covered Barb Katt and John LaForge, Minnesota peace activists, recently completed a 50,000-mile, 125-day expedition to map 1,000 Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile launch sites and 100 launch-control centers scattered over seven states in the Middle West and Great Plains...
...If the Air Force sometimes made us nervous, the opposite was also true...
...From inside the silo fence, the guard gripped his M-16 rifle and declared, "Not on this property, you don't...
...Feeling like grave robbers, we left with enough skeleta to mark silo F-6 with a skull and crossbones...
...Now we must break through this respectability...
...More menacing than a Brinks truck, less imposing than a Sherman tank, these odd hybrids look incongruous at the Dairy Queens and on the back roads of rural North Dakota...
...We laid out the red cloth and arranged the pieces picked up on our 30,000-mile journey, reminding ourselves of when and where we had found each one...
...The pomp and ceremony in Washington contrasted ironically with the grim and unadorned reality that surrounded us that day in the missile fields of the "Peace Garden State...
...Union, North Dakota December 13 The sun had set, and it was too dark to find more silos...
...The Air Force had no legal grounds for confiscating our film, and we would not turn it over, so the young man asked for a missile silo map...
...A banner on the silo fence proclaimed, Papa-1 is a noxious weed...
...As an adolescent, Zane had not wanted his parents to sell the land to the Air Force for a missile silo...
...First we encountered two armored cars—what Radar detectors and the lid of a missile silo amid the Badlands of South Dakota...
...While we pulled up to the pump, the truck crew parked across the lot, pretending to look the other way...
...I'm in favor of a strong defense, but these silos are way more than we need...
...woman in camouflage gear slung a rifle over her shoulder and trotted to the gate...
...The protests at P-l have continued over the years...
...Barbara Mishler, a friend now living in Minneapolis, used to spend summers here, helping with chores and hanging around the elevator...
...But before going, John asked a question: "Changing the old warhead, eh...
...Air Force...
...As luck would have it, our return route took us past 0-5 again about half an hour later...
...A dozen squared pillars, part of an unfinished fourth story, rose above the flat-roofed building...
...The single poorest, with a per-capita income of $3,244, is Shannon County, "just south of a cluster of Minuteman silos...
...No dogs...
...The land next to D-4 near Tipton was strewn with farm machinery, some of it impeding the Air Force's access to the silo...
...The lights of the base shine through Kammerer's windows at night, and the windows rattle as the bombers circle...
...We left shortly, thinking no more of what we'd seen...
...After we had walked around the installation, Ursula remarked in astonishment, "This is it...
...We drove away, trying to imagine what it must be like to keep a nuclear missile in good working order...
...In Missouri, these semi-truck and trailer rigs were everywhere...
...We often saw deer and antelope grazing placidly near the silo fence...
...John clapped his hands to hear the echo, and a golden eagle swooped down on us and disappeared behind the butte...
...A payload transporter and two support vehicles were on top of the silo, so we stopped to take pictures...
...We had heard the silo was haunted by the spirit of an Indian woman who makes herself visible to Air Force personnel...
...The images invoked by monuments to death and waste were dissolved that evening by the vigorous expressions of fife that greeted us when we arrived at the home of Gloria and Zane Zell and their five children near Shelby...
...One sign on the fence said simply No Smoking...
...Another read M-24—the Air Force's official designation for the missile and its nuclear payload, one of ten fired by underground cable from a launch-control center about twenty-five miles away...
...The Lakota Times reported that nine of the twenty-four poorest counties in the United States are in South Dakota...
...We found cranes, trucks, trailers, buses, vans, and bulldozers assembled for the building of a deadly new missile system...
...The case went to court, testing an Air Force rule disalRemains of an Anti-Ballistic Missile site, abandoned in the 1970s before completion, near Great Falls, Montana...
...We pulled up to silo D-38 as our car radio was broadcasting news of the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty...
...Walkie-talkies crackled...
...I live here," John said, referring to the planet Earth...
...Miles of wiring were laid, and finally a big truck with hydraulic lifts slid the missile into its hole—an open wound in the land she loved...
...But, while pondering the terms of surrender, we realized that the attention of the two Air Force men had been focused not on us but on two golden eagle nests built into the cliffs just above us...
...The sun never really rose, the sky just got a little lighter...
...We had come upon the remains of an Anti-Ballistic Missile site, abandoned in the 1970s even before it was completed...
...We drove past with a friendly wave while the security vehicle fell in behind us, beginning a pursuit that lasted the rest of the day and into the evening...
...Our car had Minnesota license plates...
...The security truck followed us that night to the American Legion hall here, where we attended an Air Force hearing on missile silo underground cable-splicing operations scheduled for that area...
...In South Dakota, we read that state and Federal officials were haggling over a couple of hundred million dollars to be paid to the Sioux Nation for what the Supreme Court ruled was the illegal confiscation of the Black Hills...
...There's no way to beat the Air Force...
...Surrounding each launch site is an eight-foot chain-link fence, topped with three strands of barbed wire, enclosing a graveled lot just large enough to let a helicopter land within...
...A dome covered part of the installation...
...The waitress...
...But after much anguish, he and the Air Force had come to an uneasy truce which allowed the trees and pond to stay...
...He seemed puzzled and hurt...
...Two others blocked the gravel access road near the silo gate...
...With every silo we left humming, every missile we left undisturbed, we had to acknowledge our own complicity...
...Over the next few months, we would encounter many a launch-control crew, shoveling snow, playing basketball, or looking at us looking at them through binoculars...
...Our hearts sank...
...Radiation in this area may exceed hazard limitations and special precautions are required...
...A large sign read United States Air Force...
...Leaving the meeting momentarily to retrieve something from our car, we caught the Air Force cops shining a flashlight in the front seat...
...The glory and respectability of war are widely reflected throughout the missile-silo country...
...The armored truck stayed on our tail for another fifty miles to a gas station in Har-risonville...
...On the door of an MX construction trailer at a silo soon to house this monstrous new weapon, we noticed a sign that said, Danger—Microwave Oven in Use...
...They looked like sky divers in their orange jump harnesses over one-piece suits...
...Protruding from the base of each silo lid are two steel rails to guide the 120-ton cover clear of the silo shaft for maintenance work or when an explosive charge is fired prior to launching...
...We've made it not only respectable but an honorable Christian profession: glorious, wonderful, and profitable...
...At the end of the Ellsworth runway he and other activists have created three huge symbols from painted rocks, clearly visible to Air Force pilots...
...From the Wyoming hills, graders have carved broad new highways for giant tractor-trailers to deliver the seventy-foot rockets to their fortresses...
...The only people who would walk out this far in mud have got to be selling something...
...Silo I-10 stood humming across the road as we spoke with him across his barbed wire fence...
...Land owned by the Air Force extends only twenty-five feet out from the silo fence...
...Combat Evaluation...
...The profusion of trailers and construction gear clustered around silos in this area told us which ones still were in the process of being converted to MX...
...When the engineers arrived to prepare the land for silo construction, he had pulled up the survey stakes...
...Someone had painted a human shadow on the wall and scrawled this message: A 272 million dollar monument to America's stupidity...
...We thought of throwing something into the hole, to undo the preparations for MX, but an Air Force helicopter whirred overhead, and we let the thought pass...
...Half a mile from L-ll we found another payload transporter, swarming with security guards...
...You could tell from its coating of dust and dirt that it traveled back roads...
...We sat there, soaking up the sun and imagining what it would be like to live so near an ICBM...
...In Germany it wouldn't remain undamaged for long...
...We laughed at ourselves, then climbed up to explore the nests...
...I used to garden next to that silo, but I didn't like the herbicide they use on the silo so close to my food...
...The warmth of the smooth cliff faces and the fresh scent of the pine trees left us unprepared for the sterile superstructure of missile silo A-5, the ICBM we found buried in the valley floor...
...the Strategic Air Command calls "peacekeeper vehicles...
...At one such site, we slipped into a port-a-potty and left a sticker with crossed Soviet and American flags...
...An airArmored cars and Minuteman Payload Transporters on the High Plains Missile Field in Wyoming...
...No, I don't think so," Barb replied...
...The purpose of the 1,200-foot rule is to protect the Air Force from liability claims arising out of damage or injury from the fiery exhaust of a Minuteman missile in the event of a launch...
...At the Bohemian Corners cafe, where the walls of the entryway are covered with auction notices, a waitress poured our coffee and asked, "What are you kids doing around here...
...Launch-control centers are built to blend into the countryside...
...At missile silo L-10, a young Air Force guard in camouflage suit and black beret ordered us to stop taking pictures...
...lowing structures within 1,200 feet of a Minuteman silo...
...Hundreds of golden and bald eagles had been migrating through this area, feeding on gophers...
...Above ground, they pass at first glance for ranch-style houses whose owners are partial to chain-link fences, elaborate radio towers, and plenty of outdoor lighting...
...A crew of two works a twenty-four-hour shift at each control center...
...The man on the passenger side slung a rifle over his shoulder and got out of the truck...
...A heavy, perforated, V-shaped bumper juts out in front of the grill like a battering ram...
...A golden eagle perched on a fence post near the first silo of the day...
...But, close up, there is no mistaking their military purpose...
...We drove down a long, beautiful canyon carved by Maiden Creek...
...A huge earth-mover drilled out the core...
...Then we brought out lunch...
...How do people here feel about living around all these silos...
...The two armored trucks guarded the highway about a fifth of a mile from our destination—missile silo B-20...
...A guard asked, "What business do you have here...
...These majestic avenues, freshly striped and studded with brightly shining reflectors at each curve, end abruptly at the silo gates...
...We were amazed...
...But Murphy maintained he'd received verbal permission from the Air Force to build...
...He was also told he would have to move his irrigation pond-snipers again...
...We walked around the silo, shaking the chains on the gate, leaving drawings made by the children, burning sage, venting our anger...
...It read, Peace on Earth...
...Circular hatches in the concrete superstructure allow access to the silo chamber and an adjacent utility room containing an air-conditioning unit set to keep the underground temperature a constant sixty-nine degrees Fahrenheit...
...with red cloth, it would come to hold stones, feathers, pine cones, bones, and other mementos of our four-month exploration of the thousand intercontinental ballistic missile silos of the Strategic Air Command...
...No guards...
...Then we gathered the things off the dashboard and took some food to go sit by the missile...
...A guard approached our car...
...Back at the car, we were joined by the young Air Force guard...
...Since we'd parked within the Air Force's twenty-five-foot "clear zone" skirting the silo fence, we were concerned about being arrested, as others have been for getting too close to missile silos...
...The dashboard of our secondhand Ford Escort was our altar...
...We could see that the trap door under this trailer was wide open...
...I drive a school bus, and I pass a lot of those silos...
...We tied the silo gate shut with yarn and wove a peace sign into the fence...
...Half a mile west of launch-control center L-l, we came upon ah unsettling assortment of high-tech equipment painted stark white...
...We came to recognize Air Force vehicles because they were generally similar from one silo field to the next, and we were by now familiar with their functions...
...In Kimball, Nebraska, which calls itself "Missile Center U.S.A.," we found the town's tallest structure, high above a canopy of trees as you enter from the east, to be a Klieg-lit Titan IICBM standing boldly in the city park...
...Our conversations with the Air Force often followed that pattern: a series of their commands and our polite refusals...
...Later that morning we met Ethmer Er-iesmen, out chopping a hole through the pond ice so his cows could drink...
...Drawing closer, we found the object of our search...
...We just want to see what it is you got on film, and we'll send back the negatives of everything that isn't restricted...
...Pistols on their hips, the commander and deputy commander occupy seats at a console in a concrete bunker deep underground, ready to turn keys that can launch nuclear war on thirty-one seconds' notice...
...Merry Christmas...
...On the side of each trailer, facing forward, is the profile of an American Indian...
...Missile silo D-10 is nestled among rolling hills covered with mixed hardwoods, mostly oak, and a few ancient pines that grew close to the silo fence...
Vol. 52 • October 1988 • No. 10
