Anti-communism is, for the ruling class, a gift that never stops giving, but for the rest of us, a danger that never stops growing. The form it took in the 1960s was anti-Sovietism, which was used to justify deployment of deadly nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles in silos across much of the United States, but concentrated heavily in the Great Plains and the northern part of the United States.
The missiles, placed in silos that were supposed to keep the missiles themselves and us “safe,” were positioned so that the only thing between them and the Soviet Union was Canada. The idea was that, when launched, they would be fired north, over the North Pole, so they could quickly reach and destroy the world’s first and most powerful socialist country. This, Americans were told, was critical to making us safe.
What we were not told was that 65 or more years later, today, the people of the United States would be in real danger from these missiles and silos. The silos are not like old furniture or old containers you store away in a closet and forget for years. They require care and attention so that their volatile contents don’t end up killing the people who work in and around the silos, not to mention millions of people living in the regions where they were placed.
Locations like Montana and North Dakota, for example, are often touted as locations free of many of the environmental dangers and threats that face other industrialized parts of the country. In reality, those silos and their contents, put there 65 years ago to protect us from “the Russians,” are a clear and present danger to the people in rural as well as other states.
Cracks and leaks in the contraptions are worsening, toxic liquids are reportedly pooling on the bottom of the silos, computers that control how and when the nukes are launched are overheating, and the military and civilian personnel working in them are getting sick and dying from various types of cancer.
Many of these problems were cited in Associated Press articles one and two years ago.
In order to solve the problem, the Pentagon set up its Sentinel Program, a fund into which it put $77.7 billion. The fund, meant to “protect” the weapons, is out of reach to any and all elected officials. Only the Pentagon and the President can touch it. President Trump has indeed raided the fund recently, but not to make anyone living near the silos safe.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has handed Trump $972 million to use to modernize the allegedly “free” airplane he got recently from Qatar. It is reported that Trump is adding to the extensive gold plating that is already present in the airplane he claimed would cost taxpayers nothing.
Chalk up another after-effect of the anti-Sovietism of the 1960s: It led to the establishment of a Pentagon fund that the most corrupt administration in U.S. history would use, 65 years later, to enrich itself and add to its own pleasures.
While everyone presumably can agree that you can’t just let the silos sit there unattended, it would be better if most people could agree that we don’t need nuclear weapons at all, especially in numbers that allow the destruction of the world many times over. The Union of Atomic Scientists says the clock gauging the possibility of nuclear war is closer now than ever to midnight. There should be widespread agreement that unilateral cancellation of nuclear arms deals between Russia and the United States by the United States should be reversed.
The AP reported a year ago on some of the toxic risks in the underground silos. Among them were dark liquids pooling on the floors, computer displays that were overheating, a lack of fresh air, and smells that were nauseating crews. The problems were listed in documents AP obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The AP reported that at least nine current or former missile officers had been diagnosed with the blood cancer non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The New York Times confirmed early this week that $934 million had been transferred by Hegseth out of the Pentagon’s $77.7 billion “nuclear modernization” program into the Trump airplane improvement fund. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow mentioned that report this week and criticized the administration for using nuclear safety funds to add to the luxury of a plane that will become the president’s personal property after he leaves office.
Maddow said Trump is “diverting $934 million in taxpayer funds from the Pentagon for nuclear weapons safety to instead making sure he gets the gold inlay he knows he deserves, on the plane he intends to take with him when he goes.” She said it puts him in line with other authoritarians who have an affinity for luxury over government.
The anti communists of the 1960s saddled the American people with nuclear missiles and silos that endanger us to this day. By listening to the anti-communists today, we have ended up with a White House inhabited by a dangerous fascist who loves airplanes with golden toilets.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views represented here are those of the author.
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