Post contributed by AHC Writer Kathryn Billington.

Near the end of 1957, Cheyenne’s Warren Air Force Base (WAFB) was chosen to become the nation’s first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) base and home of the Atlas missile.

The Cold War nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union was well underway and sparsely populated eastern Wyoming had the geology and wide-open spaces ideally suited to house nuclear weapons. When groundbreaking ceremonies were held at WAFB, military brass, including General Nathan Twining, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was in attendance. Governor Milward Simpson and U.S. Senator Frank Barrett were there as well. A lone protester, Cheyenne housewife Margaret Laybourn, picketed in Cheyenne’s Frontier Park. According to newspaper reports at the time, the mother of six said, “There’s no possible defense from it [nuclear weapons].”

A few peace activists from outside the state traveled to Cheyenne with the objective of building a local movement against nuclear weapons. It was an uphill battle. Only one of the thirteen Cheyenne ministers they approached agreed to say something from the pulpit about the nuclear arms race. After attempts at non-violent resistance and sit-ins, several of the activists were arrested. Their actions did little to deter construction of Atlas missile sites in private agricultural lands north and east of WAFB. Locals knew that were it not for the missiles, the base was in danger of being closed. But Cheyenne and the surrounding area was now a target for military strategists in the Soviet Union.

Practically as soon as the Atlas sites were operational, the Air Force determined them to be too vulnerable to potential Soviet attack. Construction of Minuteman I missile sites soon followed. The project promised to bring 2,000 construction jobs and 500 additional military personnel to Cheyenne and the neighboring area. Missile technology continued to evolve and by 1973, the missiles from Wyoming being aimed at the Soviet Union were the Minuteman III.

A further iteration of the American ICBM was the MX, short for “Missile Experimental.” The Air Force named it the Peacekeeper. An MX was 71 feet long, over 7 feet wide, and weighed in at 192,000 pounds. A single MX had 10 individual war heads, each carrying an explosive power equivalent to 23 Hiroshima bombs. The long-distance capabilities and extreme accuracy of the MX meant that Soviet ICBMs in their silos were now at risk. Opponents of the MX pointed out that this made the MX a potential offensive first-strike weapon and was an ominous new escalation of the Cold War.

The Air Force considered locating MX launch sites in the deserts of Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico and the high plains of Wyoming. But nationwide, opposition to the MX had grown. A coalition of pro-arms control, environmental and religious organizations was pitted against the Reagan Administration, Pentagon officials and military contractors. Utah Governor Scott Matheson told a congressional committee that “The fragile ecosystem of the Utah-Nevada Great Basin Desert will cease to exist if MX is deployed.”

There were some in Wyoming who objected to the MX as well. Lindi Kirkbride, a rancher whose land housed three Minuteman sites north of Cheyenne, had become a spokesperson for Wyoming Against MX. Its 60 members included farmers, ranchers, environmentalists, teachers and religious leaders. Former Cheyenne East high school history teacher Sydney Speigel was the group’s press secretary. Catholic Sister Frances Russell coordinated the Tri-State MX Coalition which represented individuals in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado united against land deployment of the MX. Bishop Joseph Hart called on Wyoming’s 60,000 Catholics to oppose further nuclear arms development, including the MX missile.

Wyoming government officials held a more nuanced position. They knew the decision about whether and how many of the MX missiles would be in placed Wyoming belonged to the secretary of defense and the president. The governor, Ed Herschler didn’t actively object to siting MX missiles in Wyoming, noting it would probably make little difference to the residents of the state since, “You’re just as dead if they [the Soviet Union] were shooting at a Minuteman as an MX.” He also remarked, “I don’t think we can be so provincial as to say, well, we need a defense mechanism to protect the people of the United States, and perhaps even world peace, that we can be so provincial to say, well, we just don’t want it in Wyoming because we would be accelerating the arms race.”

A decision was finally reached in Washington D.C. On November 22, 1982, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech to the nation, announcing that MX missiles would be sited in Wyoming.

Less than a month later, Governor Herschler and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger signed an agreement regarding the location of MX missiles Wyoming.

By May of 1983, Congress had approved funding of a plan to develop and place new MX missiles in retrofitted Minuteman silos.

Even as work on missile silos in Wyoming continued, so did protests. In Cheyenne, in 1985, a group of about 70 walked from the state Capitol to WAFB in protest of the MX missile. A few risked arrests for crossing onto base property. MX missile opponents pointed out that residents of Wyoming would be paying $2 in taxes to support the MX missile program for every $1 of benefit to the economy of Cheyenne.

Despite the protests, most of the citizens of Wyoming supported the MX. They, like some of the ranchers who had missile sites on their land, believed in peace through strength. In 1986, the first MX missile in Wyoming became operational. Its launch site was not far from the original Atlas Site A.

Years passed. The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the Cold War thawed. Arms control treaties were negotiated, and Wyoming’s MX missiles were retired and decommissioned in 2005. Today, WAFB remains the headquarters for 150 Minuteman III missiles and launch facilities deployed in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska.

More information about the U.S. Air Force’s missile programs in Wyoming can be found in the Philip White papers at the American Heritage Center. White was a staff writer for the Casper Star-Tribune newspaper and covered the controversy surrounding installation of MX missiles in Wyoming. Included in his collection are missile-related technical drawings, reports, drafts of articles by White, and published newspaper articles.