Missile Sites

An abandoned outpost of the Cold War will soon be teeming with weapons again as the result of a City Council decision Wednesday. The Oat Mountain Nike Missile Site in the unincorporated foothills above Chatsworth was once one of 16 missile-control posts the Army built around Los Angeles to protect the city from Soviet attack. Now deserted, the 23-acre site is maintained by the city and occasionally used by the Police Department for Special Weapons and Tactics unit training.

Magic Mountain, a rugged peak rising out of the Angeles National Forest, is unknown to all but the most intrepid hikers. For good reason. The former Nike missile site -- not the amusement park of the same name -- is a Cold War remnant, one of 16 such outposts erected around Los Angeles during the 1950s as an air defense system. This battery, with its subterranean concrete missile silos, was built in 1955 and monitored by the Army until the '70s.

The Soviet Union notified Washington that two Soviet teams will inspect U.S. missile sites in Britain to verify terms of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Cmdr. Kendall Pease, spokesman for the U.S. On-Site Inspection Agency, said the Soviet teams will arrive at Greenham-Common Royal Air Force Base north of London today. The only other site in Britain subject to inspection under the treaty is at the Molesworth Royal Air Force Base. Two teams of U.S.

Richard Stephen Heyser, a U-2 spy plane pilot who took the first photos of ballistic missile launch sites during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, died Monday at a nursing home in Port St. Joe, Fla. He was 81. A resident of nearby Apalachicola, Fla., Heyser had suffered a series of strokes in recent years. The retired Air Force lieutenant colonel said in a 2005 interview with the Associated Press that no one was more relieved than he that the crisis ended peacefully.

There are a few points left out of the article by Bernstein on the Cuban missile crisis. Bernstein claims that "the missiles in Cuba did not tip the strategic balance against the United States" because the overall missile count still favored the United States, and because the Cuban missiles could not reach U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile silos. In fact, the Cuban missiles were a substantial advantage to the Soviet Union. Missiles launched from the Soviet Union take approximately 30 minutes to reach the United States.

Four and a half years after the first American medium-range missiles arrived at this sprawling air base amid violent protest and political nervousness, U.S. military officials are preparing to remove them. The first important step in the process could come as early as next month, with the arrival of Soviet inspection teams. Under the terms of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty completed June 1 in Moscow, which calls for the elimination of all U.S.

In the middle of a forest in Soviet Byelorussia, with nuclear-tipped SS-20 missiles looming nearby, sits a small outhouse newly made of fresh wood. A skirted figure on the door indicates that it was built for women--specifically, for American women serving with on-site inspection teams. When U.S. inspectors came to call, the Soviet commander said with a smile: "It's certainly not for my men. We have never had a woman in the area."

A couple of times a day, the ground around here quivers. The explosions roar on for minutes and clouds of smoke rise above the trees. It feels like the world is coming to an end, but the effect may be quite the opposite. The destruction of Pershing 2 missiles at the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant, in accordance with a U. S.-Soviet treaty, has been giving a literal twist to Karnack's reputation as a peaceful little town. "It will sound like a bunch of damn wind blowing, then a big ball of smoke will rise up from beyond those pines," said Greg Gary, who owns one of the two white frame service stations on the town square.

If the Soviet planes had come, our boys would have tried to shoot them down from this perch in the mountain scrub between Encino and Brentwood. On a clear day, it's a perfect place to view the San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles Basin and Santa Catalina Island. At the height of the Cold War, it was a perfect place for the U.S. Army to set up a high-tech radar center as part of the last line of defense against a nuclear bomber strike on Southern California.

The world was even closer to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 than has previously been thought, with warheads already on hand in Cuba for Soviet missiles targeted at Washington, New York and other major U.S. cities, according to fresh details of the crisis that emerged at an unprecedented meeting of the participants here Saturday. One of the potentially most surprising disclosures emerged during a lunch break in the formal sessions.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have detected suspicious vehicle movements at a major North Korean missile test site, a news report said today, amid lingering tensions over the country's weapons program. "Military intelligence officials have spotted movements by several large vehicles in the North's Gitdaeryeong area," South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, citing an unnamed government official.

A federal jury convicted three Roman Catholic nuns of defacing a missile silo by swinging hammers and painting crosses on it with their blood. Sisters Ardeth Platte, 66, Jackie Hudson, 68, and Carol Gilbert, 55, were arrested for breaking into a Minuteman III site Oct. 6. The nuns are antiwar protesters and said they were compelled to act as war with Iraq drew closer. The nuns face as many as 30 years in prison, but the lead prosecutor said it's unlikely they will receive the maximum penalty.

Warplanes from the U.S.-British coalition enforcing "no-fly" zones in Iraq struck a missile site Friday southeast of Baghdad. The Pentagon said Iraqi gunners had fired on coalition aircraft policing the zones 122 times since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein offered Sept. 16 to let U.N. weapons inspectors return.

The death of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty on Thursday cleared the way to begin digging interceptor silos in Alaska and for futuristic missile tests barred by the pact. A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled Saturday at Ft. Greely, Alaska, where President Bush plans a test facility that he hopes could also serve as an emergency defense by September 2004.

British Tornado warplanes bombed an antiaircraft missile site in southern Iraq, retaliating for "hostile activities" by Baghdad against planes patrolling a "no-fly" zone, a U.S. Air Force officer said. The attack targeted a position near Basra, 350 miles south of Baghdad, the capital, said Maj. Brett Morris, a Saudi-based spokesman for the allied mission. There was no immediate report on damage.

They were America's first sentries in the Cold War, built on hilltops and in Southland neighborhoods in an era when "duck and cover" became a classroom drill and children learned to recognize the flash of a nuclear explosion. Now, one of the last of 16 Nike missile sites dotting Orange and Los Angeles counties is being demolished this month.

A federal jury convicted three Roman Catholic nuns of defacing a missile silo by swinging hammers and painting crosses on it with their blood. Sisters Ardeth Platte, 66, Jackie Hudson, 68, and Carol Gilbert, 55, were arrested for breaking into a Minuteman III site Oct. 6. The nuns are antiwar protesters and said they were compelled to act as war with Iraq drew closer. The nuns face as many as 30 years in prison, but the lead prosecutor said it's unlikely they will receive the maximum penalty.

Sterling Software Inc. said Monday that it has agreed to relocate its information management group from Warner Center to a 135,000-square-foot building in West Hills on the site of a former missile plant. The software company signed a $35-million, 10-year lease after considering moving outside of Los Angeles to Calabasas, according to people familiar with negotiations.

An abandoned outpost of the Cold War will soon be teeming with weapons again as the result of a City Council decision Wednesday. The Oat Mountain Nike Missile Site in the unincorporated foothills above Chatsworth was once one of 16 missile-control posts the Army built around Los Angeles to protect the city from Soviet attack. Now deserted, the 23-acre site is maintained by the city and occasionally used by the Police Department for Special Weapons and Tactics unit training.