Camp Century : : The Untold Story of America's Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice.

At the height of the Cold War, the United States Army secretly began work on a base embedded deep in the Greenland ice cap: Camp Century. Officially defined as a scientific research station, this facility had an undisclosed purpose: to aim up to 600 nuclear warheads, buried in the ice, at the Soviet...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Columbia University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
Place / Publishing House:New York, NY : : Columbia University Press, , [2021]
©2021
Year of Publication:2021
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Other title:Frontmatter --
Contents --
Preface --
Introduction --
1. Fortress Greenland --
2. “The Concept of Atoms” in Greenland --
3. The City Under the Ice --
The Making of Camp Century: A Photographic Tour --
4. News from Greenland --
5. Scouting in the High Arctic --
6. U.S. Military R&D on the Northern Frontier --
7. The Cold War and Climate Research --
8. Leaving the Ice Sheet: A Lingering Farewell --
9. The Legacy of Camp Century --
Notes --
Archives --
References --
Image and Photo Credits --
Index
Summary:At the height of the Cold War, the United States Army secretly began work on a base embedded deep in the Greenland ice cap: Camp Century. Officially defined as a scientific research station, this facility had an undisclosed purpose: to aim up to 600 nuclear warheads, buried in the ice, at the Soviet Union. In 1966, just six years after the camp was established, the United States gave up this provocative strategy and abandoned the base. Despite its brief life, Camp Century has been the cause of controversies from diplomatic relations between the United States and its Arctic allies, Denmark and Greenland, to the risks of radioactive waste abandoned at the site.This book is the first comprehensive account of the U.S. Army’s “city under the ice.” Beginning with the Truman administration’s vision of military superiority in the Arctic and continuing through present-day concerns over the effects of climate change, Kristian H. Nielsen and Henry Nielsen unravel the extraordinary history of this clandestine installation. Drawing on sources including top-secret memos and never-before-seen photographic evidence, they follow the intertwining threads of high-level politics, ice-core research, media representations, daily life beneath the ice, and the specter of long-buried environmental problems that will one day resurface. Camp Century reveals a hidden chapter of Cold War history—and why, as the Greenland ice cap slowly melts, this story is not yet over.
Format:Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
ISBN:9780231554251
9783110739077
9783110754001
9783110753776
9783110754087
9783110753851
DOI:10.7312/niel20176
Access:restricted access
Hierarchical level:Monograph