Atomic bomb tests, like Operation Cue, continued in the Western desert, putting numbers on the destruction.Training of the bomber crews was stepped up. The Strategic Air Command headquarters outside of Omaha was given the power to command new missile deployments as well as the atomic bombers.By 1960, America's first ICBMs, the Atlas rockets, were being "planted" in underground silos across the U.S., mostly in rural areas away from population centers. The Minuteman missile development program went from $50- to $140 million. The budget for space and rocket research went from half-a-billion dollars to over $10.5 billion in 1958. Almost overnight, the federal government moved to close the missile gap.The feeling of living at Ground Zero was a powerful motivator for all kinds of changes. Since those bases were spread all across the country, all of us were at Ground Zero moments away from destruction. Americans learned that the Russians were logically targeting every military base in the U.S. Ground Zero began as a military term for the targeting point of a nuclear bomb, the point of maximum destruction. Must Catch Up with Reds or We're Dead."Īmericans in all walks of life began learning the macabre vocabulary of the Cold War DEW lines of radar, kilotons and megatons of destructive power, radioactive fallout, and the most ominous of all, Ground Zero. Headlines in American newspapers screamed, "U.S. Now, all of a sudden, a missile traveling at 15,000 miles per hour over twice as fast as a bomber could attack America with only 15 to 30 minutes warning. Americans knew we had our own atomic and hydrogen bombs on bombers and that radar would give us hours of warning if the Russians decided to attack. But jet bombers carried those weapons, and they traveled at 600 miles an hour. Russia had joined the nuclear club when it exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949 and the more-powerful hydrogen bomb in 1953.
One Russian scientist told reporters, "Americans design better automobile tailfins, but we design the best intercontinental ballistic missiles and earth satellites." Those were frightening words for Americans because rockets that could launch satellites could also deliver atomic bombs. The Russians confirmed the report and said the satellite was named Sputnik. Within hours the news broke that the signal was coming from a Soviet satellite in orbit around the earth. Some of the ham operators recorded the signal. were surprised to hear a mechanical "beep beep beep" on a lower frequency of the radio band. On October 4, 1957, amateur radio operators in the eastern U.S. Living at Ground Zero during the 1950s and 60s
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