Location of 18 ICBM Sites Relative to Tucson and Major Highways [Print Block]

A ‘Ring of Fire’ around Tucson.

This rather bleak assessment of the U.S. Cold-War nuclear capabilities was created anonymously for use in an unknown publication – possibly part of the anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Tucson, Arizona, is situated in the center of a fifty-mile radius, in which the locations of eighteen different ICBM sites are pinpointed and numbered.

These fortified underground bunkers each contained a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile, which carried one of the largest nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal (9 megatons). Operations were overseen by the 390th Strategic Missile Wing based at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The dispersion pattern depicted on the map/print block was to ensure the possibility of a retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union. Little Rock and Wichita also had similar installations as part of the Cold War era strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction. While 17 of these 18 sites were decommissioned and sealed during the 1980s, one silo was preserved and remains accessible to the public as the Titan Missile Museum.