Camp Century

Kristian H. Nielsen is associate professor at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University. He is coeditor of Scientists and Scholars in the Field: Studies in the History of Fieldwork and Expeditions (2012) Henry Nielsen is associate professor emeritus at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University. With Kristian H. Nielsen and others, he is coauthor of Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice (2016) and Science in Denmark: A Thousand-Year History (2008).

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.

PrefaceIntroduction1. Fortress Greenland2. "The Concept of Atoms" in Greenland3. The City Under the IceThe Making of Camp Century: A Photographic Tour4. News from Greenland5. Scouting in the High Arctic6. U.S. Military R&D on the Northern Frontier7. The Cold War and Climate Research8. Leaving the Ice Sheet: A Lingering Farewell9. The Legacy of Camp CenturyNotesArchivesReferencesImage and Photo CreditsIndex