The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (NHS), (established by Congress in 1999) near Wall, South Dakota, is a stark example of propaganda disguised as history. Dedicated to the Cold War and the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the site covertly minimizes U.S. imperialism under the guise of preserving history. It maintains the last Minuteman II ICBM system, now disarmed, but the story it tells is anything but disarming.

The Minuteman Missile NHS includes the Visitor Center, Delta-01 (Launch Control Facility), and Delta-09 (Missile Silo). These remnants of a nuclear missile field were part of a larger network of 1,000 missiles, with 150 Minuteman II missiles deployed in South Dakota. Managed by the 66th Strategic Missile Squadron of the 44th Strategic Missile Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base. Yet, rather than warn of the dangers of nuclear war, the site highlights broken treaties, lies, and duplicity, as it immortalizes American militarism.

Visitors can tour the D1 underground Launch Control Center and D9 missile silo, both relics of a system designed to enforce American hegemony through the threat of nuclear war. Today, 450 Minuteman III missiles remain on alert at U.S. bases in Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, and Montana, a reminder that the military-industrial complex continues to thrive.

Covert Bias to Serve Imperialist Agendas

During my visit to this site near Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore, I was struck by the overwhelming propaganda presented as history. While the retired Air Force tour guide at Delta 1 was informative as you can see here, the Visitor Center leaves much to be desired.

There, a grossly misinformed tour guide said in an attempt to justify the missile program said “Russia said they wanted to kill us, they wanted to kill us before WW2 and then they needed us to save them, so they postponed killing us until after the war.” They then proceeded to make bizarre statements about communism, which shows the level of propaganda we’re dealing with.

The exhibit that stood out the most is the main timeline exhibit. Spanning from 1945 to 2010, the timeline exhibit highlights key Cold War moments, the nuclear arms race, and the rise of the and the arsenal of the U.S. and USSR but the real story of deceit, exploitation, and brute force is buried beneath ideological distortion.While at first glance it seemingly offered a “neutral” fact-based account of Cold War events, in reality it’s vague summaries, omissions and fabrications, glorified U.S. aggression while downplaying its imperial ambition under the guise of "freedom." 

The Yom Kippur War: A Case Study in Hypocrisy

The exhibit’s account of the 1973 Yom Kippur War mentions Soviet threats against Israel but omits the context of the West’s colonial ambitions in the Middle East. The USSR, concerned about Israeli expansionism, issued a warning they would intervene in an attempt to curb Israel’s aggression and protect its Arab allies, Egypt and Syria.

The U.S. has long supported Israeli expansionism, providing it with a blank check for its colonialist practices. The annexation of Egyptian and Syrian lands in 1967 prompted the Arab attack. It overlooks that the Soviets, rather than being provocateurs, responded to a manufactured crisis by the U.S. and Israel. As IDF forces annexed Syrian land, the Soviets feared their allies would collapse, giving the USSR a legitimate pretext for their planned but unrealized intervention—an action the U.S. would have taken had the roles been reversed.

The Vietnam War: A Legacy of Atrocity

Similarly, the site’s omission of the brutal role the U.S. played in the Vietnam War is a gross distortion. The timeline casually mentions the Paris Peace Accords of 1973, which ended U.S. military involvement, but conveniently omits the horrific war crimes committed by the U.S. The reality is that the U.S.

intervention in Vietnam prolonged the conflict, leading to unnecessary suffering and death. The war was a ruthless campaign aimed at crushing a nation’s right to self-determination under the guise of “preventing the spread of communism” at a time when communism had already taken hold in the region.

The U.S., similar to its current support for Ukraine, backed the corrupt and unpopular South Vietnamese regime in 1954, following the departure of French colonial forces. Later, the U.S. escalated the conflict in 1963 with its decade-long invasion. Without U.S. backing, the South Vietnamese government would have likely collapsed long before 1975, sparing countless lives. However, driven by the Red Scare, imperialism, and a desire for global hegemony, the U.S. persisted until the American public could no longer tolerate the fallen soldiers. The fall of Saigon in 1975 was not merely a defeat for U.S. forces—who had fled in 1973, leaving local militias to bear the blame—but also a triumph for anti-imperialist forces and a significant blow to American hegemony worldwide.

Double Standards When in Doubt, Blame Russia

• 1945  

  - February 11: Great Britain, the U.S., and the USSR agree on the division of Europe, known as the Yalta Agreement. The Allies divide Germany into four occupation zones and agree on free elections for all of Eastern Europe.  

  - April 12: Harry S. Truman becomes President upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  

  - July 16: The U.S. detonates the world's first atomic bomb at Trinity, Alamogordo, NM.  

  - August 6 and 9: The U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  

  - September 2: Japan surrenders; World War II ends.  

  - The Soviets force German nuclear scientists to relocate to the USSR.

• 1946  

  - Operation Paperclip brings German scientists to the U.S. to work for the American military.  

  - Winston Churchill coins the term "Iron Curtain" in a speech at Fulton, MO.  

  - President Truman creates the Atomic Energy Commission.  

  - The U.S. and USSR emerge as world superpowers; Europe begins to recover with American assistance.  

  - Civil war in Greece: The Soviet Union backs Greek insurgent groups, but British and American forces support the Greek government.  

  - Enrico Fermi urges a ban on nuclear weapons and advocates using atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

This narrative criticizes the USSR for coercing Nazi scientists into working on its nuclear program with eventual repatriation but overlooks the U.S. exploitation of Nazi scientists in the NASA space program, effectively absolving them of accountability for war crimes.

• 1980

  - The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan triggers a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Summer Olympics.

  - In Poland, the Gdańsk Agreement is signed following strikes in shipyards, granting greater civil rights, including the establishment of a trade union independent of communist party control.

The exhibit suggests the USSR's intervention in Afghanistan (1979-1989) was an ”act of aggression,” despite it being at the request of the PDPA government, much like the U.S. intervention in Kuwait in 1991 against Saddam Hussein's invasion. It notably omits that the U.S. backed the Muhjahideen against the Soviet-supported PDPA government in 1979, escalating the proxy war. Al-Qaeda also supported the Mujahideen in 1988. After the Soviets' defeat in 1988 and their withdrawal in 1989, the U.S. backed Taliban emerged from the Pashtun factions of the Mujahideen amidst the chaos and eventually came to power.

• 1981

-Ronald Reagan becomes president; increases defense spending.

- Pope John-Paul II shot by KGB-inspired agent from Bulgaria.

- US media reports State Department has “strong reason to believe that Pakistan is seeking to develop a nuclear explosives capability.”

- Communist Gen. Jaruzelski imposes martial law in Poland to crush the Solidarity trade union and political opposition to communist rule.

The exhibit claims Soviet involvement in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, despite the lack of evidence. While the shooter, Mehmet Ali Ağca alleged he was hired by Bulgarian police linked to the KGB, the Vatican investigations found no Soviet or Bulgarian involvement. Thus mirroring the unfounded attribution of JFK's assassination to a "Soviet agent." In reality, Ağca, a Turkish citizen from a NATO country, was a member of the fascist Grey Wolves and the Counter Guerrilla group, linked to NATO’s Operation Gladio.

• 1962

- Cuban Missile Crisis brings US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

- US intelligence spots Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba; President Kennedy imposes a naval blockade.

- Khrushchev agrees to remove missiles from Cuba if the US agrees not to invade.

- Western countries sign Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning atmospheric nuclear tests.

- US explodes nuclear devices at Nevada Test Site. 11 arrested.

Lastly, the timeline omits how USA triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis by placing ICBMs in Turkey, and the USSR response of placing its missiles in Cuba in a tit-for-tat move. The Minuteman 1 missiles were first put on "alert" during this time, and the U.S. expanded the embargo on Cuba despite its own role in escalating the crisis.

Ignorance Over Practical Knowledge

Ultimately, the Minuteman Missile NHS curates history to serve ideological ends. While presenting itself as a neutral account of the Cold War and U.S. security, it obscures troubling aspects of American foreign policy, such as blaming the USSR for the arms race and justifying U.S. war crimes against Japan as necessary to end the war, despite Japan being on the verge of surrender. The site glorifies the military-industrial complex, downplays U.S. imperial ambitions, and masks these pursuits in alignment with American exceptionalism and hegemony.