Cold War Montana

By Ken Robison

Home to some of the most powerful nuclear missile systems in the world, Montana played an indispensable role in the war against Communism. Utilizing the Lend-Lease pipeline, Soviet spies ferried stolen nuclear and industrial secrets, loaded in diplomatic pouches, from Great Falls to the Soviet Union. Army nurse Lieutenant Diane Carlson served as "an angel of mercy" at the Pleiku Evacuation Hospital in the Central Highlands in Vietnam. Young Montana smokejumper "Hog" Daniels joined the CIA's secret war in Southeast Asia, becoming the principal advisor to General Vang Pao in his desperate fight against Communists. Captain Ken Robison (U.S. Navy, Ret.), award-winning author and Cold Warrior, reveals tales of Montanans who made their mark on this titanic struggle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Oct 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781439673768

Ken Robison

Native Montanan Ken Robison is the historian at the Overholser Historical Research Center and for the Great Falls/Cascade County Historic Preservation Commission and is active in historic preservation throughout central Montana. He is a retired navy captain after a career in naval intelligence. The Montana Historical Society honored Ken as "Montana Heritage Keeper" in 2010.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

What was the Cold War? What did it mean to Americans? Why did the Big Sky Country of Montana play such a significant role in it?

For those of us who lived through those Cold War years filled with danger, we likely know the answers. For new generations, I urge you to learn the Cold War story and pray that in your lifetime we do not have to repeat it.

World War II ended with victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in the summer of 1945, and Montanans joined in as Americans celebrated in anticipation of many years of peace and prosperity. Thousands of Montana’s men and women received their honorable discharges and began planning their futures, attending college, buying homes and raising families. The United States seemed supreme among the victorious Allies—the sole power to possess the atom bomb.

Yet less than one year later, an Iron Curtain was descending on Eastern Europe as wartime smiling Soviet dictator Uncle Joe Stalin began to show his paranoia and use his powerful army to occupy the homelands of so many Montana immigrants and their sons and daughters and make strategic moves to spread international Communism. With the Iron Curtain and the series of actions taken by the United States and our allies to contain the spread of Communism, in the four decades that followed, the world teetered on the brink of a third world war, one with no protecting oceans. In the terms of scientists, the world faced an atomic clock just minutes and seconds from nuclear holocaust. A protracted Cold War began with both the nuclear-armed United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies facing off against a nuclear-armed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) and its puppet Warsaw Pact allies.

Although few understood it at the time, the Cold War began during the depths of World War II. Nazi Germany dominated western Europe and engaged in a desperate struggle on the plains of eastern Europe against the Soviet army and air force. Our Soviet ally of desperation faced seemingly insurmountable odds as it traded blood and land for time. We were building an army, far from ready to open a second front to ease German pressure on the Soviet Union. How could the U.S. Arsenal for Democracy help keep our totalitarian communist Soviet ally in the fight until we were armed and ready to begin to roll back the victorious Imperial Japanese in the Pacific and invade Nazi-occupied Europe? Our options centered on just one: arming the Soviets with vital weapons and combat aircraft through the Lend-Lease program.

In this mighty contest, one man had a preview of Soviet intentions. That man was U.S. Army Air Corps Major George Racey Jordan, administering the Lend-Lease program at Gore Field and the newly constructed Great Falls Army Air Base (AAB), where the plains meet the mountains in Montana. Within this Lend-Lease pipeline rested a preview of the Cold War to follow. Major Jordan held the ringside seat as he watched the massive scale of Soviet espionage steal our nuclear and industrial secrets, load them in diplomatic pouches and ferry them through the Lend-Lease pipeline that sent eight thousand aircraft and massive supplies from Great Falls, Montana, to the Soviet Union via Fairbanks, Alaska. The two Great Falls air bases were in reality Red Army Air Bases. Russians were present in numbers in downtown Great Falls and Alaska throughout the war.

Every Montanan—man, woman and child—lived through and participated in the Cold War from 1945 to 1991, whether practicing civil defense drills in school, building radiation fallout shelters or serving our nation in the military or other governmental agencies. And Montana played a most surprising role. Although far distant from Moscow and Washington, D.C., the state’s Big Sky broad spaces and thin population made Montana a vital part of the country’s Cold War strategy.

During and after World War II, Great Falls served the nation as a great aerial gateway through which passed tremendous military air traffic to and from the Arctic and Alaska. In the early years of the Cold War, Great Falls Air Base trained pilots and aircrews bound for the Berlin Airlift as Operation Vittles saved that strategic German city from Russian domination. Throughout the 1950s, Great Falls and Glasgow air bases in northern Montana played vital roles in our air defense network, with an innovative Ground Observer Corps mobilized throughout the state until radar sites could be constructed to guide fighter aircraft to intercept Soviet bombers carrying nuclear weapons to attack the northern United States.

In the critical race to field operational Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), central Montana became the largest missile network in the U.S. arsenal, centered on the renamed Malmstrom Air Force Base at Great Falls. The first U.S. Minuteman ICBMs in Alpha Flight became operational at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, providing President John F. Kennedy an ace in the hole in forcing the Soviets to back down and remove their missiles from Cuba.

In 1963, less than two months before his tragic assassination, President Kennedy visited Great Falls, paying tribute to its importance in our nation’s defense as well as adding a personal touch by visiting the boyhood home of powerful U.S. Senator Mike Mansfield before appearing before a massive crowd at Great Falls High School’s Memorial Stadium. Senator Mansfield went on to become the longest-serving, and highly effective, senate majority leader from 1961 to 1977 through many of the years of the Cold War. In his speech in Great Falls that day, President Kennedy proclaimed:

Montana is a long way from Washington, and it is a long way from the Soviet Union, and it is 10,000 miles from Laos. But this particular State, because it has, among other reasons, concentrated within its borders some of the most powerful nuclear missile systems in the world, must be conscious of every danger and must be conscious of how close Montana lives to the firing line which divides the Communist world. We are many thousands of miles from the Soviet Union, but this State, in a very real sense, is only 30 minutes away.¹

Over the next quarter century to the end of the Cold War, Malmstrom Air Force Base served as a vital component in our nuclear arsenal, and Montana continues in that role today in our post–Cold War world. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the little-known Able Archer Crisis of 1983 brought the United States (and our NATO allies) and the Soviet Union (and its Warsaw Pact allies) to the brink of war. That a catastrophic World War III did not happen is a tribute to both power and luck—the sobering power of the atom and the essential components of good judgment and luck along the way.

As the 1970s progressed, signs of cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain with events like the Hungarian Revolution, the mutiny on the destroyer Storozhevoy and the defection of Lieutenant Viktor Belenko with his Foxbat aircraft. The 1980s brought a series of new leaders to the global stage, and they began performing with one another and the world: John Paul II the Polish pope, Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher in Great Britain, President Ronald Reagan and the new generational Soviet leader Mikael Gorbachev. Their fascinating and vital interaction brought the fall of the Berlin Wall and at last the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cold War ended in the dramatic year of 1991. The Wall had fallen…Mutual Assured Destruction had ended…the mortal enemy had disintegrated…the Cold War was over. Every Montanan rejoiced, man, woman and child. After all, every Montanan had fought in the Cold War.

Montanans pay tribute to the Cold War and its proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam in many ways. Memorials include the Montana State Veterans Memorial in Great Falls; the State Korean War Memorial in Missoula; the Korean War Memorial in Butte; and others. Three major military museums present many aspects of the Cold War. The Malmstrom Museum and Air Park, located on Malmstrom AFB, under Director Rob Turnbow, presents exhibits and history of Great Falls air bases from World War II throughout the Cold War, with an emphasis on the mission and role of Minutemen ICBMs.

The Montana Military Museum at Fort William Henry Harrison in Helena, under Director Ray Read, operates under a memorandum of agreement between the Department of Military Affairs, the State of Montana, the Montana National Guard Museum Activity and the Fort William Henry Harrison Museum Foundation. The museum’s displays honor brave Montanans who served Montana and the nation and follow the military in Montana from the arrival of the Lewis and Clark army expedition in 1805 through the Frontier Wars, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and peacekeeping operations.

The Rocky Mountain Museum of Military History, located at Fort Missoula, under Director Tate Jones, presents exhibits and programs covering U.S. military history from the Revolutionary War to the present War on Terror, with an emphasis on the interwar U.S. Army (1920–41). By special arrangement with the Montana National Guard, the museum’s main exhibit building is located in Building T-316, Fort Missoula—the former headquarters for the Fort Missoula District of the U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps.

Great Falls orientation map showing Great Falls Army Air Base center, city on left, Missouri River and 1805 Lewis and Clark Portage from southwest to northeast. The portage ran through the center of the air base and just east and south of the city. Map by Larry Gill and Francis Mitchell; Great Falls Tribune, August 15, 1965.

I was one who served throughout much of the Cold War. In April 1960, I graduated from the University of Montana and left Montana to begin my U.S. Navy career on the sunny beaches of Pensacola, Florida, at the Naval Aviation School of Pre-Flight. For more than twenty-eight years, my career in Naval Intelligence would keep me intimately involved in our global campaign to maintain peace through strength during those dangerous years that spanned the Cold War. This Montanan was on the frontlines often during these Cold War years, and my commentary will appear throughout this story in sidebars as Montana in the Cold War unfolds.

In addition, many county museums and archives, like The History Museum in Great Falls, hold important materials and photographs of the Cold War. Finally, the immensely important Montana Historical Society holds a treasure-trove of material from throughout Montana’s history.

Many have helped assemble this tribute to Montana in the Cold War, including the military museums and directors. My special thanks extend to Troy Hallsell, 341st Missile Wing historian; Megan Sanford, The History Museum; Benjamin Donnelly, University of Providence; Kim Briggeman; Kristen Inbody; Kevin Kooilstra, Western Heritage Center; Rich Aarstad, Montana Historical Society; and Paul Wylie. A very special thanks to Warren Kukay, my Wednesday preservation lunch partner, for our many discussions about his years in the Montana Air National Guard, his time as a security guard for the new Minuteman missiles and his father’s World War II years loading Lend-Lease aircraft at Great Falls Army Air Base.

This book is the story of the Cold War, the profound impact it had on Montana and the broad range of ways Montanans participated at home and abroad. You’ll meet Montana smokejumpers recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency; those who served as sky watchers in the Ground Observer Corps; Montana’s men and women who served in the proxy wars of Korea and Vietnam, including brave prisoners of war (POWs); those murdered or captured in international incidents around the globe; and a sampling of military men and women who served their country knowing that one miscalculation, on either adversarial side, could trigger a nuclear holocaust.

Malmstrom Museum and Air Park, located just inside the main gate at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Author’s photo.

KNOW YOUR ENEMY—KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

—The Art of War, Sun Tzu²

Aerial view of Gore Field, home of Seventh Ferrying Group Lend-Lease operations during World War II. Gore Field served as the civil airport and, since 1947, the home of the Montana Air National Guard. The History Museum, 1991.027.0026.

CHAPTER 1

WORLD WAR II SETS THE STAGE

AN AIRLIFT FOR STOLEN SECRETS

GREAT FALLS: A WARTIME AVIATION CENTER

A little Christmas magic never hurts, and magic is what the delegation from Great Falls needed just after Christmas 1941, as it arrived in wartime Washington, D.C. After a decade of hard work by the chamber of commerce and several favorable army surveys, Great Falls appeared poised for selection for a coveted army air base in the rapid buildup following Pearl Harbor. Yet the delegation, led by Mayor Ed Shields, touched down in D.C. to receive confirmation that the Great Fall base had been tossed in the army’s dead file—a morgue for plans.

Undaunted, the delegation pressed on to seek a touch of magic. General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, chief of U.S. Army Air Forces, granted an interview to the men from Great Falls, listened intently to their story and in their presence ordered that the proposed base be reconsidered, raising it from the grave.

Months passed. Wartime secrecy prevailed concerning army plans, until at last, the first word came on April 18, 1942, that an air base would be constructed at Great Falls. Consulting engineer Bill Killgreen, of Ellerbe & Company of St. Paul, arrived with news that work would begin that summer.

Soon, more great news arrived. On June 18, Great Falls was notified that Gore Field, the municipal airport, would host the Northwest Ferrying Command—one of six such bases in the nation. Finally, on July 1, the army announced that a subdepot installation would come to handle supplies for the two big Great Falls air bases and for satellite air bases planned for Glasgow, Lewistown and Cut Bank.

With these dramatic developments, Great Falls and Montana were destined to play leading roles throughout World War II, with prospects that extended into a key role during the Cold War.³

LAUNCHING THE SEVENTH FERRYING GROUP

On January 18, 1942, Long Beach Ferrying Group, Air Transport Command (ATC), opened a Northwest Division at the municipal airport at Seattle, Washington. This unit, with Major Leroy Ponton de Arce in command, would ferry B-17 Flying Fortresses from the nearby Boeing factory to Alaska for delivery to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

In May, Colonel William H. Tunner, commanding the ATC Ferrying Division, directed that a survey be made of Spokane, Washington, and Great Falls to relocate the Northwest Division Headquarters away from the West Coast. At that time, aircraft were being ferried north to Alaska by the way of Spokane, but this was proving unsatisfactory. Within a few days, newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel de Arce and staff flew to Spokane, and then to Great Falls, to conduct the survey—and Great Falls was selected.

On June 12, Colonel Tunner directed Colonel de Arce to move his command to Great Falls and execute this mission: You will take necessary action to organize and operate a ferrying route between Great Falls, Montana and Fairbanks, Alaska, through Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake and Whitehorse, Canada and through Northway and Big Delta, Alaska.

Arrangements fell quickly into place, renting the Civil Center for barracks, opening a mess and setting up bunks and all other needs so that when the soldiers arrived, they had only to fall into bed. Nine days later, Colonel de Arce and his staff left by plane for Great Falls. The move was made in such fast time that it seemed as though there was no move.

Relocated to Great Falls, the command increased so rapidly that it was nearly impossible to track the many new faces. Operating from Gore Field, the Army Air Corps arrived, soon to be known as the Seventh Ferrying Group. Enlisted men were quartered at the Civic Center and officers at local hotels. The Fine Arts Building at North Montana State Fairgrounds became the group’s administration building, while spare aircraft engines filled the Mercantile Building.

Secrecy prevailed in wartime, but the mission of the new army base soon became clear. That mission centered on climate and geography. Great Falls has three hundred days of clear flying weather a year, and it is the southern terminus of the shortest route between the United States and the Soviet Union through Alaska and Siberia. Great Falls was perfect as the southern hub to fly massive numbers of combat aircraft under the Lend-Lease program to the Soviet Union in its desperate struggle against the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.⁴

LIKELY A DECISIVE CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOVIET WAR EFFORT

Until the Anglo-American invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Soviet Union fought the Germans alone in Europe except for the United States–United Kingdom (U.S.-U.K.) strategic bombing campaign. Keeping the Soviets in the war became essential to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s strategy—the United States could provide massive Lend-Lease aid, and the Soviets critically needed it and believed that they were earning it at Leningrad and Stalingrad and all along the brutal Eastern Front.

From the arrival of the first Lend-Lease aircraft at Ladd Army Airfield, Fairbanks, Alaska, on September 3, 1942, after a two-day flight from Great Falls, the Alaska-Siberia (ALSIB) operation was