During the Cold War, rising tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union gave nuclear weapons a central role in deterrence, and the launch of Sputnik in October 1957 ushered in the era of intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads. This area became part of the Montana missile field, a 23,500-square-mile complex across nine Montana counties. In December 1959, the United States Air Force chose Malmstrom Air Force Base for the nation’s first Minuteman missile field because of Montana’s high altitude, relatively flat terrain, and sparse population. Construction on the first silos, Alpha Flight, began in 1961 and finished in October 1962, in time for the Cuban Missile Crisis, and by 1963 three missile squadrons were operational in Montana. Each squadron had five flights of ten missiles controlled by fifteen launch alert facilities staffed around the clock, with missiles spread widely apart. In 1967, the Air Force activated the 564th Missile Squadron, nicknamed “Deuce,” the fourth squadron in Montana, responsible for five Minuteman missile alert facilities and fifty nuclear missile silos northwest of Malmstrom Air Force Base. Originating as the 564th Bombardment Squadron in World War II, when it flew B-24 Liberators in central and southern Europe, it was reactivated as an ICBM squadron in December 1965, became fully operational in 1967, received Minuteman II missiles that year, and had upgraded to Minuteman III ICBMs by 1975. At its height between 1967 and 2008, the 341st Missile Wing based at Malmstrom controlled 200 Minuteman missiles in what was the world’s largest missile complex. After the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991 reduced the nation’s missile arsenal, the 341st Missile Wing continued operating, maintaining, and securing 150 Minuteman III missiles in Montana, while in 2008 the Air Force inactivated the 564th Missile Squadron and removed the Minuteman III missiles from its silos.