MK Tunnels in Orangeville, Utah

By 1950 what was to become known as the Cold War was settling into place. The Soviet Union had detonated a nuclear device in the late 1940s, so the US nuclear monopoly was broken. In addition, both sides would successfully test thermonuclear weapons (a.k.a. hydrogen bombs) in the early 1950s. So the sheer destructive power of nuclear weapons, even before operational thermonuclear devices, motivated the search for ways to "harden" (in current jargon) command and control centers to survive nuclear attack. Putting them underground was an obvious approach, but how deep and in what kind of rock? Th

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