tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post6536631607748599541..comments2024-03-26T15:57:13.443+00:00Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Is this new music's Woodstock?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8060605.post-14699382114381518092007-06-07T19:36:00.000+01:002007-06-07T19:36:00.000+01:00Thank you, as always, pliable, for this highly tho...Thank you, as always, pliable, for this highly thought-provoking article. <BR/><BR/>Your mention of Benjamin Britten's late composing years [d. 1976] and the subsequent closing of the RAF Bentwater Cold War Airbase in 1993, reminded me that most of the earlier generation of U.S. Nuclear-Tipped Nike Missile bases surrounding America’s largest cities were closed in 1974/75 (after about twenty years in operation) - leaving NATO "nuclear deterrence" to the tripod of long range bombers, Polaris nuclear-powered submarines, and non-coastal-based ICBMs [Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles] -- which, of course, remain on standby alert today, though "retargeted" since the "end" of the Cold War against the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. [The maximum intercept altitude of the older Nike Hercules/Ajax Missiles is described variously as between 100,000 and 150,000 feet over the oceans, Canada, and the Arctic.]<BR/><BR/>Through 1974/75, 19 batteries of Nike Missiles "guarded" New York City, 19 batteries guarded the greater San Francisco Bay Area, and 17 batteries guarded the Los Angeles basin. The buildings and barracks at these sites were bulldozed in about 1974/75, and the areas covered in two feet of gravel. (The sites in Alaska and Florida remained operational for some additional years.)<BR/><BR/>Here is an aerial photo of one site located in the northern Berkeley Hills (there is much material on all of these older missile sites on the Web):<BR/><BR/>http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.93913,-122.27863&z=17&t=SGarth Trinklhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11084463787729969177noreply@blogger.com