It was a creepy coincidence.
On the same day that America’s doddering and erratic commander-in-chief warned of “the prospect of Armageddon,” the National Park Service (NPS) identified “24 properties with nationally significant connections to the Cold War worthy of National Historic Landmark consideration.”
The service sure took its sweet time. In 2009, Congress directed the Secretary of the Interior to “conduct a National Historic Landmark theme study to identify sites and resources in the United States that are significant to the Cold War,” paying specific attention to ICBM facilities, strategic and tactical aircraft, command centers, radar networks, and testing grounds for nuclear weapons. More than 13 years later, the NPS’s National Historic Landmarks Program, with the assistance of a “Cold War Advisory Committee,” published its findings in a 140-page document.
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