Camp Century, by Kristian H. Nielsen and Henry Nielsen (introduction)

CAMP CENTURY

At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Army secretly began work on a base embedded deep in the Greenland ice cap: Camp Century. Officially defined as a scientific research station, this facility had an undisclosed purpose: to aim up to 600 nuclear warheads at the Soviet Union. This book unravels the extraordinary history of this clandestine installation, from high-level diplomacy to the base’s decommissioning through present-day concerns over the effects of climate change.

KRISTIAN H. NIELSEN is associate professor at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University. He is coeditor of Scientists and Scholars in the Field: Studies in the History of Fieldwork and Expeditions (2012).

HENRY NIELSEN is associate professor emeritus at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University. With Kristian H. Nielsen and others, he is coauthor of Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice (2016) and Science in Denmark: A Thousand-Year History (2008).

Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky Cover image: Getty Images COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS | NEW YORK cup.columbia.edu

The Untold Story of America’s Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice

“Camp Century paves new ground and compiles much disparate data under one roof. It will soon become a source book for the growing number of scholars interested in Greenland’s past—as well as its political future.”

—Mary Thompson-Jones, author of To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect

The Untold Story of America’s Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice

CAMP CENTURY

“Camp Century, the U.S. Army’s long-defunct encampment under the Greenland ice sheet, stands as a metaphor for the mess that military meddling can make in human affairs and in otherwise pristine environments. It is a story of the instability of diplomatic relationships, interservice rivalries, Cold War strategies, and Arctic knowledge. This exhaustively researched book by two Danish experts is a comprehensive study of the life and thorny legacy of the controversial ‘city under the ice’—an imploding ghost town that just won’t go away.”

—James Rodger Fleming, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control

Nielsen & Nielsen

“Though it only existed from 1959 to 1966, Camp Century remains a living—and deeply compelling—story today. Its history sweeps across Cold War intrigue to nuclear missiles hidden under ice; from the Arctic’s defeat of nuclear-powered techno-hubris to ice cores at the heart of climate science; and from Danish and American politics to the (now) semi-independent Greenlanders who must live with Camp Century’s legacy as the melting ice reveals its radioactive remains. This lively and intelligent book, beautifully translated from the Danish, gives Camp Century its first full accounting in English.”

—Paul N. Edwards, author of A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming

Printed in the U.S.A.

COLUMBIA

Kristian H. Nielsen & Henry Nielsen

INTRODUCTION

O

n August 4, 2016, an international scientific team headed by the Canadian glaciologist William Colgan published an academic paper that was to have far-­reaching consequences. The authors stated that in their assessment, the debris left behind in the Greenland ice sheet after the U.S. Army withdrew from its nuclear-­ powered research base Camp Century—­which was shut down in 1966 and which, at the time, everyone believed to be buried in the ice cap for good—­would resurface in the foreseeable future as a result of global warming. This news, coming out of the blue, triggered an intense debate that dramatically cooled the relationship between Denmark and Greenland (which, along with the Faroe Islands, make up the Kingdom of Denmark). Greenland, today a largely self-­governing part of the kingdom, threatened to bring the case before the UN International Court of Justice if Denmark did not promptly assume responsibility for cleaning up the Camp Century site. The scientists estimated that the camp’s remains lay some 35–­70 meters (115–­230 feet) beneath the surface of the ice. The debris is known to include not only buildings and structural elements but also radioactive, chemical, and biological waste. In February 2017, the Danish and Greenlandic governments signed an agreement establishing a body called the Camp Century Climate Monitoring Programme, headed by GEUS (the Geological Survey of Denmark

2 Introduction

and Greenland) and featured on a dedicated English-­language website (https://­w ww​.­campcenturyclimate​.­dk).

The current problems with the Camp Century site triggered the most serious political crisis between Denmark and Greenland in two hundred years—­since long before Greenland began home-­rule government in 1979. This, however, is by no means the only crisis caused by “the city under the ice,” one of the evocative names used during the facility’s construction in 1959 and 1960. The camp had also given rise to a minor diplomatic crisis between Denmark and the United States when it became clear, in 1959, that the Americans had no intention of following the sound advice, or “recommendation,” they had received from the Danish government the previous year: relocate the project to Alaska. Thanks to high-­level negotiations, the crisis was soon resolved.

It was a relatively simple process at the time, since back then Denmark was not obliged to consult Greenland. This huge island, which had a population of roughly 30,000 in 1960, had the same status as a Danish county, so it had no say in foreign policy issues. But was it wise to refrain from informing the national council of Greenland about the negotiations that were under way? Subsequent events indicate it was not.

Since its construction, Camp Century has been at the crux of other crises, the most dramatic of which unfolded from 1995 through 1997. At that time a group of Danish historians, part of a government-­appointed task force mandated to discover and document the extent of flights over Greenland from 1951 through 1968 of American aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, were able to locate a classified document proving that the United States saw Camp Century as the first step toward a colossal subsurface tunnel system that would enable the U.S. Army to launch a nuclear-­ missile strike at virtually any target in the Soviet Union.

Understandably, the information raised eyebrows and caused a great deal of anxiety in the Danish and Greenlandic governments. But even this explosive news did not end in a long-­term crisis or break the two parts of the kingdom apart. Perhaps that was because Denmark was fully as surprised as Greenland at the revelation of the huge and audacious Cold War project, which had been planned in utmost secrecy by

FIGURE 0.1 After slipping through a fissure in the Greenland ice cap, the Danish comic-­book hero Kurt Dunder (“Johnny Rumble”) is saved by the naturally deep-­ frozen provisions of long-­abandoned Camp Century.

4 Introduction

strategists at the Pentagon. Or perhaps it was because by 1997 the Cold War was over. The great castle in the clouds, or rather, the great encampment in the ice, had long since vanished, and the remains of Camp Century—­minus the nuclear reactor—­now lay buried deep beneath the ice cap’s frigid, windswept surface.

Since Camp Century’s heyday a few books, now somewhat dated, and a wide array of articles have been written about this remarkable feat of engineering under the snow and ice. These sources speak of the construction, the people who lived there, and the camp’s water, heating, and electricity supply; the projects conducted at the camp; the camp’s ultimate decommissioning; and the grand plans that originally set the whole undertaking in motion. As part of a Carlsberg Foundation–­ funded research project entitled “Exploring Greenland: Science and Technology in Cold War Settings” (2010–­2014), we too have contributed to this body of literature, with several papers shedding light on various facets of Camp Century’s history. Even so, we believe this volume is the most exhaustive and well-­documented history to date of what transpired in and around Camp Century and of its aftermath, from 1959 through 2019.

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

Chapter 1 outlines the history of the relations between Denmark and Greenland and the United States after the end of World War II and up to 1958, when the Americans made their first tentative inquiries to the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeking permission to set up Camp Century. We also discuss such topics as the U.S. bid to purchase Greenland in 1946; the Greenland Commission’s work of 1948 through 1950; the establishment of Thule Air Base in 1951 through 1953; President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s strategic “New Look” and “New New Look” national security policies; and the confidential memo sent from the Danish prime minister, Hans Christian (“H.C.”) Hansen, to the American ambassador, Val Peterson, in November 1957.

Introduction 5

Chapter 2 describes the state of controlled panic that spread through the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when it became clear that the United States was adamant about moving forward on building Camp Century, even though Denmark had advised against it. We demonstrate that the Danish government would have preferred not to have been forced to take a position on “the concept of atoms” in Greenland (to use its own phraseology), and we trace how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tackled the situation in Denmark when the first article about Camp Century appeared in the American press.

We begin chapter 3 by going back in time, to the story of how the secret strategic defense plan known as Project Iceworm was conceived as the U.S. Army’s proposal for a credible nuclear deterrence project, in fierce competition with the Minuteman project under the U.S. Air Force and the Polaris project under the U.S. Navy. We then move on to the construction of Camp Century, focusing in particular on its water supply, waste management, and energy supply and rounding off with a discussion of the Danish-­American negotiations on the approval of the facility’s most crucial installation: the PM-­2A nuclear reactor.

Chapter 4 details the diverging perceptions in the United States and Denmark of the rules of engagement with representatives of the press, who were keen to cover every aspect of Camp Century. This chapter gives numerous examples of how the American authorities sought to employ Camp Century as a positive public relations story, whereas the Danish authorities for several years sought to control the articles resulting from press visits to “the city under the ice.”

In chapter 5 we describe everyday life at Camp Century, partly as rendered in accounts from different journalists but mainly based on the personal diary meticulously kept by the Danish scout Søren Gregersen, who spent almost six months at Camp Century—­from October 1960 to March 1961—­as a guest of the United States.

During its existence Camp Century hosted a considerable number of scientific research projects, in and around the facility. The vast majority had a distinctly military aim. In chapter 6 we discuss three noteworthy examples of this: whiteout studies, rail transport under the ice, and the stability of tunnels embedded in the ice.

6 Introduction

Chapter 7 takes an in-­depth look at a project that may have had a military aim but that—­especially in posterity—­has become a symbol of civilian climate research at the highest level of excellence: ice-­core drilling. This is the story of the ice-­core project’s inception and realization; of how it took scientists five to six years to drill to the very bottom of the Greenland ice cap using equipment installed in Camp Century, within the upper layers of the ice sheet itself; and of how analyses of the ice core thus obtained yielded a significant part of the knowledge we have today about climate change, spanning from the distant past right up to the present.

Chapter 8 describes the final months of Camp Century, which was shut down after Project Iceworm was scrapped in early 1963. Here are details on the growing difficulty of keeping the camp running because of the ice sheet’s inexorable deformation of the tunnel systems; the removal of the facility’s nuclear reactor, monitored by Danish and American radiation experts; the discharge of radioactive wastewater into the ice sheet; and the ultimate fate of the nuclear reactor in the United States.

The legacy of Camp Century is treated in chapter 9. This military facility, which existed for only six years and today lies buried deep under the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet, continued to make headlines long after its demise. One recent example, from a major Danish newspaper, refers to the camp’s ability, even today, to create “an ice-­cold atmosphere between Denmark and Greenland.” We conclude the chapter by focusing on three events from the recent past—­in 1980, 1995–­1997, and 2016–­2018—­which even after Camp Century’s shutdown have contributed to the negative light in which its existence, aftermath, and legacy are held. We round off the chapter and the book by assessing the historical importance of this controversial yet indisputably fascinating “city under the ice.”

CAMP CENTURY

At the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Army secretly began work on a base embedded deep in the Greenland ice cap: Camp Century. Officially defined as a scientific research station, this facility had an undisclosed purpose: to aim up to 600 nuclear warheads at the Soviet Union. This book unravels the extraordinary history of this clandestine installation, from high-level diplomacy to the base’s decommissioning through present-day concerns over the effects of climate change.

KRISTIAN H. NIELSEN is associate professor at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University. He is coeditor of Scientists and Scholars in the Field: Studies in the History of Fieldwork and Expeditions (2012).

HENRY NIELSEN is associate professor emeritus at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University. With Kristian H. Nielsen and others, he is coauthor of Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice (2016) and Science in Denmark: A Thousand-Year History (2008).

Cover design: Julia Kushnirsky Cover image: Getty Images COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS | NEW YORK cup.columbia.edu

The Untold Story of America’s Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice

“Camp Century paves new ground and compiles much disparate data under one roof. It will soon become a source book for the growing number of scholars interested in Greenland’s past—as well as its political future.”

—Mary Thompson-Jones, author of To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect

The Untold Story of America’s Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice

CAMP CENTURY

“Camp Century, the U.S. Army’s long-defunct encampment under the Greenland ice sheet, stands as a metaphor for the mess that military meddling can make in human affairs and in otherwise pristine environments. It is a story of the instability of diplomatic relationships, interservice rivalries, Cold War strategies, and Arctic knowledge. This exhaustively researched book by two Danish experts is a comprehensive study of the life and thorny legacy of the controversial ‘city under the ice’—an imploding ghost town that just won’t go away.”

—James Rodger Fleming, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control

Nielsen & Nielsen

“Though it only existed from 1959 to 1966, Camp Century remains a living—and deeply compelling—story today. Its history sweeps across Cold War intrigue to nuclear missiles hidden under ice; from the Arctic’s defeat of nuclear-powered techno-hubris to ice cores at the heart of climate science; and from Danish and American politics to the (now) semi-independent Greenlanders who must live with Camp Century’s legacy as the melting ice reveals its radioactive remains. This lively and intelligent book, beautifully translated from the Danish, gives Camp Century its first full accounting in English.”

—Paul N. Edwards, author of A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming

Printed in the U.S.A.

COLUMBIA

Kristian H. Nielsen & Henry Nielsen