Project Iceworm: The U.S. Cold War plan to hide nukes in Greenland

When the threat of nuclear war loomed during the Cold War, the U.S. Army devised a top-secret plan to hide hundreds of missile launchers on railroad tracks hidden beneath Greenland’s thick ice sheets.

In the event of a Soviet attack, nuclear weapons dispersed across thousands of kilometers of cut-and-cover tunnels could be launched within 20 minutes. The name of this effort was worthy of a Hollywood action movie: Project Iceworm.

“The ice worm formed part of the broader U.S. ‘polar strategy,’ which saw the Arctic as a crucial arena for Cold War nuclear deterrence — a direct route for both Soviet aggression and U.S. strategic defense,” said Kristian Nielsen, a science historian at Aarhus University in Denmark and co-author of “Camp Century: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Arctic Military Base Under the Greenland Ice.”

America’s fascination with Greenland as a forward military location is not new. Danes and Greenlanders also have no doubts about the reliability of the United States. During the Cold War, a number of military initiatives were kept secret and were never disclosed to the Greenlanders or Danes.

“The Iceworm documents caused tension and unrest when they were declassified in 1996 because they suggested that the United States was investigating major military plans in Greenland without notifying Denmark,” Nielsen said.

The Danish government has repeatedly rejected President Trump’s call to take over or purchase Greenland, an autonomous region that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Opinion polls show that Greenlanders are overwhelmingly opposed to American control.

Although Project Ice Worm never became a reality, the history of the project and U.S. military activities in Greenland do much to explain the wariness of Trump’s plans for the island.

It’s unclear what these plans might include. “Greenland may still play a role in nascent U.S. missile defense initiatives. [the] “The Gold Dome contains early warning systems or intercept capabilities, but it is nothing like Iceworm’s underground missile network,” Nielsen said.

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last month, Trump ruled out using military force to take the island but insisted the US needed Greenland for national security. “All we want is to get Greenland, including rights, title and ownership, because you need ownership to defend it,” he said. “You can’t defend it with the lease.”

600 nuclear bombs under ice

In the 1960s, while Project Ice Worm was being considered by the Department of Defense, the United States had just begun operating Camp Century, a nuclear-powered scientific center in northwest Greenland, about 130 miles off the island’s coast, which also hosted secret military activities.

By then, the Army was touting the base as a state-of-the-art “city under ice” for Arctic research in PR campaigns in American media, while also secretly using it as a testing ground to determine whether missile tunnels under the ice sheet were possible.

“The concept takes advantage of Northern Greenland’s remoteness from populated areas, its relative proximity to Soviet targets, the Ice Ridge’s unique adaptability to nuclear deployment, and its proximity to Thule Base,” according to an Army report titled “U.S. Army’s Ice Worm Concept,” forwarded to The Times by Nielsen and declassified in 1962.

Thule, now called the Pituffik Cosmodrome, was one of several military installations established during World War II. It was built during World War II. It once housed as many as 10,000 U.S. military personnel. In 1946, three years before NATO was established, the Truman administration offered to buy Greenland for $100 million in gold, but the Danes did not accept the offer, according to State Department documents declassified in the 1970s.

According to the report, Project Iceworm plans call for placing approximately 600 missiles at intervals of at least four miles over a deployment area as wide as Alabama. Missiles mounted on railway lines could be moved to avoid Soviet detection. This installation would allow the launch sites to be “relatively impervious” to enemy warheads and would require a “large-scale Soviet thermonuclear strike” to destroy the Iceworm launchers, according to the report.

The missiles would be hidden “28 feet below the surface of the Ice Peak,” nearly the height of a three-story building.

Therefore, scientists drilled into Greenland’s ice core, examined its lower layers and evaluated whether Icebug tunnels were suitable. The study provided a non-military benefit by collecting data that “helped reveal Earth’s climate history over the last 100,000 years,” said Florida State University history professor Ronald Doel, who co-edited the book “Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice.”

“Iceworm’s potential promise certainly helped government officials support and embrace the construction of Camp Century,” he said. “At the same time, research on Greenland’s environment really needed to be done in order to operate successfully there and elsewhere in the Arctic.”

For example, some of these findings were crucial for revealing the effects of climate change. Permafrost and ice collected beneath Century Camp provided scientists with an early, detailed record. Earth’s climate over the last 100,000 yearsHe pioneers paleoclimatological research showing how human activities are warming the planet.

A Swiss-made snowplow clears a trench during the construction of Camp Century in Greenland in 1959.

(Picture Parade/Getty Images)

Project Iceworm’s legacy

Project Ice Worm was shelved in 1962 because it was deemed too technically difficult (changing the ice sheet) and the Navy and Air Force pursued less burdensome projects in Greenland. Additionally, American officials were unsure whether the Danes would support the effort.

Additionally, when Camp Century was decommissioned nearly five years after Project Iceworm was scrapped, the Army left behind up to 52,000 gallons of hazardous waste such as diesel and radioactive material, as well as debris from the small nuclear reactor that powered the base.

Now, as the island’s ice melts due to climate change, these pollutants may be released into the environment. “The remains of Camp Century are being carried by ice flow from the ice cap to the west coast of Greenland and will be exposed at some point,” Doel said.

This is once again bad news for the Greenlanders. The Inuit’s gaining greater political independence, such as self-government status, from Denmark in the last few decades could also encourage much fiercer opposition to American military moves on the island.

“Today, Iceworm essentially serves as a historical reminder that the United States viewed Greenland primarily through a security lens, with limited consideration of Greenland’s political interests,” Nielsen said.