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

As the threat of nuclear war loomed during the Cold War, the U.S. military hatched 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 bombs scattered across thousands of miles of covered tunnels could be launched within 20 minutes. The name of this effort was worthy of a Hollywood action film: Project Iceworm.

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

American fascination with Greenland as a forward military position is not new. The 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 never disclosed to the Greenlanders or the Danes.

“When the Iceworm documents were declassified in 1996, they caused tension and unease because they suggested that the United States had explored major military plans in Greenland without informing Denmark,” Nielsen said.

The Danish government has repeatedly rejected President Trump’s call to take back or purchase Greenland, a self-governing territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Opinion polls show that Greenlanders overwhelmingly oppose American control.

Although Project Iceworm never became a reality, its history and that of U.S. military activity in Greenland explain much of the distrust of Trump’s plans for the island.

It’s unclear exactly what these plans might entail. “Greenland could still play a role in new US missile defense initiatives, such as [the] Golden Dome, early warning systems or interception capabilities, but nothing like Iceworm’s underground missile network,” Nielsen said.

Last month, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump ruled out using military force to take the island, but insisted the United States needed Greenland for national security. “All we are asking for is to get Greenland, including the rights, titles and ownership, because you need the ownership to defend it,” he said. “You can’t defend it with a lease.”

600 nuclear bombs under the ice

In the 1960s, while Project Iceworm was being evaluated by the Department of Defense, the United States had just begun operating Camp Century, a nuclear-powered scientific station in northwest Greenland, nearly 130 miles off the island’s coast, also a site of covert military activity.

At that time, the military presented the base as a cutting-edge “city under the ice” for Arctic research in public relations campaigns in the American media, while secretly using it as a test bed to determine whether missile tunnels under the ice sheet were feasible.

“The concept takes advantage of northern Greenland’s remoteness from populated areas, its relative proximity to Soviet targets, the ice sheet’s unique adaptability to nuclear deployment, and proximity to the Thule base,” according to a declassified 1962 Army report titled “The U.S. Army’s Ice Worm Concept” and provided to the Times by Nielsen.

Thule, now called Pituffik Space Base, was built during World War II, one of several military installations established during the war. It once housed up to 10,000 American military personnel. In 1946, three years before NATO was founded, 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.

Second Lieutenant Peter B. Moulton, standing, uses a surveying instrument during the construction of Camp Century, a U.S. military base in Greenland, in June 1959.

(Pictorial parade/Getty Images)

Plans for Project Iceworm envisioned placing about 600 missiles, at least four miles apart, in a deployment area as large as Alabama, according to the report. Mounted on railway tracks, the missiles could be moved to escape detection by the Soviets. This configuration, according to the report, would allow launch sites to be “relatively invulnerable” to enemy warheads, requiring a “massive Soviet thermonuclear attack” to destroy the Iceworm launchers.

The missiles are said to be hidden “28 feet below the surface of the ice sheet,” almost the height of a three-story building.

For this reason, scientists drilled into the Greenland ice core to study its underlayers and assess whether the Iceworm tunnels were viable. The work produced a nonmilitary benefit by gathering data that “helped reveal Earth’s climate history over the past 100,000 years,” says Ronald Doel, a history professor at Florida State University who co-edited the book “Exploring Greenland: Cold War Science and Technology on Ice.”

“Iceworm’s potential promise certainly helped government officials approve and pass the construction of Camp Century,” he said. “At the same time, research into Greenland’s environment was indeed necessary for success there and elsewhere in the Arctic.”

Some of these discoveries, for example, were crucial in uncovering the effects of climate change. Frozen soil and ice collected beneath Camp Century provided scientists with the first long, detailed record of Earth’s climate over the past 100,000 yearspioneered the type of paleoclimatological research that has shown how human activities are warming the planet.

A Swiss-made snow removal machine digs a trench during the construction of Camp Century in Greenland in 1959.

(Pictorial parade/Getty Images)

The Legacy of Project Iceworm

Project Iceworm was abandoned in 1962, after it was deemed too technically difficult (the ice sheet moves) and as the Navy and Air Force pursued lighter projects in Greenland. Additionally, U.S. officials were unsure whether the Danes would support the initiative.

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

Today, as the island’s ice melts due to climate change, these contaminants could be released into the environment. “The remains of Camp Century are being transported to the west coast of Greenland as ice flows into the ice sheet, and at some point they will be exposed,” Doel said.

This is once again bad news for the Greenlanders. As the Inuit have gained greater political independence from Denmark in recent decades, including granting them self-governing status, this could also foster much fiercer opposition to U.S. military actions on the island.

“Today, Iceworm serves primarily as a historical reminder that the United States has often viewed Greenland primarily through a security lens – with limited consideration for Greenlandic political interests,” Nielsen said.