Ben Cramer,
with documentation from the Robin des Bois association, Athena21,
22/2/2026
Translated by Tlaxcala
In the service of NATO - to confirm the strategic value of the Danish colony in the early days of the Cold War, the US USAmerican military installation was reinforced in 1951. As part of NATO. But this 1951 “Greenland defense treaty” mentions neither ballistic missiles, nor the portable nuclear reactor, nor the H-bombs... Obviously.
In 1993, declassified U.S. Air Force documents
revealed that, for most of the 1960s, bombers from the Strategic Air Command
(SAC) carrying nuclear weapons regularly flew over Greenland. However, this
territory of over 2 million km² is subject to a Danish ban on any presence of
nuclear weapons on its soil, according to a protocol established in 1957. Hence
the negotiations between Washington and Copenhagen over shared
responsibilities, analyzed by experts including Hans
Christensen.
Two archive photos from 1959,
the year of creation, to 1964, the end of work at Camp Century. On the left,
the melt rate in the Thule region. © Colgan.
This military installation was carried out at the
expense of the Kalaallit (Inuit) people. For example: to give its green light for the
expansion of Thule Air Base, Copenhagen did not bother to consult the local
population, represented by the Hunters' Council. Instead of a consultation, the
Danish government ordered in May 1953 the transfer/deportation of the
indigenous people of Thule (the Inughuits), a small Inuit community living from
traditional hunting and fishing. 187 of them were forced to leave their ancestral
lands to be exiled to Qaanaaq, 150 kilometers to the north. They would not
receive compensation until 1999.
Camp Century without 'Atoms for Peace'
In June 1959, construction began on Camp Century, 204
km south of Thule Base, 1,290 kilometers from the North Pole. 24 hours a day,
taking advantage of the polar day, 150 to 200 men from the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (USACE) were at work. Officially, the aim was to sustain a community
of scientists dedicated to climate research. But in fact ....
Camp Century represented the first step in the
top-secret “Iceworm” project. Behind this facade, the pioneering base's purpose
was to study the feasibility of a ballistic missile launch site under the ice
cap to target the USSR. Even though the installation, including its “pocket”
nuclear reactor, had been revealed by the Saturday Evening Post as early
as 1960, the existence of this project, including its nuclear aspect, was only
finally made public in 1997 by the Danish Institute for International Affairs, a research institute under the Danish Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
The Pentagon aimed to build a military complex of
approximately 135,000 km² (an area larger than Greece) in which up to 11,000
soldiers could be stationed. It was planned to store there - with the ambition
of being undetectable! - 600 Minuteman ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads
and to move them between 2,100 silos hidden beneath the Arctic ice, in order to
confuse Soviet intelligence. But no missiles were ultimately deployed at the
base.
