ON CHRISTMAS DAY, 1964, Colonel Richard Stewart was on high alert as he almost always was.
Commander of the 820th Strategic Aerospace Division in Plattsburgh, Stewart’s arrival at the air base a year prior had come as North Country residents were wrapping their heads around broadcast television, a brand new interstate highway and, more to the point where Stewart was concerned, the installation of 12 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that put Plattsburgh and environs on the leading edge of a burgeoning arms race with the Soviet Union.
Stewart’s objective that day was to spread some Christmas cheer among his men and to provide the managing editor of the Plattsburgh Press Republican with a personalized tour of a missile site’s inner workings—which today might seem out of character for a military steeped in classified this and top-secret that.
But after some initial denials, the North Country nukes became front page news, their fearsome firepower aimed at the
