The 374 th SMS was formally deactivated on August 15, 1986, and its last launch complex, 374-9 near Quitman (Cleburne County), was demolished on November 19, 1986. After being left open for six months to allow Soviet satellite confirmation of their destruction, the ducts were filled with debris, capped, covered with dirt, and seeded with grass. Destruction of the launch complexes required demolition of the launch ducts in each complex to a depth of some twenty-five feet, followed by excavation of soil around the silo to that depth. On September 24, 1981, the administration of President Ronald Reagan announced plans to retire the Titan II program, citing concerns about safety, a need for cost efficiency, and an evolving nuclear strategy focusing on more modern and precise weapons systems. Four-member crews manned each of the 308 th’s eighteen launch complexes constantly once they were placed on alert. Construction on the first-Launch Complex 373-4 near Pangburn (White County)-began on January 3, 1961, and the complex became the first in the 308 th SMW to be placed on strategic alert, on May 16, 1963, ready to launch its missile at any time. Sites for eighteen Titan II ICBM launch complexes were selected in Faulkner, Conway, White, Van Buren, and Cleburne counties. The 308 th SMW was based at Little Rock Air Force Base and included the 373 rd and 374 th SMSs. Three Strategic Missile Wings (SMWs), each housing two Strategic Missile Squadrons (SMSs) of nine missiles each, were established at Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville (Pulaski County), Davis-Montham Air Force Base in Arizona, and McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas.
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Deployment of the Titan II missiles was approved by the U.S. The Titan II program was part of the second generation of ICBMs, and missiles could be launched from within their silos in less than a minute first-generation missiles had to be raised from their silos, fueled, and then launched, which could take up to twenty minutes. The sites of four Titan II Launch Complexes-373-5 near Center Hill in White County, 374-5 near Springhill in Faulkner County, 374-7 near Southside in Van Buren County, and 373-9 near Vilonia (Faulkner County)-are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eighteen were in Arkansas, from which ICBMs carrying nine-megaton nuclear warheads could be launched to strike targets as far as 5,500 miles away. Resulting from this was the Titan II Missile program, a Cold War weapons system featuring fifty-four launch complexes in three states. Following the Soviet Union’s detonation of its first thermonuclear bomb in 1953, the United States began actively developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).