Crash Landing

Recently, I read an article in the Winter 2013 issue of North Country Living Magazine.  It tells the story of paranoid Cold War America and the 12 Atlas F missile silos within a 40 mile radius of each other in the North Country.  Now, not every region in Cold War America had 12 nuclear missile silos, mind you—because of its mid-air refueling capabilities, the Plattsburgh Air Force Base was the third Soviet missile strike target behind Washington, D.C. and NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

I'm sorry to say, but this is a topic I find much more interesting than the best hiking spots.  As much as I enjoy hiking, I enjoy reading about 20th century American history much more.  Naturally, the Cold War and preventative measures (like the ones put in place in the North Country) are part of that.

Unfortunately, though, as much as I enjoyed the topic, I did not enjoy the article.  I found it to be only satisfactorily written and just as poorly researched.  For example, the author, Lou Varricchio, quotes an "ICBM expert" named Cliff Lethbridge.  That's all he is referred to, an "ICBM expert".  I could just as easily read extensively about ICBMs and the Atlas/Titan programs and call myself an expert.  Not only do I have no idea of Mr. Lethbridge's qualifications, but I certainly won't learn of them from this article.  Anyway, another part that irked me about this source is the information he gave.  An excerpt from the article:

"According to ICBM expert Cliff Lethbridge, the Atlas Fs deployed in upstate New York and Vermont were reliable and their nuclear warheads could pack a wallop.  The exact details of the weapon the Atlas F would have carried to the enemy remains classified to this day.
'The TSM-65F Atlas, or Atlas-F, was 82 feet, six inches long,' Lethbridge says.  'It was approximately 10 feet in diameter and could fly more than 11,500 miles.'
Lethbridge has a special fondness for the many Atlas rocket variants that have flown over the years, but he especially likes the F version."

Good job on your AP Style with the zero through nine rule, Mr. Varricchio, but that's about the only thing that's redeeming about this excerpt.  The first part that I have an issue with is the order of the quote versus the editorial.  The previous paragraph mentions how reliable and powerful the missile was, and how the details of the warhead are classified.  Then the quote goes into describing the size and range of the rocket—and nothing about how reliable or powerful it was.  The previous paragraph should have been a lead-in to the quote, if the author was intent on keeping it there, and should have read "The Atlas F was a gargantuan object and its range was of equal scale" or something to that effect.

The second part of the problem I have with this excerpt is the information Lethbridge gives.  I should think that an "ICBM expert" would be able to give me more information than that of which I could learn with a simple Google search.  The quote itself reads like Lethbridge was reading it directly out of a book.

The rest of the article was just poorly executed.  One bit that stood out to me especially was when the author wrote about the reluctance of the people who own the sites of the missile silos (they're privately owned now).  He began the section with an attempt at a humorous question that simply wasn't.

"Perhaps the legacy of the Cold War era, still fresh in the minds of aging local residents, creates unpleasant memories?  None of the current owners of the silo properties we contacted wanted to be interviewed for this article.  Two of the landowners blamed their reluctance to discuss their underground treasures on a news story about the silos that appeared in a Vermont weekly newspaper in 2006."

It is my belief that a) one should not lead in to anything with a rhetorical question, and b) one should not mention oneself, the article, or the publication within the article.  Also, if I as a reader wanted to read the article that the landowners reference, I would have no idea where to look, or where even to begin.

Overall, as much as I enjoyed the topic, I found it very, very difficult to enjoy the article.  I believe either the author did not know what he was doing, or simply did not take the article seriously enough.  That's not to say it doesn't have its good parts, but they are few and far between.  I can honestly say that this rocket article has crash landed.