March 11, 2019
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
Altus Air Force Base served as a hub for twelve intercontinental ballistic missile launch sites; in 1964, a missile housed at the Frederick site exploded, although the nuclear warhead remained unaffected.
Oklahoma might seem like an unexpected place for Cold War tensions to boil over, but the state played a key role in a conflict that threatened global annihilation.
Local author Landry Brewer presents – in his new book – a fascinating cross-section of the era, from top-level strategy to the details of daily life. It’s also simply titled, Cold War Oklahoma.
Brewer is a Bernhardt Scholar and instructor of history for Southwestern Oklahoma State University and teaches at the Sayre campus. He also moon-lights on KECO’s The Early Morning Show with his twin brother, Nathan.
Landry Brewer says the book is, simply, about Oklahoma during the cold war.
Although Brewer has been published multiple times in the journal of the Oklahoma Historical Society, several times in western Oklahoma newspapers and has written two one-act plays, this is Brewer’s first book.
Brewer says his research lead him to realize that it was ordinary Western Oklahoma citizens living under the shadow of nuclear war. A former OU faculty member accused of committing espionage for the Soviet Union fled the country, while a SWOSU professor dug his own fallout shelter in Weatherford—by hand. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, an emergency siren malfunction sent terrified Elk City parents scurrying to local schools to pick up their children.
He says the book takes two of his previously written stories and intertwines them into a fascinating tale.
Brewer says his research lead him to realize that it was a very scary time for Americans and, specifically, for Western Oklahomans.
Brewer says the book is available on Amazon.com and will soon be for sale in selected area locations.
Landry Brewer and his wife, Erin, have five children and live in Elk City.
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