The Nike Missile Site SF-88, located in the Marin Headlands, served as San Francisco’s last line of
defense during the Cold War. The site operated around the clock to maintain nuclear anti-aircraft missiles
that could be fired within a five minute’s notice.
The site was characterized by a certain level of alertness – missileers had to be ready for the
unexpected, and the dawn of World War 3, at any moment.
Susan P. Cheney was the first female Air Defense Artillery (ADA) officer to train at Fort Bliss,
Texas and to serve at the line unit level. Fort Bliss, Texas was generally where every person in
the Nike Program received their training.
She arrived at Nike Site SF-88 in 1974 to serve as its last battery executive officer – two years
before service academies like West Point would admit women for the first time.
She saw the Nike Site through its closure, as the Nike program was deemed obsolescent when
ICBMs began to rise to prominence. From there, she went on to navigate a successful career,
even though there was not a clearly defined role for women in the military and it was difficult to
rise to leadership positions.
For example, when Army leadership decided to prohibit women from serving in the Air Defense
Artillery even though she had already held a leadership position at Nike, Cheney was forced to
transfer to the Ordnance Corps and served with ADA units only as a support officer.
The Army then reversed its decision on women in 1978, and Cheney was able to resume the
leadership positions she held before. She became a colonel in 1991.
When asked to describe what would happen if a missile was launched at a Nike site, Cheney
responded:
"By the time we launched everything, you were going to be gone. All that we were going to do
was slow them down. Life expectancy, and that is one of the things I have thought for many
years, when they talk about women in combat, and I laugh because Air Defense is safe in
combat. Our life expectancy when we were lieutenants, and I still remember this, sitting in the
Nike-Hercules class, we were told our life expectancy was five minutes from the time the balloon
went up to the time that it was time to do it. We were told that at every Air Defense site worldwide
that we were their number one target. Command and control and us."
The Nike Missile Sites were all that stood between life as we know it, and a completely new
society and landscape that would be altered by mutually assured destruction.
Cheney was a pioneer for women in the military, even though she encountered obstacles
regarding the role of women in military leadership.
Excerpted from: Martini, J. A. and S. A. Haller. 2010. The Last Missile Site: An Operational and
Physical History of Nike Site SF-88, Fort Barry, California. Hole in the Head Press.
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