Last W56 Minuteman warheads dismantled

The Minuteman missile was a hallmark of America's defenses during the Cold War.

The Energy Department said Thursday it has completed dismantling the last W56 warhead that for 30 years, beginning in the early 1960s, was the deadly core of the Minuteman I, and later the updated Minuteman II long-range missile.

A thousand of the Minuteman ICBMs were scattered in underground silos across the Midwest in the 1960s. They stayed there until they began being deactivated in 1991 under the START I missile reduction treaty with the Soviet Union.

Two years ago, President Bush directed the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile be reduced nearly in half by 2012.

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