Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance grew up outside the city during the Cold War. And the specter of nuclear conflict and an attack on the area’s military infrastructure loomed over her childhood.
“The Soviet Union felt pretty close,” she said. “I remember feeling a sense of fear, like: ‘We’re going to be the first ones in the line of fire. We’re this target.’”
The Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed without an attack on Alaska. And for the next three decades, the state’s elected leaders grasped for arguments to justify continued federal investment in the major military installations in Anchorage and the Fairbanks area…