Fragment, Missile, Pershing-II

This is an access plate from a U.S. Army Pershing II missile that was rendered inoperable pursuant to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed by the United States and USSR in 1987. This was the first arms control agreement between the two superpowers that required the destruction of deployed weapons. Pershing IIs were mobile, intermediate-range ballistic missiles with a single, variable-yield thermonuclear warhead. They were deployed in West Germany beginning in 1983. Under the INF Treaty, all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (about 300 to 3,400 miles) were removed from the inventory and rendered inoperable. The plate was transferred from the On-Site Inspection Agency in 1991.