nd unions would stall work on the project during prime construction season. Because local unions insisted on maintaining benefits that could have ended up adding $45 million more to the cost of the project, obtaining a general project agreement proved to be a most difficult endeavor. To stem inflationary pressures, President Nixon had issued Executive Order 11588 that restricted labor contracts to allow inflation only up to six percent and set up a watchdog committee to review potential settlement packages. On July 29, 1971, this committee concluded a review and rejected packages that had been negotiated between the two potential contractors and nine of the local unions.
Frustrated at the local level, the Army turned to national labor organizations. An agreement was signed on October 19th, and although above the six percent guideline established by President Nixon's Executive Order, the package won approval of his watchdog committee on the following day. By mid-February 1972, only four unions had indicated their willingness to subscribe to the contracts that had been negotiated on their behalf by their national leaders. Yet hoping that the local unions would quickly fall in line, the Corps gave Peter Kiewit Sons' Company and Associates (PKS&A) the go-ahead to start Phase II construction with a target completion date of late 1974. As spring arrived on the northern plains, additional contracts were let for the Remote Launcher Sites and the nontechnical support structures.
By the end of May, the project was about 10 percent complete and the contractor had mobilized the resources needed to launch full-scale construction. However, the project would not make much further headway. On May 26, 1972, President Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty that limited both sides to one site to protect strategic forces and one site to protect the National Command Authority. With the Grand Forks complex 85 percent complete, the Secretary of Defense suspended construction at Malmstrom. The status of the site remained in limbo until October, when the Senate finally ratified both the SALT I and ABM pacts.
Terminating a project of such magnitude proved to be nearly as complex as the formulation. Some 56 contracts had to be reviewed and closed out. Hundreds of claims from suppliers had to be settled. Finally, on September 11, 1973, the Huntsville Division let two contracts to perform restoration work at the Malmstrom sites. William Clairmont, Inc. of Bismarck, North Dakota, received the contract to remove the MSR, and PKS&A was assigned to demolish the PAR site. Salvageable material was removed, and by July 1974, most of the facilities were buried under tons of earth covered with prairie grass.
After the demolition, only the first level of the unfinished PAR building remained visible on the open prairie as a reminder of the massive effort that once took place.
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