Efforts to establish the USS Cincinnati Cold War Memorial Peace Pavilion started 20+ years as a project of the Cincinnati chapter of the Navy League of the U.S., a national organization of Navy vets, civilians, and defense companies who provide support to the Navy, Marine Corp, and Coast Guard, to help ensure a strong defense of our nation.

The nuclear-powered submarine USS Cincinnati was one of 62 sister subs built during the height of the Cold War from 1972 to 1996, with a mission to defend our carriers and the US homeland against submarines of the USSR and their nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, and to secretly gather information about the ships and submarines of the USSR. USS Cincinnati served during the Cold War from 1978 through the end of the Cold War in 1991 when the USSR collapsed. As part of the reduction in the US military following the end of the Cold War, the USS Cincinnati was decommissioned in 1996 and ultimately scrapped in Puget Sound Naval Shipyard near Seattle, WA in 2012. 

The Navy donated the conning tower, the forward planes attached to the conning tower, the upper rudder, and the sub’s emergency diesel engine-generator (the “Big Red Machine”), 100 tons in all. They were provided for display as a memorial to the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War, the investment our nation made during 50 years of the Cold War, the local veterans who served, and the numerous companies in Greater Cincinnati that contributed to the peaceful end to the Cold War.

After spending about 8 years seeking a location along the riverfront at the Banks, we were finally aware that no space would be made available to build the memorial on the Cincinnati riverfront. The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting was then chosen as an ideal location, because VOA served starting in WW2 and throughout the Cold War, broadcasting from West Chester into Europe and Germany during WW2 and behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. USS Cincinnati and VOA are both veterans of the Cold War, and each played important roles in winning the Cold War. As such, there is a natural connection of both with that history. Their efforts, while different, helped achieve the peaceful conclusion of the Cold War.

The theme of USS Cincinnati Cold War Memorial-Peace Pavilion indicates that service – “Peace is our Purpose.”