The Department of Energy's varied and diverse history derives primarily from two largely separate programmatic traditions. The first consists of nuclear energy and defense related activities dating back to the Manhattan Project effort to build the atomic bomb. The second consists of non-nuclear energy programs that, prior to the 1970s energy crisis, were scattered throughout  various government departments and agencies. Both of these programmatic traditions came to full fruition during the Cold War era (1946-1990). The Cold War Preservation Initiative is dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of historic properties coming out of both traditions during this time period.

On the defense side, DOE and its predecessor agencies played a crucial role in determining the nature and outcome of the Cold War conflict. Historians have described the DOE nuclear weapons facilities that designed, built, and tested the Nation's nuclear arsenal as the "battlegrounds of the Cold War." What was done at these facilities, in essence, made winning the Cold War possible. Perhaps the single most defining element of the second half of the 20th century, nuclear weapons shaped the manner in which the Cold War was fought.Hexafluoride Reduction Plant at what was the Feed Materials Production Center, Fernald, Ohio They were, many have argued, the determining factor in keeping the struggle from becoming, at some point, an all-out hot war. At the same time that they visited unprecedented fear and a daily awareness of the nearness of global holocaust on everyone, nuclear weapons bought the necessary time--over four decades as it turned out--to achieve a successful outcome to the Cold War on the basis of ideology, economics, social structure, and the limited application of military might alone.

During the Cold War era, DOE also assumed the lead governmental role in dealing with energy-related issues. The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 incorporated within DOE a score of organizational entities from a number of departments and agencies. The new department brought together for the first time most of the government's energy programs, from energy regulation to energy research and development, from the Federal Energy Administration to the regional power administrations. At the height of the 1970s energy crisis, DOE funded and oversaw dozens of developmental and demonstration projects across the country.

Many of DOE's Cold War-era facilities are near, at, or over fifty years of age. Some structures, having performed their defense or energy-related missions, sit dormant and unused awaiting their ultimate disposition. The Cold War Preservation Initiative is a joint headquarters-field effort to inventory DOE's remaining Cold War-era structures and artifacts, evaluate their relative significance in telling DOE's defense and energy stories, and devise a realistic and rational complex-wide Cold War preservation and interpretation plan. The Department's goal is to move forward in preserving and interpreting these properties by integrating departmental activities and joining with all interested outside entities, organizations, Building 800, completed in 1949, at what was then Sandia Laboratory, Albuquerque, New Mexicoand individuals, including Congress, state and local governments, DOE's contractors, and various other stakeholders, in a working partnership.

This long-term effort is in its early stages. DOE field sites currently are inventorying and evaluating their properties. From the list of historic structures and artifacts that each site draws up, a complex-wide list of Cold War-era "signature facilities" will be determined. Signature facilities are those properties that, taken together, provide the core for DOE's ability to successfully interpret, whether in situ or through museum or other interpretive setting, the agency's Cold War-era missions. The complex-wide Cold War preservation and interpretation plan will be developed and implemented around these core signature facilities.