That old bunker mentality

Posted by William Neikirk at 11 am CST

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. VA--The next time Vice President Dick Cheney visits a "secret undisclosed location," we wonder what it's like and where it may be. We wonder if local people suspect where secret hideaways are and whether they are thrown off by government artifice.

A visit to the one of the country's foremost Cold War nuclear bunkers, located beneath the Greenbrier Hotel in the heart of Appalachia, shows that the U.S. government concocted numerous cover stories to keep its location hidden for more than three decades.

They put signs on a huge steel door saying, "Danger: High Voltage," implying it was a huge electrical facility. They built a public exhibition hall inside part of the bunker where parties and conventions were held, covering up a 20-inch thick "blast" door with a fancy wooden yellow door.

Now you can tour the bunker, as I did with colleagues from the Washington Gridiron Club this weekend, just to see where the entire U.S. Congress and staff would have been sent in case of a nuclear attack or an impending one. It was fully equipped with food and water, a cafeteria, steel bunks, a massive electrical generating facility, and even an oven to dispose of people when they die while underground. Gruesome, that last one, reminiscent of Auschwitz.

People knew that a government facility was likely there, even though some of those who worked there told outsiders that they were television repairmen. There were other tell-tale signs, such as the massive construction and the fact that the government enlarged an airport at nearby Lewisburg, W.Va., so that it could take the largest jets.

"We never asked questions," said Mia Decker, a guide for the Greenbrier. "It was a different time and a different era." It all happened with the urging of President Eisenhower, a frequent visitor to the Greenbrier, and with the complicity of the Greenbrier's owners, the former C&O Railroad (now CSX).

For $30, you can take a tour of the bunker, too, if you happen to be in the vicinity. It is interesting to see the contrast between the tight-lipped secrecy of old and the blantant commercialism in which the bunker is sold today as a profit-making enterprise.

It is now a Cold War relic, noted Decker, which was phased out of existence as a bunker when the Washington Post learned of its existence in 1992, thanks to a leak from obviously high government officials. By this time, the Cold War was over and it appeared to be hard to justify the cost of keeping it at 100 percent readiness.

Its shutdown happened before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, noted Decker with a bit of wistfulness in her voice. At the time, according to reports, terrorists had targeted the U.S. Capitol. Now, there is concern about nuclear proliferation and the possible possession of nuclear weapons by terrorists, and about the risk of the entire U.S. Congress being wiped out.

The extent to which the U.S. government went to built this facility, nicknamed Project X, Project Casper, and finally Project Greek Island, makes one wonder whether similar preparations are being made. The existence of various bunkers near the Washington, D.C. area is widely suspected, but locations have not been revealed. You can be sure deception will be deployed to keep it that way.