the story continues....
When, in 1958, at the height of the Cold War, workmen started
excavating a hill behind the Greenbrier Hotel (see below), the official line was that it was for a new
wing, exhibition hall and clinic. That much was true. But the hall and the
clinic were actually part of a huge 153-room bunker, a fallout shelter with three-to-five
foot thick reinforced concrete walls, buried hundreds of feet into the hillside,
to house the members of the United States Congress and their staff – over a thousand
people - in the event of a nuclear
attack. The Greenbrier was chosen because of its fast links to Washington (it still has its own railway station) plus
the mountains would deter enemy bombers.
Those hotel staff in the know were sworn to
secrecy, as were the engineers posing as TV repairmen who came at dead of night to
keep the equipment in a constant state
of readiness.
The secret was only unmasked in 1992 by the Washington Post and soon after, the
bunker was decommissioned. Now anyone
can take the tour.
It was a bizarre experience, like entering
a 1960s sci-fi film. The massive steel doors disguised behind
innocuous-looking walls, the 433-foot supply
tunnel, the decontamination rooms, the giant
generators, that could keep the power on
for 40 days, the water-purifying plants,
the cafeteria with its black-and-white check lino, the spartan
bunks and lockers, each assigned to individual Congressmen and Senators – the
assignments religiously updated after each election.
As
well as the clinic there were dental facilities, an operating theatre constantly replenished with the latest drugs
and technology, an incinerator to dispose of the rubbish – and the dead. Separate chambers for meetings of the Senate
and the House of Representatives still have their tiered seats and fold-down
desks.
Some bits were hidden in plain sight. The exhibition hall was used for trade fairs,
visitors little knowing that the hidden doors could slam shut and seal it,
turning it into secretaries’ offices.
It was part spine-chilling, part slightly
ludicrous. The briefing room, doubling as a TV studio, with its murals of the White House and the
Capitol, in front of which politicians could reassuringly address their public,
never mind that the real buildings – and possibly many of the public - might
not be there any more. The stash of riot
gear in case the politicians, maddened by confinement, turned on each other.
“Imagine” speculated our guide, Nancy,
if our Congress all got locked
up together like that!”
“Great idea,” said someone in the
group,
All that money and effort for something that was never needed. Thank God it was never needed. Some documents were sent there during the 1962 Cuban Missile
Crisis. But no people.
There's still something secretive about it, mind you. Cameras everywhere (in case some one "got lost") and no photos allowed (the above are from the website) as companies now apparently store classified documents and records there.
And now we’ve supposedly moved on. Nancy had to explain to the younger tourists
what the Cold War was.
But every generation has its terrors. Back at
the hotel, I asked an employee if you could still take the waters in the little
pavilion they used in the old days.
“No”, she said, “After 9/11, the water was shut off in case someone poisoned it. But,” she added consolingly,” it did taste pretty
bad.”
