Back in the Reagan Era, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and a young Congressman named Dick Cheney took it upon themselves to fortify Mount Weather, a facility that you may remember having heard tell of in 1963’s classic movie, “Dr. Strangelove,” at the point in the story where it became evident that General Ripper’s mad plan was going to work and the Doomsday Device would be activated destroying the world. In the movie, there was dialogue about the principals, all men, stocking the shelter with plenty of women and food. In real life, Dick Cheney was on top of saving his own ass by roleplaying doomsday scenarios with top level White House staffers, flying by helicopter the 64 mile trip from D.C. to Berryville, Virginia. Watch this video on Mount Weather in Berryville, Virginia site of the underground bunker, where the hoi poloi plan to live in comfort and style while you and I are dying of dehydration and radiation sickness, and looters and rioters are going wild in the streets.
“Directive 58” is a plan implemented by the CIA to deal with doomsday scenarios. Doomsday scenarios were headed up by Ray Derby, an expert in emergency preparedness and disaster response. Foreign Policy magazine did a story on the declassification of Directive 58, and it is very timely indeed.
Today, such an apocalypse could be triggered by any number of nuclear-armed states, including North Korea and Pakistan. During Carter’s presidency, such anxieties were focused squarely on the Soviet Union. It was during that period that military planners in both the Soviet Union and United States began to grapple with what until then had been an unthinkable heresy: abandoning the Mutually Assured Destruction catechism that had governed global order since the 1950s and preparing for surviving an all-out nuclear war.
Carter and his White House were interested in more specific questions. If the presidency could survive after a nuclear war, what exactly would it do afterward? How could the surviving commander in chief be identified? Who would identify him? How would he fulfill the three main functions of the presidency: to be the chief executive of the government, the head of state, and the commander in chief of its armed forces?
Carter’s answers came in the form of Presidential Directive 58, which was issued in the final months of his presidency; Ronald Reagan amended those plans with his own presidential directive in 1983. Their contents inform the continuity of government plans that remain in effect for the Trump administration. They have been the object of a multibillion-dollar pastiche of programs and a magnet for conspiracy theorists around the world.
Specialist Ray Derby was in charge of the continuity of the government of the United States in the event of a nuclear war. Here is his secret plan if nuclear war breaks out, reported by RawStory:
If “the bomb” was en route, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would order 60 officials to a special facility build into Mount Weather. Other locations are near Hagerstown, Maryland, and Martinsburg, West Virginia. The FBI would be relocated to the Marine base near Quantico, Virginia. The State Department would be sent to Front Royal, Virginia. The rest would be hidden at colleges inside or near the Washington, D.C. metro area.
Having a rendezvous spot was only half the battle, however. The military didn’t have enough helicopters to carry more than a third of those assigned. Everyone was given an alternative idea for how to get to Mount Weather. However, most leaders scoffed at the idea that nuclear war would ever happen and even if it did, the former Soviet Union knew about Mount Weather. They even purchased land around it to monitor what was going on at the site.
Survivability, connectivity, and supportability were the key elements of a plan to protect the president and/or a presidential successor, as chaos was sure to ensue from a surprise nuclear strike. To minimize chaos and maximize efficiency in the case that the worse came to the worse a “presidential successor support team” was implemented:
So, they devised a “presidential successor support team” that would be pre-positioned or pre-deployed during emergencies to the presidential successors. Each team would have requirements to authenticate the new president and the further actions continue to be classified. FP was able to hear some specifics that reveal what might be the first use of a “tracking chip” in the successor cards that would be “amplified by radio frequency repeaters.” They could be collected by FEMA to find locations.
The team was also tasked with helping the successor to carry out functions, talk to other teams, talk to the Pentagon and help execute the nuclear war plan. They’d also be required to “receive intelligence and damage assessments” and talk to local and state governments. Essentially, each team must be able to function as its own government.
All of the other documents that outline specifics are still classified but Carter issued at least 29 other directives. It’s unclear how Congress would be reestablished or if troops would be drafted.
It should be abundantly clear at this point that despite all of these directives that the entire subject devolves rather quickly into vagueness and the usual labyrnith of bureaucracy that attends weighty subjects, and the topic of surviving a nuclear war is certainly the weightiest subject that anyone could devise, short of nuclear war itself. Twenty-nine directives on the subject, and a plan for “each team...able to function as its own government.” Right. Lots of efficiency there. And bear in mind at all times, this is the plan to make sure that the Big Shots survive — there is nothing here to dictate what will happen to the you’s and me’s — but then again, we already know what will happen to us, don’t we?
Aren’t you relieved to know that all this energy is being expended to make sure that Donald Trump and Mike Pence, et. al., survive the apocalypse and live to rebuild a world in their own image? I suggest if you’ve read this far that you immediately get yourself a copy of Dr. Strangelove because if you don’t stop worrying soon and learn how to love the bomb, you may not get much further through this administration. For myself, I’m going to invent a new cocktail and call it, “The Doomsday Device.” Will you join me?