Transcripts For CSPAN2 Raven Rock 20170624

For the development of the protection of prez press freedom and professional development and we have evolved into other areas over time holding news makers to account and also doing wonderful programs for the development of future journalists including charitable endeavors. So weve been at that since 1908. Which is why i have the phone out and i apologize for not well, tonight were pleased to host a lively discussion if it is not down right depressings given the nature of the book in some respects. Raven is a thoroughly researched book, and for years garrett who writes for politico and other publications is really dug into this to the point where nbc gave you a script option. [laughter] so forget about you have to, keep the mic. Im just mindings camera. We are on cspan. And interestingly enough, that it was an abc show thats popular right now survivor though abc gets the book. Competition is fair and square, right . The book raven rock delves into a schpeel on the continuity of government. A lot of us remember september 11th, a story that former Vice President dick cheney told many, many times about how the secret are service burst into the room and picked him up and shoved him off to undisclosed location. Theres a whole history behind that, and were excited garrett that youll be able to speak it that, why it came about and what its legacies are or its legacy is to the Current Administration and to future practices that we all sit around thinking god im not one of the magic numberses that going to survive incase somebody starts bolling the United States or Something Like that. But enough that. I want to thank some of our good people that put this, put tonight together. Our Headliners Team chaired by Betsy Fisher Martin and members was team who helped us tonight and heather weaver, and press club Lindsay Underwood were all appreciative of the hardwork that they do that we are bringing terms all of speakers to the club whether morning, noon or night and making sure that headliners come here are in the best interest and wonderfully newsworthy like garrett. So with the nuclear saver rally going on in north korea we might wonder especially those of us who lived both in the nations capitol what would happen if we face an eminent threat of being bombed . You know, who would survive . Who wouldnt survive whether security protocol and what whats the thinking that goes into that. And that gives us the book raven rock which if i remember right is named after underground bunker in my lovely home state of pennsylvania just north north of camp david. I want to garrett, ask you just to sort of map out, you know, fans, you know, you can do to whatever mod rn references you want it leave and go in there sutherland or whatever, to help people understand just how the continuity of government you know people talk about state of the union is always one member of the cabinet Supreme Court, it doesnt stay behind the case theres a disaster. Walk us through how this whole thing came about and then well get into some q and a. Sure. So thank you so much for having me tonight its a pleasure to be back here. This is the second time ive spoken at the National Press club of one of my books last book that i did was actually newly relevant once again a biography of Robert Mueller that yitd im sure someone will ask about that. Later tonight. But it was a very funny press club event that i remember distinctly because it was book is history of Robert Mueller and fbi and contingent of Russian Diplomats who came and sat right in the front row and proceeded to ask a bunch of questions about the fbis counterintelligence work in washington. [laughter] so anyway, i guess not that much has changed washington now over the last couple of years. [laughter] exactly. So this was a book that i started out writing i had in washington talked to those e vactd on 9 11, some people who were still part of these plans and this designated helicopters that would land wherever they were in washington and evacuate them and i actually for a story i actually flew on one of the helicopters from the base in andrews which you on a daily basis that are up there every day practicing for nuclear war and catastrophic attack on washington and evacuate nation top picials from across the city soso any time you see those blue and gold helicopters up there, thats what theyre doing. But when one of my colleagues at the magazine found a government id on the floor of a metro parking garage, an he brought it into me in the office he was like i figure you can figure out how to get this back to whoever this guy is. I explain metro to the subway and those who are in subway is not the vehicle you would want to use in evacuation. [laughter] for those who live here washington. It is while it is underground it is not among most reliable of the Transportation Options in washington. And so i look im looking at this id and i flip it over and it has these driving directions on the back of the id. And i get on google maps and google satellite and i follow these directions way out into West Virginia. And find that they end on the side of a mountain where this road disappears into what you can clearly see is like a concrete bunker door in side of unmarked mountain in West Virginia and not on any map. It is not a facility i had ever heard of. And i was like wow, like this is one of the modern parts of this program and it got me interested in figuring out where this program started. And where these programs started. And what resulted is this book raven rock is is just said named after one of the three primary bunkers around washington that the u. S. Government would use during an evacuation. Attack on washington and raven rock is the pentagon bunker outside wanes burrow, pennsylvania. And its enormous. Its withhold between 3,000 and 5,000 people. Its a literal hallowed out mountain with free stand ising buildings built inside of it. And you know has absolutely everything that you would need these massive reservoir for fuel, for drinking water. A Dining Facility, hospitals, Police Departments, Police Departments actually because of the way that government contracts workings and the benefit that accrue to, you know, minorityowned businesses, the bunker, Dining Facility is actually run by the indian tribe, the granite cove Dining Facility inside the mountain, and it is its one of what is just this Enormous Network of these facilities around washington. And some of them are pretty well known. Raven thes bunker where are Cabinet Agency cab tan secretaries would go in virginia which is run by fema which had is agency that runs all of these programs which are known as sort of collect ily as continue knewty of government program. But then almost during the height of the cold war almost every agency and dpght in the government had had their own bunker, and they have their own relocation facility, and state department set up this huge facility on cattle farm in virginia and green breyer bunker which many people around washington know is where congress would have gone. It was the large bunker hidden under the green breyer which had is Luxury Resort in white filter springs, West Virginia. Thats now open as a tourist attraction and is well worth going and you can sort of sit there in House Chamber and senate chaimer and like imagine what war would have been like in those days. But you know, every Government Agency had its own relocation facility and there were more than 100 facilities around washington. The book traces rise and fall offed that mrgs administration and municipal to present did i and they have two developments that arrived at the end of world war ii. The first, obviously, being atomic bomb and for the first tile the idea that an entire city could just be destroyed in an instant. And as atomic age developed the second part of this came into play which was the rise of the atomic arsenal and the rise of these Nuclear Weapons required new Communication System in order to allow the president of the United States to control and demand these Nuclear Weapons. And so raven rock is in some ways story of unfolding communications revolution, and a the story of this systems that we built to allow the president of the United States to have command and control and the launch authority for Nuclear Weapons no matter where in the world the president is. And sort of part of i think, what we forget about is all of these things that we think of is just being the modern ma jest imperial presidency are, in fact, just fancy Communications Tools to it allow the president to launch Nuclear Weapons from wherever he is. So air force one, marine one, you know the armored motorcade that we see around washington are effectively just fancy Communications Tools to ensure that the president of the United States can launch and access the Nuclear System wherever he is, and that all of this technology basically came into play as part of this. You know, the first president ial helicopter trips were evacuations from the white house lawn during the operation alert exercises of the 1950s which people of a certain generation will remember as the duck and cover drill and birth turtle from elementary school. And that the rise of these technologies in the rise of this weapon sort of preage another transforms in the course o of the government plans which is where the book somewhat blast humorous subtitle comes from the secret plan that government secret plan to save itself while rest of us die. Which is, you know, early on the government have these very are am pishes plans for saving civilian population of the United States, and the idea that you could actually evacuate large urban areas in time to carry out and preserve most of the civilian are population of the United States. Those plans are funny in and of themselves and how deeply organized and deeply planned they were you know new york city could be evacuated in precisely 3. 3 days, and they had calculated, you know, each of the roots out of new york city and each borough had its own evacuation relying on ferries and trains and planes and 46,000 people from queens qowb shuttled out of laguardia to southern pennsylvania and residents of the bronx would be taken Staten Island ferries up to syracuse on five round trip ferry trips of six ferries a piece. And you know about in washington they have similar sets of plans where each war sent out in a different direction, and then the plan when you begin to look at the paper fall aart where multiple wards come together and cross perm dig perpendicularly in seven quarters in West Virginia and nose who know washington traffic that did you want really work on any day when its raining let alone on any day when my people are panicking about looming Nuclear Missile launch. These planes gradually shrink over the course of the cold war until they get to be basically what the plans are today which is it shall the priority decision of the evacuation of a small number of high level Government Officials hidden away in these bunkers arpdz around the country, and but as part of that, we built just this tremendous infrastructure during the cold war. That most people dont have any idea existed. There were two especially designed navy ships the uss wright and uss northampton that served through the 1960s and 1970s as the floating white houses, and one of them was always off station on the coast or in the chesapeake. Ready to evuate president on the case in washington and little known fun National Press club trivia here. Bob woodwork did navy service among one of the president ial command ships where itd the president been evacuated it would have been bob woodward sitting there on the ship you know ready to receive the launch orders. For nuclear war aboard uss wright. Or the uss northampton and then, you know, we built these huge helicopter fleets and Airborne Command posts called Looking Glass where there was one of these planes that was in the air 24 hours a day from february 1962 until the early 1990s. You know, for almost 40 or almost 30 years these planes were constantly flying above the planes with one star is general who soul job was to be these last living person in the u. S. Chain of command ready to launch retaliatory strike if everyone on the surface of the planet was destroyed. And we have this whole fleet of president ial Doomsday Plane that National Emergency air Airborne Command post that still exist today. There is one of these planes shadowing President Trump in the middle east right now. Somewhere pretty close to where the pretty close to the airfield wherever air force one is parked at this exact moment one of the planes is ready to evacuate the president and will give the president three days flying aboard this plane to lead nuclear war from wherever he is anywhere on the planet and when president is here, in washington you know, theres one of those planes sitting on the runway in omaha, nebraska, 24 hours a day its engine is on. Fully staffed with everyone from emergency launch officers to meteorologists to supply officers sort of ready to be able to launch and command a nuclear war. And then from beyond that like, these plans get sort of weirder and weirder. You know, armored trains and secret tractor trailer convoys that question built thalsd sort of spread out across the country so that whatever assemblance of National Government existed qowb able to find one of these tractor trailer convoys somewhere and set up a communications hub. And then part of this was sort of thinking through not just the president ial launch system, but also, you know, what nuclear war would look like for the United States afterwards. And so every federal Government Agency had its own role after a u nuclear war. The post office was the agency that would have been in charge of registering the dead and figuring out who was still alive in the United States. And they had you know they have the list of we people live. So its sort of makes sense. National park service would have been the agency that would have been in charge of running the refugee camps because the thinking was that the National Parks qowld qowld not be targeted in a Nuclear Attack, and so you know you would flee from urban area out to Blue Ridge Mountain or yosemite or yellow stone and there your friendly park rangers waiting to receive you in tengt city and post office would take roles and then of course because you know plans exist ir are s would also be waiting with its own plans about how to raise revenue and levee tacks on damage because irs has a plan for after nuclear war. The Federal Reserve built this massive bunker in virginia twailg now a library of congress facility in which you ever have the chance to go out to, its their audio and film archive now. Where they actually do movie screening there because it sort of turns out that bunkers are really great for archives because theres low controlled humidity, you know, controlled climate. And so that they Federal Reserve has bunker in mongst pony that they stocked both would have had board of governor evacuated there but also had a special level of bolts that contain 2 billion is your honor city that currency the amount of money they expected the eastern United States to use to begin to print currency again. Now, part of what i think is sort of so opinionny about these plans is like awferl these these quirky detais because the government doing thissen playing so theres stuff that manges sense in the governments mind that sort of are really opinionny when you look back on them on paper. So the currency that we would have all been using after nuclear war were america decide that they didnt ever want to use 2 bill government had a lot of 2 billion so they decided rather than scrap them, they would move them all into mount pony bunker and put them up in huge pallet ten foot tall pallet after nuclear war with you would have no choice and happy to use the 2 bills afterwards. [laughter] yes. And that was back when 2 might have bought you more than 2 would buy you now. And then you know sort of part of i think also whats so interesting about these plans is the extent to which trying to figure out and think through what had needs to be preserved per the United States during and after a Nuclear Attack quickly becomes pretty big question about what america is. And so you know in washington, you know, the National Archives sat down and decided that they would save the declaration of independence before they saved the constitution. And the library of congress sat down and they decided they would safe the gettysburg address before theyd save George Washingtons military commission. And sort of one of my favorite details in this was that through had the cold war there was a especially trained team of park rangers in philadelphia whose job it was to e vabt the liberty bell in the event of a soviet Nuclear Missile launch. And i just sort of have this image of these like park rangers like driving off in this pickup into the mountains of appalachia with liberty bell swing in the back of their truck. Yes and then craft getting bigger and bigger as they drive further into the mountain the. But then sort of also thissing becomes this interesting exercise about the u. S. Government and sort of what we want to be preserving. You know if youre preserving america what does that mean . And one of the things it means is preserving the presidency. And so what you see during the cold war is is this reimagining of the presidency that most of us dont really think about and realize took place which is, you know, over o the course of the cold war particularly with the 25th amendment guides president ial succession which is amendment that people in the white house are beginning to read very carefully in the last couple of days here. You know, we think of the president as this person that we elect every four year on the first tuesday after the first monday in november. But by the end of the cold war the president s fee is actually this thing that encompasses several hundred people in washington. And around the country. And so you have not just, you know, the 20 or so people the form line of succession laid out in the 27th amendment that president , Vice President , the speaker of the house and senate and all of the cabinet officials. Each of the cabinet offices has its own line of succession of, you know, between 15, 25 people, and so sort of as you begin to sort of think through this and particularly think through the possibility of something happening to washington, you end up with very weird scenarios very quickly where the u. N. Ambassador, the u. S. Attorney for the Northern District of illinois, top federal prosecutor for chicago, and the director of the department of energies Savannah River Operations Center suddenly become some of the top ranking officials in the u. S. Government you know in the event that something happens to washington and even sort of imagine sort of these, you know, people remembering sort of mocked the idea of, you know, alha im in control here at the white house moment. But we can talk more this this. But one of the weird things is that actually alhag might be right, and one of the big Unanswered Questions in the 25th amendment is as it turns out its not at all clear that this speaker of the house and the president for the senate are legally allowed to step into the office of the presidency. And that James Madison himself, a relatively knowledgeable figure about the intentions of the constitution held that no one from the legislative branch could actually be part of the executive succession plan. And so theres actually a very real scenario where the secretary of state could challenge the. For the senate and speaker of the house becoming senate, and again you can sort of imagine this like , you know, 35yearold army captain answering the phone in the National Military command center at the pentagon or at raven rock the alternate National Military command center. And have Rex Tillerson in one year paul rind in the other each of them claiming to be the legitimate president of the United States and for all of the planning that went into it during the cold war we still dont know the answer to that question. And i would argue we might not want to leave it to the judgment of the 35yearold in the center who have to answer that phone and make the decision there on the spot. And you know, all of these plans still exist today. You know, there are still people pulling watch in all of these bunkers not all of these bunkers but some of them have been retired but in raven rock in Mount Weather, in norad in cheyenne, colorado that Doomsday Plane is Still Standing alert wait for the president. And all of these plan have also been updated for modern tile so the post office is not the agency in charge of registering the dead in the lake of soviet Nuclear Attack now. But they are the agency in charge of districting medical measures in the event of a Public Health epidemic or chemical or biological attack something that you might want to think a little bit about next time that youre calculating the holiday tip you want to leave your postman or post woman because you definitely want to make sure that you get the ebola vaccine on the first day theyve handing that out and dive into some questions. So theres, you know, a thousand different threats well garrett youve a piece of literary modern literary first comes to mind adams hitchhikers guide to the galaxy this is it, were going to die. [laughter] so throughout this book, it is not just the facts and the sort of the quirky things that you discover along the way. Talk about the psychology of some of the people you found and some of the, you know, there are as during the cold war in terms of chief justice who said i cant take my wife, no thanks ill let myself die. And you know, there are scenarios throughout the evolution of the continuity of government where people outright refute, and said you know, if i cant, you know, where secretaries prioritized over the spouses of cabinet members and thing, it was crazy. Talk about some of those people who either refused or had to show up and run these bunkers and had to be in, you know, as you open the book youre talking about the building of one of these bunkers and then much later how one of these sort of joe or jane Public Servant is running in there like theyre Fred Flintstone in hard hat every day not realizing that they have this massive role in a giant plan. Yep. So part of, i think, what makes this book and this story so interesting is the interaction of sort of this very cold and mechanical thing of nuclear war and pentagon war plan and the very human reactions of the people involved. And qowld sort of talk about them in two different categories. One is the part where plans begin to fall apart is the part of sort of basic human psychology. And so the plans throughout the cold war and still to this day dont involve family he beens. And so you have moments during cold war where you mention chief justice it was earl warren who becomes chief justice and someone from the forerunner of fema, you know, comes in and meets with him and hands him his emergency pass to get into one of these bunkers, the Supreme Court for a while during cold war would have gone to the grove park inn in asheville, North Carolina which if you have ever been there is this lovely, beautiful inn up on a mountain and Supreme Court would relocate it there, and set up this Supreme Court in in one of the reception halls. And so the government Government Official comes in warren his past, and he sort of looks at it, reads through the instructions and he says i dont see a pass here for mrs. Warren. And they say dont theres no pass for mrs. Warren you sir, are one of the most important people in government. And so he then proceeds to hand the pass back and says now you have room for another really important person in government. And that that sort of actually carries true throughout the cold war sort of these moments when these plans come close to being activated and people are stuck waiting to see, you know, well do, would you i actually leave my family and would would i acty in that moment you know, go off to do the thing that im supposed to do for the government . And in almost every instance the answer is no which is probably sort of good for families and bad for bad for continue knewty of government but second part that is interesting from human psychology side is extent to which planning for this and walking through these exercises changed the way that president thought about nuclear war. That president s during the cold war spent a lot of time practicing for nuclear war. You know, they would participate in these annual readiness exercises. They would be whisked off to these bunkers for sometimes days on end sort practice, you know, running through a nuclear war and they Airborne Command post kale into play you know every president flew on these Airborne Command posts and would go through a whole war exercise. Now the president s themselves were never actually allowed to play being president. They could only observe because the thinking was wouldnt ever want a president to tip his hand as the how he would actually react to nuclear war. But he would sort of sit there and watch other people play this as this, you know, nuclear war unfolded. And it was really those moments that this severity and a the awfulness and the tragedy of nuclear war hit home. And you have these moments you know with eisenhower with kennedy with johnson with carter and reagan where they sort of wrestle with how bad nuclear war would actually be, and they look at the charts and they look at the map, and they watch the stress of these exercises unfold. And i think it actually really helped shape the way that president s reacted to the real life crises of their presidency. And sort of took that step back from the precipice that key moment like the human missile crisis, like the early 1980s which we sort of forget now is probably actually the time when the United States and soviet union actually came closest to nuclear war. Was from 1982 to 1984. Particularly around this moment in 1983 of this nato exercise called able archer. Which we didnt realize it at the time but soviet were convinced is the was sort of a stock horse exercise for a strike. And it ended up being this sort of moment that only later we sort of understood just how tense those moments actually were. When you started to unpack all of these very fascinating facts, how did is it strike youn materials of you talking about the psychology of the people that you profile, had to sort of hit you in a way. What were your take aways from all of this sort of heavy had duty scenarios that are that were floating out and to some degree still are. Its an interesting question. The part of this that i struggled with most in writing about it and recreating it, is we know how this story ends. We know that at least so far it eppedz ends peacefully and with the collapse of the soviet union. And so its really hard to understand looking back just how existential this threat was or appeared to be for u. S. Policymakers. Because you know we know now sort of what a hallow shell the soviet union was, and we know certainly they had a tremendous military capability. But it was far less than we sort of thought it was at the time. And it it sort of hard to go back to capture the actual feeling danger that the policymakers of that era really felt. But to your point of sort of what do you make of looking at these plans the make take away i think you get is how none of them would have worked. And how you know, serious we took this planning how expensive and elaborate these systems were, and the extent to which, you know, you read the 152page plan for evacuate aring nrks and great that we thought about that plan and that level of depth. But theres almost no chance that it would have looked anything like that particularly the part where you can sort of imagine the peoples reaction in various neighborhoods where theyre like no youre totally taken care of. Youre going to be e vactd on day three so hang out for next couple of days go about your normal life and then show up at the train station on thursday. Your neighbors go tuesday and then downtown gets wednesday. But like you guys youre definitely all set for thursday. The buses will be waiting. If theres any buses left. [laughter] lets go to jump to the mode earn era. Lets talk about the legacies of these plans on the modern you talked about it a little bit in your opening remark but sort of dig into it how we react and how United States reacts as a country. How it affects power Emergency Planning is, how the presidency how legislature are there anymore of these list of 2,000 people out there so that are thats all gone . So thats all still there. And i think that there are, you know, all of these plans still kris many of these sort of vehicles and communication facilities still exist in modern era there are new ones that have been built since 9 11 raven has been expanded pretty dramatically since 9 11. But i think there are four major legacyings that stand out for me in thinking about how these plans and the cold war have sort of shaped our modern world. The first is i think that this is where you see the real beginning of the modern National Security state. Both in terms of sort of the size and the power of the National Security apparatus. But also because this is the first place where you begin to have mass government secret and this is where the classification systems that we now know of, you know, top secret, fci, you know, this this is where they begin to come into play is right after world war ii as the government sort of begins to keep mass secrets for indefinite period of time after the end of world war ii particularly around atomic e weapons. The second thing is this is where you really begin to see a shift in the Balance Power between branches. Because nuclear war is such a departure from the tradition of war in this country that it is basically a president ial prerogative. If we want to send a small member of troops to another country, with youre supposed to have congressional authorization to do that. If you want to launch global were and destroy every living thing on planet, the president can do that on his own authority at any time, anywhere in the world. And thats a you know, tremendous shift in the way that we sort of think about the power of the presidency and the modern era. The third area where i think this really begins to come into play is on and after 9 11 that i think we we dont realize the extent to which these plans influence the way that people like donald trump and dick cheney reacted to 9 11 in the in the literal minutes and hours but then also in months and years afterwards. So dick cheney and donald trump felt had been part of these plans going back to the 1970s when they had been white house chiefs of staff. And touring the 1980s they had been part of a secret program dg reagan years as president ial support system. Ps3, and ps3 was a secret program that designated private citizens to have former high ranking government experience and to be basically the white house staff in waiting. After these continue knewty facility and so donald trump and dick cheney other high ranking Government Officials sort of like the howard baker era and and would practice during 1980s they would be evacuated from their daily lives to appear for day or o weeks at a time and to these bunkers. So run these exercises. And you know if you ended up with a secretary of agriculture and the president they wouldnt have the first clue what to do. And so you would need an experience fast weaving for them in the bunker who would bairvegly run the country until they were ready to stand in and if you were secretary of agriculture in 1980s once youre evacuated to one of these bunkers in Mount Weather or o denton, texas or any other place where is thief these bunkers like dick cheney would be waiting there are there for you as chief of staff and we dont know whether this Program Still exist. So at some point you ran up against the wall of stuff you wanted to declassify. So for all we know waiting someday for president ben carson or president beth betsy delaware vas or andy card or o dick cheney, you know, waiting in a mountain bunker somewhere for them. Thats where we sort of get into what i think is this fourth legacy which youre touching on which is the extent to which we know so little about what plans exist as today. So the highest classified set of plans in this area today is something called enduring Constitutional Government. Which is the way that this three branches of government would interact with one another after a catastrophic attack on washington. We know almost nothing about what enduring Constitutional Government means. But what it seems to mean is something that along the lines of the preservation of the spirit of the constitution but the not letter of the constitution. And so it likely vos based on sorts of the hints that we can gather effectively total suspension of civil liberties, declaration of marshal u law, suspension of habeas corpus and then something that is almost akin to congress where a small group of congressional officials which might be as small as one to four members of congress would be designated basically to act in the stead of all of congress. Until congress was able to at some point down the road be able to reare rescriewt itself so one of the things that everyone in washington knows is who designated survivor is for you know, the state of the union or president ial inauguration which member of cabinet has been hidden away many a bunker somewhere. Theres also a designated survivor for congress that started it in wake of 9 11, and so you sort of have to ask yourself like there is no point under ordinary or operateive circumstances for one member of congress to survive so whatever this system actually ends up meaning it must give some sort of superauthority to that one member of congress. To make it worthwhile for there to be one hidden away on the night of the state of the union. Democracy as we know it in the United States. For plans that get interesting is you know this question of well, you know, if you are beginning to preserve america, like is that the three branches of government is it the president . Is the liberty bell . You know, sort of what, you know, when in the Independence Day movie when bill is like standing in the back of the pickup truck like trying to rally the devastated nation what needs to be in that pickup truck with bill poleman, and thats sort of the question that i think is so interesting at the heart of this book. S intregging you know for those that are viewing now just joining us youre watching the National Press club. Were hosting with raven rock the story of u. S. , u. S. Government secret is plans to save itself while rest of us die. You you just alluded to one of a Cottage Industry of disaster movies. So what degree did movies like if you talked about Independence Day armageddon, you pick it. You know, the day after. You know all of these movies that have evolved over o the past you know 20 years or so or more that are going back to our favorite one you know dr. Strange where talking about, you know, what its like to imagine a doomsday scenario either whether it is missiles or an asteroid or something else. So part of what i think is so interesting and weird about researching this is realizing that almost every crazy Conspiracy Theory you have ever heard has a colonel of truth in these programs. So well ill start on the popular pop culture side so we all remember from dr. Strange love, you know the famous scene of like worrying about the mind shaft gap. We actually did worry if the mind shaft gap during the 140s and 1950s and 1960s, and we sent government and boy scouts and part of the Boy Scout Program to map abandoned minds and caves that can be diverted into fallout shelters and stocked with supplies during to survive nuclear war. So you hear if fema camps sort of these concentration camps that fema is supposed to run. Turns out during much of the cold war we have those things sitting around and that forerunners of fema and military actually did have these prisoner of war camps that were can kept ready across the country that would have held predesignated lists of thousands of likely those who would be rounded up in opening moments of a nuclear war. So the president has his Nuclear Football that everyone knows and that were sort of deforget about for long periods of time until theres a guest at marlo go with the aid carrying the football. So during the cold war, the attorney general was followed around by someone carrying the attorney generals emergency brief case. Which had these predesignated lists of submersives who would be rounded up and there was sort of prewritten emergency orders you know suspending habeas corpus declaring marshal law that you just had to fill in the dates, and you know, the cause of the emergency and sign at the bottom. And we could deploy people, you know, to arrest these thousands of people. Much fun there was a Denzel Washington movie. [laughter] and that, you know, sort of much of these plans are actually almost weirder and stranger than even the fiction that we came up with, you know, to talk about armageddon and doomsday movies. So its better to have two than to deal with a then some of thee actual plans. But one more and then ill start taking questions from the audience. Talk about your research process. About digging some up some oflovely treasuretroves. So it was just a tremendous amount of archive work. And gone is a tremendous Record Keeper itself, and so you know, its these great histories of unit and exercises that have been sort of slowly declassified over the years. And then sort of part of what is fun uny, though, about these plans is like not characterized in any way that make hads sense to anyone because theyre secret plan sort of hidden so i am deeply indebted to, you know, a lot of ark of it across country who help dig out, files that they knew and exist and i was down at the lbj president ial library, and i was talking with archivist who work on National Security stuff there, and im explaining my project one im interested in so you definitely want the further file, and that sounds awful whats the first file . Okay. And hes like all of the nuclear predelegation systems during the johnson years were known by the code word furtherance. So you have this file folder he dug out and handed me that was the title of it further, and if you didnt know that that was what the program name was called you would have never ever been able to uncover these files and he said, actually he it took them a really long tile to declassify that folder because couldnt find anyone who knew what the code word meant so they couldnt find anyone who even understood whether they have the authority to open the file to look at what was inside of it. But you know i was filed under f in the you know, files was wow, ive got nothing. No i have plenty but i want to share with those who are here. Other question ill repeat it for sake of our viewing audience. An exercise of war that was a technical level, and within that the military made plans for the result of a nuclear war to include number of bids available in hospitals and number of roads and airfield and so on. But i mean, the whole exercise was run are once. You can see what each other, so there was no danger of a nuclear war in exchange at that point in time. Said there facing al against eah other and the key on the soviet side was the command train which is the command train which moved around tracks around the union. So the leader of the soviet union could not be killed. So these are all very complex and you touched on a lot of good stuff so i compliment you on your research. Theres still a lot of research to go. Thats absolutely true. One of the things that stands out when i look back through this is really realizing how incredibly lucky we are that we made it to the sarah. And the number of moments when a misjudgment or miscalculation did have really stumbled into. I think what i mean there any see it in multiple places is very rarely did we ever come to a moment when nuclear war would logically start. There are a lot of opportunities where a cascade where misjudgments werent resulted in tragedy. You can see it in almost any one of these crises where the peak of the cuban missile crisis in the most stressful day of the entire crisis a you to play in conducting a normal routine surveillance operation that had a planned weeks in advance and was just been secured because it happened to be that particular day, got lost over the north pole and stumbled into soviet airspace. It was a plane heading straight into the soviet union for some time. Also sort of how imperfect the information is that our leaders are making decisions about. During some and if the crisis because the intelligence they are getting is wrong or they misunderstand the motives of the other person, the other adversary and you see this today where we thought six weeks ago that we were about to go toward north korea because we had stationed, we had an Aircraft Carrier battle group that was steaming to strike north korea, only to learn 72 hours later it was 3000 miles away in australia. Everyone in washington had thought this thing was right there ready to launch an attack. You see that throughout the cold war, particularly during areas where communications are less good than they are today. Is so the issue is to raise of archer and you hopped into it, can you tell us what that is because they cannot necessarily hear the gentleman. The question was about the evil larger exercises and the resulting soviet exercise in november 83. It sounds like you are a participant in those earlier research. That sounds a little more than he read your book is good to have a participant in the room. Other questions. In the book you mention the shiny mountain or. It was the most motive to me. It seems like it would be less interesting if i had named it mount pony after the Federal Reserve. Well its interesting enough speaking of attractive quality, you seem to have attracted quite a following, survivalist love you. They said see we knew the government was fine and this is the proof wide. When you come across some of the abuse, how they struck you in terms of those who studied or were in a survivalist mode. A broad range of reaction. What is your take . This is a books i was sort of surprised nobody had written before. It is actually something that gets talked about a lot in Popular Culture and doomsday prepping is is its own sub genre of Reality Television shows now. This thread and strain of American Culture is still very much active and alive in a way that you can see very distinct parallels with the fallout shelter culture of the 1950s and 60s. Im sure you have the whole idea of evacuation and the whole thing is going to be a nuclear war obviously from the time it hits its too late to evacuate. What was behind that . And what about today where everything is even faster. So they asked about the utility of evacuations in the new wake of a nuclear scenario. Talk about that. These two through three different broad chapters in evolution. The 40s 50s and even in the early 60s you have the main delivery mechanism was going to be a bomber. So you would have six, eight, or ten hours warning before something struck. So the plan during that era was if congress was in session everyone would go down to Union Station and be loaded onto a special train that would be driven out to the greenbrier. Trains dont work was to get into the area of Nuclear Missiles. And they particularly dont work when you get into other Nuclear Missiles were icbm have a delivery time of about 30 minutes, submarine off the Atlantic Coast would strike in 12 minutes although you dont really have to worry because the original set of war plans and i talk about in the book kennedy talking about this, was the pentagon believed the soviets had smuggled atomic bombs into their embassy on 16th street and the un mission in new york. And that there were atomic bombs in the attic of those buildings that would be how the soviets would launch a surprise attack with no warning. Now, of course the russian ambassadors radioactive for Different Reasons in washington. But then you get into this third era where once you get out of the missiles on this idea of the 15 30 minute evacuation window which is basically time enough to get the president into the air somewhere and try to hope that you get him out of washington. Then you get into the third era that begins on 9 11 but actually starts a few years before then. If you remember in the mid 1990s there was a doomsday colton tokyo that launched a gas attack on the subway there. He began to change the u. S. Governments thinking to focus on the evolution of power where washington might just disappear without warning whatsoever and how do you ensure their peoples and facilities outside of washington ready to step into running the country. Thats only begin to keep these facilities running 24 hours per day and have these detailed lines of successions about if the fbi headquarters in washington is destroyed the fbi office in little rock would take control, or other departments and agencies. Thats where you get this very weird set of post washington Apocalypse Group of these u. S. Attorneys and the un ambassador and if new york was wiped out the bet went to be a besser to the u. K. Than the ambassador of india and you have this weird set of people who are announcing they are the government in the wake of an attack on washington. Theres a real concern now in this plan about a scenario where a terrorist group or rope state like north korea or iran something could happen to washington and their 329 Million People are totally fine that is where these plans are today. Im from West Virginia so if youre greenbrier ui going to what the cost of having all this would be an does that come out of the Defense Budget versus. So your question is how much does all this continuity of government cost and where does it come from . The answers this probably never been a realistic accounting of how much this cost. Its right across it number of different agencies, many of them classified budgets at the pentagon and fema which most people do not know a huge portion of femas budget is black classified money that we do not know where it goes. Where it goes is to the continuity programs but we dont know what that means. Then it also becomes very complicated and thinking through what do you include under these costs because of the personnel operating them, the Communication System we have a plan for the 70s and 80s to build the Worlds Largest Radio Station across upper michigan and wisconsin that would have encompassed more than 10 of the total state land but, would have guaranteed communications to submarines after a nuclear war so the submarines could still launch nuclear weapon. My guess with the math is we spend between two and 3 billion per year of the stuff right now. Which is only the heart operational costs, not the personal cost for it. These plans still exist and are still being worked on. Century link, like right now this week is laid new communication cables through wadesboro, pennsylvania to raven rock, to upgrade their internet connectivity. And i think that that it talk about this but part of what is also interesting about the legacy of these plans is the extent to which our modern world was created through these plans. That the internet grew out of the need for the pentagon to have to decentralize Communication System that could survive a nuclear war. The first cap programs, the forerunner of slack in aol, and Facebook Messenger was a program built for these bunkers in the 1970s to communicate between them about stockpile levels of precious resources. In the tools we use to make airplane today is a descendent of the air Defense System that we built in the 1950s that was originally supposed to track soviet bombers coming to the United States. Those computers which then were like the size of a particularly enormous building, they are like sixstory tall computers they have the first ram of any computers in the world and the first optical pointing devices that many generations later became the lights that we use. So the computer and wargames did have a purpose. And joshua was a real thing. That was the doomsday computer. The wargames movie starring matthew broderick, that was a true story of two computer failures at no rad in 1979 in 1980. Both of which registered soviet Nuclear Missile launches and only because of the people making you very conscious decisions were looking at the computers saying it seems unlikely these are actually really missiles coming out us so im not going to escalate this and launch Nuclear Weapons, but during one of the scares carters National Security advisor was awoken at 3 00 a. M. And told there were 2200 soviet Nuclear Missiles on their way to the United States. Many is a moment when they talk about this where he never woke his wife. She was sleeping in the bed next to him and he never woke his wife. Because hes like in 30 minutes were all going to be dead. Why worry her. Nice. Given these plans are public is the assumption that the American People will just what were told that this person really is authorized to take over as the new congress of four people are the new president. I will point you wrote about certain journalists were breached ahead assignment hundred plan, do you think that still the case that you would trust an anchor. So the question was about the legitimacy of these plans if we dont know about them including was included in them and during the cold war there actually preselected journalist who would be part of the Emergency Press corps would be evacuated, dont know whether the president of the National Precious club is still on that list today. But i do think there is the interesting questions that we should be wrestling with today is yes, there are good reasons for some of the secrecy around some of the programs. The specific evacuation plans for specific facilities for the specific capabilities of this vehicle are that building, but more broadly i dont think theres a reason for secrecy around the outline of who is actually in charge. I think we should have some understanding of that because if most of us woke up tomorrow in the u. S. Attorney for the Northern District of illinois was announcing that he was president of the United States right now i think a lot of us would have questions about that weather that is supposed to happen, whether there are who those people are and who is on that list and how those plans are supposed to unfold, i dont think needs to be a secret. Were running out of time. More and then i need to switch topics. To the undergo alterations based on the identities of the specific individuals. Yes every president can change the order of succession for all of the Cabinet Agency. And they do almost every time. I keep referring to the department of justice, President Trump, one of the first things he did was change the order of success in and so i might be slightly screwing this up so dont quote me exactly. I think president obama had the u. S. Attorney for the Northern District of the district of minnesota minnesotas top federal prosecutor wouldve been the top ranking justice official outside of washington. Then i think it is now the Northern District of illinois. Is the person who is the top ranking. It changes administration by administration based on who the president s like and dont like and who they trust the various jobs upanddown government which is this weird quirk of president ial power again people dont realize president s get to do literally altering who are the people who would be in charge. Then theres a another layer of this that we dont know that much about. So president eisenhower when he was president he had nine private citizens that he had predesignated as emergency czars who had prewritten authorizations to step in and Nationalize Industries and sectors after an attack. There are some in charge of housing, someone in charge of transportation and manufacturing for the most part they were serious ceos and private sector leaders but is also like eisenhowers accountant was one of these people who would step in and run a sector of the u. S. Economy. Again this is one of those things where we dont know what the modern analog of these plans are. Does marriott gmr Mark Zuckerberg have secret envelopes of the communication after an apocalypse . I want to switch topics for a minute. Youre watching a National Press club hit liner series at the beginning we were talking in your opening remarks he talked about the fact that we were walking through the biography we tripped over the fact that you wrote about bob miller. You gave some unsolicited. Race to the president of the United States, talk about what is happening now and what the president is walking into with rob mueller as a special prosecutor knowing what you know about him and his relationship to jim, and has the president stepped in . What is he facing. Up until last wednesday at about 5 30 p. M. They go see only person in america who had ever cared about bob muellers career before. As were talking about it wrote his biography when he was fbi director. He is a fascinating individual and one of those last of a breed a Public Servant who spent his entire career as a federal prosecutor and Justice Department official the longestserving prosecutor since j edgar hoover. I think this is a big challenge for President Trump in the white house and the administration. Because he is now going to be facing bob mueller and jim comey, two men who have worked together for many years in washington and in the Justice Department together on turf that is very familiar with them. These men spent a lives leading big complex investigations including bob mueller helped with prosecution of noriega and the prosecutors of pan am one oh three. He knows how to conduct these big wideranging federal investigations. This is an area where the president and his associates dont have a lot of experience in the way these investigations unfold. Particularly when you look at the history of the way they so often end up focusing on issues ancillary to the underlying charge. They can start investigation how one after Monica Lewinsky and the valerie investigation and the way it focused on Scooter Libby and dethroning president cheney stop a was not the leaker, but he was someone who had been caught up in the investigation. I think thats a real challenge for this administration going forward. Before you get to last questions, some announcements. The things coming up on the National Press Club Calendar the 24th of may the restaurant has it Certified Angus Beef dinner. We have a series of wine dinners this week will be certified angus be. Those with 25 years or more in the club have their annual spring hoot. The National Press Club Journalism institute has their press Club Tournament and that benefit or charitable endeavor scholarship in her headline series is on june 19 general joseph done for chairman of joint chiefs of staff will be here. Will talk about all things defense. I will present you with their Traditional Press cu club mode d with that comes a question. If someone handed you a designated survivor card, would you accept it . If it meant going into raven rock. I did not get the chance to get into raven rock and i would like to see that very much. You would accept that the responsibility that goes with it understanding you might have to leave your family behind. At the end of the day i probably wouldnt ever use it. I dont think that is, i dont have come i didnt come away with from this process with enough confidence in the totality of the plants. You push it across the table, thanks but no thanks. Garrett will sign books after we adjourn. We thank you for watching and attending National Press club headliner series. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible] youre watching the tv and cspan2. Television for serious readers. Heres a primetime lineup. At 7 00 p. M. Eastern former House Speaker Newt Gingrich talks about his experiences with donald trump from his president ial campaign to his time in office. Then at apm, we sit down with author and journalist and discuss the writing my from his home in new york city. A book tvs afterwards programs at 10 00 p. M. , financial expert report on how low and moderate income families much money. Their book is the financial diaries. At 11 00 p. M. , we explore urban revitalization. That happens on cspan