APOCALYPSE NOW AND AGAIN

...The North American Air Defense Command, buried a third of a mile inside Colorado's Cheyenne Mountain, is vulnerable to a direct hit, as are the Strategic Air Command's war rooms, situated only forty-six feet below Omaha, Nebraska...

...Before Carter, the Government had based its planning on the assumption that an atomic exchange would leave nothing worth conquering...

...leadership, called the National Command Authority, must survive World War III—or, at least, must be "reconstituted" from among those who weather the storm...

...But TACAMO is not expected to survive World War III, and neither is the ELF (extremely low frequency) system of antennas spread across northern Michigan and Wisconsin...

...We remain concerned...

...An attack submarine laden with cruise missiles would be sequestered beneath the Arctic icecap for the duration of World War III...

...Though billions of dollars have been invested in the effort, "there's a lot of nebulous thinking about post-SIOP," says Paul Bracken, a political scientist at Yale University and author of The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces...

...In the corridors and conference rooms of military think tanks, World War IV is a hot topic...

...is...

...58 called for improved "continuity of government," and 59 upgraded the target status of Soviet leaders and C3I systems...

...The President is gone and we don't know where the V.P...

...Instead of providing a cushion of air, however, the fans would be reversed to produce a powerful suction force beneath the trucks, helping them to withstand nuclear blasts...

...The lack of answers isn't a matter of secrecy...

...In place of these, a new and secret system would order submarines to surface briefly to receive orders...

...After the superpowers have hurled some 50,000 warheads at each other, the manual continues, the United States—or what's left of it—will stand ready to launch "controlled nuclear counterattacks over a protracted period...

...And there are other troubling questions in the theory of World War IV: Who will calm those Cabinet members who, under emergency regulations, cannot bring their spouses aboard the "Crown Helo" helicopters assigned to evacuate the national leadership from Washington...

...But Carter scrapped the MAD doctrine with Presidential Directives 53, 58, and 59, all of which sanctioned protracted nuclear conflict...

...today, they're given "top priority...

...If [someone] got on the horn and said, i'm the successor,' and someone said, 'Prove it,' no one could...

...It was Carter who stamped the White House seal of approval on the notion that World War /// could be survived, if not won...

...You let the other guy know that no matter what happens, we're still going to be able to make his rubble bounce a bit...

...and this is the man.' " It's a small thread on which to hang the fate of a world that would, by then, be devastated...

...bombers and land-based ballistic missiles would also be used to force surrender...

...And World War IV demands good ideas...

...There was no authentication system," FEMA Director Louis Guiffrida said after observing a war game...

...So the Reagan Administration committed $1 billion to render "survivable" the four modified Boeing 747s that will serve as airborne battle stations for the National Command Authority and the Joint Chiefs of Staff...

...But according to the old way of thinking, the whole kitchen sink, including the strategic reserve, was used up before the end of the general nuclear war," says an official responsible for reviewing the military's Single Integrated Operating Plan, or SIOP (pronounced SIGH-op...

...Thus, another plan was devised: pro-' curement of a fleet of eighteen-wheel trucks to be filled with commanders and computers and kept constantly on the move...

...Perhaps the unresolved problems of fighting World War IV will prove to be the tonic this nation needs to recognize the folly of embarking on World War III...

...Surviving U.S...

...The only problem, as Congressional consultant Sherman notes, is that these slow-moving vehicles could probably be targeted by Soviet missiles...

...Since the 1960s, these sources indicate, the Pentagon has maintained nuclear reserves capable of delivering a knockout punch to the Soviets...

...The United States must maintain in reserve, under all circumstances, nuclear offensive capabilities so that the United States would never emerge from a nuclear war without nuclear weapons," states 1984 Defense Guidance, the Pentagon's fundamental policy document...

...Among other things, directive 53 mandated the development of a secure communications system to execute "retaliatory strikes during and after an enemy attack...

...Will airborne command centers have anywhere to land...

...about the ability of airborne command posts to operate beyond the first few days of a nuclear war," Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger conceded in his 1983 budget report to Congress...

...Fixed command centers are unlikely to survive the initial attack," Donald C. Latham, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for C3I, told the Senate in 1982...

...Or perhaps the Pentagon will merely conclude that some solutions probably won't be worked out until World War V, or beyond...

...But the Federal Emergency Management Agency, charged with keeping tabs on the President's sixteen top successors, stumbled on another problem...

...Guiffrida assured military analyst Barry Schneider, "We are now working on an authenticating mechanism to say, 'Yeah, the guy is for real...

...Reserve forces, the paper adds, must be "sufficient for trans- and post-attack protection and coercion...

...For this reason, and to accommodate more staff and gadgets, "small coastal merchant-type ships" are also under consideration as possible command posts, according to Latham...

...Once policymakers had persuaded themselves that World War III need not be an unmitigated disaster, they set to doing what they know best—preparing for another global conflagration...

...people just don't have very good ideas...

...The Government also undertook to modernize twenty-seven flying centers for the Strategic Air Command, as well as other aircraft to be used by four-star regional commanders...

...spoke on the condition that he would not be identified...

...Second, the commanders of World War IV must be able to communicate with the military forces at their disposal...

...That, in turn, will require an array of emerging electronic technologies known as C3I, for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence...

...By putting some of them on ice...

...The goal: "to deny the Soviet Union a military victory at any level of conflict"—even if it kills us...

...In this scheme, the mobile centers are equipped with rubber skirts and powerful fans, like hovercraft...

...Even as hundreds of millions of people around the world hope it may be possible—by prayer, protest, or sheer dumb luck—to avert the calamity of World War III, some of the Pentagon's specialists in "conflict management" have been assigned the task of preparing for the day after "the day after...

...When the shooting stops, the sub would emerge to lay down the law to any remaining Soviet leaders...

...Planning began in earnest under the Reagan Administration, but the idea of orchestrating World War IV originated with President Jimmy Carter...

...The prevailing doctrine was Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), and the few missiles set aside as nuclear reserves in those days were intended for a second wave of attack, not for a new war...

...How will the Government protect its bargaining chips during the initial fusillade...

...It's one of the few real good deterrent concepts," says Robert Sherman, who advises several members of Congress on military matters...

...The Pentagon recently increased the classification of plans in this area from secret to top secret—Bracken thinks it was done to hide some half-baked ideas—but not before word leaked out about the armadillo concept...

...Their job is to make sure the United States wins the war that follows the war that may end all human life on the planet...

...combatants will need a way of communicating with each other...

...Until quite recently, the development of C3I and shelters for the leadership that could survive a nuclear exchange were "backwater research areas," says a consultant in the field...

...Whether World War IV is directed from the air, sea, or a rest stop along the highway, U.S...

...Atomic strategists see two obstacles, however: First, a coherent U.S...

...The new hardware may not help...

...Today, naval TACAMO (Take Charge and Move Out) aircraft transmit terse, slow, low-frequency messages to submerged submarines through a five-mile long antenna trailing from the planes...

...The Reagan Administration earmarked more than $ 18 billion for such research and development in its six-year, $ 180 billion strategic modernization program...

...Though Washington's post-apocalypse strategy is supposed to be under wraps, the basic details can be gleaned from Defense Guidance (which has leaked out despite its classified status), from Congressional testimony, and from interviews with Government military consultants as well as the Defense Department's own experts...

...In the new doctrine, the reserves are truly withheld from the SIOP so they can be used later for bargaining and coercion," explains the analyst, who Frank Greve covers national security issues for the Knight-Ridder Newspapers...