Nixon's Flying Fuhrerbunker

...No Place is Perfect ~ Air Force General Otto Glasser told a House subcommittee in 1972 that the command post would fly ‘‘within the vicinity of the continental United States...

...He suggested a tunnel from the White House to the shore of the Potomac, with a special sub waiting there...

...I was thinking maybe you could use that...

...It comes as no surprise to learn that the Pentagon has been discussing lists with the White House, but the public record does not reveal whether the President, the National Security Council, or someone else will make the final decision...

...I believe that that is the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning...

...The theory seems to be that the more command posts there are, and the more different kinds, the greater the chances that at least one group of leaders will survive to direct the war...

...The Strategic Air Command had already taken steps to prevent its leaders from being caught on the ground...

...The battalions actually available to carry out these orders consisted of old men and children...

...Even the people who are operating the equipment must move-you can hardly get through back to the quarters where the command authority will be...

...and the other a converted cruiser, the Northampton...

...It might be fair to say that our prospects are not too good...

...The value of the shelter was questioned by the late...

...Perhaps our President would be able to land somewhere amid the devastation to gingerly pat the cheek of some radiated Boy Scout as one of his assistants busily photographs the event...

...Yet sooner or later the President and his entourage would have to land...

...From the Russians’ point of uiew, this might look suspiciously like preparation for a U. S. first strike...

...If an attack were launched from Russian submarines off the East Coast, the warning might come just five or 10 minutes ahead of the bombs...

...In the last days of the Third Reich, Hitler retreated to his bunker below Berlin where he issued orders deploying vast armies in counter-attacks designed to sweep the Russians back to the Don...

...Another feature of the new command post, when perfected, will be protection from electromagnetic pulse (EMP), an annoying side-effect of nuclear explosions which interferes with communications...

...In the early 196Os, however, the military began to worry about what would happen to the nation if it were left without a commander-in-chief to finish a nuclear war...

...If there were another eyeball-toeyeball confrontation like the 1962 showdown over Cuba, and if this time nobody blinked, the President and his advisers could take off in the command post to let the Russians know that they were serious and were not about to let the Russians wipe out our leaders in a surprise attack...

...This is the “yes, but...

...Secretary McNamara...

...Before a person can go to the back of the plane, everyone has to move out of his chair...

...Of course, the President 's personal physician would probably advise against landing anywhere in this country...

...This would reverse the unfortunate precedent of World War II when none of the top war criminals escaped and only the lower-ranking Nazis reached Argentina and Brazil...

...The following year SAC went to airborne alert, with at least one command plane, complete with a small “battle staff,” in the air at all times...

...Men like Stennis and Jackson apart, Congress generally lacks the Pentagon’s enthusiasm for the project...

...On the Sea...

...Chairman Russell...

...For one thing, there will be all those computers...

...The plane on the runway at Andrews is but one of seven in the Flying Fiihrerbunker Fleet...

...If and when the Presidential command posts are perfected, the passenger compartment may be windowless...

...in 1960, it placed five communications planes on ground alert, ready to take off in case of trouble...

...graphs of the war shows Hitler standing amidst the rubble of the Reichschancellery awarding medals to a row of 12-year-olds...

...It is special because it is designed to serve as the President’s home away from home during a nuclear war...

...Meanwhile, the underground gcoomttemn.a nTdh ecreen taerres hstaivlle snevoetr able eanro ufonrdthe country for use by top military commanders...

...With wings, however, the President could fly away to South America...

...If tankers are available according to plan, it could stay up indefinitely-perhaps until the worst of the fallout is over...

...The three spanking new 747s, when deployed, will be called an Advanced Airborne National Command Post, or AABNCP...

...The most recent indication of this came at the end of last year, when a House-Senate conference committee declared that no money should be spent on the final three 747s until a lot more of the technical details were perfected...

...But before the President thankfully concludes that McCarthy has been converted to his support, he might reflect that, at low tide on the Potomac, a submarine would be mired in mud...

...Another three are assigned to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), for use by the SAC Commander and his staff during a nuclear exchange...

...Unfortunately, this would not leave much safe air space for the presidential jet...

...I am not sure I could find it again...

...The same year, in supporting funds for the larger planes, Senators John Stennis and Henry Jackson also complained that the 707 had very little space for the President and his top advisers...

...For ixample, in 1972 then-Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird told a House Appropriations subcommittee, “We have felt for some time that our command and control was the weakest link in the deterrent and that fixing it was a first priority problem.’’ Laird seemed especially alarmed by the...

...The Air Force would like the fleet to be Boeing 747s, but Congress has approved just three huge jets for duty at Andrews and one “test bed” 747 to perfect the command post system...

...That’s a little too close for comfort, and there is always the possibility that the President and other leaders could not make it...

...complication in the Pentagon’s otherwise thorough plans...

...Whether the Joint !Chiefs will bring their espionage corps along is uncertain, but it seems clear that Bebe Rebozo and King Timahoe will have to be left behind...

...Why don’t they use a submarine...

...its maximum speed is around 600 miles an hour...

...The most likely situation in which the presidential command post might be used would be not a massive surprise attack but a case of gradual escalation from verbal threats to the real thing...

...Rep...

...Sikes referred to “the press contingent...

...For another, there will be a “battle stafr’ of 39 servicemen (divided among the three services) and a separate flight crew of seven...

...the Midwest has missile sites and air bases...

...In the White House, the argument was all the more persuasive...

...Members of the Washington press corps may be surprised and touched to learn of such White House solicitude for their role...

...The congressional testimony does not make clear just who will be responsible for drawing up the passenger list...

...During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, citizens who were uneasy about the Bomb could take some comfort ih the democratic notion that if worse came to worst the President would be here, taking his lumps with the rest of us...

...Colorado has the underground NORAD center...

...There he could sit in the sunset, thinking fondly of fallen comrades, secure in the knowledge that he had protected the Presidency...

...I can assure you of that...

...Melvin Laird has stressed that the old command posts are not fancy, and, “Even with the new configuration this is not going to be a pleasant or plush place to have your national command authority...

...True, the President had access to special bomb shelters, but these might be vulnerable to a direct hit...

...If it has any potential value, I suggest you look it over and see if it couldn’t be used for D other purposes, because I am satisfied none of the Members’ of Congress will ever make it...

...The military could see that it would not do to have the SAC commander flying around during a nuclear war while the President stayed in a vulnerable bomb shelter...

...Clearly the computers (which talk to each other in a special language called JOVIAL) and the other equipment take up a great deal of space...

...Eugene McCarthy asked recently...

...The few Americans who might survive a nuclear war are not likely to have any feelings of warmth toward their commander-inchief...

...Congressional leaders are also not likely to be included...

...Still, even though the joy of personal contact with the troops may be denied him, the President may find certain advantages to the flying as opposed to the underground Fuhrerbunker...

...Spartan Conditions Much of the congressional testimony about the command post is censored, presumably on security grounds...

...Robert Sikes had made the same point in a hearing earlier in 1972...

...Apparently there will also be room for between 35 and 100 presidential advisers and staff members...

...Advanced as they seemed at the time, the planes were replaced by an even more grandly equipped version of the 707 during the Johnson Administration...

...It would go off and leave from areas of expected attack and orbit, move around at random and would be unpredictable as to where it is...

...If nuclear rubble and unfriendly neighbors rule out a lengthy stay in this country, a world tour by the presidential jet (even if limited to the southern hemisphere) is likely to face similar difficulties...

...When Robert McNamara was Secre- m tary of Defense he experimented with Floating Fiihrerbunkers...

...Does this mean there would be a press pool aboard the command post...

...The lucky plane actually used to carry the President would be called the National Emergency Airborne Command Post or NEACP...

...Although we know little about the plane’s decor, one certainty is that it will not look like an ordinary 747...

...Since the early 1960s, the Pentagon has been working on steady improvements in the command posts to keep up with developments in technology...

...If Congress eventually approves the rest of the 747s that the Air Force wants, the full 747 fleet will have added another $500 million or so to the bill...

...The three at Andrews are reserved for the President, other high officials, presidential advisers, and a large military staff...

...What has ever happened to the hole we dug for the Members of the Congress...

...It can fly for about 16 hours without refueling...

...Wading through testimony about improved software, more complete interface, a larger data base, and so forth, it seems that the logical next step would be to forget about the President entirely and just orbit a computer...

...It might be even more difficult to get some of the other dignitaries out to Andrews on time...

...With the recent discovery of the remains of Martin Boorman, it now seems clear that the underground version was pretty much of a noexit proposition...

...So it seems that the 747 command post will carry only 80 to 150 people altogether, compared with the commercial 747’s passenger capacity of 380 to 495...

...Is that under you or is that under somebody else...

...In its efforts to develop fool-proof protection systems, the Pentagon will use a device which can fire a burst of simulated EMP at the 747 set aside for research and development...

...The Flying Fuhrerbunker is, however, indisputably the front-runner...

...By 1972, this SAC fleet had expanded to almost 30 planes, including several flying command posts...

...We owe all of these possibilities.to the foresight of the military...

...The seventh plane is used for research and development...

...I don’t believe there will be a single Member of Congress able to find it...

...and so forth...

...Most of what we know about the Flying Fuhrerbunkers comes from the Dortions of these hearings that have been made public...

...New Mexico has storehouses for extra nuclear bombs...

...Herman Kahn’s protestations to the contrary, it is likely than an all-ut attack on the United States might kill 80 per cent or more of us...

...No doubt it would try to avoid flying near potential targets in the United States: missile sites and SAC bases, submarine bases, large industrial areas, large cities, and so forth...

...America’s Churchill If there were a surprise attack on the United States, there would have to be split-second timing to get the Presi.dent from the White House over to Andrews and up in the air before the bombs hit Washington...

...The European, Pacific, and Atlantic commanders now have 707 flying command posts, and the commander of North American Air Defense (NORAD) is waiting in line for his...

...In case of nuclear war, members of the Strategic Air Command may have to make do with the older Boeing 707s...

...What will happen to us...

...To be sure, the Fiihrer personally recognized the contribution of the latter...

...Congressional hearings during this period include many references to new and better communications equipment and computers...

...So far, Congress has approved replacement of only four of the planes by new 747s, deferring the other three for reasons of both cost and technical difficulty...

...The planes carried sophisticated communications equipment to ensure presidential contact with the military in event of a nuclear war...

...Most of the reply to his question was deleted from the record, but in his next comment Rep...

...Senator Richard Russell in a 1963 colloquy with Robert Mc Namara : Chairman Russell...

...If the fleet were converted to larger planes, there would also be room for more battle staff and a greater fuel capacity, which would enable the President to stay aloft longer...

...All the interesting technical data about the flying command post is of a slightly different coloration, depending on whether you imagine yourself as one of the passengers or whether you remember that you will probably be on (or under) the ground...

...In addition, if the President happened to be the present incumbent, he might be able to guard against the possibility of the survival of Congress by selecting a country with no extradition treaty...

...I am sure that in England, during World War II, when Churchill was standing there, trying to encourage his people to resist, it would have been a strange sight if he had taken off in a plane instead...

...The pilot will not be able to avoid EMP merely by keeping the plane away from target areas, because the pulse has a very wide range...

...1 did locate it after two days...

...In the Skv, Under the Mud The flying command post is by no means the only idea the Pentagon has experimented with in its desire to protect the Commander-in-Chief...

...One of the more touching photoMary Meehan is a Washington writer...

...It certainly will be a comfort to the dead and dying down below to know that those alive and well in the Flying Fuhrerbunker will not be living in excessive luxury...

...Those of us left on the ground-facing certain life and death problems of our own-can appreciate the problems of an airborne President who barely has enough room to put his feet up...

...The 747 flies at altitudes ranging from 30,000 to 45,000 feet...

...California has large cities and makes weapons...

...In these cramped quarters the President and his advisers would be expected to make and order the crucial diplomatic and military decisions of life and death...

...Each was fitted with accommodations for large staffs and with special communications equipment...

...But your CommanderinChief will be flying around above the wreckage, getting even with the Russians and making plans for the next generation of peace...

...The cost of the various command posts-burrowing, floating, and flying-had reached at least $750 million by the end of 197’1...

...overcrowding aboard the smaller 707: First, it is a fact that on our command and control aircraft now we can’t even get all of the equipment that is needed and necessary...

...What about the rest of us?’ you might be tempted to say...

...And as Senator J. William Fulbright noted in a 1972 Senate debate, the President’s resort to the skies might also raise some questions among the American people : I can imagine now how it would affect the country if there were an alert, and the next thing they heard was that danger was threatening the country, that the President and all his staff had boarded a plane and taken off and left the United States to whatever fate it may suffer...

...At the same time that it was asking for more of the big 747s, the Pentagon was also trying to increase the number of officials who would be airborne during a nuclear war...

...The ships were, however, decommissioned in 1970, perhaps because they had become vulnerable to tracking by Russian spy satellites...

...One was a converted carrier, the Wright...

...They may still find protection, however, for a large bomb shelter was prepared for them during the era when many families were building their own...

...The Flying Fuhrerbunker by Mary Meehan Right now, standing on 15-minute alert at Andrews Air Force Base, is a very special jet...

...So, in 1962 three Boeing 707s were, converted into airborne command posts for the President and other high officials...

...The only passengers who seem assured of a seat ,on the plane are the President, the ISecretae of Defense, their alternates lor successors, and probably the Joint !Chiefs of Staff...

...This innovation would minimize the EMP problem, and it may have a salutary psychological effect as well, since it would insulate the computerbased deliberations about nuclear strategy from visual reminders of what was actually happening on the ground...

...There are many large cities in the East...

...Senator Stennis declared that the space reserved for the President “is only slightly larger than the elevators in the Old Senate Office Building...

...These aircraft are really loaded down...

...this, it was thought, might well temper the President’s enthusiasm for a nuclear encounter...

...The culmination of a 12-year program that has cost well over $100 million, this plane would be a flying command post in which the Leader of the Free World and his key advisers can ride, high above the nuclear wreckage, directing whatever shattered military forces remain...

...As the military became more dependent on computers, it became clear that the 707s would not be large enough to carry all the necessary hardware...

...President Kennedy used the Northampton at least once to observe naval and marine maneuvers in the Atlantic...