Top officials in Washington, including congressional leaders, White House big shots and Supreme Court justices, aren’t really sweating over reports of imminent attacks from North Korea or Iran.
The reason: They’ve got an escape plan, a prepper network that costs taxpayers $2 billion a year for secret jets, caves and even electric and communications lifelines, according to an in-depth review of official Washington’s doomsday blueprint.
It is, according to the new book “Raven Rock” from journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff, “The story of the U.S. government’s secret plan to save itself — while the rest of us die.”
Graff reveals new details about the long-standing “Continuity of Government” program that was pushed into hyper gear after 9/11 and is currently at full alert. Once a network of cozy caves and mountain tops where officials fled during the 9/11 attacks, it is now a much more expansive and sophisticated prepper backup.
The book is named for Site R adjacent to Camp David, that has grown since 9/11 into a sprawling 69 building facility and bunker to house officials and military in a nuclear attack. He reveals details of a secret Air Force fleet to whisk the president away to safety and gives the location of a runway in picturesque Upperville, Va., for those jets to land and deliver officials to the nearby Mt. Weather FEMA bunker.
But apparently not everybody inside Washington’s top offices.
From the book:
When Aaron Sorkin was researching what would become “The American President” and “The West Wing,” Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos pulled out of his wallet what the Hollywood director first thought was a bus pass — it was actually a little card explaining how Stephanopoulos would be evacuated in case of a nuclear event. Sorkin incorporated that card into a latter West Wing episode, where character Josh Lyman received such a card from the national security council and felt guilt because his co-workers wouldn’t also be saved. While shooting the scene, set consultant Dee Dee Myers, the former press secretary to Bill Clinton, pulled Sorkin aside to tell him that the scene was unrealistic because those cards didn’t actually exist. Sorkin was shocked: Even as a top aide, she’d never realized that her co-workers had exactly those cards — and she never did.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
