The Greenbrier Bunker was a secret nuclear hideout for Congress, until it wasn't. Once it was exposed as a thing, it ceased to be a thing. Listen in to a fascinating short stuff today!
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck in again. This is short stuff, and this one is pretty cool because it's about uh secret bunker hidden at a resort hotel. Not something you come upon every day. No, this is I've never even heard of this until the other day, actually, and I'm not even sure how I heard about it now that I think about it, but it seemed like the perfect short stuff because what we're talking about is during the Cold War, the United States government saying, you know what, if the bomb happens, we need our government to function. And in order for our government to function, we need are the people of Congress to be safe and not fried from radiation. And the only way to do that is to build a massive underground bunker for everyone to go and live. And that's just what they did. Yeah, but they didn't they didn't like put it on a military base. They didn't put it like underneath the Capitol building. They they went to a resort in West Virginia called the Greenbrier that had been around for a very long time already it was. It's a very well known resort. It's still around today. It's beautiful and in fact, um Dorothree Draper, probably the greatest interior designer of all time. Um macked out the Greenbrier I think in the thirdies or forties and brought it back to life. It's an amazing place. But they they chose the Greenbrier in part because no one would ever suspect that they built the bunker to house Congress during a nuclear attack four hours away from Washington, d C. And West Virginia, beneath a resort that everybody loved. Right, No one would think that would happen, except for the people that built it. Because when the construction crews showed up and they're like, all right, we're gonna need three foot concrete walls here. Uh in these huge areas, we're gonna need about eleven bunk beds. They went, Okay, what's going on here? And they said, don't worry about it. Just build what we tell you to build, and and stay quiet. Because obviously something like this had to be secret, and it was secret for many decades until I don't know was it a reporter or just a writer that basically wrote an article about it. Reporter a guy named Ted Gup who sounds like the kind of person who just out something for fun. It sounds like someone who now they would use the word like he gut that thing up right, which he wasted billions of taxpayer dollars with one single article because it was then useless and everyone said, well, thanks, gup. Now we don't have our super secret bunker anymore. It's very much bombable because this thing, although it's built to withstand um to like be three you know, a few hours from Washington, d C. Where the big bomb lands. Uh it can it will stand like a direct hit. And no one would have bombed White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia had it not been for you. Yeah. Within three years of tag Gupps article, the Ultimate Congressional Hideaway, the Greenbrier Resort was giving tours of it because it had been decommissioned that quickly. And again this thing was in was in ready operation at a moment's notice for thirty years. Over the course of those thirty yearsunk beds were assigned to a person, and these were it wasn't like they assigned it once. As new congress people came in, they got assign bunk beds like if something happened, this place was ready to go. At a moment's notice to accept all of Congress, and I say, we take a break and then we'll come back and talk about some of the details behind this ingenious plan. Let's do it. So, Chuck, if you went to the Greenbrier between the I guess nine, you might encounter somebody wearing a Forsyth Associates uniform and they if you ask them, what what Foresight's Associates? Did, you say, Oh, well, we we actually take care of all the TV sets here at the Greenbrier. And then the next thing you know, you would wake up in the Cryptan Mexico wearing someone else's clothes and that would be that. Yeah, And the last thought that you had in your head was, man, there's a lot of people taking care of these TV sets here, right, Because it turns out that the Forsyth Associate TV technicians were actually the government employees who are secretly tasked with keeping the Greenbrier Bunker at a state of operational readiness at all times. Yes, it was called when they built it, I saw fifty seven and fifty eight, so somewhere in there it was called Project Greek Island. And again was the location was determined because it's close enough to d C to where it's not super far if he had to like get there in a hurry. Um, but it's it's safe enough to be there. Like, I think they could withstand radiation for how many days? Could they survive on just the air in their three But then the filtration system was so amazing that it could actually filter out radiation, so they were Okay, that's right. It cost about fourteen million bucks. Was completed in sixty two, right before the Cuban missile crisis. Uh, seven hundred and twenty ft underground, A hundred it's two levels, a hundred and twelve thousand and change square feet, so roughly the size of a couple of football fields stacked on one another. Yeah, think about it's seven hundred and underground. That is, that's a skyscraper down. And what's nuts to me is it still couldn't withstand a direct hit from a nuclear bomb. That really kind just says a lot right there. But um, so when you when you went to this place under a nuclear attack, Um, if you were a member of Congress, you would be hustled off to the Greenbrier. The first thing that would happen once you entered the secure sealed off area. UM. Is that you would be decontaminated, you'd be given new clothes, your other close being sinerated. UM. And you would find very quickly that entire swaths of the Greenbrier had also been ingeniously included in this. Even though it was open to the public. They were used as as meeting rooms and stuff during normal times. In the case of a nuclear emergency, when Congress took over the bunker, they got sealed off with the rest of this bunker too. Yeah, so like they were literal uh me, like companies would have a not a retreat, well, I guess a retreat there. Uh. And you know they would go and listen to people lecture out their industry and not, you know, unknowingly the whole time they're sitting on top of this underground bunker. It's like it was pretty ingenious to not have it a military base and to sort of hide it in plain sight in some ways. Uh. There's if you're wondering, like, well, how did you access it from the Greenbrier, it would of course be behind the door that says danger high voltage, keep out danger, danger. It's all I got of an Austin Powers movie or something. It's like I just put high voltage and no one will open that door. Yeah, I think it works. I mean you're kind of a chump if you go through that door anyway, you know, Yeah, you'd be a real gup. Nice call back, dude. So we else is in there. You got your decontamination room, you got your dormitories, which are eighteen rooms with sixty beds in each. You gotta have a cafeteria in a kitchen. Uh. They even had like media room set up with fake views of like the capa all in the background and stuff like that, so they could uh that had you know, like a production facility essentially because they had to be able to broadcast out in case anything went wrong. Yeah, And they had three meeting rooms. One that could house Senate the Senate, one that could house uh, the House of Representatives, and one that could house joint um joint congressional meetings like where everybody was involved. Um. They also had a pharmacy with tons of antidepressants. Apparently had a good stuff. They had a little jail, and then this to me was pretty revealing. I think either MPR or the Atomic Heritage Foundation pointed out that they had in this little jail area they had weapons, but that the weapons amounted to like a couple of rifles, some pistols, uh, like some batons, and like helmets, like stuff you would have for riot here. And I realized, like, that's that wasn't meant to be used on you know, Soviet forces trying to gain entry. That to be used in case of like some sort of crazy mutiny like below ground by by Congress people who are losing their marbles, just old grudges, like they're finally they're finally going to take Belosi down once and for all, put her in a straight jacket because there were straight jackets. Uh that there were two boxes of straight jackets with this jail, uh in case something happened like that. Yeah. So um, the whole thing was completed, I think you said, in time for the Cuban missile crisis, right, Yeah, that's really really good timing. And again when they did this, they did it under the auspices that the Greenbrier was building a new wing. And indeed the Greenbrier did build a new wing, but there was some really weird parts of it, so it did raise some, uh, some questions. But apparently the locals kept it to themselves because it does not seem to have been one of those you know, UM open secrets, like it seems to have been like a real secret secret, which is, you know, hats off to everybody who managed to keep that a secret all those years. Well, yeah, because, like we said, the construction crews were immediately suspicious, but a lot of people worked on that thing and clearly knew what was going on. And I guess it was just a different time where people, uh cared this is about their country such that they knew it was important to keep it a secret for national security reasons. Yeah, hats off government on keeping some secrets. How fast would this be tweeted out today? It was a drywall person working on an underground bunker. Check it out. Supposedly, the UM Supreme Court was destined for the Grove Park in in the in the case of a nuclear emergency that would find of the Greenbrier. Yeah, where's that Asheville? Okay, really yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it's in Nashville, So they would do that's where they would go and bunk her down to Wow, pretty amazing stuff, Chuck. I wonder if this, I mean, if there were eleven hun red beds. This seems to indicate that they would have their families there, right, I guess, but I guess, yeah, it must be. And I think there's a there's um a train route from d C to the Greenbrier, so they would probably be time to be like maybe at the Amtrak station, we gotta go right to your family. That's the only explanation I can find all those staff. Maybe I could see Congress people choosing their staff over their family in a nuclear a nuclear disaster. That's eleven d bucks though. That's that's plenty of room for staff and families and maybe even an enemy or two. Sure again though, thanks to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, great article on this as well as NPR. We we we always love yes and great thanks to you too, Chuck, and and you sir, thank you. Well, we thanked each other everybody. That means short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H m hm