While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - C.O.G. Clusterf*** - full transcript
The government's secret plans to save itself go awry on 9/11.
♪♪
-The true story of 9/11
absolute collapse
of authority.
sir,
low and fast,
inbound to the White House."
"Don,
do we have an asset
that can take a shot at him?
D.C.,
we can engage him with?"
"Seven... six... five..."
"Don, I'll authorize
an over-the-horizon shot.
If you got a radar-guided
missile over Baltimore
shoot him."
there are people outside
pushing civilians to the south
and they're going to take
a body blow
right here in front of them.
-Everybody out.
♪♪
our leaders
have told us one thing
under the bright lights.
-The protection of the lives
and property of Americans
is the responsibility of all
public officials.
we're trying.
-And it is my first duty
as president
to protect the American people.
-We have it so well
under control.
-But America's shadow government
has spent trillions of dollars
on secret plans
that serve one premise...
we're on our own.
nothing.
the government has
invested trillions of dollars
in a secret plan to save itself.
[ Buzzer ]
While the rest of us die.
♪♪
♪♪
[ Explosion ]
Fears of nuclear Annihilation
fueled the creation of a system
to ensure the continuity
of government
even during a nuclear war.
It's known as C.O.G.
from bunkers
and airborne command posts
have been developed
over decades.
-This massive secret project
funneled unbelievable
amounts of money away
and the powerful
of the United States.
-Through the Cold War
no one had ever tested
whether it would actually work
in an emergency.
We'd written down
all of the plans on paper.
We tested them all in exercises.
would any of it actually work?
made. Get ready.
cake. Get ready.
- Cane.
- Yes...
-President George W. Bush is
visiting an elementary school
a routine public appearance
where he reads a book called
"The Pet Goat"
to a room of first graders.
"America is under attack."
Bush takes a moment
to gather his thoughts
and continues with the reading.
warnings of a terror attack
had been pouring
into the White House.
[ Gunfire ]
-We began to receive
lots of intelligence indications
that there was going to be
a major terrorist strike
by bin Laden's organization,
against the United States.
but they couldn't rule out
that the attack
would be in the United States.
The Bush Administration
despite my warnings.
didn't try to preempt the attack
by going after
bin Laden in Afghanistan.
I think.
setting off a disastrous chain
of events.
the Bush Administration
went into
an absolute
tailspin of confusion
and anarchy.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
There were moments
in this country
who was calling the shots.
[ Sirens wailing ]
-The American people
were completely in the dark.
Much of our national security
apparatus
and our political system
was in the dark.
That information void
expanded across
most of the federal government
and definitely across
the population.
♪♪
Richard Clarke is also in charge
of the Continuity
of Government program.
-For the first time
in the history
we activated it.
-It's to ensure the security
of the principals...
and the speaker of the house.
one of them would be available
to step into the Oval Office.
President Bush is
rushed onto Air Force One
and launched into the sky.
The number-one priority
of the pilot...
To get the plane
as high as possible
and as far away from anyone else
as he could.
Washington
was a combat zone.
We were literally still waiting
for the combat aircraft
from the Air Force to get up
and to protect us
in the White House.
The Secret Service director
and I and the Vice President
all urged the President
not to come back.
the plan had been to evacuate
top government officials
out to mountain bunkers
Pennsylvania,
and Mount Weather, Virginia.
The hope was that everyone
could be evacuated
in the first 15 minutes
after an attack.
though,
none of that happened.
-Most of the top people in the
President's line of succession
are unable to get to the bunkers
or never contacted.
Others are uncooperative.
Vice President Dick Cheney
refuses to evacuate
the White House.
Vice President Cheney
was bundled up by Secret Service
and moved to a basement next to
the White House Situation Room.
within an hour or so,
they moved him through
a long tunnel and blast doors
to a Presidential Emergency
Operation Center
beneath the East Wing of
the White House.
-Speaker Dennis Hastert is
rushed from the Capitol Building
wheels squealing
as his motorcade
rushes off the Capitol grounds.
-The Speaker of the House
was rushed onto that helicopter
and whisked out of the city.
someone in the constitutional
chain of command
who was outside of the city.
a third plane crashes
into the Pentagon.
-There is a lot of confusion
here at the Pentagon.
It appears that something hit
the Pentagon
on the outside
of the fifth corridor.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
I said, all units...
stands up from his desk
and goes out to the crash site.
♪♪
his natural
instinct was to go to the scene.
It was his building.
His people were hurt.
wanted to be part of the rescue.
♪♪
that was dramatic.
It was emotional.
He should have stayed
in the command post.
He ordered his deputy secretary
to fly out
fly
out of the target zone.
so, for a while
neither the Secretary of Defense
nor the Deputy Secretary
of Defense was available.
and to watch it break down
at an instant
because one person was
so overcome by human emotion...
He just took
a multibillion-dollar program
and broke it.
[ Sirens wailing ]
-Every federal agency is ordered
to activate
an alternative headquarters
but things don't go
according to plan.
-It was impossible
to get out of Washington.
everyone was trying
to leave Washington.
All the roads were blocked.
All the bridges were blocked.
The cell phones weren't working
because they were overloaded.
And we had no helicopters to get
the other departments' teams
out of town.
-Clarke remains in
the situation room
in the basement of the West Wing
of the White House.
It's the nerve center of
presidential crisis management.
000 feet
communication becomes difficult.
-And they don't even
really know where to go.
They don't know
really what to do.
They don't know whether
more attacks are coming.
and that's what the President
is facing
as he's flying in Air Force One.
America's defenses default
to their Cold War footing.
The Pentagon escalates
the country's nuclear readiness
by going to defense condition 3.
the nuclear forces
and the strategic forces
go to DEFCON 3.
so, it's a really big deal,
a lot of things
happen that the Russians detect.
missiles being
put on higher levels of alert.
And the Kremlin calls to speak
to the President to inquire
as to what's going on.
the decision is made
in the White House
that Condoleezza Rice...
She's a Russian and Soviet
specialist...
Will speak to Putin instead.
a critical conversation between
world leaders during
a moment of crisis
doesn't take place.
in a strange turn of events,
sort of became an observer
to the tragedy
leaving
Vice President Dick Cheney
to basically take over
the authority of the presidency
and start to handle
this burgeoning newborn war
that America was finding
itself in.
absolute
collapse of authority.
Dick Cheney had
trained his entire adult life
for the morning of 9/11.
He had been Defense Secretary
and a White House
Chief of Staff.
takes charge of the
US government's response
to the attacks.
the Vice President
began to issue orders
and spur the military
into action.
-You have to appreciate
the magnitude of the decision
and that is a decision
I wouldn't wish on anyone.
-With the chain of command
in disarray
life-and-death decisions
at the core of
Continuity of Government
are about to be tested
for the first time.
♪♪
♪♪
-Two planes have just slammed
into the World Trade Center.
A third has hit the Pentagon.
A fourth hijacked plane
heading straight toward
the heart of the capital
is still in the air
over Western Pennsylvania.
-It occurred to me that
more attacks might be coming.
We evacuated the White House
complex.
-Everybody out.
Everybody out.
-We sent the Vice President into
the bomb shelter
in the East Wing.
-The decisions in the bunker
that morning
cut to the heart
of the questions
that there are people
in the government
because of their position,
because of their authority,
are worth
protecting over other Americans.
♪♪
-We knew that there were at
least two more aircraft aloft.
We believed that the White House
was a target
for an incoming aircraft.
United Airlines Flight 93,
appears to be headed
back towards Washington.
-Deep underground
in the heavily fortified
it's chaos.
[ Phones ringing ]
-I reached down and I picked up
a receiver.
"Major,
we have another
hijacked aircraft
D.C."
-Lieutenant Colonel
Robert Darling
was a Marine Corps
helicopter pilot
assigned to the White House
military office.
he was supporting
the Vice President
and the
National Security Advisor.
"Whoa, you're gonna
have to hold on."
and who's
standing right next to me
but Vice President Cheney.
-Cheney tries but fails to reach
Donald Rumsfeld.
The Secretary of Defense
keeping him
out of the chain of command
at another critical moment.
-The Pentagon asks for
an unimaginable authority.
Can we shoot down
a commercial airliner
full of Americans
over American soil?
Vice President Cheney said,
"Shoot that aircraft down."
-Two F-16s
are scrambled with orders
but the fighter jets
are unarmed.
having armed fighters
standing by to defend the
capital from a domestic threat
wasn't part of the national
defense strategy.
♪♪
So their only option is to try
and bring down the airliner
with 44 people on board
by ramming the plane
out of the sky.
One of the pilots plans to crash
the plane into the cockpit.
The other plans to target
the tail.
But this scene never happened.
Flight 93 had crashed
before the jets even took off.
aircraft down."
[ Sirens wailing ]
"68 miles south of Pittsburgh.
No survivors."
All eyes on the Vice President.
He was staring at those
three speaker boxes.
He turned around.
He walked right over to me.
"Major,
we just shot that plane down.
I really need to talk
to the President."
it's only after
Cheney gives the order
to shoot down Flight 93
that he informs the President
of his decision.
the officials inside the bunker
didn't know whether they were
responsible for bringing down
a passenger jet.
Only later would it become known
that it was the passengers
storming the cockpit
who caused the plane to crash.
another,
this time unidentified, plane
is picked up on radar.
sir,
low and fast,
inbound to the White House."
Donald Rumsfeld,
was back in the building.
"Don,
we got a bogey seven miles out.
Do we have an asset
that can take a shot at him?
D.C.,
we can engage him with?"
in the unreinforced
situation room above,
Clarke and his team make a
fateful decision of their own.
I realized
that we might not survive.
And so I asked most of
the people there to leave.
They refused.
I asked them then
to write their name
date
of birth on a piece of paper,
and we e-mailed that list
out of the White House.
the people who had to rescue us
or find the remains would know
how many people to look for.
♪♪
time is running out.
"Seven... six... five..."
Donald Rumsfeld,
on the line
who tells the Vice President
he's got other fighter jets
screaming toward the capital.
"Don, I'll authorize
an over-the-horizon shot.
No visual confirmation required.
If you got a radar-guided
missile over Baltimore
shoot him.
Shoot him.
Shoot him."
there are people outside
pushing civilians to the south
and they're going to take
a body blow
right here in front of them.
all the
satellite radios blared to life,
"That's not a bogey."
That's a medevac helicopter
heading to the Pentagon
to save lives talking
on the wrong frequency.
♪♪
in New York City,
Mayor Rudy Giuliani
has his own plans
to ensure survival.
he built a $13 million
bomb-proof shelter
but there's one problem.
His Emergency Operations Center
a location that terrorists
had already bombed once before
back in 1993.
leaving Mayor Giuliani
and other officials
to wander the streets
attempting to find a place
to set up a command post.
♪♪
-To create a bunker
that cost millions
or tens of millions of dollars
that's centrally located
is
a perfect illustration
of how broken our system was.
more firefighters
would have lived.
deployed to the rescue efforts
at Ground Zero.
-I was in the National Guard
in New York.
I started the morning sleeping
in late
and I ended the evening
in camouflage standing on a pile
in the wreckage of Ground Zero
digging up bodies.
The magnitude
of a gaping chest wound
in New York City
was unfathomable.
when I reflect on it,
I think my mind probably censors
a bit of the enormity of it.
-It turns out America was
totally unprepared
for the threat it faced
on the morning of 9/11.
None of the plans
that we had developed
during the Cold War would work.
The FAA and the military
found themselves with radars
only facing out.
The fighter planes
that were scrambled into the sky
thought that they were trying
to repel Soviet bombers
and flew first out
to the Atlantic
before realizing that the threat
was already behind them.
the military trained for
the Cold War found itself
outclassed by 19 hijackers
with box cutters
aboard commercial airliners.
-The truly demoralizing truth
which redistributed
incredible amounts of wealth
away from social projects
like education
and health care
and infrastructure
is it created this hulking
rusting infrastructure
that never actually worked
at any moment.
It was completely incompetent
and unnecessary.
-But 9/11 wasn't the only fail.
the US
government found itself
this time from an enemy within.
-The big fear
through the fall of 2001
was when was the next shoe
going to drop?
When was the second wave
of attacks?
-This nation stands with the
good people of New York City
as we mourn the loss
of thousands of our citizens.
a shadowy figure drops
an anonymous letter
addressed to Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle.
♪♪
constituent mail.
One of the interns
starts opening up the mail.
And the one she selected
was postmarked from a fourth
grade school in New Jersey.
wanted to open it up,
and found it was taped shut.
So she took a pair of scissors
and gray-white powder fell out.
She also noticed
it drifted up into the air.
♪♪
FBI agent Scott Decker
was transferred to
the counterterrorism branch
and now was assigned
to investigate
the rapidly
unfolding anthrax attacks.
they'll turn bright red.
another Bacillus,
sometimes they'll turn pink.
We get false positives.
But when the Capitol Police
test this
they keep getting bright red.
So they're pretty sure it's not
a false positive this time.
-The government's top
biological defense lab confirms
the white substance is anthrax.
Anthrax is a highly infectious
and deadly disease
caused by inhaling
or touching a bacteria.
Letters were mailed to another
senator and major news outlets.
we have had four confirmed cases
of anthrax.
-The letters sent to NBC
and the "New York Post"
were the same...
"Death to America.
Death to Israel.
Allah is great."
-As soon as a wave of letters
began to arrive
across the country
with weaponized anthrax
this was Al-Qaeda's second act.
It came at a time
when the nation's psyche
and now,
people
were dying of a new attack.
in D.C., the fallout
from the anthrax attack
continues to grow.
their bomb dogs
were contaminated with anthrax.
The stuff that had been mailed
to Senator Daschle
so dried,
and such a fine powder,
it spread all over
Capitol Hill very quickly.
-The attacks raise
a frightening possibility
ignored during the Cold War.
you see a situation
where anything that wasn't
which really exposed
the impotency of the system
in the first place.
for all of
the money, time, and effort
is that it left America
to unpredictable
events on a human level.
-The anthrax attacks
also reveal a critical weakness
in Continuity of Government.
-The anthrax attacks
made Congress realize
how poorly their own plans
for continuity operations
actually were.
and they didn't have
a good system to replace members
who might be sick or killed.
Congress realized that they had
let their Cold War plans atrophy
and they hadn't replaced them
with anything.
There was no backup plan
for Congress.
sweeping powers
while a central piece of
American democracy
would be left to die.
millions of dollars
were spent on a secret plan
to make sure that didn't happen.
♪♪
-They were in a small
upland valley.
000 feet surrounded
by the Allegheny Mountains.
you encounter
you
come to the golf clubhouse.
Bob Conte is hired
as the official historian
an elite resort
that dates back to 1778.
people
would tell me about this rumor
that there was a bomb shelter
at The Greenbrier.
000-foot airport
800 people?
and to be honest,
I didn't know what to...
What to make of them.
industrialists,
and government advisers
all hobnob at the resort.
Its guests include dignitaries
and presidents.
in 1992,
"Washington Post" reporter
Ted Gup comes calling.
he introduces himself.
and son of a gun,
"I'm here to talk about
what's under
the West Virginia Wing."
it's an old rumor,
it goes back
to when they built
the West Virginia Wing.
It was during the Cold War.
Just a silly rumor.
There's nothing
under the West Virginia Wing."
And there's a sort of awkward
silence where he's looking at me
clearly, he...
He doesn't believe
a word I'm saying.
And it was pretty clear to me
that this was going to lead
to an article
and disclosure of the bunker.
1992,
Gup blows the lid
off The Greenbrier bunker.
what happened, one
of the most memorable moments
well, my career,
maybe my life,
the boss calls a meeting,
and Ted Kleisner,
stands up
"Today
we are going to acknowledge
a 35-year secret relationship
with the federal government
maintaining a bomb shelter here
at The Greenbrier."
I could have fallen over
at that moment.
-The facility is swiftly
shut down as the truth
about Greenbrier is exposed.
Hidden beneath
the vast extension
known as the West Virginia Wing
is a massive bomb shelter
stocked with supplies
for members of Congress
in case of disaster.
-The Greenbrier Congressional
bunker
was one of the most closely
held secrets of the Cold War.
the bunker was staffed
through the Cold War
by a team of secret
government workers
working for a front company
known as Forsythe Associates.
they hid their
tracks pretty well.
except for these guys.
you know.
when you talked to them,
they were sort of normal people.
But it was sort of funny
that you had this one operation
where they weren't... they
weren't Greenbrier employees.
♪♪
Conte finally gets to see
the secret bunker for himself.
♪♪
oh, my God,
you know.
We walk in.
We walk into a cafeteria.
"Wait a minute, stop.
This is... This is
the secret bunker?
you know."
I just assumed that the bunker
was hundreds of feet
underground.
and I'd never really realized.
which I... well, I guess
I never knew what was on
the other side of that door...
Leads into the bunker proper.
What was overwhelming to me
was how large the bunker was.
We're talking
a thousand people here.
we're talking about
a power plant.
We just kept going on
and on and on.
I guess what I didn't realize
was that
they were to continue to be
the Legislative Branch
of the federal government.
It wasn't just a matter of a
place for them to sleep and eat
so that they could stay alive.
They were moving down the
whole institution of Congress.
And this is part of this larger
Continuity of Government
program.
-One of the most uncomfortable
surprises inside the bunker
was a large weapons cache
that had been meant
to be used by security guards
to keep out ordinary Americans
who might try to show up
at the Congressional bunker.
The weapons cache was
a physical manifestation
of the difficult moral calculus
that the government officials
are worth protecting
over the lives
of ordinary Americans.
members of Congress
while their spouses and children
would be locked outside.
♪♪
the tragedy of
continuity of government
is one that's a story
that's not really well-known.
-The big secret... who gets
saved often has nothing to do
with making sure
the government survives.
-They had to send a special
US Customs Service jet
even though the airspace
of America was closed.
♪♪
-The truth of America's secret
doomsday plans
the creators
of Hollywood movies
and TV dramas stumble
on a bit of reality.
-When Aaron Sorkin was writing
and researching the show
"
during
a conversation over drinks,
something that looked
like a bus pass
in Stephanopoulos' wallet.
-What's the card?
-Tells you where to go in
the event of a nuclear attack.
-Sorkin turned that card
into an episode
involving Deputy White House
Chief of Staff
Josh Lyman getting
an emergency evacuation card
and worrying that
his colleagues didn't.
-Sure.
or do they have separate...
♪♪
God. Sorry, you know what?
I just got it.
Sorry. Okay. Sure.
I guess, why my staff
ever has to know
anything about it.
So there it is.
- "The West Wing" episode
pulls back the curtain
on a secret Armageddon VIP list
unknown even to many
Washington insiders.
♪♪
on the set, White House
Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers
those cards don't exist."
and she never understood that
she wasn't going to be included
if there was a nuclear war.
That George Stephanopoulos
would be evacuated
and she would be left behind.
-The evacuation cards
are a combo
of a driver's license
and a Yahoo! map
that helped get personnel
out of the capital
and to the relocation facilities
as quickly as possible.
[ Sirens wailing ]
in an emergency.
come
with evacuation instructions
for how helicopters
will locate these key officials
wherever
they are, 24 hours a day.
There was nothing more exclusive
in government service
than a golden ticket on one
of the evacuation helicopters.
-But it's not just VIPs
who will be saved first.
though,
have always
encompassed more than people.
One of the things
that the planners
began to realize
as they figured out
what was worth saving in America
was that it was important
as well.
in
the Cold War, plans to evacuate
the Constitution,
the Gettysburg Address,
ordered
so that curators would know
which pieces
to grab first in an emergency.
-The government's doomsday
planners
took on the responsibility
of deciding
what parts of history
needed to survive the apocalypse
in order to preserve
the idea of America.
-They start making these
very technocratic decisions
including the American people.
you start looking
at the plans
and you start realizing
how much time
and manpower and resources have
gone into saving these things.
American families
could be dying
by the millions
around the country.
[ Explosion ]
-9/11 put some of the realities
of Continuity of Government
into stark relief.
the tragedy of
Continuity of Government
energy, and American tax dollars
went into protecting the adult
children of Dick Cheney.
and the other
was a private citizen.
And she was scuba diving
in Bonaire.
The amount
of effort that was required
where they had to send a special
US Customs Service jet
that those parts
of Continuity of Government
that really do represent
nothing that has to do with
the command of the government
that is what I really think
needs more attention.
more attention
will be put on creating
an even safer space
for the president
to ride out threats
from enemies abroad
and perceived enemies
right here at home.
[ Rhythmic clapping ]
-Peaceful protest!
Peaceful protest!
2020.
D.C.,
demonstrators close in
on the White House gates.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
[ Explosions ]
The Secret Service decides
to rush President Trump
down into
the White House bunker.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
♪♪
-The great irony of Donald Trump
being rushed into the bunker
under the White House
is that he wasn't
being protected
against some
sort of foreign threat
or imminent nuclear apocalypse.
It was the anger of the American
people themselves.
Trump denies
he was hiding in a bunker.
little, short period of time,
and it was much more
for an inspection.
even by the President's
own Attorney General.
-Things were so bad
that the Secret Service
recommended the President
go down to the bunker.
We can't have that
in our country.
♪♪
tensions escalate
at the gates of the White House.
It's not only the President
who is taken to the bunker.
Barron, are also rushed there.
The bunker itself is
part of a new secret development
that begins after 9/11.
the bunker didn't function
very well at all.
it turned out that you couldn't
listen to both the TV
and watch a video conference
at the same time.
through the morning,
Vice President Cheney
had to turn down the cable news
in order to listen
to government officials
and turn down the government
officials in order to listen
to cable news.
-That Presidential Emergency
Operation Center itself
was a rather stark facility.
There was a conference room
and there were a number
of support rooms
and there were places
of residence
for just one or two people.
is that correct?
-The terror attacks prompt
National Security officials
to call for a more
advanced bunker.
a conspicuous
construction project
begins on the North Lawn
of the White House.
-They decided to rebuild
the Presidential
so they built a big bunker
underneath the White House
Situation Room.
-The project
is shrouded in secrecy.
The public is told
the construction
is to replace existing
White House infrastructure
and put up a fence.
The new bunker
includes a main conference room
and several support rooms
with food
and a self-contained air supply.
and there are
underground tunnels
heading out of
the White House entirely.
-And that is able to accommodate
the president
and the vice president
and the cabinet
in a more comfortable way.
he and a few select officials
were given a tour
part of an ongoing expansion.
It was clear that
the White House bunker
but after 9/11, investment
in the national security state
soars to new levels.
33 new building
complexes for top-secret
intelligence work
are either under construction
or have already been built.
♪♪
-The truth of the matter is
the Pentagon will continue
to get the money that it gets
and civil needs
will continue
to be begging for money
but part of why we won't change
our system
is this kind of secrecy
and hiddenness associated
with believing that the military
is more important
than it really is.
And that... that
is a product of the world
of Continuity of Government.
-You have to consider
that this project
is a complete redistribution
of tax dollars
in order to create
this redundant government
that is completely
beyond the reach
beyond the reach of elections,
beyond the reach of
the Constitution.
A shadow government that is
ready to take over
and it becomes this situation
where representative government
is just sort of done away with.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-One of the most troubling
aspects of these plans
is the realization
that almost all of them imagine
suspending the American
democracy as we know it.
That the secret government plans
for an emergency
and even, we believe,
suspending the very idea
of a three-branch
effectively,
with the Legislative Branch
and the Judicial Branch
until an emergency is over.
-You had an entire American city
essentially wiped off the map
while an American government
stood by and watched.
-We see
America's prejudices manifest.
go!
-We have been busy
fighting outside
and we failed to guard
our own back door.
-We've met the enemy
and the enemy is us.
-It's a traditional
fascist spiral.
you use that as evidence
that they're dangerous.
-Your government is here
to protect you.
Why should you worry?
♪♪
-The true story of 9/11
absolute collapse
of authority.
sir,
low and fast,
inbound to the White House."
"Don,
do we have an asset
that can take a shot at him?
D.C.,
we can engage him with?"
"Seven... six... five..."
"Don, I'll authorize
an over-the-horizon shot.
If you got a radar-guided
missile over Baltimore
shoot him."
there are people outside
pushing civilians to the south
and they're going to take
a body blow
right here in front of them.
-Everybody out.
♪♪
our leaders
have told us one thing
under the bright lights.
-The protection of the lives
and property of Americans
is the responsibility of all
public officials.
we're trying.
-And it is my first duty
as president
to protect the American people.
-We have it so well
under control.
-But America's shadow government
has spent trillions of dollars
on secret plans
that serve one premise...
we're on our own.
nothing.
the government has
invested trillions of dollars
in a secret plan to save itself.
[ Buzzer ]
While the rest of us die.
♪♪
♪♪
[ Explosion ]
Fears of nuclear Annihilation
fueled the creation of a system
to ensure the continuity
of government
even during a nuclear war.
It's known as C.O.G.
from bunkers
and airborne command posts
have been developed
over decades.
-This massive secret project
funneled unbelievable
amounts of money away
and the powerful
of the United States.
-Through the Cold War
no one had ever tested
whether it would actually work
in an emergency.
We'd written down
all of the plans on paper.
We tested them all in exercises.
would any of it actually work?
made. Get ready.
cake. Get ready.
- Cane.
- Yes...
-President George W. Bush is
visiting an elementary school
a routine public appearance
where he reads a book called
"The Pet Goat"
to a room of first graders.
"America is under attack."
Bush takes a moment
to gather his thoughts
and continues with the reading.
warnings of a terror attack
had been pouring
into the White House.
[ Gunfire ]
-We began to receive
lots of intelligence indications
that there was going to be
a major terrorist strike
by bin Laden's organization,
against the United States.
but they couldn't rule out
that the attack
would be in the United States.
The Bush Administration
despite my warnings.
didn't try to preempt the attack
by going after
bin Laden in Afghanistan.
I think.
setting off a disastrous chain
of events.
the Bush Administration
went into
an absolute
tailspin of confusion
and anarchy.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
There were moments
in this country
who was calling the shots.
[ Sirens wailing ]
-The American people
were completely in the dark.
Much of our national security
apparatus
and our political system
was in the dark.
That information void
expanded across
most of the federal government
and definitely across
the population.
♪♪
Richard Clarke is also in charge
of the Continuity
of Government program.
-For the first time
in the history
we activated it.
-It's to ensure the security
of the principals...
and the speaker of the house.
one of them would be available
to step into the Oval Office.
President Bush is
rushed onto Air Force One
and launched into the sky.
The number-one priority
of the pilot...
To get the plane
as high as possible
and as far away from anyone else
as he could.
Washington
was a combat zone.
We were literally still waiting
for the combat aircraft
from the Air Force to get up
and to protect us
in the White House.
The Secret Service director
and I and the Vice President
all urged the President
not to come back.
the plan had been to evacuate
top government officials
out to mountain bunkers
Pennsylvania,
and Mount Weather, Virginia.
The hope was that everyone
could be evacuated
in the first 15 minutes
after an attack.
though,
none of that happened.
-Most of the top people in the
President's line of succession
are unable to get to the bunkers
or never contacted.
Others are uncooperative.
Vice President Dick Cheney
refuses to evacuate
the White House.
Vice President Cheney
was bundled up by Secret Service
and moved to a basement next to
the White House Situation Room.
within an hour or so,
they moved him through
a long tunnel and blast doors
to a Presidential Emergency
Operation Center
beneath the East Wing of
the White House.
-Speaker Dennis Hastert is
rushed from the Capitol Building
wheels squealing
as his motorcade
rushes off the Capitol grounds.
-The Speaker of the House
was rushed onto that helicopter
and whisked out of the city.
someone in the constitutional
chain of command
who was outside of the city.
a third plane crashes
into the Pentagon.
-There is a lot of confusion
here at the Pentagon.
It appears that something hit
the Pentagon
on the outside
of the fifth corridor.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
I said, all units...
stands up from his desk
and goes out to the crash site.
♪♪
his natural
instinct was to go to the scene.
It was his building.
His people were hurt.
wanted to be part of the rescue.
♪♪
that was dramatic.
It was emotional.
He should have stayed
in the command post.
He ordered his deputy secretary
to fly out
fly
out of the target zone.
so, for a while
neither the Secretary of Defense
nor the Deputy Secretary
of Defense was available.
and to watch it break down
at an instant
because one person was
so overcome by human emotion...
He just took
a multibillion-dollar program
and broke it.
[ Sirens wailing ]
-Every federal agency is ordered
to activate
an alternative headquarters
but things don't go
according to plan.
-It was impossible
to get out of Washington.
everyone was trying
to leave Washington.
All the roads were blocked.
All the bridges were blocked.
The cell phones weren't working
because they were overloaded.
And we had no helicopters to get
the other departments' teams
out of town.
-Clarke remains in
the situation room
in the basement of the West Wing
of the White House.
It's the nerve center of
presidential crisis management.
000 feet
communication becomes difficult.
-And they don't even
really know where to go.
They don't know
really what to do.
They don't know whether
more attacks are coming.
and that's what the President
is facing
as he's flying in Air Force One.
America's defenses default
to their Cold War footing.
The Pentagon escalates
the country's nuclear readiness
by going to defense condition 3.
the nuclear forces
and the strategic forces
go to DEFCON 3.
so, it's a really big deal,
a lot of things
happen that the Russians detect.
missiles being
put on higher levels of alert.
And the Kremlin calls to speak
to the President to inquire
as to what's going on.
the decision is made
in the White House
that Condoleezza Rice...
She's a Russian and Soviet
specialist...
Will speak to Putin instead.
a critical conversation between
world leaders during
a moment of crisis
doesn't take place.
in a strange turn of events,
sort of became an observer
to the tragedy
leaving
Vice President Dick Cheney
to basically take over
the authority of the presidency
and start to handle
this burgeoning newborn war
that America was finding
itself in.
absolute
collapse of authority.
Dick Cheney had
trained his entire adult life
for the morning of 9/11.
He had been Defense Secretary
and a White House
Chief of Staff.
takes charge of the
US government's response
to the attacks.
the Vice President
began to issue orders
and spur the military
into action.
-You have to appreciate
the magnitude of the decision
and that is a decision
I wouldn't wish on anyone.
-With the chain of command
in disarray
life-and-death decisions
at the core of
Continuity of Government
are about to be tested
for the first time.
♪♪
♪♪
-Two planes have just slammed
into the World Trade Center.
A third has hit the Pentagon.
A fourth hijacked plane
heading straight toward
the heart of the capital
is still in the air
over Western Pennsylvania.
-It occurred to me that
more attacks might be coming.
We evacuated the White House
complex.
-Everybody out.
Everybody out.
-We sent the Vice President into
the bomb shelter
in the East Wing.
-The decisions in the bunker
that morning
cut to the heart
of the questions
that there are people
in the government
because of their position,
because of their authority,
are worth
protecting over other Americans.
♪♪
-We knew that there were at
least two more aircraft aloft.
We believed that the White House
was a target
for an incoming aircraft.
United Airlines Flight 93,
appears to be headed
back towards Washington.
-Deep underground
in the heavily fortified
it's chaos.
[ Phones ringing ]
-I reached down and I picked up
a receiver.
"Major,
we have another
hijacked aircraft
D.C."
-Lieutenant Colonel
Robert Darling
was a Marine Corps
helicopter pilot
assigned to the White House
military office.
he was supporting
the Vice President
and the
National Security Advisor.
"Whoa, you're gonna
have to hold on."
and who's
standing right next to me
but Vice President Cheney.
-Cheney tries but fails to reach
Donald Rumsfeld.
The Secretary of Defense
keeping him
out of the chain of command
at another critical moment.
-The Pentagon asks for
an unimaginable authority.
Can we shoot down
a commercial airliner
full of Americans
over American soil?
Vice President Cheney said,
"Shoot that aircraft down."
-Two F-16s
are scrambled with orders
but the fighter jets
are unarmed.
having armed fighters
standing by to defend the
capital from a domestic threat
wasn't part of the national
defense strategy.
♪♪
So their only option is to try
and bring down the airliner
with 44 people on board
by ramming the plane
out of the sky.
One of the pilots plans to crash
the plane into the cockpit.
The other plans to target
the tail.
But this scene never happened.
Flight 93 had crashed
before the jets even took off.
aircraft down."
[ Sirens wailing ]
"68 miles south of Pittsburgh.
No survivors."
All eyes on the Vice President.
He was staring at those
three speaker boxes.
He turned around.
He walked right over to me.
"Major,
we just shot that plane down.
I really need to talk
to the President."
it's only after
Cheney gives the order
to shoot down Flight 93
that he informs the President
of his decision.
the officials inside the bunker
didn't know whether they were
responsible for bringing down
a passenger jet.
Only later would it become known
that it was the passengers
storming the cockpit
who caused the plane to crash.
another,
this time unidentified, plane
is picked up on radar.
sir,
low and fast,
inbound to the White House."
Donald Rumsfeld,
was back in the building.
"Don,
we got a bogey seven miles out.
Do we have an asset
that can take a shot at him?
D.C.,
we can engage him with?"
in the unreinforced
situation room above,
Clarke and his team make a
fateful decision of their own.
I realized
that we might not survive.
And so I asked most of
the people there to leave.
They refused.
I asked them then
to write their name
date
of birth on a piece of paper,
and we e-mailed that list
out of the White House.
the people who had to rescue us
or find the remains would know
how many people to look for.
♪♪
time is running out.
"Seven... six... five..."
Donald Rumsfeld,
on the line
who tells the Vice President
he's got other fighter jets
screaming toward the capital.
"Don, I'll authorize
an over-the-horizon shot.
No visual confirmation required.
If you got a radar-guided
missile over Baltimore
shoot him.
Shoot him.
Shoot him."
there are people outside
pushing civilians to the south
and they're going to take
a body blow
right here in front of them.
all the
satellite radios blared to life,
"That's not a bogey."
That's a medevac helicopter
heading to the Pentagon
to save lives talking
on the wrong frequency.
♪♪
in New York City,
Mayor Rudy Giuliani
has his own plans
to ensure survival.
he built a $13 million
bomb-proof shelter
but there's one problem.
His Emergency Operations Center
a location that terrorists
had already bombed once before
back in 1993.
leaving Mayor Giuliani
and other officials
to wander the streets
attempting to find a place
to set up a command post.
♪♪
-To create a bunker
that cost millions
or tens of millions of dollars
that's centrally located
is
a perfect illustration
of how broken our system was.
more firefighters
would have lived.
deployed to the rescue efforts
at Ground Zero.
-I was in the National Guard
in New York.
I started the morning sleeping
in late
and I ended the evening
in camouflage standing on a pile
in the wreckage of Ground Zero
digging up bodies.
The magnitude
of a gaping chest wound
in New York City
was unfathomable.
when I reflect on it,
I think my mind probably censors
a bit of the enormity of it.
-It turns out America was
totally unprepared
for the threat it faced
on the morning of 9/11.
None of the plans
that we had developed
during the Cold War would work.
The FAA and the military
found themselves with radars
only facing out.
The fighter planes
that were scrambled into the sky
thought that they were trying
to repel Soviet bombers
and flew first out
to the Atlantic
before realizing that the threat
was already behind them.
the military trained for
the Cold War found itself
outclassed by 19 hijackers
with box cutters
aboard commercial airliners.
-The truly demoralizing truth
which redistributed
incredible amounts of wealth
away from social projects
like education
and health care
and infrastructure
is it created this hulking
rusting infrastructure
that never actually worked
at any moment.
It was completely incompetent
and unnecessary.
-But 9/11 wasn't the only fail.
the US
government found itself
this time from an enemy within.
-The big fear
through the fall of 2001
was when was the next shoe
going to drop?
When was the second wave
of attacks?
-This nation stands with the
good people of New York City
as we mourn the loss
of thousands of our citizens.
a shadowy figure drops
an anonymous letter
addressed to Senate Majority
Leader Tom Daschle.
♪♪
constituent mail.
One of the interns
starts opening up the mail.
And the one she selected
was postmarked from a fourth
grade school in New Jersey.
wanted to open it up,
and found it was taped shut.
So she took a pair of scissors
and gray-white powder fell out.
She also noticed
it drifted up into the air.
♪♪
FBI agent Scott Decker
was transferred to
the counterterrorism branch
and now was assigned
to investigate
the rapidly
unfolding anthrax attacks.
they'll turn bright red.
another Bacillus,
sometimes they'll turn pink.
We get false positives.
But when the Capitol Police
test this
they keep getting bright red.
So they're pretty sure it's not
a false positive this time.
-The government's top
biological defense lab confirms
the white substance is anthrax.
Anthrax is a highly infectious
and deadly disease
caused by inhaling
or touching a bacteria.
Letters were mailed to another
senator and major news outlets.
we have had four confirmed cases
of anthrax.
-The letters sent to NBC
and the "New York Post"
were the same...
"Death to America.
Death to Israel.
Allah is great."
-As soon as a wave of letters
began to arrive
across the country
with weaponized anthrax
this was Al-Qaeda's second act.
It came at a time
when the nation's psyche
and now,
people
were dying of a new attack.
in D.C., the fallout
from the anthrax attack
continues to grow.
their bomb dogs
were contaminated with anthrax.
The stuff that had been mailed
to Senator Daschle
so dried,
and such a fine powder,
it spread all over
Capitol Hill very quickly.
-The attacks raise
a frightening possibility
ignored during the Cold War.
you see a situation
where anything that wasn't
which really exposed
the impotency of the system
in the first place.
for all of
the money, time, and effort
is that it left America
to unpredictable
events on a human level.
-The anthrax attacks
also reveal a critical weakness
in Continuity of Government.
-The anthrax attacks
made Congress realize
how poorly their own plans
for continuity operations
actually were.
and they didn't have
a good system to replace members
who might be sick or killed.
Congress realized that they had
let their Cold War plans atrophy
and they hadn't replaced them
with anything.
There was no backup plan
for Congress.
sweeping powers
while a central piece of
American democracy
would be left to die.
millions of dollars
were spent on a secret plan
to make sure that didn't happen.
♪♪
-They were in a small
upland valley.
000 feet surrounded
by the Allegheny Mountains.
you encounter
you
come to the golf clubhouse.
Bob Conte is hired
as the official historian
an elite resort
that dates back to 1778.
people
would tell me about this rumor
that there was a bomb shelter
at The Greenbrier.
000-foot airport
800 people?
and to be honest,
I didn't know what to...
What to make of them.
industrialists,
and government advisers
all hobnob at the resort.
Its guests include dignitaries
and presidents.
in 1992,
"Washington Post" reporter
Ted Gup comes calling.
he introduces himself.
and son of a gun,
"I'm here to talk about
what's under
the West Virginia Wing."
it's an old rumor,
it goes back
to when they built
the West Virginia Wing.
It was during the Cold War.
Just a silly rumor.
There's nothing
under the West Virginia Wing."
And there's a sort of awkward
silence where he's looking at me
clearly, he...
He doesn't believe
a word I'm saying.
And it was pretty clear to me
that this was going to lead
to an article
and disclosure of the bunker.
1992,
Gup blows the lid
off The Greenbrier bunker.
what happened, one
of the most memorable moments
well, my career,
maybe my life,
the boss calls a meeting,
and Ted Kleisner,
stands up
"Today
we are going to acknowledge
a 35-year secret relationship
with the federal government
maintaining a bomb shelter here
at The Greenbrier."
I could have fallen over
at that moment.
-The facility is swiftly
shut down as the truth
about Greenbrier is exposed.
Hidden beneath
the vast extension
known as the West Virginia Wing
is a massive bomb shelter
stocked with supplies
for members of Congress
in case of disaster.
-The Greenbrier Congressional
bunker
was one of the most closely
held secrets of the Cold War.
the bunker was staffed
through the Cold War
by a team of secret
government workers
working for a front company
known as Forsythe Associates.
they hid their
tracks pretty well.
except for these guys.
you know.
when you talked to them,
they were sort of normal people.
But it was sort of funny
that you had this one operation
where they weren't... they
weren't Greenbrier employees.
♪♪
Conte finally gets to see
the secret bunker for himself.
♪♪
oh, my God,
you know.
We walk in.
We walk into a cafeteria.
"Wait a minute, stop.
This is... This is
the secret bunker?
you know."
I just assumed that the bunker
was hundreds of feet
underground.
and I'd never really realized.
which I... well, I guess
I never knew what was on
the other side of that door...
Leads into the bunker proper.
What was overwhelming to me
was how large the bunker was.
We're talking
a thousand people here.
we're talking about
a power plant.
We just kept going on
and on and on.
I guess what I didn't realize
was that
they were to continue to be
the Legislative Branch
of the federal government.
It wasn't just a matter of a
place for them to sleep and eat
so that they could stay alive.
They were moving down the
whole institution of Congress.
And this is part of this larger
Continuity of Government
program.
-One of the most uncomfortable
surprises inside the bunker
was a large weapons cache
that had been meant
to be used by security guards
to keep out ordinary Americans
who might try to show up
at the Congressional bunker.
The weapons cache was
a physical manifestation
of the difficult moral calculus
that the government officials
are worth protecting
over the lives
of ordinary Americans.
members of Congress
while their spouses and children
would be locked outside.
♪♪
the tragedy of
continuity of government
is one that's a story
that's not really well-known.
-The big secret... who gets
saved often has nothing to do
with making sure
the government survives.
-They had to send a special
US Customs Service jet
even though the airspace
of America was closed.
♪♪
-The truth of America's secret
doomsday plans
the creators
of Hollywood movies
and TV dramas stumble
on a bit of reality.
-When Aaron Sorkin was writing
and researching the show
"
during
a conversation over drinks,
something that looked
like a bus pass
in Stephanopoulos' wallet.
-What's the card?
-Tells you where to go in
the event of a nuclear attack.
-Sorkin turned that card
into an episode
involving Deputy White House
Chief of Staff
Josh Lyman getting
an emergency evacuation card
and worrying that
his colleagues didn't.
-Sure.
or do they have separate...
♪♪
God. Sorry, you know what?
I just got it.
Sorry. Okay. Sure.
I guess, why my staff
ever has to know
anything about it.
So there it is.
- "The West Wing" episode
pulls back the curtain
on a secret Armageddon VIP list
unknown even to many
Washington insiders.
♪♪
on the set, White House
Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers
those cards don't exist."
and she never understood that
she wasn't going to be included
if there was a nuclear war.
That George Stephanopoulos
would be evacuated
and she would be left behind.
-The evacuation cards
are a combo
of a driver's license
and a Yahoo! map
that helped get personnel
out of the capital
and to the relocation facilities
as quickly as possible.
[ Sirens wailing ]
in an emergency.
come
with evacuation instructions
for how helicopters
will locate these key officials
wherever
they are, 24 hours a day.
There was nothing more exclusive
in government service
than a golden ticket on one
of the evacuation helicopters.
-But it's not just VIPs
who will be saved first.
though,
have always
encompassed more than people.
One of the things
that the planners
began to realize
as they figured out
what was worth saving in America
was that it was important
as well.
in
the Cold War, plans to evacuate
the Constitution,
the Gettysburg Address,
ordered
so that curators would know
which pieces
to grab first in an emergency.
-The government's doomsday
planners
took on the responsibility
of deciding
what parts of history
needed to survive the apocalypse
in order to preserve
the idea of America.
-They start making these
very technocratic decisions
including the American people.
you start looking
at the plans
and you start realizing
how much time
and manpower and resources have
gone into saving these things.
American families
could be dying
by the millions
around the country.
[ Explosion ]
-9/11 put some of the realities
of Continuity of Government
into stark relief.
the tragedy of
Continuity of Government
energy, and American tax dollars
went into protecting the adult
children of Dick Cheney.
and the other
was a private citizen.
And she was scuba diving
in Bonaire.
The amount
of effort that was required
where they had to send a special
US Customs Service jet
that those parts
of Continuity of Government
that really do represent
nothing that has to do with
the command of the government
that is what I really think
needs more attention.
more attention
will be put on creating
an even safer space
for the president
to ride out threats
from enemies abroad
and perceived enemies
right here at home.
[ Rhythmic clapping ]
-Peaceful protest!
Peaceful protest!
2020.
D.C.,
demonstrators close in
on the White House gates.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
[ Explosions ]
The Secret Service decides
to rush President Trump
down into
the White House bunker.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
♪♪
-The great irony of Donald Trump
being rushed into the bunker
under the White House
is that he wasn't
being protected
against some
sort of foreign threat
or imminent nuclear apocalypse.
It was the anger of the American
people themselves.
Trump denies
he was hiding in a bunker.
little, short period of time,
and it was much more
for an inspection.
even by the President's
own Attorney General.
-Things were so bad
that the Secret Service
recommended the President
go down to the bunker.
We can't have that
in our country.
♪♪
tensions escalate
at the gates of the White House.
It's not only the President
who is taken to the bunker.
Barron, are also rushed there.
The bunker itself is
part of a new secret development
that begins after 9/11.
the bunker didn't function
very well at all.
it turned out that you couldn't
listen to both the TV
and watch a video conference
at the same time.
through the morning,
Vice President Cheney
had to turn down the cable news
in order to listen
to government officials
and turn down the government
officials in order to listen
to cable news.
-That Presidential Emergency
Operation Center itself
was a rather stark facility.
There was a conference room
and there were a number
of support rooms
and there were places
of residence
for just one or two people.
is that correct?
-The terror attacks prompt
National Security officials
to call for a more
advanced bunker.
a conspicuous
construction project
begins on the North Lawn
of the White House.
-They decided to rebuild
the Presidential
so they built a big bunker
underneath the White House
Situation Room.
-The project
is shrouded in secrecy.
The public is told
the construction
is to replace existing
White House infrastructure
and put up a fence.
The new bunker
includes a main conference room
and several support rooms
with food
and a self-contained air supply.
and there are
underground tunnels
heading out of
the White House entirely.
-And that is able to accommodate
the president
and the vice president
and the cabinet
in a more comfortable way.
he and a few select officials
were given a tour
part of an ongoing expansion.
It was clear that
the White House bunker
but after 9/11, investment
in the national security state
soars to new levels.
33 new building
complexes for top-secret
intelligence work
are either under construction
or have already been built.
♪♪
-The truth of the matter is
the Pentagon will continue
to get the money that it gets
and civil needs
will continue
to be begging for money
but part of why we won't change
our system
is this kind of secrecy
and hiddenness associated
with believing that the military
is more important
than it really is.
And that... that
is a product of the world
of Continuity of Government.
-You have to consider
that this project
is a complete redistribution
of tax dollars
in order to create
this redundant government
that is completely
beyond the reach
beyond the reach of elections,
beyond the reach of
the Constitution.
A shadow government that is
ready to take over
and it becomes this situation
where representative government
is just sort of done away with.
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
-One of the most troubling
aspects of these plans
is the realization
that almost all of them imagine
suspending the American
democracy as we know it.
That the secret government plans
for an emergency
and even, we believe,
suspending the very idea
of a three-branch
effectively,
with the Legislative Branch
and the Judicial Branch
until an emergency is over.
-You had an entire American city
essentially wiped off the map
while an American government
stood by and watched.
-We see
America's prejudices manifest.
go!
-We have been busy
fighting outside
and we failed to guard
our own back door.
-We've met the enemy
and the enemy is us.
-It's a traditional
fascist spiral.
you use that as evidence
that they're dangerous.
-Your government is here
to protect you.
Why should you worry?
♪♪