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The Greenbriar | Music | 17.15.07 |
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Guests in pool | Gleeson: It's the playground of the rich and mega-rich. A place where for more than 200 years America's elite have sought sanctuary. | 17.29.23 |
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| The Greenbriar, nestled in the hills of West Virginia, is quite simply one of America's grandest places. |
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White Sulphur Springs | For generations more than half the population of the hamlet of White Sulphur Springs worked there. But many suspected there was something more going on. | 18.02.19 |
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Barber with customer | Barber: They never talked about it. It was just one of those things that just nobody ever talked about. | 18.12.20 |
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Doorman | Doorman: It was so concealed. We never knew what it was anyway. | 18.25.16 |
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Greenbriar | The Greenbriar was the cover for one the best kept secrets of the Cold War. | 18.32.04 |
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Gleeson with Bugas walking towards shelter | Gleeson: Where are we going now Fritz? | 18.37.15 |
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| Bugas : We're going into the fallout shelter where the legislative branch of government would reassemble in the event of a war. |
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| Gleeson: Fritz Bugas swore an oath never to reveal what was behind the mysterious door on the hill. But with the bunker's decommissioning he can now reveal all. |
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Gleeson and Bugas enter shelter | Gleeson: How heavy is this door? | 18.58.06 |
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| Bugas: This is a 25 tonne blast door. Do you want to help me open it? |
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| Gleeson: Sure. 25 tonnes it feels it. |
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| Bugas: It's ten feet high, 12 feet wide, 18 inches think and it's made alternately of concrete and steel, from top to bottom. |
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| Gleeson: How do you stop it? |
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Gleeson and Bugas in shelter | Gleeson: Nothing prepares a visitor for what's in store. Like a scene from a 1960s Cold War movie, a 120 metre long tunnel is revealed, leading back under the hotel, and back to another time. | 19.23.13 |
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Black and white photos of shelter being built | Music | 19.34.05 |
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| Gleeson: To avoid suspicion, the bunker was constructed at the same time as a new wing of the resort. The year was 1958. |
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| Music |
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Photo of Eisenhower | Gleeson: Eisenhower was President and times were good. | 19.53.18 |
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| Blast |
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| Gleeson: But America was living under a nuclear shadow. The country feared Soviet leader, Nikita Kruschev. Doomsday paranoia was a part of the American psyche. Even children were schooled in survival techniques - such as they were. |
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Archival footage | Narrator: We must be ready everyday, all the time, to do the right thing if the Atomic Bomb explodes...Duck and cover. That's the first thing to do. | 20.14.13 |
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Gleeson in Washington | Gleeson: America's military chiefs began planning for the possibility of nuclear war - their rationale that the American way had to be preserved - the republic, the democracy, the politicians. But with Washington likely to be Ground Zero in any nuclear conflict a safe place had to be found. It was called Operation Greek Island. | 20.25.12 |
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| Blast |
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Bugas | Gleeson: A career intelligence agent, Fritz Bugas was the project manager of this top secret operation. A cover was needed, so he and his 15 employees were to be TV repairmen for the Greenbriar. But the company was a Pentagon front. It was perfect. | 20.55.13 |
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Bugas repairing TVs | Bugas: We were working for the Federal Government in fact. Although our cover was that of a management and electronics consultant firm. | 21.17.22 |
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| Gleeson: It's not unreasonable to say you were leading a double life, is it? |
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| Bugas: No it isn't. In fact, that's exactly what we were doing. |
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| Music |
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Visitors in tunnel | Gleeson: In the event of a nuclear war, the newly arrived Congressmen and women would be led to safety down the hill tunnel. | 21.32.02 |
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Bugas and Gleeson | Bugas: There's five feet of concrete to your right, to your left and five feet overhead. On top of that concrete there's about 50 feet of dirt. | 21.40.10 |
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Decontamination chamber | Gleeson: First stop for the politicians may have been the decontamination chamber - a series of high powered showers, designed to remove nuclear fallout. | 21.50.03 |
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| Each would be assigned fatigues and then a bunk. There was room for 1,000 people - politicians, their families and staff. |
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Bugas and Gleeson | Gleeson: It all looks pretty Spartan for the most important people in America. | 22.06.16 |
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| Bugas: Well, let me give you an example here. Each bed had a drawer for their private belongings, and beyond that there was one locker to be shared by four individuals. |
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| Gleeson: The government removed its furniture last year. What's there now is a recreation, except the tissues. |
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| Bugas: That's from the year 1960, so it's been here a long period of time. |
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Guns in shelter | Gleeson: With so many under the strain and uncertainty of nuclear war, there was a cache of small arms for crowd control. With radioactive illness possible, an underground hospital. For those who didn't make it, a crematorium. There was a dental clinic, a fully appointed kitchen, and cafeteria, complete with all the 1960s vinyl covered chairs - all frozen in another time. | 22.34.02 |
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Transmission tower | Gleeson: Outside, a large metal box with a lid capable of lifting five tonnes of rubble, reveals an eight storey transmission tower. That's because the bunker is also a TV studio, and from this location, the Speaker of the House, or Senate Majority Leader, could have addressed a war ravaged America. But to survive, they needed to be fully self-contained. So dried food was shipped in, enough for two months. | 23.01.18 |
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| Most ambitious of all, an underground life preservation system for the entire bunker. Downstairs was water storage, and a massive power plant. |
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Gleeson and Bugas at power plant | Gleeson: So how much power do these generate, Fritz? | 23.39.06 |
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| Bugas: Any one of these engines would generate enough power to run seven city blocks of homes. |
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| Gleeson: Upstairs, contamination free oxygen, the lungs of the bunker. |
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Gleeson walks towards flag | Gleeson: The whole reason the bunker was built in the first place was so the business of government could continue. It is, in effect, a mini Capitol Hill, and in a Doomsday scenario this would have been the House of Representatives chamber. Although just how many Americans would have been left to govern is debatable. | 23.56.04 |
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Planes on airstrip | Gleeson: Ten minutes from the bunker, the local airstrip was extended to accommodate jumbo jets, like Air Force one, which periodically undertook practice landings. This was the clue as to how the politicians would make the 300 kilometre journey from Washington to West Virginia in time to beat the bomb. | 24.14.05 |
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Bugas | Bugas: There was a plan in effect. Let me leave it at that. | 24.35.19 |
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| Gleeson: So are you still sworn to secrecy? Can't you tell me how the politicians were going to get here? |
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| Bugas: There are certain elements in terms of information concerning my answer to your question that I don't feel that it would be appropriate for me to make. |
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Magazine cover | Gleeson: Fritz Bugas's cover was blown by the Washington Post in 1992. The bunker was decommissioned last year. It's now a tourist attraction for resort guests. Bunkers for the Supreme Court, the President and his Cabinet, have not been compromised, and exist somewhere in America. | 24.52.03 |
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| Fritz Bugas left the Defence Department and is now a consultant to the Greenbriar. |
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Bugas | Bugas: I would hope that there's some sort of means or ways to shelter our legislative branch of government since this particular facility has been compromised. | 25.16.14 |
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Negus | Negus: Incredible stuff. And in case you're wondering, that was for real. It wasn't the set for the old ‘Get Smart' television series. That's Foreign Correspondent for this week. See you at the same time next week. | 25.33.02 |
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