This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (29 page)

Testing the Arc

O
PAL
55 had revealed numerous problems with the Arc. Irrelevant messages had overwhelmed communication lines, and many sites weren’t as yet ready to function under emergency conditions. (Recall the FCC employees who had to bring bag lunches to their relocation site.) Many participants hoped the President might cancel future Operation Alerts; there were more pleasant ways to spend summer weekends. (“Six long days away from home!” exclaimed Undersecretary of Commerce Walter Williams about
OPAL
56.)
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But Eisenhower was adamant: continuity of government plans were worth
less unless tested, and he made it clear he wanted to use the exercises to fix the Arc’s flaws. Meanwhile public participation, a priority during
OPAL
55, was steadily phased out.

Eisenhower put Andrew Goodpaster in charge of improving the Arc’s communication lines. Goodpaster asked the White House Army Signal Agency to build a discrete “Red Line Network” connecting Camp David and the White House shelter to Mount Weather. Additional telephone circuits linked Mount Weather to the relocation sites of Defense, State, the AEC, CIA, and FBI. To route calls, the Signal Agency installed a new switchboard at its above-ground communications center at Mount Weather; a separate teletype switchboard allowed data transmission. Goodpaster also wanted the closed circuit television network expanded so the White House shelter,
Mount Weather, and Camp David could receive and send broadcasts. Partially completed by July 1956, the Red Line ensured the President could effectively communicate with the most important branches of the national security state. In anticipation of the completion of Mount Weather’s underground facility, the Signal Agency requested 4,000 square feet of underground space to house communications equipment. Several million dollars were also spent to upgrade the existing inter-agency circuits. The Long Lines Department of AT&T was the prime contractor. To conceal the extent of the Arc’s communication lines, Eisenhower himself insisted that AT&T use dozens of subcontractors; all told, 24 unaffiliated companies did installation work in 46 buildings.
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Arthur Flemming set out to square pre-attack preparations with postattack priorities. In April 1956, he asked executive agencies to submit “documents which involve matters of supreme national importance requiring immediate action or execution by the President” after an attack. In a real emergency, Flemming didn’t want relocated personnel puzzling over the “essentiality” of the brewing industry, as had happened during
OPAL
55. Nor did he want agencies drafting requests at their relocation sites. With a set of emergency papers in hand, the President could order immediate actions. The AEC iden
tified just one document, which the President already possessed: an order to the chairman of the AEC to release atomic weapons to the Department of Defense. (After July 1, 1956, changes to the protocol for the transfer of atomic weapons rendered this order obsolete.) The GSA submitted several guidelines concerning distribution of critical materials.
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The ODM also wrote draft Presidential proclamations. One proclaimed a national state of emergency, and a second suspended the writ of habeas corpus for 60 days and authorized the FCDA to use the “voluntary and involuntary services of all persons (except members of the armed forces) and [move] such persons to places where such services are needed.” Others declared emergency manpower measures, rules for banking operations, and establishment of a national censorship office. Such sweeping actions required the cooperation of many different executive agencies, but were they ready?
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Operation Alert 1956 looked for an answer. The exercise, held from Friday, July 20, through Wednesday, July 25, plotted more than 120 nuclear bombs detonating above 75 cities and military bases in 34 states and the District. Warning times ranged from 1 hour and 40 minutes to 5 hours. There was no telescoping; participants pretended they were working during the first six days after the attack. The Washington metropolitan target zone received a warning period of 3 hours and 15 minutes for its two 20-kiloton and single 5-megaton surface detonations. Congress, still in session, didn’t participate, nor did area residents. DCD simply asked residents to listen for the Warning Yellow, and a Conelrad test bumped television and radio pro
gramming off the air from 4:10 to 4:25 p.m. Otherwise,
OPAL
1956 let “Business-as-Usual” continue in the city, leaving residents to wonder why one year after being exhorted to participate in an important drill they were now superfluous. (In a paper exercise, Fondahl decided 910,000 daytime
residents safely evacuated prior to the attack. A researcher for the FCDA, however, calculated 550,000 District residents died immediately, with the death toll reaching 820,000 within 60 days of the bombing. Only the former estimate was made public.)
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A total of 42 executive agencies activated their sites, but inclement weather disrupted the first day. Thick fog and driving rain prevented air trans
port to Mount Weather, and high winds disrupted communications. Within 4 hours of the alert, 21 relocation sites were operating, but others took up to 10 hours to activate. In addition to solving the types of “problems which would follow a nuclear attack on the United States,” some agencies helped operate the Arc. On paper, the Postal Service worked out continued delivery nationwide; it also brought actual mail to the relocated agencies. For its part, the GSA provided vehicle transportation between Winchester, Va., and Chambersburg, Pa., two central points within the Arc. During
OPAL
56’s last three days, a small bus left the Post Office in each town at 7 a.m. and noon, making stops in Martinsburg, W.Va., and Hagerstown, Md. Passengers had to show government identification cards to board and arrange rides to their respective relocation sites.
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The GSA’s continuity duties included publication of the daily
Federal Register
, which provided a public record of government actions, and an assess
ment of damage to federal property across the country. Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., served as the GSA’s relocation site, code-named “Stonewall.” For relocating GSA personnel,
OPAL
56 was both retreat and secret mission. They car-pooled to Lexington, stayed in local hotels, and were free to sightsee when off-duty. (Operations in the campus buildings was round-the-clock, but individual shifts ran the customary eight hours.) Photographs were banned, however, as were souvenirs that might identify the site. Relocators could only tell their spouses they were going to a “reloca
tion site,” and personal calls and letters were forwarded from Washington.
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The GSA had troubles drafting the
Federal Register
that first hectic day. Ideally, relocated agencies would transmit emergency orders to the GSA, which would put them in the
Register
. Air couriers would deliver film of the
Register
to the relocation sites of the GSA’s regional offices, which would then print copies for state and local governments, banks, newspapers, and broadcasting stations.
Ideally
. In practice, the system broke down. The Justice Department “fouled up” (the GSA’s phrase); Agriculture classified some of its documents as secret, which meant they required encryption; Labor wanted a waiver from relaying its orders to the GSA so it could keep its teletypewriter lines clear; the Interstate Commerce Commission claimed its personnel had more pressing duties. Overburdened communication lines caused much of this resistance; in some cases, messages were arriving 11 hours late. Unsure what to do, Dr. Wayne Grover, whose day job was archivist of the United States, telephoned Mount Weather. After learning that Goodpaster had already instructed staff there to assume presidential proclamations had appeared in the
Register
, Grover ordered publication of a simulated
Register
and its actual delivery. The GSA’s regional offices thus
received, via air courier, a blank template of the
Register
asking them to inform Stonewall of the date and hour of arrival. (In two cases, delivery took 37 hours.) The GSA printed a completed
Register
on Wednesday, July 25, but didn’t transmit it. This
Register
included a presidential order taking possession of the Carolina, Clingfield & Ohio Railroad and an FCC list of priorities for restoring intercity telephone service.
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The GSA also pretended to evacuate the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Between 1951 and 1952, the National Bureau of Standards had suspended the three Charters of Freedom in specially made encasements filled with helium and sealed with lead. An under
ground vault was installed at the National Archives; in case of an emergency, the documents could be automatically lowered and secured behind a 50-ton door. Like the White House shelter, the vault was built to withstand atomic but not hydrogen blasts. Accordingly, the GSA (to which the National Archives and Records Service was attached) included in its set of emergency action documents a presidential order for the evacuation of the Charters. “Their safety is of the utmost importance,” wrote Grover, “since they will symbolize for future generations—as well as our own—the continuity of our form of Government.” However, the documents stayed put during
OPAL
56. The risks of an accident or theft were too great—imagine the uproar if the Charters of Freedom disappeared from a college campus—so the GSA wrote a fictional news account of the documents’ safe evacuation. The unreleased story described an armored car leaving the National Archives but didn’t give a destination, saying only that the Charters were in a “safe place.”
²⁷
In real
ity, the GSA hadn’t as yet identified that place. More than a year later, the deputy archivist proposed using Site R, which could provide optimal security and climate control for the documents. (Space wasn’t a problem; in their cases, the Charters measured 45 by 39 by 61 inches.)
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O
PAL
56 exposed rough patches at even the most developed sites. At the “crowded rock real estate” of Site R, relocators stood in line to learn about eating and sleeping arrangements before getting to work. The Joint Emergency Evacuation Plan (JEEP) failed in the bad weather. A crush of messages overwhelmed the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and courier delivery of messages between Site R and Fort Ritchie, where relocated assis
tant secretaries of Defense were working, took an average of two hours. Urgent requests generated unexpected quandaries. As part of the exercise, the attorney general contacted Site R to ask for troops to defend the borders with Mexico and Canada. The Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to know “the esti
mated number of enemy agents, method of entry, and probable areas of pen
etration” before it would dispatch troops. Such back-and-forth messaging in the Arc generated 61,000 communications during just the first three days.
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O
PAL
56 also perpetuated the nuclear reality of previous exercises. Recently, Eisenhower had been briefed about the consequences of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The projections clearly disturbed the President. “Casualties were enormous,” he wrote in his diary, with 65 percent of the population—more than 105 million people—in need
of medical care. “Members of the Federal government were wiped out and a new government had to be improvised by the states.” Only the Soviets’ limited stockpile, not defensive systems (e.g., Nike missiles) and civil defense readiness, prevented the destruction from being worse. Meanwhile the United States inflicted three times as much damage on the Soviet Union, and the “picture of total destruction of the areas of lethal fall-out, of serious fall-out and of at least some damage from fall-out, was appalling.”
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But not in
OPAL

56.
Though fallout patterns were plotted, they weren’t used to estimate casu
alties. O
PAL
56 surmised that 60 days after the attack, just 15 million Americans were dead, and 5 million injured. Even these low casualty esti
mates weren’t made public, as they were during
OPAL
55, due to concern that they “could have an adverse effect on our current foreign policy [read: upset America’s allies] and could also create some unnecessary problems within our own country [read: upset Americans].”
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At a Wednesday afternoon meeting, Flemming stated, “we must pay much more attention to fall-out problems, especially at the relocation site them
selves.” Eisenhower himself set several priorities for continuity of government. “Keep it Simple—Keep it down to rock bottom,” he said. Each relocation site needed an unyielding “Inspector General” to “weed out” unnecessary messages. Agency heads also needed to simplify site tasks. Relocators will be hysterical, “absolutely nuts,” Eisenhower admonished his Cabinet; even the President will be “bewildered.” Frantic with worry about their families and reeling from shock, relocators couldn’t possibly execute complex responsibil
ities. He urged that agencies permanently place cadres of workers at their sites, for the best way to ensure the Arc’s operation was to have people already in place, plans in hand, awaiting precise orders from the President.
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