This Is Only Test How Washington Prepared for Nuclear War (34 page)

The report that some Soviet ships en route to Cuba had turned back didn’t defuse the crisis. Late on the night of October 24, Kennedy received a letter from Khrushchev calling the blockade “an act of aggression.” He promised other Soviet vessels would ignore the blockade and retaliate if attacked. U.S. armed forces raised their Defense Condition from three to two, the highest level of alert short of general war. The next day, McCone told the ExComm that some of the missiles in Cuba were now operational.
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The slide toward war brought renewed attention to standing evacuation procedures for the civilian and military echelon of the executive branch. Since their introduction, the WHEP and JEEP had grown in size and complexity. The WHEP had ballooned from its original length of 23 pages to more than 200 pages by November 1960. Pick-up points for the President now included the West Terrace of the Capitol; Hains Point, where the Washington Channel, Anacostia, and Potomac converge; and Fort Washington, about 13 miles due south of the White House. The JEEP now required the Air Force to measure radiation levels and weather conditions at pick-up and departure sites so that alternate points could be used if necessary.
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Despite the revi
sions, deficiencies remained, prompting the OEP to identify new pick-up points for the vice president, Congressional leaders, and the Supreme Court. On October 26, McDermott asked Chief Justice Earl Warren to track the
other justices’ whereabouts in order to facilitate evacuation. Months earlier, however, Warren had made it clear what he thought of evacuation plans. When the OEP had asked for a list of important Court employees who should receive special passes to “expedite their travel in case of emergency,” Warren, who could inquire by name about his elevator operators’ children, had declared that every employee should receive a pass. The OEP never responded. Warren was also rankled that his wife Nina couldn’t accompany him to Mount Weather. Like so many wartime essential designees, he refused to allow his official duties to trump his marriage vows. If scrambled, the helicopters might well have landed at deserted—or very crowded— rendezvous points.
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The District government mimicked the activation of Mount Weather by putting its emergency relocation site at Lorton, Va., on 24-hour readiness. Beginning in March 1959, DCD had put together a “command center” in several rooms of the Main Administration Building of the Youth Detention Center operated by the D.C. Department of Corrections. (Inmates provided much of the labor to build the center.) By October 1962, a wall of sandbags rested against the building’s brick foundation and communication booths lined an interior wall covered with acoustic tiles. Two-way radios and telephones linked the center to power stations, fire and police dispatchers, and civil defense offices in Maryland and Virginia. Stored at the center were maps of the city’s water and gas mains as well as microfilm of vital records. The prison cafeteria and dispensary doubled as an emergency mess and medical clinic. On the night of October 23, Rodericks, the fire and police chiefs, and the heads of District government agencies met at the center. Rodericks asked them to identify and send additional records required to operate from the center. Like Mount Weather, Lorton didn’t assume day-by
day governmental functions but remained on standby.
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The crisis peaked on October 27. That morning, as the ExComm discussed preparing to board an approaching Soviet tanker, another message from Khrushchev arrived. The Soviet Premier offered to remove the missiles from Cuba if the United States removed Jupiter missiles from a NATO base in Turkey. As the ExComm debated the “trade or invade” option, it learned the Soviets had just downed a U-2 plane flying reconnaissance over Cuba. Many U.S. military leaders wanted to retaliate. They didn’t know that just hours before, the Soviet defense minister, with Khrushchev’s approval, had authorized General Pliyev to use the operational missiles in Cuba to defend his forces against a U.S. attack. Kennedy rejected calls for a reprisal, however, and refocused his attention on hammering out a compromise. He had it by late afternoon: the United States would lift the blockade and would promise not to invade Cuba in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles. The reply to Khrushchev said nothing about the Jupiters, but Robert Kennedy privately assured Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that the United States would remove the missiles from Turkey. This ingenious if risky solution allowed both superpowers to stand down and get what they wanted, yet left the unmistakable impression that the United States, not the Soviet Union, had
dictated the terms. The next morning, Khrushchev accepted the deal. Castro was furious, but the crisis had ended.
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The 13 days raise several razor-sharp “what ifs” that cut to shreds the vague scenarios put forth in
OPAL
s. What if the United States had attacked the missile sites on Tuesday, October 23, and Pliyev, acting without orders, fought back with his Luna and FKR missiles? What if, on Saturday, October 27, the United States had retaliated for the downed U-2 plane, and Pliyev, acting
under
orders, launched the warheads? Or what if, on that same day, the Soviet B-59 submarine being pummeled by practice depth charges fired by a U.S. destroyer didn’t surface, but instead fired its torpedo armed with a nuclear warhead? The submarine was short on oxygen, and officers were imploring their commander to strike back. Three predesignated officers each had to authorize the firing of the nuclear torpedo. Two did; the other, a man named Arkhipov, didn’t.
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What if he had said yes?

We might imagine, as historian Robert L. O’Connell has, the conse
quences. A Soviet submarine commander fires a nuclear torpedo on October 27, destroying a U.S. aircraft carrier. Two U.S. destroyers counterattack, air strikes against the Soviet missiles bases in Cuba are immediately ordered. General Pliyev uses his tactical nuclear weapons, obliterating an entire Marine division at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay. At 4:18 p.m., an SS-4 missile is fired at Washington; its warhead detonates 2,000 feet above the Lincoln Memorial. The radius of total destruction from the blast is 1.5 miles. The Kennedys, Lyndon Johnson, the ExComm, the JCS—dead. In Omaha, SAC General Thomas Power implements the SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan), the comprehensive blueprint for launching a strategic nuclear attack against the Soviet Union and its allies. Some 950 nuclear bombs rain down; Soviet submarines manage to fire only two more nuclear weapons, both aimed at the naval base in Norfolk, Va. Soviet bombers never leave their run
ways or hangers. Although more than 250,000 Americans die and Washington is destroyed, the United States emerges intact from the Two Days’ War, as O’Connell calls it. The Soviet Union is not so fortunate. Its government doesn’t exist, and practically the entire population is dead or will soon die from starvation and radiation poisoning. Fallout chokes the atmos
phere, incurring global casualties and leading to famine in India and China as well as to food shortages in Europe and North America.
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Could the federal government have functioned in the aftermath of such a cataclysm? Say the new president, Speaker of the House John W. McCormack (D-Mass.), was at home in Boston. He’s flown to Mount Weather and ush
ered into the broadcast studio in the Protected Facility. Over Channel 2, he addresses the cadres of wartime essential personnel. They number no more than a few hundred. Just as Eisenhower had predicted, the President is “bewildered,” and he gropes for words to rally his charges. A pall hangs in the facility. The cadres who arrived days before left behind families in Washington—already guards have locked up frantic men and women who want to leave to find their loved ones. Fallout readings from the Nike
antiaircraft missile bases surrounding Washington and Baltimore are coming in. As broadcast technicians test the video and audio links with the networks in New York, OEP information officers struggle to write copy so President McCormack can address the nation. A few civil defense officials from the outer ring of Washington’s suburban communities are radioing or calling, desperately seeking instructions. Those in the inner ring—Alexandria, Arlington, Silver Spring, Greenbelt—are dead.

After his national broadcast, the 70-year-old McCormack, a veteran of World War I (or the War to End All Wars, as it was briefly called by Americans), experiences a surge of confidence. He asks liaison officers at Mount Weather to select field offices as interim federal headquarters for their agencies and departments. The State Department’s relocation site at Front Royal is sending embassy reports on the international response to the war. McCormack is briefed on
Plan D-Minus
and the EAPs. After consulting with OEP personnel and, via phone, military officers at Fort Ritchie and Site R, McCormack declares martial law in metropolitan Washington, Baltimore, and Norfolk. He designates the Marine base at Quantico as a staging area for relief supplies and heavy construction equipment for the Washington area. Congress adjourned on October 13, so most legislators are in their home dis
tricts or states; McCormack instructs them to find their way to Greenbrier for an emergency session. The midterm elections are just ten days away, but as McCormack said in his television address, it’s imperative the elections be held.

However, McCormack loses hope as another of Eisenhower’s predictions comes true: law, order, and civility devolve into chaos. In Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, residents are dying from radiation exposure. They sheltered during the war but soon ventured out in search of food, water, and family members. Elsewhere in the country, millions of urban residents—from New York to Los Angeles, from Dallas to Minneapolis—choke highways in pan
icked, mass evacuations, even though they escaped attack. In his speech, the President assured them the war is over, but rumors are rampant that he lied and that the Soviet Union is going to counterattack within days, if not min
utes; that the President
knows
this, but he wants 40 million Americans to die because fallout-poisoned soils cannot raise sufficient food to feed the popula
tion. Senators and representatives are trickling into Greenbrier, but they aren’t ready to act on the legislative requests the President forwarded from Mount Weather’s set of EAPs. Skittish governors are unsure whether polling places can be set up; to stop riots and looting, they’re mobilizing National Guard units. Inflation spirals out of control as producers, wholesalers, and merchants double, even triple, the prices of staples and basic goods. The handful of Federal Reserve Board and Treasury officials at Mount Weather rummage through
OPAL
records and mobilization plans, searching for a solu
tion. To ensure the armed forces receive all the POL (petroleum, oil, and lubricants) they need, the OEP’s energy and minerals specialist is urging the President to seize control of oil companies. Regional OEP offices report widespread rumors that a “Fifth Column” of communists are plotting nationwide sabotage. McCormack doubts it, but to allay state and local
authorities, he suspends the writ of habeas corpus and authorizes the attor
ney general to detain individuals for internal security. All nine Supreme Court justices are dead. McCormack considers what Eisenhower said when reached by phone at his Gettysburg farm: “John, you’ve got no choice but to declare national martial law.”

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The above scenarios, both O’Connell’s and my own, might seem perfervid. Admittedly, counterfactual history is the equivalent of infinity—it can go on forever—so let’s turn back to the historical record. During the crisis, the gov
ernment’s echelon remained in Washington: the president and the vice pres
ident; many members of Congress, including Senate President pro Tempore Carl Hayden (D-Ariz.); the Supreme Court justices; Cabinet Secretaries, who, because of dispersal’s failure, were congregated in central Washington. By 1960, Cabinet officials were supposed to rendezvous on the Mall for evac
uation by helicopter, but a State Department emergency planner pointedly noted the difficulty of assembling such a large group after an attack warning. And the “problem of assembly of Cabinet members in other than office hours presents even graver difficulties, unless the whole city is laid out for exodus plans and a disciplined policing by Civil Defense volunteers and any other available forces is arranged.”
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As we know, DCD didn’t have those volunteers. After the crisis, McDermott admitted to Secretary of Commerce Luther H. Hodges, “protection of the Cabinet officials has high priority in our current planning but, for the interim period,
ad hoc
measures must be adopted” (emphasis in orginal).
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The ghost of the National Security Resources Board lingered still—on went the planning to plan. Since evacua
tion was impossible once Soviet missiles were fired, the echelon faced a dilemma: relocate as a precaution and risk causing citywide, even national panic, as word spreads that the president and others have left the capital; or stay in Washington and hope the missiles never leave their launch pads.

The “families first” credo isn’t imagined, and its powerful hold didn’t escape the attention of emergency planners—after all, they were the ones expected to leave their loved ones. In 1959, OCDM participants in a Mount Weather seminar on “Post-Attack Government Manpower Considerations” declared, “the overriding factor is that of employee’s [
sic
] responsibility to his family as related to his responsibility to his Government.” In response, the OCDM proposed designating a special reception area for the dependents of agency employees. The problem with such a plan, as one employee pointed out, was that if the press or Congress learned of these “
special arrangements
, it would be very bad from a morale and public relations standpoint” (emphasis in original). During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the OEP arranged to gather dependents at a central point for evacuation by car, but that hardly seemed workable, nor did it appease employees. After the crisis, an OEP official noted that those “who have emergency assignments at [the Protected Facility] are concerned about making adequate provisions for their families.