Washington Asks What the Government Built for the People While It Built Bunkers for Its Leaders

John Washington III, a 2028 presidential candidate, is asking what the federal government built to protect the American people during the Cold War, when it was spending millions of dollars on underground facilities designed to protect government leadership and preserve military operations in the event of a nuclear attack. "What did our government build to give the American people that same level of protection?" he wrote.

Washington laid out the spending on the leadership facilities. The Greenbrier bunker in West Virginia, designed to shelter members of Congress, cost approximately $14 million, he wrote. Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania had reportedly cost $35 million by April 1954. Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado cost approximately $142 million to construct during the 1960s. Mount Weather in Virginia became another major federal emergency facility, although its complete historical construction cost is not readily established in the public records reviewed, he wrote.

For ordinary Americans, Washington wrote, the federal government established a public fallout shelter program, identified existing buildings that could provide protection, and distributed emergency supplies. A Government Accountability Office report documented approximately $122 million in food and emergency supplies purchased for public fallout shelters in the early 1960s, he wrote, and the government also funded some shelter construction and improvements — but much of the public program depended on buildings that already existed rather than constructing dedicated underground facilities comparable to those serving government leadership.

"And that is where my concern begins," Washington wrote. His question, as he framed it, is why a government that recognized the danger of nuclear war strongly enough to build specialized underground facilities for its leadership did not build the same level of protection for the people.