{"id":145535,"date":"2022-10-05T19:11:52","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T03:11:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=145535"},"modified":"2022-10-05T03:33:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T11:33:03","slug":"raven-rock-the-story-of-the-u-s-governments-secret-plan-to-save-itself-while-the-rest-of-us-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=145535","title":{"rendered":"Raven Rock: the story of the U.S. Government\u2019s secret plan to save itself-while the rest of us die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are some highlights from this 2017 book by Garrett M. Graff<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* Beyond the physical infrastructure, a major concern in the national evacuation plans was precisely how smoothly those \u201chost areas\u201d would absorb their new residents. Racial tensions were to be anticipated\u2014particularly in areas that would see large influxes of minority evacuees, like Ulster County, New York, which would see nearly half a million minority Bronx residents descend on its nearly entirely white town. These tense questions around integration were a particular concern of Reagan\u2019s first appointee to head FEMA , Louis Giuffrida, who as a colonel in 1970 had written his Army War College thesis on how the government could establish internment camps for \u201cBlack Nationalists\u201d in the event that revolutionaries tried to seize control of America\u2019s inner cities. The agency Giuffrida inherited in 1981 had spent its recent years studying similar issues about the problems of evacuees upsetting the racial balance of their \u201chost areas.\u201d \u201cThere could be a lot of opposition because a lot of the white people [in Virginia] don\u2019t want a lot of the black people,\u201d D.C.\u2019s head of emergency planning, John Colbert, explained. The head of FEMA \u2019s predecessor agency, the DCPA , in 1978 had been asked by a reporter: \u201cHow are you going to keep those people there from shooting the people coming in?\u201d
\n \u201cThat\u2019s tough,\u201d Bardyl Tirana said, simply.
\n \u201cSince you\u2019ve studied the problem, you no doubt have an answer to this?\u201d
\n \u201cDon\u2019t assume that,\u201d Tirana replied.
\n A FEMA study, done just as the Reagan administration was taking office, laid out myriad problems with evacuating \u201cBlacks, Hispanics, and Orientals\u201d during a national emergency. The fifty-seven-page report, Special Problems of Blacks and Other Minorities in Large-Scale Population Relocation , found that emergency management officials thought minority populations would require \u201cmore attention (education) to achieve comparable levels of understanding and recognition of the reality and necessity of crisis relocation.\u201d Beyond that, they were likely to have a \u201clower rate of public compliance,\u201d less access to both private transportation and private shelters, and have \u201ca greater problem in being accepted in crisis relocation host areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

* CNN , which first broke word of the scheme in the 1990s, reported that planners believed \u201cto protect the United States\u2019 unique Constitutional form of government from the ultimate threat it was necessary to have this alternate system of succession.\u201d As one National Program Office employee told the news channel, \u201cWe have to go on the premise that we have enough alternates in enough locations to do the job.\u201d William Arkin, a nuclear weapons scholar who had become one of the nation\u2019s leading experts on COG programs, concurred that the Constitution simply didn\u2019t allow for the flexibility necessary to execute and survive a nuclear war\u2014particularly a surprise attack. \u201cThe tension cannot be resolved,\u201d he told CNN . \u201cAs long as we have nuclear weapons, we\u2019re going to have to fudge on the Constitution.\u201d
\n But that left the big question: Given the secrecy around the program, if someone from PS3 emerged from a nuclear disaster as the \u201cpresident,\u201d who among the American public or world leaders overseas would respect that leader? As Duke University law professor William Van Alstyne explained, \u201cIf no one knows in advance what the line of succession is meant to be, then almost by hypothesis no one will have any reason to believe that those who claim to be exercising that authority in fact possess it.\u201d
\n Indeed, after realizing that the systems for authenticating a successor were lacking, the Reagan administration began to institute elaborate mechanisms with FEMA and the Pentagon to ensure a successor\u2019s legitimacy. The plan called for special coded communications that could prove a successor\u2019s identity and establish the highest-ranking official still alive within the government.<\/p>\n

* Then, to establish that the remote PS3 teams were, in fact, controlling the government, the plan called for military demonstrations that proved a new president\u2019s authority to foes and allies. \u201cSometimes, you order U.S. forces to do something,\u201d Clarke says. \u201cYou say to the adversary in advance, \u2018I\u2019m going to order our forces to do X. You will observe that. That\u2019s how you know that I\u2019m in charge of U.S. forces.\u2019 \u201d One option was to have the new \u201cpresident\u201d order an American submarine up from the depths to the surface of the ocean as a clear sign that the successor was in full control of U.S. military forces. The Soviet Union or U.S. allies could then independently verify, either by satellite surveillance or firsthand visual confirmation, that such an action followed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are some highlights from this 2017 book by Garrett M. Graff: * Beyond the physical infrastructure, a major concern in the national evacuation plans was precisely how smoothly those \u201chost areas\u201d would absorb their new residents. Racial tensions were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,42696],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blacks","category-nuclear"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t