FINAL WARNING: Ready to Spring the Trap
meeting there with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretaries of the
Army, Air Force and Navy for a “top-secret discussion of postwar
military strategy.” In 1956, Eisenhower had an international meeting
there with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.In 1960, when they began work on their new West Virginia Wing (which
contains a complete medical clinic), the Greenbrier website indicates
that the “top secret relocation center for the U.S. Congress” was
constructed underneath. It was completed 2-1/2 years later.
Supposedly deactivated, there are actually public tours of the “former
government relocation facility” now.Its purpose was to house the Congress in the event of a nuclear attack.
It has an area for the Senate, House, and a large hall for joint sessions.
According to former House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, who
received an annual briefing about the site, spouses would not be
allowed in during a nuclear event.The relocation center’s largest room is actually part of the Wing’s
design. It is 89 by 186 feet, and has a 20 foot high ceiling supported by
18 huge columns. It is now called the Exhibition Hall, and is used for
conference events. It has a vehicular, as well as pedestrian entrance,
both of which can be sealed off quickly by blast doors hidden behind a
false wall. To hotel guests, it appears only to be a very large room.
However, its purpose is for joint sessions of Congress.Behind the hall is a 470-seat auditorium for the House of
Representative and a 130-seat auditorium for the Senate. Not too far
from these areas is a large white door leading to a corridor about 20
yards long, which culminates with a locked door, and a sign that says:
“Danger: High Voltage Keep Out.”Beyond that is an underground installation having 2 foot thick
concrete walls reinforced with steel, and a concrete roof under 20 feet
of dirt; and contains an infirmary with an operating table, hundreds of
metal bunk beds, a shower room, numerous offices, a television
studio, radio and communications room, dining room, an internal
power plant (with two 2-story high diesel generators); and a
“pathological waste incinerator,” or cremation oven, which would be
used to dispose of bodies, because once the doors are sealed, they