Crisis Defense Bunkers

CRISIS DEFENSE BUNKERS
November 11, 2008


1. Raven Rock Mountain Complex:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_R

The primary Bunker for defense (where Cheney was during 9/11) is The Raven Rock Mountain Complex (RRMC) which is also known as "Site R." It's located 6.2 miles north-northeast of Camp David. It consists of 5 underground buildings, each 3 stories tall, with computer-filled caverns and it's own reservoir. It is sometimes known as the underground Pentagon because it's primary tenant is the ANMCC (Alternate National Military Command Center). It runs more than 38 communications systems for its users.

2. The Defense Information Systems Agency;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Information_Systems_Agency

At Site R the Defense Information Systems Agency provides computer services to the National Command Authority, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and other United States Department of Defense agencies.

3. Global Information Grid (GIG):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Information_Grid

One primary computer service that is handled out of Site R is the GLOBAL INFORMATION GRID (GIG) an all-encompassing communications project by the Defense Department that has been built as the, "globally interconnected, end-to-end set of information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel for collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, and managing information on demand to warfighters, policymakers and support personnel. The GIG includes all owned and leased communications and computing systems and services, software, system data, security services, and other associated services necessary to achieve information superiority for the US military. It is the physical manifestation of the network-centri warfare doctrine."

Someone working at the CIA would not have access to the GIG and it’s possible that even a good hacker couldn't get into without getting into the bunker.





4. TIME MAGAZINE: The Doomsday Blueprints:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,976187-1,00.html

Monday, Aug. 10, 1992
The Doomsday Blueprints
By TED GUP

The project was known simply as the Outpost Mission -- one of the cold war's most closely guarded secrets. Beginning in the mid-1950s, an elite unit of helicopter pilots and crew, the 2857th Test Squadron, was stationed at Olmsted Air Force Base in Pennsylvania posing as a rescue team for military and civilians in distress. Their real mission, so sensitive that only the pilots and base commander knew, was to rescue President Dwight D. Eisenhower -- and, later, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon -- in the event of a nuclear attack. Posted outside the blast range of an atomic assault on Washington, they were to swoop down onto the White House lawn when an attack seemed imminent and spirit the President away to one of several hollowed-out mountain sites or to the heavily reinforced communications ship, the U.S.S. Northampton, off the Atlantic Coast.
The pilots were also ready to make a rescue attempt after a nuclear assault. On board their helicopters, they packed decontamination kits as well as crowbars and acetylene torches to break through the walls of the presidential bunker buried beneath the White House. They flew practice runs with their dark visors lowered to shield their eyes from the A-bomb's flash, and were dressed from head to toe in 20 lbs. of protective clothing -- boots, gloves and rubber bodysuits impregnated with lead to block out the radiation. They carried extra radiation suits in canvas bags for the President and First Family. If the pilots could not reach the bunker through the rubble, a second rescue unit stood ready with heavy equipment, including cranes, to extract the President. In the 1960s the squadron was moved to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, and remained operational until 1970.
Outpost Mission was but a fragment of a vast and secret doomsday plan devised by senior U.S. officials who spent their lives preparing for the unthinkable -- nuclear war. Their mission: to ensure the survival of the U.S. government, preserve order and salvage the economy in the aftermath of an atomic attack. Still others were charged with rescuing the nation's cultural heritage, from the Declaration of Independence to the priceless masterpieces of the National Gallery of Art. Now, with the end of the cold war, many doomsday operatives are breaking their silence for the first time. Confronted with the potential horrors of atomic warfare, they drafted detailed contingency plans and regulations that, while trying to save constitutional government, would have radically transformed the nation's political and social institutions.
What they envisioned was an America darkened not only by nuclear war but also by the imposition of martial law, food rationing, censorship and the suspension of many civil liberties. "We would have to run this country as one big camp -- severely regimented," Eisenhower told advisers in a top-secret memo dated 1955. Nor is it a matter only of remote historical interest. Many of those doomsday regulations would still be put into effect after a nuclear attack, and while preparations for rescuing the nation's leaders and cultural treasures remain in place, efforts to shield the civilian population were virtually abandoned decades ago.
"DUCK AND COVER" IN THE WHITE HOUSE
For those too young to remember the height of the cold war, consider this: by 1960, about 15,000 high schools were equipped with radiation-monitorin g kits. "Duck-and-cover" films depicting how to act during a nuclear assault were part of the elementary school curriculum. The U.S. had distributed 55 million wallet-size cards with instructions on what to do in the event of an attack. Backyard bomb shelters were common. Senior Washington officials received an emergency telephone number that bypassed the commercial system and linked them directly to crisis operators, who understood that if the caller uttered the single code word -- FLASH -- it meant the call was "essential to national survival." Never out of the President's reach were the Presidential Emergency Action Documents and "Plan D," his options for responding to a surprise nuclear attack.
The doomsday plans took shape during the Eisenhower Administration, spawning an entire bureaucracy and a web of government relocation sites situated around the capital in what became known as the Federal Arc. Each year the government conducted elaborate exercises in which thousands of officials relocated in ( mock nuclear attacks. Eisenhower and his Cabinet convened at Raven Rock, the 265,000-sq.-ft. "Underground Pentagon" near Gettysburg, Pa., code-named "Site R," or at Mount Weather, a bunker near Berryville, Va., code-named "High Point" (see "Doomsday Hideaway," TIME, Dec. 9, 1991). Airborne command posts and reinforced communications ships stood by to receive the Commander in Chief and his advisers. Congress had its own top-secret relocation center buried beneath the Greenbrier, a five-star resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. Outfitted with its own Senate and House chambers, as well as a vast hall for joint sessions, the facility was code-named "Casper," and only half a dozen members of Congress knew it existed.
Few men have a more intimate understanding of the doomsday scenario than Bernard T. Gallagher. Known to his friends as Bud, he was a Strategic Air Command pilot and served as director of Mount Weather for 25 years, until his retirement last March. A robust 70 years old, he wears a white cowboy hat, drives a hot-pink '65 Mustang convertible and is an unabashed patriot. As an "atomic-cloud sampler," he flew through the billowing mushrooms of 13 U.S. nuclear blasts in 1952 and 1953. To measure the radiation passing through him, he swallowed an X-ray plate coated with Vaseline and suspended by a string that hung out of his mouth during the flight.
In 1956, during the Suez crisis, Gallagher sat in the cockpit of an F-84 Thunderjet at England's Bentwaters Royal Air Force Base, an atom bomb fixed beneath his plane. On high alert, he waited for a single command to take off. His target was a Finnish airfield, presumably one the Soviets would otherwise use. "I don't think people realize how close we were ((to nuclear war))," he says. From 1958 to 1962, he was squadron commander of Outpost Mission, on call to rescue the President from nuclear attack; three years later he went to Mount Weather.
Though Gallagher has spent his life preparing for nuclear war, he has few illusions about what it would mean. "Through the years, we always reacted like we could handle an all-out nuclear attack," he says. "I don't think people -- even our top people in government -- have any idea of what a thousand multimegaton nuclear weapons on the U.S. would do. We'd be back in the Stone Age. It's unthinkable."
Buried within a mountain of superhard greenstone, the 200,000-sq.-ft. Mount Weather has been a primary relocation site for the Cabinet and cadres of % federal employees -- and was long a primary haven for the President. J. Leo Bourassa, Gallagher's predecessor, recalls the day Eisenhower summoned him to the Oval Office and spoke to him of Mount Weather. "I expect your people to save our government," Eisenhower told him. "You know damn well I'll be there as soon as I can." In May 1960, Eisenhower and his Cabinet convened at Mount Weather as part of a training exercise. Bourassa says it was he who entered the Cabinet Room and handed Eisenhower the Teletype report informing him that the Soviet Union had shot down Francis Gary Powers, pilot of the U-2 spy plane. Eisenhower's response: "I'll be a son of a bitch."
Twenty-four hours a day, the site tracked the whereabouts of those who were in line to succeed the President. Had the U.S. come under threat of attack, the Cabinet Secretaries and Supreme Court Justices -- and, depending on the threat, the President himself -- were to be airlifted here. On approaching the facility, the helipad tower would answer, "Bluegrass Tower." Before they could be admitted past the facility's 6-ft.-thick steel "blast gate," officials would have to show their special ID cards. If they arrived after a nuclear attack, they would be checked for radiation. Anyone who was radioactive would trigger a series of sensors, setting off a bell and a flashing light -- yellow or red, depending on the level of radioactivity. Those who had been most exposed were to be led to decontamination showers and washed with medicated soap. Their clothes would be incinerated, and they would be issued military coveralls. Electric carts converted to ambulances would shuttle back and forth to the facility's subterranean hospital.
Gallagher says he wrote a memo for the site's triage teams making it clear that except for the President and his successor, no individual's life was to be considered more precious than any other's. Patients with blast wounds or burns whose treatment was so time consuming that it would have been at the expense of others' lives were to be marked with blue toe tags and given no extraordinary lifesaving measures. The facility was equipped with a crematorium. Automatic weapons were stored at the site, and Bourassa says he would have implemented a shoot-to-kill order to prevent anyone not on the site's roster -- even family members of officials or locals -- from gaining access. He also instructed the staff that saboteurs and troublemakers were to be ejected. "Radiation or not, throw them the hell out," he says he told the staff. "I don't give a damn what the radiation count is."
Mount Weather could hold two, even three times as many people as there were bunks -- several thousand in all. Only the President, Cabinet Secretaries and Supreme Court Justices had private quarters. Eisenhower had family pictures on his desk. A therapeutic mattress was installed for Kennedy's bad back. For those who could not cope with the stress, the facility had sedatives as well as a padded isolation cell, complete with an observation window. One official dubbed it "the rubber room" and said there were straitjackets on pegs outside the door -- something Gallagher denies. So complete is the site's inventory that it now includes birth-control pills -- not because of any anticipated sexual activity but so that female officials would not have to interrupt their pill-taking cycles.
Up until last May, an underground meteorological station at the site issued daily reports on wind direction and speed, plotting potential radiation patterns. The site's television studio is prepared to provide the President -- or his successor -- a national audience over the Emergency Broadcast System. Throughout the Eisenhower Administration -- and for years after -- a vault held tape-recorded addresses by both Eisenhower and celebrity Arthur Godfrey. The prerecorded message was concise: The country has come under nuclear attack, but the government continues to function. In addition, a number of prominent newsmen who had taken oaths of secrecy had agreed to accompany the President to the relocation site of his choosing and lend their familiar names and faces to help calm the surviving audience.
In another room was the top-secret Bomb Alarm, a system of sensors and copper wires that crisscrossed the country and reacted to overpressure, heat and brilliance. On a huge U.S. map dotted with hundreds of tiny light bulbs, a red light would go on to mark the site of a nuclear explosion. Atop the mountain a series of remotely operated cameras and radiation sensors monitored the area. A nearby nuclear hit would vaporize those devices, but the site was equipped with backup radiation sensors that could be pushed out of the mountain. There were also human "probers" from among the security force, who would don rubberized radiation suits and venture out to test the air.
Only once did the facility go on full alert -- on Nov. 9, 1965, when a power failure darkened much of the Northeast. Bourassa says he feared at the time that it was the result of a surgical nuclear strike. His order: "Report to base at once." The site's fleet of buses was dispatched to round up the 200- plus employees who lived in the area. Up until then, officials had feared that the staff would not report in because their family members would not be sheltered. But that day, more than 80% of the staff answered the call. Bourassa also put the facility on a high state of readiness following Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Surprisingly, Mount Weather was not put on alert during the Cuban missile crisis, though the situation was monitored closely.

WATCH OUT FOR THE PIGS
Would the relocation plan have worked? A 1962 study for the Pentagon examined the daytime and nighttime locations of the dozen officials in the line of presidential succession and concluded they were all often well within the kill range of a nuclear assault on the capital. With a 100-megaton weapon, a helicopter anywhere within 50 miles of the White House would have been destroyed in flight, the report noted. There were also unexpected hazards. During one doomsday exercise, Eisenhower was driven by convoy from Washington. As he neared the site, a truck loaded with pigs entered the narrow road. The convoy halted and authorities forced the truck to inch backward up the mountain and past the site's entrance. Eisenhower laughed that such elaborate plans could be ruined by pigs.
The task of devising Eisenhower's escape route from Washington fell to naval aide Edward Beach. His assignment was made all the more difficult given the grim prognosis for Washington should it be hit by a Soviet hydrogen bomb. "It would not eliminate the Potomac River," says Beach, "but it would sure raise hell and dig a deep hole where Washington had been. We would have a deep lake there, so shelters in Washington would have been counterproductive. Even if you survived the blast, you'd probably drown." So Beach and others pressed their imaginations for alternate escape plans.
Among the more creative schemes: Beach had the government procure a refurbished World War II PT boat and dock it on the Potomac at the Washington Navy Yard. Eisenhower would be rushed by limousine -- one of two onyx-black Cadillacs with a tank engine under the hood -- to a prearranged point on the river, where the PT boat would be waiting. After sailing safely past the blast zone, the President would be met by Secret Service agents and driven to one of three underground command posts. The PT boat, as well as an ultrasensitive underground command post at his Maryland presidential retreat, Camp David, were secretly maintained by an elite team of officers under the innocuous name of the Naval Administrative Unit. There was even brief consideration given to reconfiguring a Polaris submarine, removing the missile tubes to accommodate an undersea presidential command post.
In a White House vault were Eisenhower's standby crisis orders, already initialed by the President, including some that would have imposed martial law. Below Beach's office in the White House's East Wing was the presidential bunker, complete with food, sophisticated communications equipment and torches for cutting out of the twisted rubble. In charge of the bunker was a young officer named William Crowe, later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
As a soldier, Ike had few illusions about the doomsday plans. A "secret" White House memo dated 1956 records his rebuke when a Cabinet Secretary noted that 450 people were evacuated "rather smoothly" during an exercise. Eisenhower "reminded the Cabinet that in a real situation, these will not be normal people -- they will be scared, will be hysterical, will be 'absolutely nuts.' We are going to have to be prepared to operate with people who are 'nuts.' "
He warned his Cabinet not to get entangled in bureaucratic details. "Who is going to bury the dead?" asked Eisenhower. "Where would one find the tools? The organization to do it? We must not assume that we are going to handle these problems with calmness." Later he observed, "We will be running soup kitchens -- we are going to be taking care of a completely bewildered population." He feared anarchy. "Government which goes on with some kind of continuity will be like a one-eyed man in the land of the blind," the White House memo concluded.
THE MAIL MUST GO ON
Today each federal agency has a plan that would go into effect in the event of a nuclear attack, part of a comprehensive national survival program that has evolved over decades under the direction of the President, the National Security Council and a succession of crisis agencies, most recently the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Their wartime duties are spelled out in the Code of Emergency Federal Regulations, a loose-leaf notebook containing hundreds of pages of regulations, most of them drafted in the 1960s and '70s. Specific "action plans" are in agency vaults and relocation sites, to be implemented by officials in nuclear exile. Today's plans rely on redundancy. If one location is wiped out, others will take its place. Officials are divided into three squads -- Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. One team stays at headquarters; the other two redeploy at separate relocation sites.
Against the backdrop of a nuclear holocaust, the plans often straddle the line between prudence and absurdity. The Civil Service Commission's crisis provisions include this regulation: "Employees reported as dead should be carried on administrative leave until the reported date of death." A Postal Service regulation, activated upon nuclear attack, would suspend the need for postage stamps on letters and postcards sent to devastated areas. Special delivery would be eliminated systemwide except for shipments of medicines and surgical dressings.
Much planning has also gone into salvaging the economy after a nuclear attack. Treasury Department rules would require banks to remain open during regular hours but allow them to limit withdrawals to prevent hoarding. Treasury would also oversee price stabilization for post-attack salaries and rent. A 1972 regulation notes that prior arrangements have been made with companies in "noncritical target areas" for printing checks. The Department of Labor and New York State signed an agreement in 1971 providing "nuclear attack economic stabilization preparedness and operating responsibilities." The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation would require "bank examiners to report in a post-attack situation to the nearest surviving Federal Reserve Bank where they can assist in the reconstruction of the banking system."
In fact the Federal Reserve Board has its own 140,000-sq.-ft. radiation- proof relocation center in Culpeper, Va. Well into the 1980s the center's gigantic vault still held a fortune in cash to be used to jump-start the U.S. economy in the aftermath of a nuclear war. A solid wall of bills stacked 9 ft. high and held in shrink-wrapped packages filled the vault. A forklift stood ready to move the wooden pallets buried beneath tons of 5s, 10s, 50s and 100s. Desks at the facility feature the names of Federal Reserve officers to be evacuated. A 30-day menu of freeze-dried food had been prepared to be served on plain white china. There is even a cold-storage tunnel for bodies that could not be buried until radiation had subsided. Last month the center's administrators were informed the facility's mission will no longer be needed.
The Department of Agriculture has drafted a post-nuclear-attack food- rationing program, setting a civilian ration level of between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day for each person. Among the weekly ration limits: seven pints of milk and six eggs. The Federal Highway Administration would try to protect motorists "from fallout resulting from a nuclear attack." The Department of Housing and Urban Development, in regulations code-named "Asp," "Bear," "Cat" and "Dog," spell out the agency's approach for housing millions of refugees displaced by a nuclear attack. "Our mission would be carried over into the holocaust," says HUD emergency coordinator Terrence Monihan.
U.S. doomsday strategists also coordinated their relocation and post-attack production plans with private industry considered vital to national survival. In April 1970, for example, White House emergency planners joined Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey executives in a mock nuclear war exercise. Standard Oil's senior management withdrew to its emergency operating center, buried 300 ft. below the ground at what was once called Iron Mountain Atomic Storage, near Hudson, N.Y. The well-protected facility had vaults, dining halls and more than 50 sleeping rooms for key company officials and their families. Vital company records were stored at the facility and updated monthly.
Company executives discussed with White House officials "how they would assure continuity of corporate management, assess surviving capability . . . and mesh their company plans with those of government." Company officials balked when it appeared the government might take over the firm in wartime. Ultimately, the executives prepared a "unified emergency plan," and were to be provided with radio-communications equipment for the site.
There were also elaborate plans for a national censorship office called the Wartime Information Security Program, or WISP (as in whisper). A CBS vice president, the late Theodore F. Koop, had agreed to be the standby national censor, and about 40 civilian executives had consented to work as the unit's staff in wartime. A 1965 internal government memo notes that censorship manuals and regulations had been stockpiled, and a fully equipped communications center was established outside Washington. Press reports in 1970 exposed the existence of a standby national censor and led to the formal dissolution of the censorship unit, but its duties were discreetly reassigned to yet another part of what an internal memo refers to as the "shadow" government.
GLIMPSING THE FUTURE
Though the threat of a massive nuclear showdown has receded, many government employees must still go through the motions of preparing for disaster. As director of the Federal Register, Martha Girard publishes an official daily record of the Federal Government's major actions and decisions. But in the event of an impending nuclear attack, she is supposed to report to Mount Weather as a member of a Bravo team and publish the Emergency Federal Register, which would inform the surviving public of the crisis regulations in effect and create a chronicle of doomsday actions. "A very important part is to have copies of what happened for when we get back to normal, whether it's one year or 100 years," she says.
In her purse Girard carries a crisis ID card, which lists her height, weight and blood type and declares, "The person described on this card has essential emergency duties with the Federal Government. Request full assistance and unrestricted movement be afforded the person to whom this card is issued." Her card expired June 30, 1984, but she continues to have a standby role in the doomsday scenario. During the 1980s she took part in several relocation exercises at Mount Weather, where for days on end she practiced putting out her crisis publication on an aging manual typewriter. Says Girard: "I felt like I was in a 1950s movie."
Though Girard says she "would do whatever I could to fulfill my responsibilities in an emergency situation," she is uneasy about her part. "Is it a sham," she asks, "for me to participate in this and give other people confidence that there is a system in place that will work, when in my heart of hearts, in the dark of night, I doubt it will work?"
Girard is not alone in questioning the government's plans for self- preservation. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S.'s doomsday planners are engaged in a sweeping reassessment of crisis scenarios. The old relocation centers are under review. Some are to be mothballed, others converted to more mundane uses: record storage and office space. Contingency plans and dusty crisis regulations are being re-examined. Having outlived its enemy and its original mission, the doomsday bureaucracy faces a more immediate threat -- irrelevance. But as the last members of the original generation of doomsday planners step down, they do so with cautionary words: the Soviet Union may be history, but new dangers abound -- nuclear proliferation, the resurgence of nationalism and the threat of terrorism. "You shouldn't shut the damn door yet," warns Mount Weather's first director, Leo Bourassa. Bud Gallagher, his successor, prefers to cite Plato: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
5. Detailed Description and History of Site R:

http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg06062.html

-----
The Rock
© 1998, 1999 Tim D. Tyler
Revision 2.2
Image courtesy US Army - AJCC
"Go tell it on the mountain" used to be a popular expression, meaning
that if you had an important message to convey, it was worth your time
and effort to go atop the nearest mountain and shout it out to the masses. That, in a nutshell, is the mission of the Alternate Joint Communications Center. The mountain happens to be known as Raven Rock, and the
masses are the strategic nuclear war fighters of the United States of America.

"Site-R" is the location designator for a major US military
bunker located inside Raven Rock Mountain, next to the community of
Fountain Dale, near Blue Ridge Summit in Adams County Pennsylvania. The
complex is also known as "the underground Pentagon," and affectionately
to its personnel as "the Rock" or "the Hole," but the official name is
the Alternate Joint Communications Center (AJCC). Over radio circuits,
the facility is known as WAR-46 (permanent callsign), and MARCONI
(permanent callword). The site is most well known as housing the
Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC), and the Site-R
complex is often referred to as being the ANMCC. However, the ANMCC is
just a specific facility and mission within the Alternate Joint
Communications Center. The ANMCC is now officially known as National
Military Command Center - Site-R.

HISTORY

The AJCC became operational on 30 June 1953, a little over two years
after the construction plans were approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The initial concept of an emergency relocation site for the Pentagon was
proposed in a May 15,1948 memorandum to Secretary of Defense James V.
Forrestal by his senior military advisors responsible for war planning
and preparedness -- the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The Cold War had
just begun, in March of 1948 President Truman even announced to Congress
that the USSR and communism was a clear & present threat to the
USA. With their new TU-4 bombers (exact copies of the US B-29) JCS were
concerned that the Soviets would soon be capable of a Pearl Harbor-style
sneak attack on Washington would decimate America's senior military
command capability. The Pentagon was soft-target, easily recognizable by
high altitude bombers, and it was assumed that the enemy -- the USSR --
would have intercontinental ballistic missiles at some point in the
1950s, though it caught the U.S. by surprise when the Russians detonated
their first nuclear weapon on 29 August, 1949.

One of the location requirements that the alternate site had to meet
was to be located far enough from Washington DC that a concentrated
attack on Washington wouldn't damage the bunker. Yet another was that
the site still be close enough to the Washington area so that the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, their support personnel, known as the Joint Staff, and
other senior military and civilian officials could be quickly evacuated
to it by ground transportation or helicopter. A further complication in
this 'not to close, not too far' location strategy was that the facility
shouldn't be situated near the plethora of other important military and
federal government sites which would probably be targeted -- the Norfolk
Virginia navy facilities, Andrews Air Force Base in Camp Springs,
Maryland, etc.

Placement inside a mountain provides several advantages, such as:

Less likely to be observed during construction than digging a big pit
into flat ground.

Easier to tunnel sideways deep into granite than dig downward deep into
soil.

The mountain interior provides a natural equivalent to building a
facility with thousand foot thick hardened concrete walls.

Top of the mountain can be used as an antenna site, eliminating the need
for large antenna towers.



While several sites were studied, Raven Rock was clearly the best in
terms of location from DC, and geological factors (super hard greenstone
granite composition). Additionally, a perfect support base -- Camp
Ritchie, was just a few miles away in Cascade Maryland. President Truman
gave final approval for the 'Fort Ritchie - Raven Rock Site' project in
May of 1950, and the Department of Defense started acquiring 718 acres
of land from over 30 individual property holders. While most of the land
was sold to the US Government in 1950, transfers via condemnation
weren't complete until 1954. Initial wording of the condemnation
proceedings were vague. The United States needed the land "...to
adequately provide for the establishment of facilities for the use of
the Department of the Army and for other military uses incident thereto.
...and other such uses as may be authorized by Congress or Executive
Order. ...lands are required for immediate use."

Obviously, by this time the locals knew something was going on. If
they didn't learn about the land being transferred to the government,
they certainly could not help noticing the ground shaking as a result of
work crews blasting the initial portals and caverns into the mountain,
24 hours a day! It was just the beginning of the Cold War, and the
concept of having to build hiding spots within the USA to protect the
senior political and military leadership was understandably foreign to
the people in the areas surrounding Raven Rock Mountain. However, as
usually was the case, the patriotic locals accepted their new military
neighbor without asking too many questions, and more importantly, didn't
talk about it amongst themselves too loudly. This was lucky for the
federal government, because they didn't bother to do background
investigations on the construction crews, nor was there initially any
security to keep curious civillians (or saboteurs) out of the
construction site.

At the time the "Fort Ritchie - Raven Rock facility" achieved initial
operating capability on 30 June 1953, it consisted of five chambers with
three steel 3 level buildings inside. Detailed information pertaining to
the construction and design of this 45 year old bunker is still
restricted at a minimum of the For Official Use Only level.

Raven Rock Mountain, aka Site-R, with Site-RT on top.



Camp Ritchie, a Maryland National Guard facility built in 1926 and
named after long-time Maryland Governor Albert Ritchie, had been loaned
to the federal government during early WWII for use as a recreation
center. It was later converted to a military intelligence training
center, with the facility and adjacent grounds (including what is now
the Camp David presidential retreat) being used to train Office of
Strategic Services personnel and others in demolition, escape & evasion,
etc. A mock German village was also created so operatives who would be
going behind German lines could pick up the language and cultural
nuances of German communities. After WWII, Camp Ritchie reverted to the
State of Maryland and was used as a long-term care hospital for people
with tuberculosis and other chronic diseases. A few years later the
federal government purchased the 645.87 acre base from the state for
$2,350,000 and promptly renamed it Fort Ritchie. In retrospect, this
demonstrates how sure the Department of Defense was that the proposed
Raven Rock site would be approved.

Fort Ritchie would be the primary support base for Site-R, providing
administrative support so that the Raven Rock facility could focus on
its operational mission. Examples of these administrative functions
include housing & recreational activities for off-duty personnel,
payroll processing, etc. Shipments, packages, and regular mail would go
to Ft. Ritchie where it could be examined for tampering (bugging
devices, bombs, etc.) before Army personnel would transfer it to Site-R.


Initially, each military branch maintained their own independent
operations centers and had little coordination between them, just as was
the case in the Pentagon. Army support personnel were assigned to Site-R
full time in order to operate the communications, power, plumbing
systems, etc. However many of the operations personnel -- the decision
makers -- would have been expected to relocate from their normal posts
in the Pentagon to Site-R during a crisis. This plan was silly, since
the impetus for the construction of Site-R was the concern over a sneak
attack! Helicopters were still in their infancy, small, under powered,
and not even stationed at the Pentagon, so the emergency relocation of
key personnel from the Pentagon to Site R would have mostly utilized
ground transportation. Located slightly over sixty miles from the
Pentagon, Site R would take at least an hour to drive to under optimum
conditions. Factor in rush-hour traffic, inclement weather --or even
worse, mass pandemonium as civilians flee the area during a crisis-- and
the drive time increases greatly.

With the advent of Soviet nuclear weapons-capable bomber aircraft, by
the mid 1950s it became imperative for the Alternate Joint
Communications Center to actually place an emphasis on jointness. Site-R
was managed for the Joint Chiefs of Staff by an organization known as
the Joint Communications Agency, which mostly consisted of Army
personnel. This wasn't the problem. The problem was that each branch of
the armed forces had their own space inside Site-R, and operated pretty
much independently of their rival military branches. President
Eisenhower, a former Army 5-star General who had commanded joint forces
during WWII, and was head of the JCS (from February to March of 1949,
while the President of Columbia University. This was at a time before
the title of Chairman of the JCS was created) took a proactive approach
on such matters. Plans were drawn up to make an Alternate Joint War Room
inside Site-R, which would become the wartime fusion center for US
military strategic command, control, communications and intelligence.
The Alternate Joint War Room facility would actually consist of several
compartments -- an operations room, briefing room, and smaller rooms for
communications and automated data processing equipment. A diverse array
of secure and clear radio and wire-based communications systems for
voice and data were added for worldwide connectivity as well as locally
within the AJCC. The Alternate Joint War Room was established in 1959,
and by the Spring of 1961 it was staffed by a multi-service Joint
Alternate Command Element battlestaff team operating 24 hours a day,
while the Army continued to provide most support functions such as com
municators, security, and maintenance for the Joint Communications
Agency.
A partial glimpse at one of the Site-R tunnel
entrances, called a portal. Two openings at
the top are machine-gun ports to repel a
ground attack
As part of the communications improvements and expansions, numerous
annexes to the AJCC became operational in the 1950s. Some, such as the
HF radio sites, were constructed at the same time Site-R was being
built. Others were added during other major improvement projects. All
were operated by detachments of the Joint Communications Agency, which
later became known as Joint Support Command, US Army Communications
Agency -- the organization which managed much of the AJCC's mission.
These annexes --classified CONFIDENTIAL until the 1970s-- were:
SITE-A -- High Frequency radio transmit site near Greencastle
Pennsylvania.
SITE-B -- High Frequency radio receive site, near Keedysville/Sharpsburg
Maryland.

SITE-C -- VHF/UHF/Microwave & Satellite radio site, atop Mount Quirauk,
immediately south of Fort Ritchie.

SITE-CREED -- Autonomously operated hardened facility within Site-R
complex..

SITE-D -- Microwave relay site, located near Damascus, Maryland.

SITE-E -- Microwave relay site, located in Tyson's Corner, Virginia.

SITE-F -- Microwave relay site, located at Fort George Meade, Maryland.

SITE-RT -- VHF/UHF/Microwave relay site, located atop Raven Rock
Mountain.

SITE-X -- Former communications annex, near Wolfsville, Maryland.

GWEN -- Not specific AJCC annexes, but two Ground Wave Emergency Network
sites
in the vicinty had a special link to Site-R.

Several other small communications facilities, operated by Navy
personnel, were also established to directly or indirectly support the
AJCC mission. Unlike the 'soft' JSC/USASTRATCOM sites, these Navy
facilities were bunkers in their own right.
Known/suspected locations (deactivated) for these facilities include:
Cross Mountain, Mercersberg Pennsylvania
Inside the current Camp David Presidential Retreat, near Thurmont
Maryland

Mount Weather, Virginia
Martinsburg, West Virginia
Several other locations are still in use for classified, national
security-related purposes.

Visiting Site-R? Be sure to leave your
crossbow at home!





In April of 1962, the Army Communications Agency merged with the
Army's Signal Engineering Agency to form the US Army Strategic
Communications Command (USA STRATCOM). The AJCC and annexes continued to
be operated by the Joint Support Command, but now JSC was a STRATCOM
agency.
Strategic Communications Command


Like his predecessor, President Kennedy had also been a military
officer experienced in the fog of war, and realized that the chaos would
be much greater with a nuclear exchange -- especially now that
intercontinental and medium range ballistic missiles were a reality.
Department of Defense Directive 5100.30, titled Concept of Operations of
the World Wide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS, pronounced
"wimex") sought to enforce the doctrine of joint operations as well as
improve strategic command, control and communications when put into
effect on 16 October, 1962. A critical element of WWMCCS was the
National Military Command System, which established four key national
command authority command centers:

The National Military Command Center (NMCC), located in the Pentagon
provided the primary interface for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
Secretary of Defense in their day to day command and control of forces.
*
The Alternate National Military Command Center, formerlyknown as the
Alternate Joint War Room. Located at Site-R and --as the name
indicated-- provided a hardened facility for senior military and
national leaders for use as a combat operations center in wartime, or a
crisis management center during national civil emergencies, or other
situations that reduce the effectiveness of the NMCC.
*
The National Emergency Command Post Afloat (NECPA), a US Navy ship
equipped with special communications and battlestaff areas, kept in
Chesapeake Bay or off the East Coast of the USA to be used as a National
Command Authority relocation spot. NECPA program was initiated during
the Eisenhower administration, and deactivated in 1970.
*
The National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP), utilized USAF
EC-135J (later replaced with E-4A/Bs) aircraft on ground alert at
Andrews AFB, providing a survivable strategic C3,I platform for the
President or other National Command Authority. Also known under the
NIGHTWATCH program name, this mission is still being performed.





WWMCCS/NMCS also established the Minimum Essential Emergency
Communications Network -- a collection of high priority communications
systems and circuits which would be used by the National Command
Authority to direct US nuclear forces. These independent systems
included voice & record-mode (data), secure and nonsecure, radio and
wire-based circuits which would provide the initial alert from the NCA
facilities to the military branch command & control centers which would
then relay more specific orders to their assets (the strategic
triad). The Alternate National Military Command Center's communications
section is able to interface directly and indirectly with several MEECN
systems. Some are used on a routine basis, while others would only be
used by Site-R during an exercise or crisis.
SITE-R TECH CONTROL, 1962 -- (L - R) MSG D. Dick, NCOIC Tech Control,
bent over looking at a teletype signal
distortion analyzer, PFC R. Foster, Tech Control shift operator, Mr. C.
Safransky, the Army Civilian Communications
Specialist on shift in Tech Control, and LT D. Garrison, Tech Control
Officer In Charge observing.
(Photo ©1962, 1999 Chuck Safransky)
The Tech control boards on the left of the picture are all the 'black'
DC teletype circuits, using either landline, multiplex systems
(AN/FGC-5), High Frequency radio (AN/FGC-60/61) or carrier equipment
(AN/FCC-3). The Tech Control boards along the back of the picture are
the audio boards -- voice microwave and High Frequency SSB circuits,
plus a video conference switching system and telephone hotline circuits
to the White House, Pentagon, Strategic Air Command Headquarters, and
other command centers. Teletypes on the right are dedicated circuits to
a variety of US and NATO command facilities around the world.



Additional critical voice and data communications circuits for the
AJCC and other facilities were provided by AT&T Corporation. In the
early 1960s this network was known as the Switched Circuit Automatic
Network (SCAN), later known as AUTOVON (AUTOmatic VOice Network), and
finally replaced with by the digital Defense Switched Network (DSN) in
the early 1990s. As part of this program, AT&T built numerous hardened,
bunker-like switching centers inside hills and mountains to provide an
element of physical security and redundancy for the switches. Many of
these facilities are linked to AJCC via microwave radio, though a major
effort is underway to phase out the microwave links & replace them with
fiberoptic cable. To this day, AT&T continues to provide a major w
ire-based communications capability for Site-R, and has their own room
(3N1) for demarcation purposes inside the Rock. 3N1 contains what is
known in telephone company parlance as the "Blue Ridge Summit #1"
telephone switch. Further, remote communication outlets for a JCS
Tactical Switchboard UHF communications network to be used by Joint
Emergency Evacuation Plan helicopters airlifting personnel to Site-R and
other emergency relocation sites were located on several AT&T microwave
radio towers.
SITE-R TECH CONTROL, CARRIER MAINTENANCE SECTION 1962
(L - R) Army civillian Tech Control employees Mr. C Safranski and Mr. J
Chewning
with LT D Garrison, Officer in Charge for Tech Control & Maintenance.
(Photo ©1962, 1999 Chuck Safransky)
The picture shows them checking the AN/FGC-61 SSB teletype carrier
equipment. The
racked equipment shows the frequency generator and reader, and the
distortion analyzer meter.



Major physical enhancements to the Site-R facility occurred in the
mid 1960s, when two more chambers were constructed under the management
of the Army Corps of Engineers. This extra space boosted the personnel
capacity to close to 3000 people (most of which would be required to
'hot bunk' in austere living quarters) and included a small compartment
within the ANMCC specifically for the President. This apartment for the
President (& spouse) is affectionately known at "The Lucy & Desi Suite,"
as it's furnishings are pure 1960s kitsch. It's reported that even the
soap in the apartment's bathroom has been there since the 1960s!
The Alternate National Military Command Center was able to enlarge,
and automated data processing capability was expanded, namely in the
form of the custom-designed Automatic Message Processing System (AMPS).
AMPS equipment consisted of Burroughs Corp 824 switches at the NMCC and
ANMCC, interfacing with the Automatic Digital Network (AUTODIN). While
the NMCC switch could only handle 50 subscribers, the one at the ANMCC
could handle 128. Specifically, AMPS:

"...provided automatic message switching and distribution
for specific requirements of the Joint Staff and to interface
with State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and
the White House."
(History of the U.S. Army Strategic Communications Command, FY 1970)



Power generation systems were very crucial to the performance of AJCC
communication, cryptographic, and data processing systems, many of which
were "fault intolerant" when it came to power interruptions or voltage
fluctuations. This potential problem was handled by continuously
operating several locomotive-sized generators to provide power. Several
other generators stood-by as back-ups. Two AJCC power plants ('East' and
'West') each house three locomotive-sized generators and their diesel
fuel supply, with exhaust shafts running to the surface.

"South Gate" -- one of two alternate entrance/exits.

Kind of a rather personal thing for a highly sensitive
command & control bunker to be advertising, don't you think?



At some period in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Soviet ICBM
technology had finally progressed to the point where if they knew where
the target was, they had the warhead yield and delivery system accuracy
to hit and destroy even a hardened target such as Site-R. The Joint
Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense were surely aware that by the
late 1970s, there was at least one 25 megaton warhead on a SS-18
destined for Site-R, and it certainly was on the minds of the personnel
assigned there. It should be assumed that around the mid-1970s time
period, alternate strategic command, control, communications and
intelligence facilities designed to shelter and support the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and National Command Authorities in trans and post nuclear
combat environments were designated. Emphasis would have been placed on
smaller facilities, easier to build & operate in extreme secrecy.

Nonetheless, Site-R still performed an important function. It can be
argued that while perhaps the Soviets could not have afforded to not
target Washington DC for concentrated nuclear barrages, sparing at
least one US strategic C3,I facility would be necessary in order for the
two warring nations to ever be able to discuss a cease in the
hostilities. Site-R might be that facility, yet placing the Joint Chiefs
or Secretary of Defense there would be a gamble. Site-R had the
capability of riding out virtually any sort of conventional war, natural
disaster or civil insurrection, however.
Site-R, with Portals A & B, & Site-RT. The clearing towards the middle
of
the image is the West exhaust shaft.


For twenty turbulent years, Site-R had performed a very valuable
mission -- standing by as the Pentagon's nuclear war combat operations
center. Of course, this was a mission that the U.S. had hoped would
never actually be carried out. In effect however, the mere existence of
a (then) secure facility which would survive a nuclear attack and allow
the United States to effect a coordinated response was a deterrent to
possible hostilities, just as hidden C3,I and Continuity of Government
facilities are today. Site-R was not designed to survive a direct hit,
and by the mid 1950s when the Russians were experimenting with
intercontinental ballistic missiles, the DOD realized that, because the
location of Site-R was well-known to the Soviets, eventually their miss
ile technology would be capable of hitting and destroying the facility.
Site-R's utility for nuclear war was not infinite.
Site-R staff were capable of commanding
& controlling a nuclear crisis, but apparently
NOT able to find Site-R without the assistance
of this little sign at a nearby intersection for
most of the 1980s & 1990s!


In 1973, US Army Strategic Communications Command was re-designated
US Army Communications Comman (ACC), as a reflection of the multitude of
tactical communications provided in addition to strategic circuits. By
this time, Army Communications Command managed base-level
telecommunications circuits (telephone, voice & data networks, Army
Military Affiliate Radio System, etc.) for Army facilities and agencies
across the United States. At around the same time STRATCOM was replaced
with ACC, Joint Support Command was deactivated, and the 7th Signal
Command, headquartered at Fort Ritchie-- was established in it's place,
taking over the Army mission of supplying administrative and
peacetime/wartime communications support to the Alternate Joint
Communications Center and Alternate National Military Command Center.
The Commander of 7th Signal Command wore a dual hat -- he or she was
also base commander for Fort Ritchie.

While official confirmation and details are still classified because
divulging them would provide clues regarding other facilities and
systems whose even existence is classified ('black' sites), the early
1970s saw the AJCC quietly transform from a primary National Command
Authority relocation site and trans/post nuclear war communications
center to a major telecommunications hub performing day to day automated
data processing and operational support for the DOD and Joint Staff,
while retaining an initial emergency command and control role.
No web on Site-R would be complete without a photo of what I dub as
"Site-RS,"
though technically known as the Site-R Wastewater Treatment Plant.


Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Site-R continued to house a major
telecommunications network control hub operated by the Defense
Communications Agency (later the Defense Information Systems Agency),
individual emergency operations centers for all the military branches,
and was an emergency relocation site for several federal agencies. ANMCC
communications personnel also continued to provide daily communications
support for the World Wide Airborne Command Post Program (WWABNCP) and
other MEECN assets, in addition to supporting special exercises and
deployments. DOD funding for Site-R maintenance and system upgrades
continued, but the focus was on systems that saw daily use, and/or would
be used during contingencies where it was not expected that Raven Rock
would experience a strategic nuclear attack. 1984 saw yet another new
name come into play for the management of Site-R. Army Communications
Command and Army Computer Systems Command merged to form the U.S. Army
Information Systems Command.

CURRENT DAY OPERATIONS


By the early 1990s, the Soviet Empire was in shambles, and the Cold
War had debatably ended -- the Russians couldn't even control their own
republics, so it was doubtful they'd try to conquer the United
States. The Department of Defense initiated drastic cutbacks, and
there was plenty of public scrutiny regarding the government's 'nuclear
war bunkers,' especially from the public who no longer supported so much
of their tax dollars being spent to try to protect the same leaders
who'd probably be responsible for getting the nation into a war to begin
with! The notion of DETERRENCE was lost on these people.

The Site-R complex was maintained on a high state of alert for
decades, tied in to NORAD threat warning assessment systems, the White
House Situation Room, the Strategic Air Command (later US Strategic
Command) underground command center at Offutt AFB and their 'Looking
Glass' airborne command post, as well as other known and secret National
Military Command System facilities. Any action at the National Military
Command Center which might have had a ramification regarding the US
nuclear war operations plan -- known as the Single Integrated
Operational Plan, was closely coordinated with the NMCC's Alternate in
Raven Rock. While the JCS and NMCC got the attention and handled most
day to day operations, the ANMCC was always in the background, ready to
assume control if situations dictated.

On February 1, 1992, the 24-hour a day alert function of the
Alternate National Military Command Center was terminated. While the
story was that this action was a result of the end of the Cold War, the
reality is that there are 'black' (extremely secret) facilities in
operation around the clock which can and will handle the Pentagon combat
operations center/emergency relocation site missions. Site-R is able to
perform a peacetime liaison mission with the 'black' facilities,
allowing them to tie into and utilize Site-R's organic external
communications capabilities (HF radio, SATCOM, etc.) in order that they
may preserve use of their own inherent radio communications systems for
wartime use. Frequent use during peacetime would eventually result in
detection by signals intelligence assets of potential enemies.


Subsequent to this, the "Mayor of Raven Rock" (Commander of the
1111th Signal Battalion, the 1108th Signal Brigade unit which actually
operates much of Site-R. Unofficially, the commander is also known as
'The Grand High Mole,' and oversees the unofficial 'Fraternal Order of
the Moles'), requested that DOD officials examine the feasibility of
opening up limited parts of the AJCC for quasi-public (media, local
politicians & civic clubs, etc.) tours. This idea was rejected, and any
visitors to Site-R are supposed to be on official business only. The
reality, however, is that since at least the early 1970s, employees of
Site-R have provided 'unofficial' tours to local politicians and Boy
Scout troops among others. Ironically, part of Raven Rock mountain is
also home to the Raven Rock Lutheran Camp,a religious retreat used for
camping, hiking, etc. These days, immediate family members of personnel
assigned to Site-R are allowed to visit the site in order to participate
in special events such as awards ceremonies, Christmas dinners, etc.
They are required to be escorted at all times, and take a special
'unclassified' route to get to the ceremony location.

Numerous articles reported that Site-R has been "mothballed," or put
into "caretaker status." The reality is that a complete ANMCC emergency
actions battlestaff no longer staff the facility 24 hours a day, and the
AJCC for the most part has assumed a commercial business-hours
posture. The couple hundred Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, other
federal employees and civilian contractors mostly work 9AM-5PM
shifts. During times of crisis or the quarterly JCS Emergency Actions
exercises, ANMCC operations staff would be augmented by personnel from
the NMCC, and could be helicoptered in via Army, Air Force, and Marine
Corps helicopters, a percentage of which are kept on alert for this
Joint Emergency Evacuation Program mission. Site-R, radio callword
MARCONI and callsign WAR-46, maintains at least one HMMWV-based
deployable Joint Staff communications support vehicle, heard
occasionally on radio circuits as MARCONI MOBILE, WAR-46 MOBILE or a
classified JCS callword. It is nominally stored within one of the Site-R
tunnels, and during exercises or heightened states or alert is
forward-deployed away from the Raven Rock area.

24 hour a day operation at Site-R continues with military branch
Emergency Operations Centers, the Defense Information Systems Agency's
regional telecommunications management and control center, and certain
other operations and information systems assets of the military and
civil federal government. One of the information systems that Site-R has
always been involved with is force status -- at any time, what is the
readiness condition of our forces, how much fuel is on hand at a B-52
dispersal base? Is that dispersal base even intact, or has it already
been destroyed? These days, the major joint command and control computer
network is known as the Global Command and Control System. It, and the
Global Command Support System, provide a fused, near-real time joint
system to monitor worldwide situations, process commands, and even
suggest particular operations plans depending on the situation
assessment. Another critical asset maintained at Site-R is a Defense
Red Switch Network switch -- basically an extremely robust telephone
network to be used by senior government officials during a nuclear
war. Extensive information systems are a 24 hour a day operation, for
which supporting missions such as AJCC power production (now using
modern Uninterruptable Power Supply systems in addition to the large
generators) and security personnel remain on-site around the
clock. On-site security staff perform roving and fixed-station interior
and exterior activities, supported by their Site Security Control
Center, codenamed HAWKEYE (prior to HAWKEYE, it had been known as
BACKFIRE).

The interior of the Rock is rather dark and dank, with many of the
rooms and passageways still having 1950s or 1960s-era furnishings -- not
the type of place you'd like to be buttoned-up inside of for a prolonged
period of time. Music is piped into open hallways to mitigate the
possibility of classified conversations emanating out of offices and
reverberating down the halls. All unescorted personnel inside Site-R
must have a minimum of a SECRET level security clearance, and despite
the hundreds of feet of granite, the AJCC is home to numerous Sensitive
Compartmentalized Information Facilities which provide extra physical
and electronic protection for especially sensitive meetings or
information systems.

The complex has a recreation center consisting of an exercise room,
weight room, and a couple racquetball courts for off-duty personnel, a
barber shop open several days a week, a small Post Exchange, and at
least at one time, even a vending machine which sold beer! The cafeteria
is named Granite Cove. If it ever runs out of fresh food, there is a
large supply of Meals, Ready to Eat stored within the bunker.

To some, it might seem surprising that Site-R would have leisure
facilities within it, but consider that in a contingency, the facility
would be 'buttoned-up' -- sealed for days or weeks at a time, so it is
extremely important that off-duty staff have the ability to physically
exercise and mentally relax.

While the DOD was not prepared to shut down Site-R, Fort Ritchie was
not so lucky. The 1995 Base Realignment And Closure Commission
determined that the small, isolated (& thus expensive) post could be
shut down without jeopardizing the still-vital mission of the Alternate
Joint Communications Center. The Secretary of Defense concurred. Fort
Detrick, exactly 20 miles South of Site-R, would become the new support
base. This new mission wasn't exactly welcomed by Detrick, which all of
a sudden found itself searching for the space and funds to support about
1200 more personnel. Nor was it looked forward to by many of the Fort
Ritchie/Site-R personnel, who enjoyed the cozy and scenic little base,
and the brief commutes to Site-R. However, it was a cost-effective
act. The official 'hand-off' took place on 1 October 1997, about a year
after the transfer process started.

Yet another consolidation and name changed occurred in the Fall of
1996. In a streamlining effort, US Army Information Systems Command
became US Army Signal Command (ASC), a subordinate of Forces
Command. The ASC's 1108th Signal Brigade, specifically the 1111th Signal
Battalion, is the entity that operates much of the Alternate Joint
Communications Center on behalf of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
Department of Defense. The 1108th & 1111th headquarters are located at
Site-R's main support base of Fort Detrick, in Frederick Maryland.


In order to reduce the effect of the closure of Fort Ritchie, the
closure process had been drawn out, with the intention that as military
use of a building or section of the base stopped, a commercial user
would immediately take it over. That hasn't worked out as hoped for, the
largest complaint of prospective businesses being the lack of major
transportation arteries in the area. While a National Guard unit will
continue to use a small part of the grounds, Fort Ritchie's last day of
existence was 30 September, 1998. PenMar (for Pennsylvania-Maryland)
Development Corporation now owns the land and is responsible for
developing it into commercial use as a biomedical, telecommunications
and federal contracting technology park known as Lakeside Corporate
Center at PenMar. Due to concerns about adequate protection, the
military continues to fund a fire department on the site until 1
October, 1999, and funds security provided by off-duty Washington County
Sheriff Deputies.

Portal A (the right one) & Portal B. Building on the right is a
security & visitor
control center. Notice all the personal vehicles, and keep in mind that
most of the
military personnel who work in the Rock are transported between Site-R &
Fort Detrick
via bus. On a normal day, hundreds of people work inside the Alternate
Joint
Communications Center at Site-R.

The helipad on the right, Portal A on the left. The tree clearings to
the left and right
of the helicopter landing pad are flight safety zones for helo
approaches and
departures.

Portals C (right) & D (left), on the opposite side of Raven Rock. Barely
visible on the
opposite side of the road in between the portals is a storage building.



SOURCES & CREDITS

More Images -- Got a fast modem or big interest in Site-R?

LINKS-- Click to see other web sites pertaining to the AJCC/Site-R.


BACK -- Go (back?) to my main C3,I Page.



Unless noted otherwise, all photographs were taken May & June, 1998 and
are copyrighted by Tim Tyler



The author of this web page encourages comments, corrections, and
additional information from others familiar with Site-R.


6. Citypaper: Chasing Shadows. (locals descriptions of Site R)
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/031402/cs.cover.shtml?print=1
Mr. Fantastic is giving me an ultimatum. 
"The deadline for your first offer is Sunday by 5 p.m.," the man writes in an e-mail, username mrfantastic_76 , on Sat., March 9. "That is when I get my other offer. They made an offer but not to my likings. So be inventive. I will deliver, and you will not have to pay until I deliver and you are happy with what you have, but not until we have a set price…"
The missive from Mr. Fantastic is the latest in a series of correspondence in which the sender is trying to negotiate a deal.
But this is not for antique bric-a-brac found on eBay or his Aunt Martha’s coin collection.
Mr. Fantastic, who also goes by the name of "Mike Thomas," is trying to sell me pictures from inside one of the government’s most secure facilities. Saturday afternoon he is informing me that there is a bidding war going on and that I’d better ante up.
"I have you and one other paper," he writes, "but it will be in confidence until I actually get you or them what you want. I can get you through the gate, into the mountain, to the underground pictures and all the stuff you guys need. Or film if you prefer. I can get pics of the underground [P]entagon, national cathedral and underground shadow government hq."
Given that this man is suggesting espionage, I have already contacted a cop I trust and my attorney, who has contacted the feds. They suggest the FBI will probably want me to string this guy along, maybe act as a decoy.
I have little more than 24 hours to decide what to do.
Am I being played? Or is this really someone trying to sell national security secrets?
Are we jeopardizing national security by reporting the site’s location?
And what about my role as a journalist in all this?
It is Saturday afternoon and the clock is ticking.


The story of Mr. Fantastic and the mysterious e-mails begins two days earlier, on Thu., March 7, in Waynesboro, Pa., a speck of a town on the Maryland border a few miles from Camp David.
I was visiting Waynesboro in response to a tip from a former National Security Agency operative I know who’d named the locations of the two shadow government sites via a Listserv posting from the Institute for Public Accuracy. The IPA is a Washington, D.C.-based "consortium of policy researchers" run by Sam Husseini, a Palestinian-American independent media guru.
There’s more to Waynesboro than a dying small town, said the tipster, Wayne Madsen, who, in addition to once being an NSA communications security analyst, has written for a number of publications, including the Village Voice and a French intelligence publication. He’s also senior fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
A few miles down the road from Waynesboro, he said, is something called the Alternate Joint Communications Center at Raven Rock.
"Site R."
It was created in 1950 at the urging of President Harry Truman just after the Soviets tested their first nuke. It is now, according to Madsen, home to one of the two locations of the so-called shadow government — where, since Sept. 11, senior government officials have been taking turns living underground, waiting to run the nation in case Washington, D.C., 75 miles to the south, is devastated by an attack.
I went out to Waynesboro to see what it was like to live in the shadow of the shadow government.
After interviewing several townfolk, photographer Christina M. Felice and I took a convoluted drive through twisting hilly roads, where we eventually stumbled upon Site R.
The military police were dismayed. They confiscated our film, and a local cop jumped ugly all over me, demanding that I remove my hands from my pockets because, he said, "it makes me want to shoot somebody."
We were detained for about 45 minutes, waiting for officials at Site R to check our IDs and explain that we shouldn’t have taken any pictures and that our roll of film would be returned to us sans what was shot of the site.
The next day, an e-mail was waiting at my office, sent to Felice a couple of hours after we’d been detained. The e-mail was from mrfantastic_76. I returned the message and he responded.
"I can get you a video from the time you enter the gate to when you get in the mountain, if you can get me a small camera, or I can take pictures of whatever you need," he wrote. "Just give me what you are willing to offer $ wise. Try and make it worth my wild dreams. I have a position where I have unescorted access anywhere."


A walk down Main Street in Waynesboro is like a walk down the main street of any small Pennsylvania community. 
There are a three or four mom-and-pop antique stores, a real estate company, a furniture store, a lawyer’s office, a bank, a couple of pizzerias, a coffee shop, a state rep’s office and the borough hall.
The vacant storefronts tell the story of just how tough things have been in this community of fewer than 10,000, which has seen a number of large employers either close up shop or cut back drastically, just like so many other little burghs across the state.
But about 10 miles west of Waynesboro, on state Route 16, at the hill on the horizon with all the communications towers that protrude above the trees, sits a mysterious military base that many of the residents here talk about knowingly with a wink and a nod.
Jeanette Naylor, an agent with Mountain Valley Real Estate, says that she hopes the shadow government really isn’t down the road.
"It’s too close for comfort," says Naylor, an elfin woman with a craggy smile and crinkly steel-gray hair. "It’s always been there," she says. "And we have always known about it."
Come to think of it, she says, "there are a lot more vehicles up there [lately] at the underground Pentagon." And clearance to get into the site "is really, really, really deep in that area."
Most people in Waynesboro, she says, "know there is a whole underground city there. That’s what we are being told.… There are roads, houses and it is only seven or eight miles from Camp David."
Then Naylor says that maybe having Site R around isn’t so bad after all, what with the government most definitely doing its best to keep it secure.
Walking past a screen divider that separates the reception area from rest of the snug office, Naylor looks to a colleague.
"Hey, what do you think, Jerre?" she asks.
Jerre Snider, also a Mountain Valley agent, is a ramrod straight 67-year-old. He tells me he worked at Camp David when Eisenhower was there.
Can’t say much about that," says Snider, stoically, keeping to the promise he made so long ago.
Snider then offers his take on things, saying that the "shadow government" moniker is a misnomer. "It think it is the wrong term," he says. "It is not flattering. It sounds very misleading, covert and illegal."
Snider thinks it should be called some form of alternative government crisis management.
Regardless, Waynesboro may be out in the sticks, but it was right in the middle of the action during the terror attacks.
The whole area, says Snider, was on extremely high alert about a half-hour after the first attacks on New York on Sept. 11. It was initially reported that Flight 93, the fourth plane to go down, was headed for either Camp David or Site R, the long-planned executive branch hideout, which he, like Naylor, refers to as the "underground Pentagon."
The town’s anxiety level has decreased since the attacks, says Snider. But still, people in Waynesboro are among the first to know when something is going down.
"We don’t even have to turn on the news. We hear planes and we know right away what is going on," he says. "When they hid the vice president, well, we knew where he was."


Though it is after 9:30 a.m. on a Thursday, there is not a whole lot of foot traffic around Waynesboro. Many of the stores don’t open till 10.
In the window of one shuttered shop hangs a poster for a clean-cut white musician named Jim Hendricks. The name catches my eye. "The love of Christ shared through music," reads the poster. Not a hint of purple haze.
A few paces farther east down Main, Bob Carbaugh, the 70-year-old retired buildings and grounds director for Waynesboro’s school board, seems happy to talk about the site.
"I was here before it was," says Carbaugh, smiling. "I can look out of my picture window and see it."
Carbaugh says that it is a "good guess" that Site R is home to the shadow government, because "the area is so convenient to Washington and the Pentagon."
He says, "It’s underground and pretty safe — well, not by modern strategy."
Carbaugh adds that in his estimation, there is no choice but to feel safe. "My dependence is on the government," he says. "My dependence is on the government to protect us. I feel this is one of the most protected spots in the world."


The woman opening up Ma’s Country Crafts and Flea Market smiles brightly as I mention Site R, as if the place brings back good memories.
Apparently, it does.
"It is very neat. Very, very, very neat." The eyes in her cherubic face twinkle.
The woman, who does not want to give her name but whom we will call Shirley, says that she once worked at the site. But she didn’t want to talk specifics because, she says, "they made me sign a piece of paper."
Shirley has a history with the area and its bases. She says her brother-in-law, whom she wouldn’t name, served as Nixon’s Camp David cook.
As Shirley rings up tchotchkes sales and puts away knickknacks, she talks about being with the MPs there and remembering the place as a vast underground city.
"It runs all the way to Camp David, that’s what my brother-in-law used to say."
Ruth Gembe, the town’s former reference librarian, arrives in a flourish of her own making. The library, she says, "has the entire history of the construction," she tells me, before offering copiously detailed directions to the proper filing cabinet.
As Gembe tells me of her travails, Shirley works the phones, trying to find somebody who might want to talk to me. People are either not home or have no burning desire to converse with a complete stranger over the phone. Not that I blame them.
In between calls, Shirley engages in another seemingly favorite Waynesboro pastime, recalling with some excitement stories of pilots, and hunters who have come too close to Site R.
"You better not get too close," she says. "I know a few who got too close, and they found out real soon what it was like. And these people had guns."


Speaking of getting too close, by now it is approaching noon. A good time to take a drive and see the countryside. 
I am given general directions, pointed west down Route 16, but it does not take long before I begin to wonder which way we’re headed.
We stop in a convenience store.
"Can you tell me how to get to Site R?" I ask the woman behind the counter, who looks at me in puzzlement then points me west, down 16.
Soon, the strip-mall ugliness of Waynesboro’s hamlets melts, and, as Felice’s valiant Honda darts up the hills, we are amid trees and farm spreads. As we drive farther and farther away from "downtown," all I see is more and more nothing.
Then a gas station. I pull in and ask the man filling the gas tank of an SUV.
"Just west, down 16," says the man. "Look for an antique store."
We drive on, toward Camp David, as it turns out. As time passes, I wonder if we will ever find this place. So we drive a little further, until we turn around and pull into a little candle shop set back up on an access road.
As Felice loads up her camera, I walk into the shop, wondering if maybe this is the antique store the Popeye-looking gas jockey was telling me about.
I walk in and the woman at the counter smiles. There’s a lot of traffic driving by this day, but not a lot of people stopping. I introduce myself and tell her I am looking for Site R.
She instantly tenses, then asks me for ID.
I pull out my blue Philadelphia Police press card and hand it to her. She grasps it, tightly, between her thumb and forefinger, rubbing her thumb along the surface.
"Sorry, I have to ask," she says, explaining that, back in October, "a Middle Eastern-looking man came in and waited for my other customers to leave. Then he asked me about Site R. He was very nervous."
The woman, who asked that neither her name nor the name of her store be revealed, says that, until Sept. 11, she’d never thought twice about being all alone in a little store on the side of the road so close to Site R.
On that day, she received a frantic call from her daughter, a teacher in Maryland, who’d heard about Flight 93.
"She was hysterical," says the woman. "She thought that it crashed at Camp David, which was initially reported. That’s right around here."
The woman says her first experience with Site R was about 20 years ago, when she was on a picnic with her daughter and strayed too close. Men with guns quickly shooed them away.
Now, she says, there is a lot of activity on the roads and in the sky.
"You see the tan buses driving around," she says. "Those are the ones carrying people in and out."
Before leaving, I ask the woman if she’d reported the incident with the suspicious individual. Yes, she says, to a local police officer named Powers.
As I leave, I ask her for directions.
"Drive east, down 16…."
By the time we reach the top of the hill, near an intersection with an old church on the corner, I know we have driven too far. 
So I look up the candle lady’s number and try to reach her, which is easier said than done, given the many cell phone dead zones that occur in the nooks and crannies of south central Pennsylvania.
When I finally reach her, Candle Shop Lady concurs that we’ve gone too far. So we pile back into the Honda, heading back down the hill.
We come to a fork in the road, and I opt to head up the hill, where I can see that the road begins to get a little gravelly. That’s where I would hide something.
The higher we go, the narrower the road becomes, the more dust gets kicked up and the more dilapidated the properties appear.
We drive past what looks like an old army depot, strewn with Jeeps and ambulances and other surplus from wars gone by.
"I bet this guy knows something," I tell Felice as we drive farther up, past the Lutheran Camp, until, finally, the road is a rut and there is no way to advance without a mule or a Humvee.
So we turn around and stop in front of the depot. A big black dog wanders out of one of the army surplus vehicles and begins barking. We get out of the car, walk up to the gate and peer in.
Nobody is around. So we walk to the shop door and knock.
Nobody answers, but the dog is barking louder now.
So we walk up the steps, and I knock on the door.
I hear a voice inside, then see a bearded face peer out.
It is an older man, and he takes a moment to decide whether he wants to greet his uncalled-for callers. Deciding in the affirmative, he opens the door and walks his lanky self out into the sunshine.
"What brings you out this way?" the man asks, before introducing himself as Bill Harbaugh.
When I explain that we are looking for directions to Site R and the shadow government, he, like nearly everyone else we talk to out here, lights up with glee.
"Oh, Harry’s Hole," he shouts. "Looks like they finally found a use for it."
After grousing that it shouldn’t have taken 90 minutes to get Vice President Dick Cheney to the site after the Sept. 11 attacks — an estimate based on when helicopters could be heard overhead — Harbaugh steps off his porch, walks down his cement stairs and points to the surrounding woods, which slope uphill toward the site.
"It’s underground — well underground," he says with a voice of authority. Harbaugh says that from 1967 until 1974, he worked deep in the bowels of Harry’s Hole, in the engineering and generating plant.
"I hated working in that damn place," says Harbaugh. "It was so hot. Got up to 118 degrees in there. There was no natural light. They expected you to work with no fresh air."
On a roll, Harbaugh pauses for a moment.
"I got dizzy in the head," he says with a cackle. "A lot of people went nuts."
Harbaugh says he also remembers a mess hall that had walls painted like a forest, as well as a post exchange, a canteen and a room set up with a suite for the president, "with booze and clothes."
As he gives us a tour of his yard, which is filled with more army vehicles than the set of M*A*S*H, Harbaugh grouses yet again.
"They’ve got some sissies running this place," he says of Site R. "Harry Truman, now there was a man…"


Armed with yet another set of directions— "Look for the old stone church, then you’ll see what I call the million-dollar road to nowhere" — we bid Bill Harbaugh adieu and motor down the mountain.
It is not long before we see the stone church. And the unmarked road leading up the hill, the one we had missed an hour or so before, when we first drove by.
We turn up the road, but don’t get very far. Our progress is blocked by two cement barriers, so we park. In the distance, I can see a large sliding fence open and armed soldiers milling about behind it.
"Should I take a picture?" asks Felice, who’d never been in a situation like this before.
"Go for it," I tell her, even though I have and should have known better.
Behind the fence, I notice the soldiers seem agitated. Two metal barriers rise behind the fence, blocking any access to anyone deciding to crash through.
I pull my blue press card out of my wallet and place it in my hand, which I hold over my head as I walk up the hill, slowly.
I am quickly approached by a female MP and her two subordinates.
"Did she take pictures?" the boss MP demands.
"Yes, I believe she did," I answer.
"Don’t you know you are not supposed to? We are going to have to confiscate the film."
I hand the MP my ID. The level of tension has decidedly increased.
"Please wait here until I can get the non-commissioned officer in charge," she says, turning to head back to the guard house.
As I stand there, in the warm mountain air, I try to make small talk with the other MPs.
"Things are very tense right now," says one, shaking his head solemnly. "Very, very tense."
As we talk, cars drive out of the complex, filled with serious men who glower at me. Then a sheriff pulls up from behind us on the road and asks me a few questions, wondering aloud what I was doing mucking about this place. Then a local police officer — a short man with a bad buzzcut and dark shades — pulls up. He gets out of his car and slowly, deliberately, walks up the hill and gets right in my face.
It is officer Powers, the cop the candle lady told me about.
And he immediately lets known his displeasure.
"Are you an American?" he shouts, shaking his head. "Do you speak English?
I answer yes to both.
"Do you read English?"
Before I can answer that question, he shouts again, demanding that I take my hands out of my pockets because, he says, "it makes me want to shoot somebody."
Then he launches into his take on the media.
"Our boys are dying over there. Unacceptable. You guys in the media, don’t you think that Saddam Hussein was watching CNN?"
Knowing where this is going, I try my damnedest not to crack up; I just stand there, letting his venom spew. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the MPs — who were stern, yet completely courteous and professional — rolling their eyes at Powers’ act.
Finally, the NCIC arrives, explains that under federal law, the government can take our film, process it and return the film sans the sensitive bits that were taken here.
Felice rolls up her film, turns over the camera and her business card — which contains her e-mail address, the only time it was given out the whole day. Then we wait for the paperwork to be processed.
Felice signs the paperwork. As she does, I can hear the NCIC explain to Powers and the sheriff, whose name I do not get, that "they have been cooperative, so we see no need to keep them."
Then the sheriff comes over for a quick lecture.
Then Powers.
"Tell your buddies in the media to keep the body count down," he says. "Now, I don’t expect to see you up here again. Understand?"


Wondering what we will now do for pictures, but not wanting anything more to do with Site R, we head back for town, to take some more shots and to talk with borough manager Lloyd Hamburger about what it means to have this facility here.
"Site R is kind of a mysterious location," says Hamburger, an affable man. "When I first moved here, I moved from Three Mile Island to Number 2 on the Russian hit list."
But seriously, Hamburger says that "there are quite a lot of folks in town who work there. We have a lot of military types.
"Waynesboro is a bedrock Republican town," he says, full of NRA members, retired generals, admirals and colonels. "We have a retired CIA agent sitting on one of the municipal boards," he adds with a mischievous smile. "We are proud to have this here."


It is 4:40 p.m., Sun., March 10. 
I am alone in the office, looking at the clock, looking at the e-mail and heeding the advice of my attorney, who said that I shouldn’t respond anymore to Mr. Fantastic.
Twenty minutes to the deadline.
And I am still wondering.
Am I being jerked? Am I being played? Or is this guy really selling national security secrets?
Then the phone rings. It is an FBI supervisor, who has called me at the urging of the cop whom I trust.
"E-mail the guy back," says the fed. "Keep him on the hook."
I explain what my lawyer told me and my own misgivings about being a spook, not a reporter.
"I know this sounds corny, but we are at war," says the FBI supervisor, who, like all FBI personnel I spoke with, requested anonymity. "If this guy will sell you this information, he will sell it to anyone. Keep him interested. That’s what I would do."
The guy has a point. So I disregard my lawyer’s advice and dash off one last e-mail to Mr. Fantastic.
"Mike, I need more time," I write. "No one is available to make that decision."
I stare at the words on the screen. The clock is ticking.
I hit the send button.
At 4:58 p.m. my pager goes off.
I return the call. It is another FBI supervisor, the head of the joint terrorism task force.
"Did you send off that e-mail?" he asks.
After I confirm it, I ask the supervisor how seriously he is taking this.
"Very seriously," he says. "We want to find out who is selling this information. Are you available tomorrow morning? We want to come and talk to you."


When I arrive at the City Paper office Mon., March 11, just about six months to the minute after the first jet crashed into the World TradeCenter, I fire up my computer and find another Mr. Fantastic e-mail.
He has agreed to accept my delay.
"Howard, I am letting you know ahead of time that what I am giving you will be the largest story since Sep 11, the governments secret base. It is nicknamed the underground pentagon, it has 5 buildings, each 3 stories, a helipad, a national satellite comm. center,direct lines to the president, moscow, norad, and other top notch organizations. Not only can I get you the pics, and/or film but I can give you the layout of any activities. So chump change will not be accepted for me risking my career. I know the shadow gov is the hottest thing going so be generous. Hope to do business soon. Mike."


Shortly after 11 a.m. two FBI agents arrive at my office. I invite them into our conference room and we chat. 
I explain what happened, that an offer of espionage was one I could not ignore in this day and age, and give them copies of the e-mails. And I tell them that I am planning to run this story, espionage incident and all.
They ask questions about the hows and whys of our misadventure and when we are planning to go with the story. "We just want to know what kind of deadline we have," one of the agents says.
The conversation turns to who had access to Felice’s e-mail address, to which the first Mr. Fantastic e-mail was delivered.
Felice tells the FBI that the only time she’d given out that information was when she handed her business card out at Site R. The only people with access to it, at that point, were the three MPs, the NCIC, the sheriff and officer Powers.
The agents peruse copies of the e-mails I give them, and both key in on a particular phrase in the initial one.
"Also if you need those pics of site r they can be obtained, just let me know," was the phrase.
"Those pics," says one of the agents.
"Yes, ‘those pics’. Looks like they were referring to something specific," says the other agent.
Then they ask for my assistance. "Are you willing to play this out?" one of the agents asks.
I tell them no, I am a reporter, not an FBI agent. Already people don’t trust reporters. I don’t want to see any more killed.
"Will you let us use your account?" asks the other.
Again, I say no. For the same reason.
"Before Sept. 11, we probably would not be here," says one of the agents. "Given what is going on in the world, now we have no choice."
After about 45 minutes, our conversation is over.
The agents thank us for our cooperation, shake our hands and walk out.


Sidebar: Conversations with the White House
3:04 p.m., Mon., March 11
" Mike Thomas" has sent me an unsolicited e-mail. "i need a reply asap," he writes. 
So now what?
Blow him off and maybe the FBI doesn’t catch the guy? Become a decoy and peg reporters as government tools?
I fire off a number of calls to reporters and editors I respect.
There are no definitive answers, only "gray areas" and "who will ever trust us" and "think about your career."
Then I leave a message for the FBI agent who came to see me earlier in the day.
"Hey, heads up, this guy e-mailed again. But I can’t be an agent. I can’t be a spy."
A little while later, the agent calls back, understanding my dilemma, asking that, at the very least, I do not respond, "to give us more time to develop a plan of action."
It is something I can live with, and so I agree.
Later that night, I receive a return call from Sy Hersh, the reporter who broke the My Lai massacre story.
"You don’t need me to tell you not to work for the FBI," he says in a gravelly voice. "I don’t mean to be rude, but, you are in way over your head on this, aren’t you? I mean, do you know who you are really dealing with here?"


7:41 a.m., Tue., March 12
Mr. Fantastic is getting anxious. 
"I have not heard from you in a couple of days, are you no longer interested in the story. If so let me know so I can move on."
Oh, I am interested all right.
Interested in who you are.
Interested in why you are doing this.
And interested in what is going to happen next.



Updates:
Sept. 19, 2002: Feds Indict Mr. Fantastic
Oct. 17, 2002: Fantastic Voyage
Nov. 21, 2002: Diminished Threats