HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/ufo2/mtweathr.txt

Text File | 1996-04-30 | 19KB | 339 lines

                         MOUNT WEATHER

Few Americans--indeed, few Congressional reps--are aware
of the existence of Mount Weather, a mysterious underground
military base carved deep inside a mountain near the sleepy
rural town of Bluemont, Virginia, just 46 miles from Washington
DC. Mount Weather--also known as the Western Virginia
Office of Controlled Conflict Operations--is buried not just in
hard granite, but in secrecy as well.

In March, 1976, The Progressive Magazine published an astonishing
article entitled "The Mysterious Mountain." The author, Richard
Pollock, based his investigative report on Senate subcommittee
hearings and upon "several off-the-record interviews with officials
formerly associated with Mount Weather." His report, and a 1991 article
in Time Magazine entitled "Doomsday Hideaway", supply a few compelling
hints about what is going on underground.

Ted Gup, writing for Time, describes the base as follows: "Mount
Weather is a virtually self-contained facility. Aboveground, scattered
across manicured lawns, are about a dozen buildings bristling with
antennas and microwave relay systems. An on-site sewage-treatment
plant, with a 90,000 gal.-a-day capacity, and two tanks holding 250,000
gal. of water could last some 200 people more than a month; underground
ponds hold additional water supplies. Not far from the installation's
entry gate are a control tower and a helicopter pad. The mountain's
real secrets are not visible at ground level."

The mountain's "real secrets" are protected by warning signs, 10 foot-
high chain link fences, razor wire, and armed guards. Curious motorists
and hikers on the Appalachian trail are relieved of their sketching
pads and cameras and sent on their way. Security is tight.

The government has owned the site since 1903; it has seen service as an
artillery range, a hobo farm during the Depression, and a National
Weather Bureau Facility. In 1936, the U.S. Bureau of Mines took control
and started digging.

Mount Weather is virtually an underground city, according to former
personnel interviewed by Pollock. Buried deep inside the earth, Mount
Weather was equipped with such amenities as:

--private apartments and dormitories
--streets and sidewalks
--cafeterias and hospitals
--a water purification system, power plant and general office buildings
--a small lake fed by fresh water from underground springs
--its own mass transit system
--a TV communication system

Mount Weather is the self-sustaining underground command center for
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The facility is the
operational center--the hub--of approximately 100 other Federal
Relocation Centers,  most of which are concentrated in Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. Together this
network of underground facilities constitutes the backbone of America's
"Continuity of Government" program. In the event of nuclear war,
declaration of martial law, or other national emergency, the President,
his cabinet and the rest of the Executive Branch would be "relocated"
to Mount Weather.

What Does Congress Know about Mount Weather?

According to the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights hearings in
1975, Congress has almost no knowledge and no oversight--budgetary or
otherwise--on Mount Weather. Retired Air Force General Leslie W. Bray,
in his testimony to the subcommittee, said "I am not at liberty to
describe precisely what is the role and the mission and the capability
that we have at Mount Weather, or at any other precise location."

Apparently, this underground capital of the United States is a secret
only to Congress and the US taxpayers who paid for it. The Russians know
about it, as reported in Time: "Few in the U.S. government will speak of
it, though it is assumed that all along the Soviets have known both its
precise location and its mission (unlike the Congress, since Bray
wouldn't tell); defense experts take it as a given that the site is on
the Kremlin's targeting maps." The Russians attempted to buy real estate
right next door, as a "country estate" for their embassy folks, but that
deal was dead- ended by the State Department.

Mount Weather's "Government-in-Waiting"

Pollock's report, based on his interviews with former officials at Mount
Weather, contains astounding information on the base's personnel. The
underground city contains a parallel government-in-waiting: "High- level
Governmental sources, speaking in the promise of strictest anonymity,
told me [Pollock] that each of the Federal departments represented at
Mount Weather is headed by a single person on whom is conferred the rank
of a Cabinet-level official. Protocol even demands that subordinates
address them as 'Mr. Secretary.' Each of the Mount Weather 'Cabinet
members' is apparently appointed by the White House and serves an
indefinite term ... many through several Administrations.... The
facility attempts to duplicate the vital functions of the Executive
branch of the Administration."

Nine Federal departments are replicated within Mount Weather (Agriculture;
Commerce; Health, Education & Welfare; Housind & Urban Development;
Interior; Labor; State; Transportation; and Treasurey) as well as at
least five Federal agencies (Federal Communications Commission,
Selective Service, Federal Power Commission, Civil Service Commission,
and the Veterans Administration). The Federal Reserve and the U.S. Post
Office, both private corporations, also have offices in Mount Weather.

Pollock writes that the "cabinet members" are "apparently" appointed by
the White House and serve an indefinite term, but that information
cannot be confirmed, raising the further question of who holds the reins
on this "back-up government." Furthermore, appointed Mount Weather
officials hold their positions through several elected administrations,
transcending the time their appointers spend in office. Unlike other
presidential nominees, these apppointments are made without the public
advice or consent of the Senate.

Is there an alternative President and Vice President as well? If so, who
appoints them? Pollock says only this: "As might be expected, there is
also an Office of the Presidency at Mount Weather. The Federal
Preparedness Agency (precursor to FEMA) apparently appoints a special
staff to the Presidential section, which regularly receives top secret
national security estimates and raw data from each of the Federal
departments and agencies. What Do They Do At Mount Weather?

1) Collect Data on American Citizens

The Senate Subcommittee in 1975 learned that the "facility held dossiers
on at least 100,000 Americans. [Senator] John Tunney later alleged that
the Mount Weather computers can obtain millions of pieces of additional
information on the personal lives of American citizens simply by tapping
the data stored at any of the other ninety-six Federal Relocation
Centers."

The subcommittee concluded that Mount Weather's databases "operate with
few, if any, safeguards or guidelines."

2) Store Necessary Information

The Progressive article detailed that "General Bray gave Tunney's
subcommittee a list of the categories of files maintained at Mount
Weather: military installations, government facilities, communications,
transportation, energy and power, agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale
and retail services, manpower, financial, medical and educational
institutions, sanitary facilities, population, housing shelter, and
stockpiles." This massive database fits cleanly into Mount Weather's
ultimate purpose as the command center in the event of a national
emergency.

3) Play War Games

This is the main daily activity of the approximately 240 people who work
at Mount Weather. The games are intended to train the Mount Weather
bureaucracy to managing a wide range of problems associated with both
war and domestic political crises.

Decisions are made in the "Situation Room," the base's nerve center,
located in the core of Mount Weather. The Situation Room is the
archetypal war room, with "charts, maps and whatever visuals may be
needed" and "batteries of communications equipment connecting Mount
Weather with the White House and 'Raven Rock'--the underground Pentagon
sixty miles north of Washington--as well as with almost every US
military unit stationed around the globe," according to the Progressive
article. "All internal communications are conducted by closed-circuit
color television ... senior officers and 'Cabinet members' have two
consoles recessed in the walls of their office."

Descriptions of the war games read a bit like a Ian Fleming novel. Every
year there is a system-wide alert that "includes all military and
civilian-run underground installations." The real, aboveground President
and his Cabinet members are "relocated" to Mount Weather to observe the
simulation. Post-mortems are conducted and the margins for error are
calculated after the games. All the data is studied and documented.

4) Civil Crisis Management

Mount Weather personnel study more than war scenarios. Domestic "crises"
are also tracked and watched, and there have been times when Mount
Weather almost swung into action, as Pollock reported: "Officials who
were at Mount Weather during the 1960s say the complex was actually
prepared to assume certain governmental powers at the time of the 1961
Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963.
The installation used the tools of its 'Civil Crisis Management' program
on a standby basis during the 1967 and 1968 urban riots and during a
number of national antiwar demonstrations, the sources said."

In its 1974 Annual Report, the Federal Preparedness Agency stated
that "Studies conducted at Mount Weather involve the control and
management of domestic political unrest where there are material
shortages (such as food riots) or in strike situations where the FPA
determines that there are industrial disruptions and other domestic
resource crises."

The Mount Weather facility uses a vast array of resources to continually
monitor the American people. According to Daniel J. Cronin, former
assistant director for the FPA, Reconnaissance satellites, local and
state police intelligence reports, and Federal law enforcement agencies
are just a few of the resources available to the FPA [now FEMA] for
information gathering. "We try to monitor situations and get to them
before they become emergencies," Cronin said. "No expense is spared in
the monitoring program."

5) Maintain and Update the "Survivors List"

Using all the data generated by the war games and domestic crisis
scenarios, the facility continually maintains and updates a list of
names and addresses of people deemed to be "vital" to the survival of
the nation, or who can "assist essential and non-interruptible
services." In the 1976 article, the "survivors list" contained 6,500
names, but even that was deemed to be low. Who Pays for All This, and
how Much?

At the same time tens of millions of dollars were being spent on
maintaining and upgrading the complex to protect several hundred
designated officials in the event of nuclear attack, the US government
drastically reduced its emphasis on war preparedness for US citizens.
A 1989 FEMA brochure entitled "Are You Prepared?" suggests that
citizens construct makeshift fallout shelters using use furniture,
books, and other common household items.

Officially, Mount Weather (and its budget) does not exist. FEMA refuses
to answer inquiries about the facility; as FEMA spokesman Bob Blair
told Time magazine, "I'll be glad to tell you all about it, but I'd
have to kill you afterward."

We don't know how much Mount Weather has cost over the years, but of
course, American taxpayers bear this burden as well. A Christian Science
Monitor article entitled "Study Reveals US Has Spent $4 Trillion on
Nukes Since '45" reports that "The government devoted at least $12
billion to civil defense projects to protect the population from nuclear
attack. But billions of dollars more were secretly spent on vast
underground complexes from which civilian and military officials would
run the government during a nuclear war." What is Mount Weather's
Ultimate Purpose?

We have seen that Mount Weather contains an unelected, parallel
"government-in-waiting" ready to take control of the United States upon
word from the President or his successor. The facility contains a
massive database of information on U.S. citizens which is operated with
no safeguards or accountability. Ostensibly, this expensive hub of
America's network of sub-terran bases was designed to preserve our form
of government during a nuclear holocaust.

But Mount Weather is not simply a Cold War holdover. Information on
command and control strategies during national emergencies have largely
been withheld from the American public. Executive Order 11051, signed by
President Kennedy on October 2, 1962, states that "national preparedness
must be achieved... as may be required to deal with increases in
international tension with limited war, or with general war including
attack upon the United States."

However, Executive Order 11490, drafted by Gen. George A Lincoln
(former director for the Office of Emergency Preparedness, the FPA's
predecessor) and signed by President Nixon in October 1969, tells a
different story. EO 11490, which superceded Kennedy's EO 11051, begins,
"Whereas our national security is dependent upon our ability to assure
continuity of government, at every level, in any national emergency
type situation that might conceivably confront the nation..."

As researcher William Cooper points out, Nixon's order makes no
reference
to "war," "imminent attack," or "general war." These quantifiers are
replaced by an extremely vague "national emergency type situation" that
"might conceivably" interfere with the workings of the national power
structure. Furthermore, there is no publicly known Executive Order
outlining the restoration of the Constitution after a national emergency
has ended. Unless the parallel government at Mount Weather does not
decide out of the goodness of its heart to return power to
Constitutional authority, the United States could experience an
honest-to-God coup d'etat posing as a national emergency.

Like the enigmatic Area 51 in Nevada, the Federal government wants to
keep the Mount Weather facility buried in secrecy. Public awareness of
this place and its purpose would raise serious questions about who
holds the reins of power in this country. The Constitution states that
those reins lie in the hands of the people, but the very existence of
Mount Weather indicates an entirely different reality. As long as Mount
Weather exists, these questions will remain. Mount Weather's Russian
Twin On April 16, 1996, the New York Times reported on a mysterious
military base being constructed in Russia: "In a secret project
reminiscent of the chilliest days of the Cold War, Russia is
building a mammoth underground military complex in the Ural
Mountains, Western officials and Russian witnesses say.

Hidden inside Yamantau mountain in the Beloretsk area of the
southern Urals, the project involved the creation of a huge
complex, served by a railroad, a highway, and thousands of
workers."

The New York Times article quotes Russian officials describing the
underground compound variously as a mining site, a repository for
Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for Russia's
leaders in case of nuclear war.

It would seem that the Russian Parliament knows as little about Russian
underground bases as the Congress knows about Mount Weather in the
United States. "The (Russian) Defense Ministry declined to say whether
Parliament has been informed about the details of the project, like its
purpose and cost, saying only that it receives necessary military
information," according to the New York Times.

"We can't say with confidence what the purpose is, and the Russians are
not very interested in having us go in there," a senior American
official said in Washington. "It is being built on a huge scale and
involves a major investment of resources. The investments are being
made at a time when the Russians are complaining they do not have the
resources to do things pertaining to arms control."

Where's the Money Coming From?

The construction of the vast underground complex in Russia may very
well become a cause of concern to the Clinton Administration. The
issue of ultimate purpose for the complex, whether defensive (as with
Mount Weather) or offensive (such as an underground weapons factory)
is not the only issue Mr. Clinton has to worry about.

The real cause for concern is that the US is currently sending
hundreds of millions of dollars to Russia, supposedly to help that
country dismantle old nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the Russian
parliament has been complaining to Yeltsin that it cannot pay $250
million in back wages owed to its workers at the same time that it is
spending money to comply with new strategic arms reduction treaties.

Aviation Week and Space Technology reported that "It seems the nearly
$30 billion a year spent on intelligence hasn't answered the question
of what the Russians are up to at Yamantau Mountain in the Urals. The
huge underground complex being built there has been the object of U.S.
interest since 1992. 'We don't know exactly what it is,' says Ashton
Carter, the Pentagon's international security mogul. The facility is
not operational, and the Russians have offered 'nonspecific
reassurances' that it poses no threat to the U.S."

U.S. law states that the Administration must certify to Congress that
any money sent to Russia is used to disarm its nuclear weapons.
However, is that the case? If the Russian parliament is complaining of
a shortage of funds for nuclear disarmament, then how can Russia afford
to build the Yamantau complex?

Are the Russians building an underground city akin to Mount Weather
with American taxpayer's money? Could American funds be subsidizing a
Russian weapons factory? Hopefully Congress will get a firm answer to
these questions before authorizing further funding to Russian military
projects.