John Washington III Asks What Government Built for the People While It Built Bunkers for Itself

Presidential candidate John Washington III is asking a question he says the Cold War left unanswered: the federal government built underground bunkers to protect its own leaders - so what did it build for the people? In a written statement, John Washington III noted that during the Cold War the United States invested millions of dollars constructing underground facilities designed to protect government leadership and preserve military operations in the event of a nuclear attack.

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

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

That gap is where his concern begins, John Washington III wrote: if the government recognized the danger of nuclear war strongly enough to build specialized underground facilities for its leadership, he asked why there was not a comparable effort for the American people. His statement carried the question in its headline: "THE GOVERNMENT BUILT UNDERGROUND BUNKERS TO PROTECT ITS LEADERS. WHAT DID IT BUILD FOR THE PEOPLE?"