When Nipponese military unit bombedPearl Harboron December 7 , 1941 , the Secret Service agnize something unsettling : If theWhite Housewere the target of a similar attack , the softsandstonestructure would well crumble , and they had no plan of activeness for ferrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to safety .
Within hebdomad , construction had begun on two subterraneous projects . The first was a tunnel that connected the East Wing of the White House to the nearby ( and much sturdier ) Treasury Building , a granite fastness with underground bank vaults . According toRobert Klara ’s bookThe Hidden White House , one or more of those bank vault was transformed into an 1100 - square - foot tax shelter with 10 rooms , include a bedroom , a well - stocked kitchen , a cozy leather electric chair , and plenty of plushy rug . The other was a low bunker below the East Wing itself . At just 40 foot by 40 ft , the two - room suite featured 7 - foot - thick concrete walls , a medical room , enough food and water to have dozens of masses for days , and a diesel - return power system .
During President Harry S. Truman’smassive renovationof the White House between 1948 and 1952 , this bunker was expand into what ’s now known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center ( PEOC ) . As Gizmodoreports , it was there that the Secret Service escort Vice President Dick Cheney and his married woman , Lynne ; National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice ; First Lady Laura Bush ; and other senior officials during the attacks on September 11 , 2001 .
While the dimensions and layout of the total space are kept under wraps , we do know a little about it fromphotostaken at the time , which show a unmistakable way with tv screens , a farsighted group discussion tabular array , and the Seal of the President of the United States hung on one rampart . Laura Bush give away a few more details in her 2010 memoir , Spoken From the pith :
When President George Bush , who had been in Florida that day , arrive at the bunker just after 7 p.m. , the Secret Service suggest he and Laura spend the night in the PEOC . “ They showed us the bed , a bend - out that looked like it had been installed when FDR was prexy , ” Laura wrote . “ George and I stared at it , and we both say no . ”
In 2010 , workers break terra firma on the North Lawn of the White House for yet another hole-and-corner project . According totheWashington Examiner , the official word was that they were update electrical wiring and air conditioning in the building , but some journalists excogitate this was just to cover for the expression of a novel White House trap . In his 2018 bookThe Trump White House : change the prescript of the Game , formerWashington Postjournalist Ronald Kessler confirmed this theory .
Kesslerallegedthe highly secret structure was “ at least five history deep ” and could “ house the staff of the intact West Wing indefinitely in the issue of a weapon system of mass death onslaught . ” It even has its own air provision , so occupants would be dependable from atomic radiation . Earlier this week , heexplainedtoThe Washington Postthat the impetus for creating this Modern bunker was the realisation during 9/11 that it would n’t be feasible to ravish White House officials to an existingoffsite shelterif the nation were under attack in the future — dealings would make leaving the city by automobile too time - consuming , and air travel would likely be too grave .
And , though Kessler did n’t scuttlebutt on the article of furniture , it ’s credibly safe to acquire this commonwealth - of - the - art shelter sport something more comfortable than a few fold - out beds from the 1940s .
[ h / tGizmodo ]
