The Greenbrier Bunker: The History of the Emergency Cold War Bunker Designed for Congress during a Nuclear War

In October 1962, American spy planes discovered the Soviets were building nuclear missile sites in Cuba, and intelligence officials informed President John F. Kennedy of this on October 16th. It went without saying that nuclear missile sites located just miles off the coast of the American mainland posed a grave threat to the country, especially because missiles launched from Cuba would reach their targets in mere minutes. That would throw off important military balances in nuclear arms and locations that had previously ensured the Cold War stayed cold. Almost all senior American political figures agreed that the sites were offensive and needed to be removed, but how? Ultimately, Kennedy's administration crafted an eventual plan that sought to avoid all-out war: a blockade of Cuba.

In the weeks and months following the crisis, Kennedy sought to ease nuclear tensions. By 1963, the first agreement was signed to limit the testing of nuclear devices, and the habit of secretly taping all meetings, phone calls, and other communications continued, due to the great assistance the practice had provided throughout the crisis.

As it turned out, October 1962 was probably the closest the Soviet Union and United States came to formally engaging in a war against each other, but of course, the possibility of a destructive nuclear war had been contemplated years before the Cuban Missile Crisis. That doomsday scenario is precisely why the federal government was working on a secret nuclear fallout bunker underneath the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia in the years preceding the crisis. Its existence would remain a secret for decades until being declassified shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and to this day the bunker remains both a source of curiosity and mystery.