Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Greenbrier Bunker

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

The Greenbrier Bunker was a secret nuclear hideout for Congress, until it wasn't. Once it was exposed as a thing, it ceased to be a thing. Listen in to a fascinating short stuff today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and again this is short stuff. And this one is pretty cool because it's about a secret bunker hidden at a resort hotel. Not something you come upon every day. No, this is... I never even heard of this until the other day

actually and I'm not even sure how I heard about it now that I think about it. But it seemed like the perfect short stuff because what we're talking about is during the Cold War, the United States government saying, you know what, if the bomb happens, we need our government to function. And in order for our government to function, we need the people of Congress to be safe and not fried from radiation. And the only way to do that is to build a massive underground bunker for everyone to go and live. And that's just what they did. Yeah, but they didn't put it on a military base. They didn't put it like underneath the Capitol building. They went to a resort in West Virginia called the Greenbrier that had been around for a very long time already. It's a very

well known resort. It's still around today. It's beautiful. And in fact, Dorothy Draper, probably the greatest interior designer of all time, macked out the Greenbrier I think in the 30s or 40s and brought it back to life. It's an amazing place. But they chose the Greenbrier in part because no one would ever suspect that they built the bunker to house Congress during a nuclear attack four hours away from Washington, D.C. in West Virginia beneath a resort that everybody loved. Right. No one would think that would happen except for the people that built it. Because when the construction crews showed up and they were like, all right, we're going to need three foot concrete walls here in these huge areas. We're going to need about 1,100 bunk beds.

They went, okay, what's going on here? And they said, don't worry about it. Just build what we tell you to build and stay quiet because obviously something like this had to be secret. And it was secret for many decades until, I don't know, was it a reporter or just a writer that basically wrote an article about it? Reporter, a guy named Ted Gupp, who sounds like the kind of person who just out something for fun. It sounds like someone who now they would use the word like he gupped that thing up. Right. Which means that he wasted billions of taxpayer dollars with one single article. Because it was then useless. And everyone said, well, thanks, Gupp. Now we don't have our super secret bunker anymore. It's very much bombable. Because this thing, although it's built to withstand

to be a few hours from Washington, DC, where the big bomb lands, it can't withstand a direct hit. And no one would have bombed White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia had it not been for you. Thanks, Gupp. Yeah, within three years of Ted Gupp's article, The Ultimate Congressional Hideaway, the Greenbrier Resort was giving tours of it because it'd been decommissioned that quickly. And again, this thing was in ready operation at a moment's notice for 30 years. Over the course of those 30 years, the 1,100 bunk beds were assigned to a person. And these were, it wasn't like they assigned it once. As new Congress people came in, they got assigned bunk beds. Like if something happened, this place was ready to go at a moment's notice to accept all of Congress.

And I say we take a break and then we'll come back and talk about some of the details behind this ingenious plan. Let's do it. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Hard podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different

hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell

me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. So Chuck, if you went to the Greenbriar between I guess 1962 and 1992,

you might encounter somebody wearing a foresight associates uniform. And if you ask them what foresight associates did, you'd say, oh, well, we actually take care of all the TV sets here at the Greenbriar. And then the next thing you know, you would wake up in a crypt in Mexico wearing someone else's clothes. And that'll be that. Yeah. And the last thought that you had in your head was, man, there's a lot of people taking care of these TV sets here. Right. Because it turns out that the foresight associate TV technicians were actually the government employees who are secretly tasked with keeping the Greenbriar bunker at a state of operational readiness at all times. Yes. It was called when they built it. I saw 57 and 58. So somewhere in

there, it was called Project Greek Island. And again, the location was determined because it's close enough to DC to where it's not super far if you had to get there in a hurry. But it's safe enough to be there. I think they could withstand radiation for how many days could they survive on just the air in there? Three. But then the filtration system was so amazing that it could actually filter out radiation. So they were okay. That's right. It cost about 14 million bucks. This was completed in 62 right before the Cuban Missile Crisis. 720 feet underground, two levels, 112,000 in changed square feet. So roughly the size of a couple of football fields stacked on one another. Yeah. Think about it. 720 feet underground. That is a

skyscraper down. And what's nuts to me is it still couldn't withstand a direct hit from a nuclear bomb. That's scary. That really says a lot right there. So when you went to this place under a nuclear attack, if you were a member of Congress, you would be hustled off to the Greenbrier. The first thing that would happen once you entered the secure sealed off area is that you would be decontaminated. You'd be given new clothes. Your other clothes would be incinerated. And you would find very quickly that entire swaths of the Greenbrier had also been ingeniously included in this. Even though it was open to the public, they were used as meeting rooms and stuff during normal times. In the case of a nuclear emergency, when Congress

took over the bunker, they got sealed off with the rest of this bunker too. Yeah. So like there were literal, I mean, like companies would have a, not a retreat, but I guess a retreat there. And you know, they would go and listen to people lecture about their industry. And not, you know, unknowingly the whole time they're sitting on top of this underground bunker. It's like, it was pretty ingenious to not have it at a military base and to sort of hide it in plain sight in some ways. There's, if you're wondering like, well, how did you access it from the Greenbrier? It would of course be behind the door that says, danger, high voltage, keep out. Yeah. Danger, danger, high voltage. I love that. It's like out of an Austin Powers

movie or something. It's like, I just put high voltage and no one will open that door. Yeah, I think it works. I mean, you're kind of a chump if you go through that door anyway, you know? Yeah, you'd be a real gup. Nice callback, dude. That was great. So Wells is in there. You got your decontamination room. You got your dormitories, which are 18 rooms with 60 beds in each. You got to have a cafeteria and a kitchen. Sure. They even had like media rooms set up with fake views of like the Capitol in the background and stuff like that. So they had like a production facility, essentially, because they had to be able to broadcast out in case anything went wrong. Yeah, and they had three meeting rooms, one that could house the Senate,

one that could house the House of Representatives, and one that could house joint congressional meetings where everybody was involved. They also had a pharmacy with tons of antidepressants, apparently. Yeah, they had a good stuff. They had a little jail, and then this to me was pretty revealing. I think either NPR or the Atomic Heritage Foundation pointed out that they had, in this little jail area, they had weapons, but that the weapons amounted to like a couple of rifles, some pistols, like some batons and like helmets, like stuff you would have for riot gear. And I realized like that wasn't meant to be used on, you know, Soviet forces trying to gain entry. That's to be used in the case of like some sort of crazy mutiny, like below ground by

Congress people who are losing their marbles. Yeah, or just old grudges, like they're finally going to take Pelosi down once and for all, put her in a straight jacket, because there were straight jackets. Yeah. There were two boxes of straight jackets with this jail in case something happened like that. Yeah, so the whole thing was completed, I think you said in time for the Cuban Missile Crisis, right? Yeah. That's really good timing. And again, when they did this, they did it under the auspices that the Greenbrier was building a new wing, and indeed the Greenbrier did build a new wing, but there were some really weird parts of it. So it did raise some questions, but apparently the locals kept it to themselves because it does not seem to have been one of those,

you know, open secrets. Like it seems to have been like a real secret secret, which is, you know, hats off to everybody who managed to keep that a secret all those years. Well, yeah, because like we said, the construction crews were immediately suspicious, but a lot of people worked on that thing and clearly knew what was going on. And I guess it was just a different time where people cared about their country such that they knew it was important to keep it a secret for national security reasons. Yeah, hats off government on keeping some secrets. How fast would this be tweeted out today? There was a drywall person working on an underground bunker. Check it out. Supposedly the Supreme Court was destined for the Grove Park Inn in the case of a nuclear

emergency that would find culprits at the Greenbrier. Yeah. Where's that? Asheville. Okay. Really? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it's in Asheville. So that's where they would go and bunker down to? Yeah. Wow. Pretty amazing stuff, Chuck. I wonder if this, I mean, if there were 1,100 beds, this seems to indicate that they would have their families there, right? I guess, but I guess, yeah, it must be. And I think there's a train route from DC to the Greenbrier. So there would probably be time to be like, meet me at the Amtrak station. We got to go to your family. Interesting. That's the only explanation I can find. Although staff maybe, I could see Congress people choosing their staff over their family in a nuclear disaster.

That's 1,100 bunks though. That's plenty of room for staff and families and maybe even an enemy or two. Sure. Again, though, thanks to the Atomic Heritage Foundation, great article on this, as well as NPR, who we always love. Yes, and great thanks to you too, Chuck. And you, sir. Thank you. Well, we thank each other, everybody. That means short stuff is out. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.