John Washington III Asks What the Government Built to Protect the People While It Built Bunkers for Its Leaders

John Washington III, a 2028 presidential candidate, asked what the federal government built to protect ordinary Americans while it was building underground facilities to protect its own leaders during the Cold War. In a written statement, John Washington III said the government invested millions of dollars constructing underground facilities designed to protect government leadership and preserve military operations in the event of a nuclear attack, and he asked what it built to give the American people that same level of protection.

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

For the public, John Washington III wrote, the federal government established a fallout shelter program that identified existing buildings that could provide protection and distributed emergency supplies, and a Government Accountability Office report documented approximately $122 million in food and emergency supplies purchased for public fallout shelters in the early 1960s. He wrote that much of the public program depended on buildings that already existed rather than dedicated underground facilities comparable to those serving government leadership, and that is where his concern begins.