Travel back in time to the iciest days of the Cold War. Elementary school students are watching “duck and cover” public service films in their classrooms and air raid siren tests pierce the Saturday morning quiet every week. Fallout shelter symbols are posted like stop signs in every neighborhood.
To those who barely remember floppy discs the Cold War is ancient history. To those who were alive at the time, the Cold War seemed to take an eternity. Unlike active wars, this one was about espionage and secrets: James Bond, codes, Joe McCarthy, “I Led Three Lives” and wondering if that bohemian artist type who lives down the street might be a ….Communist?
Now, the secrets are in the open. People visit places that had once been as inaccessible as Neptune. Two Cold War bunkers, one built for the President of the United States, the other for the Prime Minister of Canada, can be toured. Meanwhile, a Titan Missile silo in southern Arizona is as open as your best friend’s door.
In case the Reds decided to launch the big one, the United States president, of all people, needed to be protected. Because President John F. Kennedy often vacationed at his family home in Palm Beach, Florida, Navy Seabees, the Navy’s construction force, built a cozy, little bunker on Peanut Island over the course of a week in December 1961.
Today, the Kennedy bunker is part of the Palm Beach Maritime Museum. A tunnel pitched at a slight descent and reminiscent of a passage to a time warp in a science fiction B movie is the pathway to the temporary residence where up to 30 staff members could live for up to 30 days. The president and his staff were to stay there until a submarine took them to a safer place.
The planner missed little in designing this steel and lead abode. A total of 15 bunk beds were for presidential staff members such as General Alexander Haig and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and their families. There is a toilet, medical equipment and a dentist’s chair in case one suffered a malady or a cracked molar while hunkering down. Nearby is a sign reading, “Radiation Check. Shower Before Entering.” On the floor is a brown barrel called a sanitation kit. Laid out on a table are items the kit would have contained: 1,000-sheet rolls of ScotTissue; plastic “commode liners”; a package of Timsen, “a true deodorant;” and sanitary napkins discretely covered in plain brown wrapping.
For sustenance, the temporary residents would have indulged in a tin stocked with survival crackers and unsullied water in a black barrel labeled, “Office of Civil Defense, Department of Defense, 17.5 gallons drinking water.” The barrel designers utilized Yankee ingenuity to the fullest. Instructions written on it suggest reuse as a commode.
On the other hand, Canada’s Diefenbunker, built from 1959 to 1961 under the administration of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, is massive and maze-like. It was staffed 24/7 with up to 150 people from the day it opened until the day it was decommissioned in 1994.
The lowest floor, surrounded by cement walls, pummels one’s olfactory nerves with the pungent aroma of damp basement. Several rooms are spacious yet the place feels sterile. It had to be sterile. As we entered an unembellished shower room, our guide stated that people who came in contact with radiation would immediately be ordered to undress and throw their clothes down a chute before showering – up to six times if necessary. If radiation wasn’t fully removed, the person was sent to isolation.
The Diefenbunker’s interior rambles, and it has everything a person escaping nuclear fallout for the long term would need: a machine room, dining room, electronics room, medical center and commander’s quarters, for starters. In this case, the commander was Diefenbaker. His three-room suite consisted of his office, his secretary’s office and his bedroom/bath. He was given a single bed; there was no place for spouses here.
Nothing is as evocative of the 1960s as the dining room, with its stainless steel and green linoleum. Fresh food was delivered every Monday, and it was meant to feed as many as 535 people for seven days. After a week, personnel were to rely on K-rations. The freezer could serve double duty as the bunker morgue. The deceased would have been stored alongside food in the walk-in freezer until the threat of radioactivity had subsided and the bodies were safe to remove.
To see the weapon that could obliterate a city, head to the Titan II Missile Silo, 35 feet under the desert south of Tucson, Arizona. Officially, it is Site 571-7, activated July 15, 1963, deactivated November 11, 1982, and today a national historic landmark and open as the Titan Missile Museum.
In the control room, guide Chuck Penson orders a girl, roughly age 10, mouth full of braces and hand on the control panel. “Commander, turn the key.”
Chuck looks to his side, his long ponytail flying. “You, deputy commander,” he advises to a boy about seven, “Turn the other key.”
As the keys are turned, Chuck addresses us. “You’ve heard the expression, `finger on the button.’ Nobody had a finger on any button. It was these two keys which would launch the big one.” A total of five seconds after the keys are turned, a green light with the message “Launch Enable” shines.
Chuck, as matter-of-factly as if he was greeting his brother-in-law at a party, says, “Welcome to World War III.”
And the big one? It’s here, but obviously its weapon is gone. Visitors get two views of the Titan missile, from the outside looking down through a glass panel, and from 35 feet below ground at the base of the nosecone through another glass panel. Hard to believe that this bulbous, bulky monster could destroy a major city.
IF YOU GO
JFK bunker tour includes the Coast Guard Station in use until 1996. Peanut Island is accessible only by boat. A roughly ten-minute-long ferry ride takes visitors from the Riviera Beach Municipal Marina. Round trip cost per person: $10. The ferry runs as needed. (561) 723-2028.
Tours given Thursday-Sunday,11-4. Admission: $14 adults, $12 seniors, $8 students. (561) 848-2960 http://pbmm.org
Diefenbunker: Hours: daily, 11-4, last admission at 3:30, closed Christmas, New Year’s Day. Guided tours in English: Monday-Friday at 11 and 2, Saturday and Sunday at 11; guided tours in French: daily at 2. Schedule may change depending on time of year. Reservations for guided tours are strongly recommended. Recorded audio guides are available for those not taking guided tours; it is recommended that visitors bring their own headphones.
Admission (Canadian dollars): $14 adults, $13 seniors, $10 students, $8 youth (ages 6-18); $40 family rate (two adults and five youth).
Information: www.diefenbunker.ca (613) 839-0007.
Titan Missile Museum: Tours given daily, 9-4, closed Thanksgiving, Christmas. Admission: $9.50 adults, $8.50 seniors, $6 ages 7-12. (520) 625-7736 www.titanmissilemuseum.org