On September 11, 2001, four hijacked airliners crashed into the Twin Towers of New York, the Pentagon, and an unknown area of Pennsylvania in turn.
At the time of the incident, then US President George W. Bush was not in charge of the White House, vice President Cheney after convening an emergency meeting of the staff, with the FIRST Lady of the United States Laura Bush and many senior officials, fled to a large space at the bottom of the White House commonly known as the "Doomsday Bunker".
Afterwards, Laura wrote in her memoirs that "I didn't know what was going on, I was just frequently urged into the secret passage under the White House, and then arrived in a huge space that resembled an air raid shelter, but it was not just like a bomb shelter, he was the president's PEOC."
This is the first time that the White House bunker has played a role, the most recent time is during the Trump administration, on May 29, 2020, the death of Floyd, a black American, provoked the anger of several American protesters, and hundreds of protesters surrounded the White House that day.
Speaking of which, many people may use his "flashing wisdom" brain to throw out a spiritual question: Isn't this bunker a common bomb shelter in our lives?
Is this really the case? Privately believe that the doomsday bunker is not simply an air raid shelter, it is more powerful than the function of the air raid shelter, and US President Roosevelt began, this bunker has undergone many renovation and reconstruction processes, according to the current situation, in addition to being able to "hide", there is a special skill, which will be talked about later.
Why did the Americans build this bunker?
According to traditional thinking, if a country builds a lot of underground construction, then they must have taken into account the air defense role of bunkers, which can be used to store goods or develop underground shopping malls in idle time, and can protect some citizens from disasters when war breaks out or the country is in a state of emergency.
There are many existing bunkers in the United States, which is the reason, almost every American resident has a relatively hidden space under the house, but they are simply "small witches" compared with the huge hole in the White House, there are thousands of bunkers in the United States, but there is only one that can really be called the "doomsday bunker", that is, THE PEOC, located in the underground of the White House.
The White House is the symbol of the United States, but also the place where the President of the United States governs and works, he is located in Washington, D.C., covers an area of 73,000 square meters, the White House is not only a building, but also includes the east and west wings, a total of three parts, and the so-called Doomsday Bunker is located in the east wing underground. From the beginning of the construction of the first president of the United States, Washington, to the official completion in 1809, the construction of the White House took more than 10 years, the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he came to power, the office place, the presidential residence, was officially named the "White House".
In the middle of World War II, as the fascist forces in Europe and Asia broke through, the originally neutral United States also began to smell the imminent spread of war to itself, when air force bombing had become the main means of war, and surface architecture was no longer a perfect place for human beings to survive in danger.
To this end, the United States had to prepare for war in advance, but also to make all the plans for "breaking the can and breaking the can", Roosevelt only decided to build the white house underground bunker under this situation, in case the crisis really came, the fate of the "king's death society", at that time the nuclear weapons had not really appeared, the argument that Roosevelt built the bunker to prevent the explosion of nuclear weapons was inaccurate, and the air raid was the most justified.
After completion, during the Roosevelt administration, the White House bunker has not played a real role, in fact, in addition to the small accident of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the fire of World War II did not directly burn to the United States mainland, the US White House is even more majestic, the bunker project was once abandoned, and the real attention paid to the bunker project was during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union after the end of World War II.
In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully detonated the first atomic bomb, the Americans on the west coast of the Atlantic fell into an unprecedented panic, once by the United States to sing a monologue "nuclear club" now joined the new members, and it is also the Soviet Union with sharp contradictions with itself, so the "signal haze" of the third world war is rampantly rendered by the media of various countries, covering the entire world.
On June 25, 1950, the Outbreak of the Korean War, which the United States considered to be "a local and controllable", how to expect that after the Chinese Volunteers entered the war, MacArthur's arrogant words that "the war can end before Christmas" were broken, and the decadence of the US military in this war became more and more obvious. As the scale and uncontrollability of the war increased, the subjective possibility of the Soviet Union being involved became more and more intense, and nuclear war was on the verge of breaking out.
Although the United States has the capital to fight a nuclear war, it does not have the courage to win this war, and the two atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have already made the whole world see the destructive performance of nuclear weapons.
Therefore, after Eisenhower came to power, he quickly called on the American people to store grain extensively and advocated the construction of bunkers throughout the country, including the bottom of private houses, so that these buildings could play the role of wartime refuges, of course, as the supreme leader of a country, Eisenhower would also put himself in his shoes, renovating the White House bunker became the biggest expenditure during Eisenhower's administration, because the bunker at this time would be really used to avoid nuclear war, and it had the well-known title of "Doomsday Bunker".
The renovated "Doomsday Bunker" is equipped with a large iron door with a thickness of 1.2 meters, and there is also a bathing room for flushing radioactive materials on the body, but the bunker space at this time is not particularly large, the president's private space is only more than 20 square meters, which is equipped with 4 beds with upper and lower structures and separate toilets, which are space and facilities, which have to be reminiscent of the dormitories of the current boarding school.
Of course, the conditions at that time were limited, and it was very good to reach this level, but at this time, the doomsday bunker only had the function of prevention and no escape.
After the outbreak of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the White House bunker was renovated again, and due to the urgency of the situation, the bunker was equipped with an emergency team composed of the United States Secret Service and some important officials, and was also equipped with a separate satellite phone and GPS system to prevent the president from being intercepted when communicating with the outside world.
After World War II, because the United States has not been substantially hurt and hit, coupled with the booming military strength of the United States, this luxurious and powerful appearance has aggravated the arrogance of the Americans, and the doomsday bunker that was once used to avoid disasters has once again retreated into a period of silence.
Kessler, a prominent U.S. national security journalist, wrote in a report: "White House staff take it for granted that when the president and key officials are subjected to nuclear war or other major emergencies, they can be quickly and accurately escorted to a remote and safe place in Pennsylvania or West Virginia, but this unrealistic statement was finally broken by the 9/11 incident." ”
After the 9/11 incident, the Americans' strong psychological security based on strength was from beginning to end, and the once invincible United States would also be threatened by the mainland and this threat actually became a naked reality, and the four planes hijacked by terrorists once again sounded the alarm bell of crisis for the Americans.
All the dignitaries in the White House were afraid that the hijacked plane would hit the White House, vice president Cheney immediately led other important officials to hide in the "doomsday bunker", until the crisis signal was lifted before they dared to show their faces, afterwards, Bush Immediately decided to expand the "doomsday bunker", not only to double the area, but also to solve the bunker "limited capacity, increased carbon dioxide concentration, lack of video conferencing facilities and technology" and many other problems, the new bunker has continued to this day.
What exactly is hidden in the Doom Bunker?
According to reliable personnel in the Daily Mail, the new bunker has a total of 5 floors, located in the north lawn of the White House, which not only has an independent ventilation system, but also has sufficient material reserves and food supplies, which can be used by the president and senior officials for several months.
Doomsday Bunker also has a name called "Presidential Emergency Operations Center", English abbreviation PEOC, the reason why the Americans named it Doomsday Bunker, it is because this bunker can play a role in preventing nuclear attacks, and once nuclear war breaks out, does not it mean that the world is about to enter the end?
It has been revealed that the doomsday bunker is so thick that even if the White House is really destroyed by a nuclear bomb one day, as long as the president has time to hide in this bunker, he will not be exposed to the radiation of the radioactive material of the nuclear bomb.
In addition, the interior of the Doomsday Bunker has been constructed with intricate escape tunnels that lead to remote areas in other states, and the PRESIDENT can escape from the White House through at least two tunnels if he needs to escape the White House in the face of extreme danger and temporary obstruction of surface or air transportation (the White House building has been destroyed).
One leads to the Treasury Building, there is an entrance to a street near the White House, which is not specially marked, and the other tunnel leads to the White House South Lawn, where you can quickly board the Marine One helicopter specially arranged for the president by the U.S. military.
In the most pessimistic situation, if all the escape plans are blocked, the president and others are trapped in the doomsday bunker, then they will not lose contact with the outside world, because the bunker is not only equipped with an independent communication base station, the GPS wireless network can cover the entire bunker and the data transmission will be encrypted, here is like a wartime command center in the most tense period, the soulless US president can also perform his duties and missions here, and even complete the nuclear counterattack.
In fact, there are many "special equipment" about the doomsday bunker that are kept secret, but from Trump's clockwork in the face of menacing demonstrators, it can be seen that this bunker is not simple.
All in all, the main function of the Doomsday Bunker is to protect the safety of the President and important American officials, to avoid them being "annihilated" at the most critical moment, but in the face of strong fire suppression during the nuclear war, the Doomsday Bunker may not be able to be stable and rock-solid, and it is not known whether the drill bomb can take the Doomsday Bunker.