10.
The response to this huge buildup in the US varied around the world. The rest of NATO accepted it with various degrees of apprehension. France and the UK instituted expansions of their own nuclear programs, and most members of NATO began some type of bunkerization program, with the size and scope of these varying dramatically. Interest in missile defense systems remained low in most of NATO, although some countries expressed a desire to buy or host a US missile defense system in the future.
The Soviets, for their part, were outraged. Brezhnev immediately ordered an expansion of the Soviet nuclear arsenal as well as expansions for the Moscow Metro and other public nuclear shelters. Because of the reconstruction efforts and the aftermath of the war, the grand response to the American challenge ended up being delayed significantly. Still, architects, designers, and engineers began work on these new shelters.
China’s reaction was more subdued, but Mao was both angry and afraid, according to accounts of those close to him. The dictator was beginning to show some signs of developing stress-related mental health issues, and he was known to act somewhat irrationally at the best of times. Still his talents as a skilled politician and megalomania seemed unaffected. In late 1970, he announced the “People’s Shield”, an official name for the project he had begun with Beijing’s underground city.
Around the world, the Cold War’s main industrial struggle seemed to be changing from a nuclear arms race to a race to see who could build the most bunkers. The results of this race, in the early 1970s, can be called the “second generation of national redoubts.” Some of the major installations are listed here:
In the
United States there were three kinds of bunkers at this point. Medium-sized bunkers, built by the government and other powerful groups (most first-generation bunkers described earlier fall into this category), family-sized bunkers, and large public bunkers. Most of the civil defense installations described earlier were expanded upon or modernized in the 70s. It is estimated that in early 1971, the United States had small, private bunkers with enough capacity for 4 million people, and the public bunkers that had been constructed could hold another 200,000.
As mentioned earlier, bunkers of moderate size started to appear at hotels, government facilities, and schools. These were often primitive facilities, with light blast doors connecting to a reinforced basement with generators, ventilation systems, and food and water supplies. These areas were often understocked and would only hold supplies for a few days. Sometimes, as inflammatory articles occasionally revealed, these installations couldn’t even physically fit all the people they were intended to hold. Some financial institutions announced bunker projects for financial records, including the
New York Stock Exchange, to ensure that the economy would not completely cease to exist in the event of a war. This construction was subsidized to some degree by the US government, much to the chagrin of those on the political left.
The government-constructed bunkers tended to be in a somewhat better state than the bunkers constructed by businesses. Government contractors were very familiar with building bunkers for defense purposes, and many bunkers were made from converted and expanded metro, sewer, or highway systems. One popular design was based on attaching blast doors to a highway tunnel, which could be closed in the event of a nuclear war by teams of national guardsmen dispatched to maintain them. Alcoves dug into the sides of the tunnels would hold non-perishable food, water, and collapsible cots. These tunnels were usually designed so that the doors could be closed even if cars were parked in front of them, possibly crushing the cars and the people inside in case of a nuclear panic, a fact that was somewhat controversial when the tunnels first opened. The tunnels were also somewhat short of supplies but were at least much roomier than the basement-style shelters, and often had serious medical, communication, and power generation facilities attached to them.
Underground construction techniques in the United States advanced rapidly at this time, which lead to many cities announcing dual-use subway and bunker systems, designed to both protect from a nuclear attack and improve urban transit times. The bunker features of these subways were often afterthoughts intended to attract federal funding and local votes. Universities saw sudden funding for research on tunneling in deeper rock.
One major, enduring project was the expansion of the
Federal Relocation Arc. This system, mentioned earlier in the first generation of bunkers, began to grow under Nixon to a larger and better-connected set of bunkers in the Washington D.C. area. This act also contained a provision for changing the secret service uniform to a gilded and ostentatious one, which would attract ridicule in the years after, but which has become a common symbol of the agency. One notable innovation was the addition of deeply buried light rail tunnels, allowing bunkers to cooperate and move personnel. The digging on the first line began in early 1971, and the total FRA expansion was originally budgeted at 1.3 billion dollars. Many people, both experts and laymen, claim that some black budget money was used on the project.
This major, centralized system was accompanied by
Military Base Bunkers across the country. Most military bases at this time already had some underground infrastructure for munitions storage, but these facilities would be greatly expanded to include entire underground barracks, hangars, vehicle garages, and other facilities. A few military bases would, in the early 1970s, relocate almost entirely underground, largely as an experiment.
American industry also participated in its own bunkerization project. Major defense contractors began researching moving their operations underground. Underground factories were not a new concept. During World War II, the Nazi government used slave labor to produce underground complexes for the war effort, and the British experimented with underground factories to shelter important production lines from German bombing raids. During the Early Cold War, emphasis turned towards disguising the specific activities taking place from spy planes, which caused a shift from underground factories to aboveground facilities with camouflaging or obfuscating features. Some special facilities, such as Pantex, which was converted into a nuclear weapons manufacturing facility in the early 50s, were equipped with underground workshops for working with highly sensitive or dangerous materials, but most critical steps in the assembly lines tended to be located above ground.
The post-Red War arms race raised the possibility of a protracted nuclear conflict, as opposed to the lightning wars expected in prior doctrine. While this concept was seen as questionable at best, the Department of Defense quietly commissioned several studies and a handful of think tanks put out papers discussing the possibility of a nuclear-resistant defense infrastructure.
For a few companies, another benefit was increased corporate secrecy and security. While the most violent and intense part of the Civil Rights Movement had passed, and the Vietnam War was out of the limelight, many corporations were worried about political protests interfering with their profits. In early 1969, a group of student protesters had broken into Dow Chemical and trashed many files, and although the incident had not seen a sequel by the end of the year, defense contractors remained worried. Soviet spies were an even more serious concern. American defense secrets were often held in private hands, and these companies would have a much easier time hiding critical information if it was in secure, underground facilities.
Dow Chemical was an early adopter of the factory bunkerization trend. In early 1970 they announced that several of their planned factories would be built underground. This was billed as a public safety move, to ensure that the public would not be exposed to toxic chemicals if an accident occurred, but many environmentalists pointed out that underground chemical plants could still contaminate the soil or water table. The true rationale was to prevent any future break-ins or protests, and to use the location’s security as a selling point for future government contracts.
McDonnell Douglass and
Lockheed Corporation followed suit soon after. Boeing investigated the project, but coming off the development of the 747, the company could not afford to invest in new assembly lines, and executives decided to wait. The
Martin Marietta company, responsible for producing America’s ICBMs, began close consultation with the federal government, and is believed to have moved at least part of the Titan II assembly line underground for security over the course of 1970.
The
Soviet Union, not to be outdone, worked to expand its own public defense infrastructure. Across the Union, especially in the east, near the newly established Chinese border, fortifications went up. While China had lost most of its nuclear arsenal, the Soviets had no doubt that they would not waste time re-establishing it. To prevent another nuclear attack, A-35 missile defense stations and heavy anti-aircraft systems were slated for deployment in the newly captured border regions. The border, however, remained porous, and it appears that Soviet troops were worried about a nuclear warhead being smuggled through the Sino-Soviet border and used to destroy a major city.
Soviet defensive
metro projects were expanded. The original dual-use nature of these systems, as hybrid shelters and transportation systems continued, but with a greater focus on their defensive aspects. One interesting development was that the Moscow Metro was equipped with rail sections that never had trains run on them. These were primarily intended to boost the ability of the Metro to protect a population but were also- on paper-equipped to take trains as an alternative route. The Moscow Metro, already the largest such system in the world, was rapidly becoming a convoluted set of tunnels beneath the city. By 1980, the total length of tunnels had more than doubled.
It is almost certain that if the
Metro-2 line existed, then it was expanded significantly in the 1970s. These rumors have not been confirmed, but documents released in the decades since then seem to indicate that significant construction was taking place deep underground. It is hard to distinguish the work on the “normal” Moscow Metro from work on the deeper, rumored Metro-2.
The first known
underground city project began in early 1970. The first city, Sverdlovsk-60, was founded in the southern Urals. It was not a true “city”, more like an underground village. Officially dedicated to mining, it is believed that the facility was used for manufacturing the plutonium or uranium “pits” for nuclear weapons, and possibly for refining nuclear material, based on documents released by the CIA in the 90s.
Unlike in the US, few citizens of Warsaw Pact countries had the resources to construct private bomb shelters. Public bomb shelter infrastructure was constructed in East Berlin and Budapest in the style of the Moscow Metro, and further shelters were built across Eastern Europe. Long-planned metro projects in Prague, Sofia, and Bucharest were fast-tracked. Outside of the government, many enterprising individuals built shelters with whatever they had available.
The Warsaw Pact’s military planners also began to consider the development of fortifications in the west, along borders with NATO, but the idea was largely rejected. Without strong defenses against aircraft and missiles, these stationary defenses would do very little to prevent the advance of Western troops. Of course, a growing number of voices began to point out that defenses against aircraft and missiles could be added. For the moment, however, no military planners could overcome the serious objections presented. In a line of forts, if one fort is breached, then the others can be quickly bypassed and surrounded. The resulting siege would heavily favor the attackers in the long-term, and the forces used to man these fortifications would be trapped and unable to effectively participate in the conflict. These plans were gradually scaled back to a bunkerization of military bases, like what had begun in the United States. Many Warsaw Pact airbases had significant underground sections, which made creating underground military bases a simpler and better-tested process. A-35 systems were also slated for deployment in the west, but at a lower priority than the Chinese border. Another conflict in the east seemed much more likely.
In
China the national government, despite Mao’s bravado, was not up to the task of building any new major bunker system. With the nuclear attacks and invasion, and the ensuing economic collapse, the winter of 1969-1970 was a harsh one. Soviet aid became increasingly important for preventing starvation, much to the frustration of Mao, who reportedly considered ending the aid to increase China’s independence. Although the northern parts of China, occupied by the Soviets, are not the most agriculturally productive in the country, they were net food exporters to the rest of the country. This meant that important food supplies were now being harvested by the Soviets, and so Soviet aid was given to China and then spent on purchasing food from the Soviets. The irony was lost on no-one.
Still, there was little the Chinese government could do, except to try and mitigate the worst starvation. The immediate death of tens of millions in the nuclear exchange provided little relief, because with less mouths to feed came fewer hands to work the fields and a greatly reduced ability to transport crops. Chemical fertilizers became unheard of, and irrigation systems collapsed. In some parts of China, excellent yields were harvested, especially in the rural regions of the country, away from the nuclear attacks. These yields then rotted in grain bins, with nobody able to collect the harvests. Meanwhile, millions starved in the cities in the Second Great Chinese Famine.
The proposed “National People’s Shield” would not be built. The labor force that might have once been mobilized to dig tunnels was focused entirely on surviving another day. Reports of cannibalism, fervently denied by Mao’s government, began to appear around the country.
…
Xie ducked, and a glass of vodka flew over his head. It smashed against the wall, just above the room’s steel door.
Mao had never been the most hygienic leader, but now, with everything that had happened, he was almost intolerable. The smell of cigarettes permeated the room in which he now lived, and Xie doubted that the bunker’s fans would ever clear the air. Mao laid in a pile of filth, cigarettes, and empty bottles atop his well-appointed bed, shirtless and covered in a patina of grime. Even from across the room, Xie could feel his dress uniform losing its starch as he stood.
“Bastards!” screamed Mao.
Xie collected himself. “Chairman, we believe that once the present crisis—” always the euphemism “—has passed, we believe that the peasants will complete the—”
“Shut up!” shouted Mao. “I am not waiting for this… this sabotage to pass. Fucking Brezhnev, fucking Chiang, fuck!” Spittle flew from the aged, corpulent dictator’s mouth.
Xie stood at rapt attention. There was no point in interrupting this kind of rant. He kept his face a mask. Mao cursed the wreckers, the saboteurs, his incompetent generals, reactionaries, revisionaries, and everything under the sun. But finally, he had run his course, and he had things to say to Xie.
“What’s your command level?”
Xie replied smartly. “Military district commander, recently promoted from sub-district commander.”
Mao nodded and smiled a sickening grin. Xie could see the man’s utterly rotted teeth, black and yellow and green. “Congratulations, you are now commander of the Nanjing military region. I want you to get the construction underway. Shoot any peasant that is too lazy or unreliable to pick up a shovel.”
“Yes, chairman!” Xie saluted.
“I expect to return to schedule by the end of the year. Dismissed.”
Xie stepped out of the bedroom, and into the antechamber. The security officers saluted him, and one handed him the command braid of a military district. As he walked through the fluorescent-lit concrete hallways, his stomach churned. Really, he should be proud. A year ago, he had been commanding a division. But when you reached the top by having every officer killed out from over you, it tended to leave one uneasy.
His quarters were small but lavish for the Maobunker. A bed, a desk, shelves, together filling almost exactly the room’s area, except for a small gap where he could stand. There was a reddish-brown stain on one of the walls, with a bullet hole in the middle.
He packed up his clothes, a few books, and a few trinkets. Then, he carefully pried apart a crack in his cheaply made bedframe. He reached inside and withdrew a roll of rubles and US dollars. He slipped the bills into a hole in the lining of his uniform and left the bunker. The soldiers outside saluted him. Maybe his new position would be useful.
Deserting wouldn’t be easy. A break for the border would be risky. Trying an impossible task for Mao was suicide.
…
Albania, on the other hand, was in a perfect position for the construction of bunkers, and Hoxha made “total bunkerization of the country” a political goal. Albania was doing well, economically, with the capture of new mineral reserves and a rise in global agricultural prices, boosting the country’s two main exports. The Albanian government began to consider the use of old mineshafts for fallout shelters, to save money and expand on the protection provided by the PZ/QZ series of bunkers. With the possibility of Yugoslavia acquiring nuclear weapons, it seemed that the old bunkers would not be sufficient. The Albanian population would need to be protected from weapons of mass destruction as well.
The use of old mines as bunkers was apparently highly controversial within the Albanian political apparatus. Many officials pointed out that these bunkers would be easy to defend from enemies attempting to enter them, but that they would provide a poor defense against an occupation of the country. Nuclear bunker busters were also seen as a major flaw in the plan, because even with significant reinforcement, the mines might be collapsed by a specially designed and deployed nuclear warhead.
Nevertheless, Hoxha pressed on, purging a handful of officials opposed to this plan. Albania’s extensive political prisons and work camps were used to help dig these bunkers. A classic Albanian story from this era goes like this: a dissident scheduled for execution had his sentence commuted and was sent to work on a sensitive part of a bunker complex. Then, once it was completed, he and the rest of the work crew for that section were executed. No proven examples of this occurred, but it was a popular rumor. These mineshaft bunkers varied wildly from what amounted to tents set up in underground caverns to advanced concrete structures with sophisticated elevator and tram systems.
Eventually a semi-standardized design was reached, with rooms of triple-stacked bunks being the main accommodation. The average person would be allocated about 30 square feet of space (including common areas) and no privacy. Ceilings were usually less than seven feet high. Albania produced bunker space at a feverish rate, and the country had no shortage of disused mines to work with. Bunker spaces for nearly 200,000 people, or 10% of the population, were built over the course of 1970. These mine shelters were not well-regarded by the population.
In addition to these adapted shelters, the Albanian government worked on many purpose-built hardened installations for leaders to shelter in. They also worked to construct numerous underground factories. In some cases, these underground factories were built with connections to the mine shelters, to allow for workers to continue defense production even during a shelter period. The question of how mining could take place with no surface access to dispose of waste was never adequately addressed. Bunker-factories were also used for Albania’s nuclear research program, with huge spaces being set aside for centrifuges even before a good supply of uranium had been found. A literally underground program was the best way to avoid foreign spies or a preemptive strike from Yugoslavia.
Due to the paranoia of the Hoxha period, few records survive from this bunker construction project, but it is believed by most historians that Enver Hoxha planned on using these bunkers for the public in case of a nuclear war or conflict with Yugoslavia, while using the old PZ and QZ type bunkers for the Albanian military.
In
Switzerland, bunker projects continued as well. The Swiss government began to construct tunnels between its mountainside fortifications. These tunnels were designed so that they could be permanently sealed off if enemies breached one of the forts, with thick concrete slabs and piles of gravel designed to fall from the ceiling at the push of a button. It is still not known exactly how extensive these connections were, but it is known that railway tunnels were built to connect with most artillery emplacements. This would ensure that these positions would be always supplied with a steady stream of ammunition, no matter what happened on the surface.
The Swiss government also began pioneering research in many of the auxiliary aspects of underground living. A landmark scientific study was conducted by the Swiss military, where volunteers lived underground for several weeks with no access to the outside world, to study the psychology of isolated groups. It was found that serious mood disorders appeared, but that grouping people together in larger numbers helped alleviate this, as did allocating more space for each person in the shelter. Research into air purification, water treatment and reuse, heat management, sump pumping, and tailing management continued, as did research into the more visible topics of blast doors, reinforced concrete construction, and radiation protection.
One subject of concern for the Swiss government was food. Models suggested that specialized nuclear weapons could spread fallout lasting for several years, and so it could be necessary to grow and distribute food while keeping most of the population in a sheltered state. Since no such weapons had been developed to the knowledge of the Swiss government, it was a low-priority issue, but planners started investigating solutions.
In parallel to these defensive underground works, workers were drilling a borehole for the testing of the first Swiss nuclear weapon, which was nearly complete. Any nuclear test would be known to the world, so Switzerland would need to bide its time, and carry out the test only when it was politically appropriate to do so. If the Swiss acted at the wrong time, they might find themselves the enemy of both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, but if they acted at the right time, they could prove themselves a formidable power, ready to protect their independence against any potential threat.
In
Scandinavia, various public bomb shelter projects continued, along with the construction of private, household bunkers. These shelters lacked many of the advanced technologies found in Swiss bunkers, but they provided serious protection and covered a large portion of the population.
In
India and
Pakistan fortified military bases were built, but at a slower pace than in nuclear-armed nations. The two countries were not yet equipped with nuclear weapons, and their main major enemies were each other.
