John Washington III Asks What Was Built for the People While Government Built Bunkers for Its Leaders

John Washington III, a 2028 presidential candidate, is asking what the United States government built to protect ordinary Americans during the Cold War, measured against what it built for its own leadership. In his post, John Washington III wrote that 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 did our government build to give the American people that same level of protection?"

John Washington III listed the historical spending as he presented it. The Greenbrier bunker in West Virginia, designed to shelter members of Congress, cost approximately $14 million, he wrote. 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. Mount Weather in Virginia became another major federal emergency facility, he wrote, 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. 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, and the government also funded some shelter construction and improvements. Much of the public program depended on buildings that already existed rather than on dedicated underground facilities comparable to those serving government leadership, he wrote, and that is where his concern begins.