John Delach

September 2013, Revised July 2025

Somewhere into the 90-minute guided tour through the decommissioned Congressional bunker hidden under the Greenbrier Hotel, it struck me: “This facility is awful. What a crude place this is. I would have thought the geniuses who designed it would have been more thoughtful!”

It may have been the cramped mini-dormitories where senators, congressmen and congresswomen were expected to sleep on steel springs supporting thin mattresses set into wooden frame bunk beds; 12 to 24 people per room. The inadequate, rudimentary toilets and bathrooms, or the total lack of privacy.

It may have been the minuscule cafeteria appointed in cheap chrome framed Formica tables and stiff plastic chairs circa 1957. It may have been the cafeteria floor with its starkly painted checker board pattern that caused headaches, nausea and a general feeling of anxiety and discomfort. The furniture and the floor were deliberately designed to keep the “inmates” moving and discourage them from lingering there too long. Why? Because the cafeteria was too small to feed most of Congress at any one time.

Or perhaps the two private bedrooms set aside for the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate; rooms so small they would be considered cruel if designed for an American prison.

It may have been when the guide explained the members of Congress were to be forced into the bunker when Armageddon was declared whether or not they wished to go there. Or it may also have been when the guide explained that family members would be forcefully separated from their congressional spouses, fathers or mothers. The bunker was for Congress only and very few of their staff. Families could stay in the hotel itself which bodes the image of the inmates locked away in the bunker behind blast proof doors making decisions of the greatest importance while thinking about their families directly above them dying from radiation poisoning.

The bunker was designed during the 1950s when many of the cabins on passenger vessels didn’t have private bathrooms and may have been considered within the standard of acceptable accommodations even for VIPs. I wonder just how long it took to start the avalanche of complaints once select members of Congress began to visit the bunker once  it opened in 1962. The bunker’s existence was officially revealed in 1992 when it was decommissioned and opened to the public. However, we can safely speculate that a far more opulent successor opened some time prior to 1992.

Rest assured that our distinguished legislators, be they Democrats or Republicans, never abandoned the priority of saving themselves from a nuclear winter; they just wished to do it in style. One day circumstances will change again and this new and improved Congressional shelter will also be revealed. Until then, we can only take stock of what might have been had the Big Red Bear unleashed its arsenal as we all feared while this was their place of refuge.

How would our esteemed Congress survive this ordeal for as long as the six-months they could have remained in the Greenbrier bunker and what would they be like when they emerged? We can only wonder.

This all came roaring back on Friday, July 11, 2025 by way of The New York Times obituary of Paul Bugas, the former director of the bunker from 1971 until its decommissioning in 1992. Unspoken in the obituary, but nevertheless obvious between the lines, Mr. Bugas treated his position with the care and respect it deserved for the degree of responsibility his position expected of from him.

“For more than 20 years, Mr. Bugas had shown up to work at the Greenbrier, along with 12 to 15 other government employees, wearing clothing that helped them blend in with other resort employees. There was communication equipment that had to be maintained; a six-month supply of food that had to be replenished; and filters designed to remove nuclear, biological and chemical contaminants that had to be kept updated. Secrecy was paramount.

”Mr. Bugas served in military intelligence which gave him the necessary security clearance to become director of the Greenbrier bunker, as well as the training to keep a secret. When the bunker was de-classified, Mr. Bugas helped give guided tours. Having the opportunity to explain the work he had long had to conceal may have been cathartic, his son Paul said in an interview.

“Being the consummate Army man, his orders were to preserve an element of democracy if the big one fell,’ Paul said. “ An that’s exactly what he did.”

So, dear reader, who are you going to believe, my fanciful ramblings or that the way Bugas saw it was the way it really was?

“On the Outside Looking In will not publish next week. I hope to resume on July 30, if possible. Stay tuned.”