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The man who has run Mount Weather since 1968 is Bernard ("Bud") Gallagher. A former Air Force bomber pilot who was shot down over Denmark and held captive by Germany's dreaded Gestapo during World War II, Gallagher flew through the mushroom clouds of 12 nuclear tests in 1952 and 1953 to record radiation levels. He later went to the White House, serving in the Office of Emergency Preparedness. Now 69, Gallagher is described as a superpatriot and a student of such dire scenarios as the postattack consequences of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. Says Becton: "He's a solid citizen, a guy who has dedicated his entire life to this, and I suspect he won't leave until he has to be carried out in a box." Gallagher declined to be interviewed.
Even though cold war tensions have eased, Washington planners insist that, along with airborne command centers and underground military installations, Mount Weather remains an essential element in national defense. A former National Security Council staff member says the consensus among people who think about the unthinkable is that Washington is a potential target for nuclear attack -- even outside a cold war framework -- because any foe would be tempted "to decapitate" the U.S. government by killing its leaders. In recent years FEMA has shifted the focus from a potential Soviet attack to one by a Third World nation or even a terrorist group with access to a crude nuclear device. Other scenarios that might trigger an evacuation to Mount Weather, according to a former FEMA official, would be the poisoning of Washington's water supply or a biological or chemical attack on the U.S.
Each successive Administration has rehearsed the evacuation drill, briefing those on the list of designated officials -- Cabinet Secretaries and heads or seconds-in-command of key government departments and agencies -- about where they should assemble to be taken out of harm's way. Most among the leadership carry special identification cards designating them as evacuees, and have already been briefed as to where they would go if there were an emergency, according to Becton. "The emergency instructions tell them what to do and where to do it."
William Brock, for example, who was Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Labor from 1985 to 1987, ranked 11th in the order of presidential succession and was on the evacuation list. Brock said he never went anywhere without his special card. During one exercise, he recalls, he went to the Mall in the center of Washington and was helicoptered to Mount Weather. Brock said he took "absolutely nothing" with him.
FEMA spokesman Marvin Davis, who says the facility is still needed, concedes that political change in the world may ultimately redefine the role of Mount Weather. "But public policy rarely closely follows current events," he says. "It's too soon. We're less than a few months into the new world. It's going to take some time before that's fully assessed." Says Becton: "We are no longer faced with a bolt out of the blue from Russia, but no one has the assurance that someone else won't pop up in the next five or 10 years and take on that threatening role."