The President's Book of Secrets Page #3

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person, the very next thing you

need is purified, clean air.

If you have enough food and

enough water, and enough

utilities, then you can last

indefinitely.

The safety isn't in the

fortress, the safety is in

no one knowing where you are.

Narrator:
But no matter how

safe these bunkers are,

according to security experts,

the book of secrets would

probably indicate that it is

even safer for a President to

stay on the move.

(Brad Patterson) Part of the

getting ready for any terrible

occasion like that, it means

getting transportation plans

available.

Those are all scheduled ahead

of time.

It's all classified.

Th should not be discussed

publicly.

But the systems are there.

They have to work perfectly and

work immediately.

Bohn:
So I can tell you with

firsthand experience, because

I stood in for the President on

one of those drills.

I got into the Presidential

helicopter and flew to a secret

location in the mountains near

Camp David.

We landed, and refueled the

helicopter by hand.

We had a crank pump and a

55-gallon barrel of avgas.

And then we took off again.

And we circled around and

finally landed at the airport

at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

And the tower had closed the

airport.

And sitting at the end of the

runway was this big white 747.

And we scrambled up the nose

wheel ladder into the main

cabin.

And I sat down on this great,

big leather chair with

"President" on the back.

And they said, "What are your

orders, Mr. President?"

I said, "Well, let's get out

of here."

And I'm telling you, they hit

the thrust on those engines,

and we took off like a rocket.

And it was great fun, and we

landed at Andrews Air Force

Base, and I went back to my

office, and my illusions of

grandeur sort of faded away.

Narrator:
But what if,

despite the existence of

emergency escape plans and

regular drills, neither the

President nor the Vice President

survive a catastrophic attack

on America?

What happens to the government

of the United States if

Washington, DC, is actually

wiped out?

Most likely, The President's

Book of Secrets would contain

a chapter on a top-secret

emergency program known as the

"Continuity of Government,"

designed to ensure that someone

is always in charge.

Gingrich:
It starts with a

very simple premise, which is:

What if there is a nuclear

event, or a biological event,

and you eliminate the leadership

of the U. S. government?

What happens?

I mean, how you deal with it?

In a modern, real-time world,

with missiles and everything

else, how many minutes can

you spend not having somebody

in charge?

Quayle:
It's the continuity

of government.

It's the President,

Vice President, Speaker.

Those are the three key people,

but there's a lot of others--

continuity of government.

You've got the Congress.

You've got your Cabinet.

You've got the military.

We have be at 1,000% contact,

every single moment of every

single day.

That's the way it works in all

administrations.

Narrator:
However, there are

even more secret parts of this

strategy that insiders refer to

as "The Doomsday Plan."

In the event of a nuclear

attack, three teams of

government officials would be

sent out from Washington to

different locations.

Each team would be prepared to

assume leadership of the

country, and would include a

Cabinet member who was prepared

to become President.

Lichtman:
So the Executive

Branch has ten it upon itself

to develop plans for a doomsday

scenario that are not based in

the Constitution.

There are plans to keep the

government and the country

going under martial law.

They're all extra-constitutional

'cause there's nothing in the

Constitution and there's

nothing in the laws of the

United States to govern what

would happen under these kinds

of doomsday scenarios.

Gingrich:
The Reagan

Administration, in particular,

invested a great deal of money

in maintenance of continuity of

government-- but that was

against the Soviets.

We found, all a sudden, in

2001, that we were up against a

much more complex opponent, who

was much more likely to use a

chemical, or biological, or

nuclear weapon, in a way that

we had never really thought

about before.

And so, under President Bush,

there was a very serious effort

at rethinking continuity of

government, and putting money

into it.

Montgomery:
Well, I held

several positions working for

President Bush.

After Director of Advance,

I ran an office of Cabinet

Affairs.

And part of that was

interacting with the President's

Cabinet, who were all in the

line of succession for the

Presidency.

And part of that is getting read

into all those programs and

having the security clearance

to do that.

And there were many times during

the course of my work in the

White House that I would have a

hard time going to sleep.

But I remember probably the

hardest time I had going to

sleep was the night after I had

spent two and a half hours

being read into that program.

And thinking, you know, "Look,

I'm but a staff person."

I just couldn't imagine being

the President and having to be

in charge of all this.

It was, uh, pretty sobering.

Narrator:
But underground

bunkers and doomsday plans only

serve as defensive strategies.

What about the President's

military options?

What kinds of super-secret

weapons does he have at his

disposal?

And could a book of secrets

suggest when and how the most

powerful man in America might

unleash the world's deadliest

forces?

Narrator:
In writing an

entry into a book of secrets,

would a President include

information about secret

briefings by intelligence

agencies, in which covert

operations and highly

classified weapons systems

might be revealed?

Six days a week, the nation's

chief executive chairs the

National Security session, where

he is briefed on all of the

intelligence issues threatening

the United States.

At each of these meetings, CIA

officers pass along the

President's daily briefing, or

PDB.

This top-secret document

recounts and analyzes what

intelligence agents are doing

around the world.

(Michael Chertoff) You might

think of it a little bit like a

magazine, a small loose-leaf

book. Maybe 15 or 20 pages,

not necessarily each page a

full-length page, different

articles, that covers various

topics.

And, I think, depending on the

day of the week, there would be

an emphasis on one kind of topic

rather than another.

Hayden:
It is not

relentlessly negative, but it

rarely celebrates life.

It's a book about the issues

and the problems of the day.

Chertoff:
It can be anything

from a very specific tactical

issue that arises imminently,

to something that's a somewhat

more long-term strategic look

at a particular problem.

Hayden:
Every Thursday,

I went to see the President.

In addition to the PDB, I gave

the President an operational

briefing on what CIA was doing.

The majority of that was covert

action-- that's activity

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