4.
At this point, it is time to discuss the first generation of bunkers and national redoubts, from before the Sino-Soviet war. The most expansive set of these was in Switzerland, where defensive projects had been initiated in the late 19th Century, as a part of the new Swiss policy of neutrality. These bunker systems had seen their greatest expansion up to this point during World War II, where the Swiss planned to fight a war on all sides against the surrounding Axis powers.
The Swiss Alps were extensively tunneled and built upon, producing networks of gun emplacements and infantry fighting positions, as well as concealed supply depots, field hospitals, and barracks. By the late 1960s, many of these fortifications had been somewhat stagnant, as Switzerland no longer feared invasion, but the militarization and bunkerization of Swiss society continued, and even accelerated, in this time. The original mountain holdouts were intended for infantry units to use, and in 1963 this policy would be expanded to the general population, with a requirement that all newly constructed residences must include a bomb shelter, with protection against nuclear fallout. By 1969, this system was just beginning to take shape, but it was unequaled anywhere in the world. Most of these domestic bunkers were rudimentary but complete, with blast doors, air filtration systems, and emergency supplies.
The Swiss government also began to construct public fallout shelters of varying sizes. Large government buildings and public areas were equipped with bunkers, and plans were drawn up to convert major pieces of infrastructure into shelters. Similar programs also started in Sweden and Norway in the 1960s, but these paled in comparison to the Swiss system, which set the world standard.
Albania had a similarly broad system of bunkers, although its general bunkerization only began in 1967, four years after the Swiss program. In contrast to the Swiss objective of protecting the general population from invasion or nuclear war, the Albanian bunker network was designed to help mobilize the population and defend territory. This was driven by Hoxha’s paranoia, especially about the neighboring Yugoslavia, and the bunkers were designed to be mostly manned by militia members and other irregulars.
The most common types of Albanian bunker at this time, the QZ (“firing position”) series bunkers, were something like large, reinforced concrete igloos, with a slot in the side to fire out of. Their dome shape was designed to deflect artillery shells, bombs, and gunfire. These bunkers were prefabricated and shipped out to their installation locations, where they would be partly buried. These were accompanied by the larger, also dome shaped, PZ (“firing point”) bunkers, which were assembled on-site from prefabricated segments. These bunkers were staffed by regular military and acted as command positions. These field bunkers had no air filtration or provision against airborne weapons, but they were truly durable. Hoxha’s government also worked on more secretive projects, producing the more familiar underground tunnel fortifications. Because of the extreme secrecy of Hoxha’s government (including rotating out engineers and workers and the later destruction or loss of nearly all records) it is impossible to determine how many of these bunkers were constructed by the year 1969.
…
Esad’s head ached. The air in the mineshaft was warm and stale, and he could feel the pressure in his ears and face. The rough rock walls and ceiling were not too close, and he could walk upright without trouble. The lighting was dim, but present, and the incandescent lamps colored the walls with a golden glow as they reflected off droplets of water.
His job was to push loads of rock, blasted and carved from the walls of the tunnel, along long rails to the surface. Esad didn’t mind the work, but he hated going in and out of the mountain. When he pushed the cart to the surface, he got a few minutes of glorious sunlight, until he was given a fresh cart and herded back inside.
He strained against the minecart, pushing the heavy bin of rocks on rusted tracks. His whole body was sore everywhere, and his joints ached from the moment he woke up to the moment he fell asleep. But he could still move, and he didn’t need to be coordinated to push a cart. He just needed to keep moving, until they let him go home.
He knew that it could be dangerous, so he never asked a soul, but Esad wondered what the mountain was being dug out for. They had taken him in the back of a sealed truck, with no windows. The other laborers had been confused, but nobody had spoken. They had all heard that some people were taken away for work assignments. Most people came home after a month or two. Some never reappeared. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together, and to see that a temporary assignment might become all too permanent if they asked too many questions.
The actual mineshaft was rammed right into the side of the mountain, sloping only slightly down. And Esad couldn’t figure out what they were mining. He carried rock out, but he never saw any ore or coal or anything special. After months of work, he started to wonder if the mine was its own purpose, digging just to have an underground space to work with. Or to punish those sent there.
He reached the surface, blinking in the sunlight. A guard carrying a rifle gestured to him to let go of his first cart, and to grab another, and he obeyed. No words were spoken, and none were needed.
Esad meandered slightly on the way back down, savoring the fresh air even as the light caused his eyes to ache. But he didn’t wait too long. He knew that the guard might shoot him, or never let him go home. He kept moving.
Going down the slight slope while pushing a cart was, in some ways, a slower and more difficult process than pushing a full one uphill. If he got distracted or slipped, the cart could roll away from him. The guards wouldn’t care, but one of the other workers might get hurt.
Esad wasn’t the only person pushing carts, either. He passed an old, impossibly thin man, pushing a cart up to the surface. He averted his eyes. That might be his future, forced to push rocks back and forth, forever.
The working day was long, but he had some understanding of time’s progression from going to the surface across the day. When the guards called everyone to the surface, some of the workers seemed dazed. They were probably the miners, who would spend countless hours swinging picks under the watchful eyes of the guards. Now, the workers were being counted, and their tools were being catalogued. Esad had been present, when a worker had killed himself in some side tunnel, and the entire camp had been searched top to bottom even after his corpse turned up.
After count, they went to dinner, filing into a long wooden shelter. Esad shuffled through the line, and was handed a bowl full of truly abominable, flavorless gruel. Still, Esad ate greedily, and he was provided with plenty. The temporary laborers ate first, and the true prisoners were held separately. They were given less. The two groups ate at long tables, under the watchful eye of the Sigurimi. Then, after eating, the bowls were counted, and they were sent to their bunks. Another shabby wooden building, piles of hay on wood frames. Esad had once heard from a prisoner, out of earshot of the guards, who had told him that this wooden building had been built by the prisoners, who were moved from mine to mine. Esad had listened but said nothing. It was always safer to say nothing.
He fell asleep as soon as he laid down. The next morning, he was awoken by the sound of a guard shouting, and he shook himself upright. The workers were herded towards a latrine pit, and then to morning count, then breakfast. Even shivering in the morning, he tried to savor the sunlight and the morning air, and the smell of the woods.
After breakfast, nearly identical to dinner the night before, the workers were sent back into the mine. Esad had been there for almost two months, and he expected to be sent home before too long. This had happened to other people from his town, and they’d always come back before the two-month mark if they came back at all. And like them, he knew that he wouldn’t tell a soul about what he’d seen.
Days of back-breaking labor passed slowly but quickly. Esad took it one day at a time, focusing only on what he was doing, and ignoring what he had done. Each day, in the morning count, some names were called, and those workers were led away. No explanation was provided, but Esad had paid close attention. Prisoners were never called. The laborers that were brought in after Esad had not been called.
One morning, he was one of the laborers called away. He was loaded onto a truck, and a guard walked up, rattling off lines that he had clearly said dozens, if not hundreds, of times before.
“Your service to the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania is appreciated. Your time will be fittingly compensated. The work you have done is vital to the security of the Albanian people and should be kept in the tightest secrecy.”
The soldier raised a fist to his chest in salute, and then closed the back of the truck. The ride back was long and bumpy, but unlike on the way out, the laborers started talking. There were no guards in the back of the truck, but Esad still felt like it was risky, so he kept quiet.
One young man, who Esad remembered being another cart-hauler, started speaking. His words echoed in the dimly lit truck, ventilated only by small holes high in the walls.
“I’ve worked in mines before, and I don’t think that we were hauling any real ore.”
An old man, sitting across from him, nodded. “I agree. All that was worthless rock, just tailings that any mine would throw away. If there is any mineral vein down there, that mine is a long way from reaching it. I think that they were having us dig a bunker, probably for the military. They are always building bunkers.”
Esad decided to speak up. “I am sure it will help keep us safe.” Saying how loyal you were was usually a good move, and he got a round of increasingly enthusiastic agreements from around the truck.
The young man nodded. “Comrade Hoxha does put a lot of focus on security!”
The conversation died down after that, and they rode most of the way in silence. Esad drifted in and out of consciousness, before sleeping heavier than he ever had before coming to that godforsaken mine.
…
The main NATO and Warsaw Pact nations had large command-and-control bunkers for their government and military leaders. These bunkers were individually quite large but could hold only very small numbers of people overall. Records on these projects are spotty and unclear, and many of the bunker projects that are about to be mentioned may or may not be fabrications, rumors, or exaggerations of real projects, except where noted.
In the United States:
“Project Greek Island”/ “The White House Bunker”/ Federal Relocation Arc: It is almost certain that the US federal government operated a bunker (or several bunkers) somewhere in the region around Washington D.C., to ensure the survival of congress, the president, the Supreme Court, and other key figures. The location of this bunker is, however, still unknown. Leaked documents do show that at least one such bunker existed in 1969, and more dubious sources call the system “Project Greek Island”, but this name has never been confirmed. It is probable that the original bunkers still exist but have been integrated into later projects or decommissioned.
NYSE Nuclear Defense Facility: Very persistent rumors have existed, since around the 1960s, that the New York Stock Exchange operates a nuclear bunker (or series of nuclear bunkers) in New York City, to shelter financial records as well as wealthy individuals from a global thermonuclear war. These rumors have no substantiation from that time period, but bunkers with similar purposes were later confirmed to be real.
Cheyenne Mountain Complex: Cheyenne Mountain complex was one of the earliest acknowledged nuclear bunkers of the US government, hosting US Air Force and missile command operations. In 1969, the bunker consisted of a large facility inside of a reinforced cavern, deep within the mountain. This facility was designed with a special shock-isolation system to protect from nearby nuclear strikes and was equipped with multiple heavy blast doors and a “blast redirection tunnel”. The facility has evolved and grown significantly over the years since 1969, but it was still a very large facility then.
Site R: This bunker, like Cheyenne mountain, hosted military facilities in 1969, although information on them is far more limited. It is known that nuclear command-and-control systems were based out of the site, and that it was built deep underground in the 1950s. Like Cheyenne mountain, the facility would be expanded significantly in the years after 1969.
High Point Special Facility: It is unclear if this bunker existed in the year 1969, but it is known to have existed later. If it did exist in the 1960s, its mission was likely the same as it was later; to secure high-value equipment and important non-governmental personnel in the event of a nuclear attack.
Area 51 Secure Facility: Rumors have circulated since the 1950s about ‘Area 51’, a US government site near Groom Lake, Nevada. The area’s features and government installations are very secret, and so rumors are the main source of information. Aside from persistent stories of aliens, some believe that the US government has a secret facility deep underground in this area.
Bilderberg Bunker: It is rumored that the Bilderberg Group (along with most other groups of powerful people) has a secret bunker somewhere in the United States. This has never been confirmed, but the rumor has existed since the 1960s. It is known today that most billionaires and millionaires do have private bunker complexes, which merits this hypothesis’s inclusion on this list.
In the Soviet Union:
The Moscow Metro: The Moscow Metro was originally built with a secondary role as a bomb and fallout shelter for the public during World War II, with many stations deep underground and possessing blast doors. These bunkers were originally built under Stalin, who was worried about both conventional and nuclear attacks, and the system was expanded as the metro grew over time. This system is still in operation today.
Metro-2: It is generally believed by the US intelligence community and private researchers that a subsection of the Moscow Metro is dedicated to sheltering government officials, possibly including a secret, deeper metro line that connects different nuclear bunkers in the Moscow region. A few sites that were rumored to be connected to the Metro-2 have been confirmed to exist, but the system itself remains an unconfirmed rumor. Claims range from whole cities underground to handfuls of bunkers and a single rail line, which seems more plausible for the 1960s. It is believed that the Soviet government sheltered here during the Red War.
Underground Closed Cities: A persistent rumor, beginning in the 1940s in conspiratorial circles but reaching the mainstream in the 1970s, that the Soviet Union constructed large, underground closed cities in the Urals, to protect strategic personnel from spies and nuclear attack. No facilities of this type are known to have existed in the 1960s. This is another rumored Soviet government site during the Red War.
In China:
Beijing Underground City: The construction of a massive nuclear bunker and fallout shelter under Beijing was ordered by Mao at some point during the 1960s, but the date of completion for this bunker remains unclear. When completed, the bunker could hold more than a million people and included many amenities, as well as significant space for food storage.
Hubei Defense Complex: It is known that a large bunker was built, starting in the 1960s, in the Hubei region in central China. This bunker was constructed for military purposes, most likely including sheltering the leaders of the Chinese military in the event of a nuclear war. The exact details are unclear, but it is known that this facility was not completed in the year 1969.
“Maobunker”/CPC Bunker: Mao made use of a bunker somewhere near Beijing during the Red War. The exact location of this bunker is unknown, but based on Mao’s movements, it can be inferred that it was somewhere in the Hebei, Shandong, or Henan area, or possibly in Beijing itself. It is believed, but not confirmed, that other major figures in the Communist Party of China, including Lin Biao, sheltered there as well.
In addition to these major bunkers, most countries possessed small bunkers for the use of leaders in case of emergency by 1969. Many private citizens would also construct bunkers, especially after the 1961 release of
Fallout Protection in the United States and the 1964 release of
Civil Defence Information Bulletin in the United Kingdom. During the Red War itself, many people created hap-hazard, improvised shelters. Newspaper images showed collapsed shelters, which claimed the lives of 13 people in 1969. Around this time, companies cropped up around the world, offering their services in constructing bunkers. Some of these companies were highly reputable, and a few wealthy people constructed shelters rivaling those of world governments, but other companies sold snake oil and produced poorly made structures. Many fallout shelters would be destroyed without ever seeing use, by corrosion and weathering.
In 1969, a bunker for four people cost more than the median American’s salary, but many families splurged on bunkers or built their own, with an estimated 500,000 bunkers being constructed in the year 1969 in the United States. Other countries got in on the craze as well, with European countries other than Switzerland and Albania building around 500,000 bunkers in total, and Switzerland constructing around 300,000 bunkers that year. In total, these bunkers could theoretically provide shelter for a population of 5.2 million people, assuming they held an average of four people each, but this was still far too few to protect the public in the event of a nuclear attack. The seeds of the modern national redoubt were just then being sown.