SECRET AGENCY DEVISES PLAN FOR POST-ATTACK GOVERNMENT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100200001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: November 18, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

S1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100200001-9
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Secret Agency Devises Plan for Post-Attack Government
WASHINGTON (AP) - A super-secret agency run by the White House
devised an alternative plan of presidential succession if a nuclear
attack eliminated the national leadership, according to a televised
report.
In a one-hour telecast Sunday night, CNN's Special Assignment
team said the National Program office, or NPO, was authorized in a
secret 1982 directive issued by President Reagan and remains barely
known.
It said George Bush, then vice
of the office, and that White House nationalesecurws lc in ch
itypaidedOliverarge
L. North was instrumental in setting up the covert proj
he discussed briefly in his recently published book, '' UUndnd, ewhich
Fire.'' "r
The NPO's mission is make sure that a civilian leadership
remains in place after a nuclear attack. If all 17 officials in the
constitutional line of succession to the president are
incapacitated, CNN said, the plan provides for others - both
elected and non-elected officials, to take over.
It said that amon those in the alternative succession Pool at
one time were former i e House c ie o sta f Howard Baker
ormer CIA Direc o
R
r
ic ar He ms ormer U.N. Ambassador Jeanne
Kir pa rlc an ormer Ene?r w
me office devised a network of un11kersJandemonlee~shelters for
use by the top leadership in the event of attack, spending $8
billion on the Presidential Support System that included a
nuclear-resistant communications system, CNN said. It said that as
recently as last winter, officials could not get the system to
work.
The House Armed Services Committee and the Army began
investigating contract irregularities in the NPO in 1987, CNN said.
Tom Golden, then with NPO, told the network that after cooperating
with investigators, he himself became the subject of four separate
probes, which the committee and the Army determined was
retaliation.
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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100200001-9