Paul Bugas, Director of a Secret Doomsday Bunker, Is Dead at 96

New York Times

09-07-2025

Paul Bugas, who directed operations at a secret doomsday bunker, hidden beneath an opulent resort in West Virginia and intended to shelter members of Congress in the event of a Cold War-era nuclear attack, died on July 1 in Richmond, Va. He was 96.
His death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by his daughter Nancy Del Presto.
In 1971, after serving in the military for 20 years, Mr. Bugas (pronounced BYOO-gus), known as Fritz, arrived at the Greenbrier Resort, nestled in the Allegheny Mountains in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., under the guise of being the regional manager of a company with the anodyne name Forsythe Associates.
He did, in fact, work part time as a technician for the shell company, providing cables, television sets and other electronics to the sprawling resort, where presidents, members of Congress and foreign dignitaries were regularly among the well-heeled guests. But Mr. Bugas's primary (if furtive) role was as the superintendent of an enormous bunker with the code name Project Greek Island, built to keep Congress functioning in the aftermath of nuclear war.
The shelter, roughly the size of an average Walmart store, was constructed between the late 1950s and 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis, the 13-day standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union over the presence of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
The bunker, set more than 700 feet into a hillside beneath the Greenbrier, was secured by blast doors, the largest of which weighed 28 tons; its reinforced concrete walls were two to three feet thick. It contained 1,100 beds stacked in rows of bunks; separate meeting halls for all 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate; a room that could serve as a joint chamber; and a cafeteria that could feed 400 at a time.
There was also a radio, television and communications center, along with a medical center that included a dental office and an operating room. One storage room held riot-control weapons. There was an incinerator that could serve as a crematory. There were also diesel and steam-powered generators, as well as water, air-conditioning and filtration systems, all designed to sustain the operation for 40 to 45 days.
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