Greenbrier President Ted Kleisner wanted to take a crack at persuading a reporter not to break the secret of the luxury hotel's congressional fallout shelter. But the government refused to back his hand.
The scenario, which resembled something out of pulp fiction, began in 1992 when Ted Gup, a Time magazine reporter, asked the Greenbrier for a room reservation so he could write a travel story for The Washington Post.But he wanted a room in the hotel's West Virginia Wing, which had been built specifically to hide the elaborate underground bunker. Since "no one ever requests that," Kleisner said, the hotel checked out Gup's background.
It discovered he was "a respected journalist and attorney" who already had written a story about a similar presidential retreat at Mount Weather in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains 50 miles northwest of Washington.
When Gup checked in, his first question was whether the Greenbrier had a nuclear fallout shelter.
"I told him that was preposterous," Kleisner said, "although it was obvious Gup had a lot of information." After more verbal sparring, Gup noted that "I have spiked (killed) stories that would hurt national security."
"I sensed he had a lot of red, white and blue about him and we wanted to bring him in because we felt he would spike the story for patriotic reasons," Kleisner said, "but the government would not agree."
Kleisner was assured by top congressional aides that the story would "be a non-event that won't be noticed by anyone outside the Beltway. Don't worry about it."
Brent Scowcroft, President Bush's national security adviser, did appeal to Post CEO Katharine Graham not to publish the story. She replied, "Don't worry. We'll do what we believe is right."
Gup's story, crammed with details, ran in the Post's Sunday magazine on May 31, 1992, leading to the bunker's deactivation in 1995.
"And I came off as one of the least believable liars in the world," Kleisner said.
But Gup's triumph wasn't undiluted. The Post's afternoon rival, The Washington Times, learned about the story and ran a much shorter, less detailed version two days before the Post.
Fritz Bugas, the former government official who was in charge of the shelter and now a Greenbrier consultant, clearly has never forgiven the Post. Speaking of Ted Gup, the reporter who disclosed the bunker's existence, Bugas said: "I feel that Ted did a great disservice."