NORAD war room bunker to close

The romance is gone.

Facing new enemies in a different kind of war, the Pentagon said Friday that it plans to move out of the famous war room that was built beneath a mountain here in the 1960s with enough concrete to survive a Soviet missile strike.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will transfer surveillance operations from Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center, an iconic Cold War venue depicted in such movies as "War Games" and "The Sum of All Fears," to an office building a dozen miles away at Peterson Air Force Base.

The Cheyenne Mountain war room, nesting more than 1,000 feet under the mountain and protected by iron blast doors weighing 30 tons apiece, is to be placed in a status the military calls "warm standby," which means it could be reopened in hours if a need arose.

Since 1966, U.S. and Canadian military personnel have staffed the complex's war room round the clock, roughly 200 at a time. Although the NORAD headquarters is secluded and reinforced, it has proved to be inconvenient.
Since 1966, U.S. and Canadian military personnel have staffed the complex's war room round the clock, roughly 200 at a time. Although the NORAD headquarters is secluded and reinforced, it has proved to be inconvenient...