It's 1965, and the Cold War
verges on nuclear conflict. The Soviet Union has escalated tensions,
threatening the West with annihilation. Patrolling the waters a few
miles outside Washington DC, USS Wright comes to life as vessel
and crew prepare for the unthinkable. Originally an aircraft carrier, this ship
has been transformed. Its vast flight deck, once lined with fighter jets ready for
combat, now hosts a forest of antennae and satellite dishes. These instruments
of communication have replaced the roar of jet engines with the silent buzz
of signals bouncing across the globe. A helicopter approaches, cutting through the
sky with urgency. It lands smoothly on the deck, now cleared of any aircraft but fully equipped
for its new role. Out steps President John F. Kennedy, immediately greeted by the
ship's commanding officer. Together, they move briskly inside, descending
into the bowels of the USS Wright. In the heart of the ship, a secure
room houses a bank of color-coded telephones. Each one is a direct line to a
different branch of the U.S. defense network, from the Pentagon to missile silos scattered
across the country. This array of phones stands ready to orchestrate a
unified response to any threat. Even deeper in the bowels of
the emergency operations center, there is a reinforced room shrouded in secrecy,
requiring a top-secret key code to enter. Before there were Doomsday
planes, there were Doomsday Ships, created to ride out nuclear apocalypse.
USS Wright was ready to do just that. With the creation of nuclear weapons at the end of
World War 2, the world changed forever, and soon, nations around the globe began to plan for the
unthinkable—ensuring the continuity of government operations and the survival of critical
figures in the case of nuclear Armageddon. For the United States, maintaining national
security in the nuclear age required a sophisticated strategy. This approach
was anchored in a triad of command posts: airborne, ground-based, and sea-based. Each element operated independently yet
was intricately linked to the others. Communications were a vital part of the strategic
plan, ensuring uninterrupted contact for national security among four critical command posts. This
network included two land-based command centers, one located within the Pentagon
and another in a military bunker in Pennsylvania and an airborne command
post operated by the U.S. Air Force. However, the least publicly known yet
wildly interesting component of this strategy was the National Emergency
Command Post Afloat, NECPA. For this, the Navy wanted sea-based ships set
to be on constant alert and ready to assume the role of a floating White House,
Pentagon equivalents, and mobile bunkers, ensuring the sea's governance and strategic
military command even in the direst of times. For this, the models had to have endless
communications, systems, weapons, facilities, and survival capabilities installed by the best
engineers and designers America had to offer. The first NECPA command ship, CC-1, was USS
Northampton, code-named Sea Ruler. Originally a heavy cruiser commissioned right after World War
2, the ship was adapted and reclassified for her new role and based in Norfolk, Virginia,
and within easy reach of the capital. A year after the Northampton began its
NECPA role, the time came for the Navy to add a second ''Floating White House'' to the
Fleet, and Navy top brass chose USS Wright, a Saipan-class light aircraft
carrier commissioned in 1947. Throughout her initial career, USS Wright acted
as a qualification carrier for training pilots, served the U.S. 6th Fleet as the
flagship for Carrier Division 14, engaged in NATO exercises with other
members, most notably the British Royal Navy, and even operated off Korea and Okinawa
with the 7th Fleet in the Pacific. However, in 1954, she departed Japanese waters
and headed towards the West Coast of the U.S., where she was decommissioned and
assigned to the Pacific Reserve Fleet. But in 1962, she got the ultimate chance at
a new life when she was towed to Washington State’s Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for
conversion. And while her predecessor, Northampton, was only minimally upgraded for
her NECPA duties since she was already due for replacement, the changes on Wright would be
done with unparalleled efficiency and depth. According to official records, this
extensive overhaul resulted in: [QUOTE] "the most sophisticated
communications platform ever placed at sea." For over a year, hundreds of workers secretly
performed extreme alterations to the ship in both function and appearance.
Reclassified as CC-2, USS Wright, code-named Zenith, was recommissioned on
May 11, 1963, in the midst of the Cold War, as the most important part of the
National Emergency Command Post Afloat. USS Wright was transformed into the
ultimate doomsday vessel within a year. A significant portion of what once was
the hangar deck space was redesigned into special command spaces and the extensive
electronic equipment they required. And the flight deck, instead of aircraft,
was now dominated by aerials, the tallest being a set of 156-foot masts equipped with
sophisticated troposcatter antenna arrays, the largest and most powerful transmitting antenna
systems ever installed on a United States Navy ship. A press release issued by the branch soon
after Zenith entered service stated: [QUOTE] "The Wright has the most extensive communications
facilities ever put aboard a ship. Its 'Voice of Command' can be heard by ships, aircraft,
and stations throughout the world." Within the ship was a specialized room
devoted solely to teletype machines, each capable of rapidly receiving messages
at a rate of 100 words per minute, integral to the efficient exchange
and processing of command data. Beyond these machines, the ship had
the latest communication technology, including over forty tons of gear
and sixty transmitters and receivers, matching the capabilities of large,
shore-based communications stations. According to the Navy, this state-of-the-art
communications system allowed USS Wright to set the world record for the fastest around-the-world
message, taking just eight-tenths of a second. However, the true power of the USS Wright
lay in her nuclear contingency capabilities. In case of a nuclear emergency, the President of
the United States and their closest aides would be escorted by the Marine Corps into helicopters
and taken into one of the two NECPA ships. Upon their arrival, Wright would transform
into a fortress at sea. Its decks, equipped with advanced air
filters, would close off, and powerful saltwater systems would cleanse
the ship of any nuclear contamination. Once inside, whatever was left of the United
States government and army branches would get to work below Wright's deck, where
a fully equipped operation center, with working spaces for up to 1,000
personnel, with rooms for war planning, charts, and graphics, briefings
and conferences, and more. Additionally, 17 officers and 22
enlisted personnel from the Joint Chiefs of Staff would also board to
manage the Floating White House in an emergency. These numbers could increase
to cope with different warfare scenarios. Meanwhile, the President was provided with an
elaborate stateroom akin to the Oval Office, equipped with, according to
writer Garrett M. Graff: [QUOTE] "nearly a dozen different color-coded
telephones linked to various parts of the country's military command structure." The ship's actual armament was relatively
simple. Northampton had a single aft turret, while Wright had several 40mm
anti-aircraft guns. However, some rumors state that they also retained
their anti-submarine warfare sensors. Under the motto 'Vox Imperii' or 'voice
of the leaders,' headed by the president, USS Wright would use all its features and advanced
antenna arrays to contact three specialized shore facilities, ensuring a continuous link
with the remaining U.S. military forces. If those stations happened to be destroyed
by the enemy, Wright had a backup plan that consisted of deploying up to three
unmanned QH-43 Huskie helicopters, a unique modified version that could lift a
low-frequency antenna over two miles into the air, which would then allow communication
with Navy submarines around the globe. The operating principle behind National
Emergency Command Post Afloat called for one of the TWP models to be at sea at all times,
with them rotating every fortnight. In practice, the NECPA ship in active service
would patrol around the eastern coast, operating within reasonable reach from the
capital or close to wherever the president was. For the next six years, USS
Wright operated out of Norfolk, Virginia, with regular overhauls that
continually improved her capabilities. Both President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon
B. Johnson spent nights aboard the Doomsday vessels during training exercises. After
an overnight stay in Northampton in 1966, the latter wrote to the ship's commander
regarding the program's importance: [QUOTE] "It was a great pleasure to have this
opportunity to visit with you and your crew and to see firsthand one of the
finest ships in the best Navy the world has ever known. You are performing a
role vital to our nation's defense, and your Commander in Chief is proud
of you, your crew, and your ship." In mid-April 1967, USS Wright laid at anchor
off the coast of Uruguay, providing a worldwide state-of-the-art communications capability
in support of President Lyndon B. Johnson's attendance at the Latin American
summit conference at Punta del Este. A year later, in May 1968, when the Guadalcanal
assault ship underwent a major malfunction and was dead in the water miles south of
Norfolk, Wright and her crew tracked, located, and towed the vessel nearly half of the
trek back before other ships arrived to help. In February 1968, when Pueblo, an American
Navy intelligence ship crewed by scientists, was attacked and captured by North Korean forces,
a major Cold War confrontation between the two nations ensued. With this, USS Wright, at the
time in Florida, was hurriedly recalled to Norfolk to be closer to President Johnson and
stood on alert as the situation de-escalated. But despite several near confrontations,
a major nuclear war never came. While this was good luck for the world, it
was not so for the NECPA program. Initially, in their service, the doomsday
NECPA ships were the Pentagon's first choice for a nuclear strike scenario,
where the survival of the president, their family, and their most
important staff was paramount. Other options, like facilities on land,
could easily fall target to a direct strike, while an airborne command post could
only have a limited amount of time in the air before it would have to land.
But the powerful floating White Houses could operate for weeks in the
sea, offering plenty more space. Also, at the time, the Soviet Navy was barely
just building up its blue-water capabilities, and the United States Navy
still reigned in the waters. However, in a matter of a few years, the
relentless advancement of military technology posed a new challenge. At the time Northampton
was first commissioned, the atomic bombs of the immediate postwar period were much less potent
than those developed and tested in the late 1960s. Then, both sides of the war perfected their use
of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, and these powerful new weapons and more destructive
capabilities, reducing warning time to 15 minutes. As the end of the decade approached,
advancements in Soviet spy satellites meant that the NECPA ships were no
longer safe from prying enemy eyes. Whether because of satellites or sneaky
shadow submarines, it became clear to the Pentagon that every minimal movement could
be tracked, becoming a much easier target. And when on April 17, 1967, the Strategic
Air Command, for the first time ever, successfully used a Eurocopter EC-135 aircraft
to launch an unarmed ICBM from its silo, this feat was a larger-than-life sign that the future
of the Doomsday Command post would be airborne. The writing for Northampton
and Wright was on the wall. Final Section In the mid-1960s, the United States government
considered converting the USS Triton, or a fellow Saipan-class ship like Wright, into a third
National Emergency Command Post Afloat model. Due to the advent of more modern
technology, the National Emergency Command Post Afloat project was canceled,
and the doomsday ships, which served the United States from 1962 until 1970, were
decommissioned by the United States Navy. The Pentagon's airborne prediction was correct,
and today, the job of these two now long-bygone ships is undertaken primarily by the United
States Air Force's fleet of E-4B aircraft. Referred to as Doomsday Planes
just like their waterborne cousins, the aircraft serve as an airborne command
post that offers the President of the United States and the Secretary of
Defense a platform to, if need be, initiate a nuclear strike. And just like the NECPA
ships, the models are equipped to support a range of other major military operations or respond to
other events like large-scale natural disasters. In service since the 1970s, the E-4B is now in the
early stages of being replaced by a new platform. While the model is most likely also to be based
on the iconic Boeing 747 airframe, new technology, not known to civilians yet, may protect the
American president better than NECPA ever could.
