Deep Underground Command Center

The Deep Underground Command Center (DUCC) was a United States military installation that was proposed on January 31, 1962, to be "a very deep underground center close to the Pentagon, perhaps 3,000-4,000 feet down, protected to withstand direct hits by high-yield weapons and endure about 30 days in a post-attack period". The DUCC would have been built as "an austere 50-man … or an expanded 300-man version (with the former built to permit expansion into the latter, if desired)". It was designed to withstand multiple direct hits of 200 to 300 Megaton weapons bursting at the surface or 100 MT weapons penetrating to depths of 70-100 feet. Based on Strategic Air Command's Deep Underground Support Center (DUSC) planned near the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker, the DUCC plan was recommended to President John F. Kennedy for fiscal year 1965 funding shortly before his assassination, but the underground DUCC, SAC's DUSC, and NORAD's Super Combat Centers were never built. Other contemporary underground installations did see upgrades, such as the 1953 Site R which was "hardened further to about 140 psi blast resistance by 1963", or completion, such as the NORAD's Canadian bunker in 1963, and NORAD's Combat Operations Center & Space Defense Center in the Cheyenne Mountain bunker became operational in 1966.