Continuity of Government

The standing plan to replace the republic overnight. It was activated once.

The standing plans — successors, bunkers, emergency authorities — built from Truman onward and rebuilt under Reagan's NSDD-55 era, when exercises reportedly included suspending the Constitution under a program named REX 84 (surfaced, awkwardly, at the Iran-Contra hearings when Rep. Brooks asked North about it and was gaveled silent on national television — the transcript survives). On 9/11 the classified 'shadow government' activated: the Washington Post confirmed rotating cadres of executive officials living underground for months. The file's point is not that the plans exist — they should — but that their legal contents remain unreviewable, and the one glimpse came by accident.