XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX 03/05/99 02:41:08 UTC XXXXX
CAMERAS WATCH LOS ANGELES STREETS, SECRET UNDERGROUND BUNKER HOUSES COMMAND
CENTER
**Exclusive**
Under L.A., ready for Y2K! Five stories below the Federal Building in
downtown Los Angeles there is a secret computer command center -- a command
center that has enough power, food and water to sustain 50 people for two
years!
The DRUDGE REPORT has learned, the bunker, named ATSAC [Automated Traffic
Signal And Control], would become a high-tech command center used to monitor
any civil unrest during a Y2K breakdown!
The compound is reached by a secret elevator located on the parking level of
the Federal Building.
In order to gain access to the ATSAC area you must pass through 4 bank-style
vault doors.
The city's high-tech bunker has been designed to survive a San Andreas rip
and a nuclear explosion.
The main area of the complex is a large space with one 180 degree
semi-circular wall stretching along one half of the room.
Feeling and looking like a STAR TREK set, the lower work area has dozens of
computer consoles, which will be powered by diesel fuel generators if power
is cut.
The upper wall is filled with two rows of 40 large flat panel display
screens -- screens that monitor views from remote controlled cameras placed
throughout the Los Angeles area.
"These cameras are our eyes," one government source tells the DRUDGE REPORT.
One camera pans across the infamous Florence and Normandy intersection. One
camera is mounted on the South East corner of the MTA building; another is
on the North West. One camera is at the corner of Caesar Chavez and Vignes
looking out on the intersection by the new city jail.
One camera placed on the roof of a 28-story building has demonstrated
dramatic zoom capabilities. With the camera, you could spot a pimple on
someone's face on street level.
The DRUDGE REPORT has not been able to learn how many cameras have been
placed throughout the city, but most appear to be mounted on public buildings.
The city council and the mayor would ride out a social breakdown episode
inside of ATSAC, according to one emergency plan.
Suggestions that officials should be moved to the bunker before New Years
Day Y2K, so far, have been met with complete resistance.
"Nobody in their right mind wants to watch the dawn of a new century from
five floors below Los Angeles," laughed one well-placed City Hall source.
The bunker, built with local and federal tax revenue, is strictly off limits
to the general public.
X X X X X
GORE/GEFFEN 2000 HIT CONVENTION SNAG
Don't print the LA 2000 T-shirts and buttons yet. Los Angeles' bid to host
the Democratic National Convention next year has run into "difficulty," the
BOSTON GLOBE is set to report on Friday.
According to publishing sources, the paper will report that Republican Mayor
Richard Riordan does not want to be liable for raising $35 million to host
the convention!
The GLOBE reports: "Riordan has urged the DNC to sign a contract with the
businessmen spearheading the city's bid -- billionaire Eli Broad,
entertainment industry mogul David Geffen, and Los Angeles lawyer William
Wardlaw.
"But the DNC has always signed its convention contract with a government
executive, not a group of private citizens, according to several people
familiar with the process."
Washington sources say that Vice President Al Gore is not likely to let
California [54 electorals] slip, a deal will soon be seeled.
X X X X X
KISSINGER TELLS 60 MINUTES THAT NIXON ORDERED BOMBING TO SHOW OFF
Henry Kissinger tells 60 MINUTES on Sunday that Richard Nixon once ordered
the bombing of Damascus, Syria. Why? To impress friends! Kissinger opens
up to CBS' Lesley Stahl. When President Nixon wanted to show off, he played
tough guy by barking out wild orders -- including, at least on one occasion,
an order to bomb Damascus, Syria -- that he never really meant to have
executed, Kissinger tells Stahl. The Pentagon had even moved ships into
place, according to Kissinger. "And the next day... he didn't want to hear
of it anymore." Apparently, Kissinger never took seriously his former boss'
reference to him as "my Jew-boy" heard on Nixon's White House tapes.
Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, tells Stahl the slur was just
more bravado. "That's definitely another one of these things that if you
knew Nixon, I don't take all that seriously....That was showing off to his
Orange County buddies."
X X X X X
WIRE QUEEN THOMAS KNOCKS HILLARY
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton seems to have a rule not to answer any
press questions, reports UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL veteran Helen Thomas in
her Backstairs at the White House column filed for weekend release.
"Mrs. Clinton has a lot of hang-ups about the press... she ignores even the
simplest inquiry as if it was an intrusion."
Thomas: "When a newsman covering the Clintons at a ski resort in Park City,
Utah, asked the president's wife if she had a good run, she rebuffed him and
turned her face away... The first lady is going to have to come to terms
with the press if she really wants to make a run for a post on Capitol Hill.
Her role model was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, up to Clinton's time the most
aloof of modern first ladies, but then "Jackie" did not seek public office,
which demands public accountability and answers."
"When she walks to a waiting helicopter with the president, she always wears
dark glasses and stares straight ahead, ignoring reporters when a little
wave and a smile would help..." notes Thomas.
Thomas reports that Mrs. Clinton has had a lot of spiritual advice in the
post Monica Lewinsky healing period and seems to be "calling all the shots
from a much subdued and chastened president."
FOOTNOTE: "I think we now have an imperial presidency," former Clinton
adviser Dick Morris recently explained. "Hillary, Sidney and the others,
bring him food and water twice a day."
----------------------------------------------------
Filed by Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for steaks and breaks
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 1999
Not for reproduction without permission of the author
