U.S. Had Secret Succession List, Network Says

WASHINGTON — A top-secret federal agency established by former President Ronald Reagan drew up a secret plan in the early 1980s to choose a President outside the constitutional line of succession if all legal successors were incapacitated, CNN reported Sunday.

Those included on an expanded succession list were Howard H. Baker Jr., the former Senate majority leader; the United Nations ambassador at the time, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, and former CIA director Richard M. Helms, the network said.

The National Program Office, nicknamed the Doomsday project, is designed to ensure the survival of a civilian constitutional government in the event of a nuclear war, but is riddled with fraud and abuse, CNN reported.

It said one of the key officials responsible for the project was White House aide Oliver L. North.

One of the program’s major responsibilities was to coordinate the evacuation of key government officials to bunkers, the report said.

No one at the White House or any of the departments reportedly connected with the NPO would comment, CNN said.