Continuity of Government: The Government That Keeps Operating When the Public Can No Longer See It

On July 13, 1987, during the Iran-Contra hearings broadcast across the United States, Representative Jack Brooks asked Colonel Oliver North about something that was not directly part of the arms-for-hostages scandal. Brooks asked whether North had ever been assigned to work on continuity-of-government plans for a major disaster. Attorney Brendan Sullivan objected. Chairman Daniel Inouye said the question touched a "highly sensitive and classified area" and asked Brooks to stop. Brooks replied that he had read about an emergency plan that could suspend the U.S. Constitution. The exchange ended on live television.

Continuity of Government, usually called COG, means keeping essential government functions operating when war, an attack, or a disaster interrupts normal work. The goal itself is a real policy. The REX 84 rumour goes further. It says FEMA, the National Security Council, and emergency planners prepared a structure that could replace ordinary government: preselected people, relocation sites, private communications, protected records, and the power to detain or control civilians after a president declared an emergency.