JFK's Florida bunker may face a new threat
RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — The bunker where President John F. Kennedy would have been whisked if World War III erupted while he vacationed in Florida may face a bigger threat than Soviet missiles ever posed: a battle between its operators and the Port of Palm Beach.
The once top-secret fallout shelter, code name “Hotel,” and the retired Coast Guard station on Peanut Island are now a tourist attraction and the focal point of a long-running legal war between the port, which owns the island, and the Palm Beach Maritime Museum, which leases the attraction.
Anthony Miller, who operates the site for the museum, said the port's commission and Palm Beach County have blocked attempts to make the attraction financially stable. He said the commission thwarted a $500,000 grant last year. The county limited the number of weddings that can be performed at the picturesque Coast Guard boat house to three per year, down from 30, and banned the construction of a restaurant. The site's $200,000 annual maintenance budget is barely covered by admissions and donations, he said. The maritime museum's lease ($100 a year, plus 4 percent of gross sales) ends next year.
He said the port wants to tear down the facility, citing communications he says the museum has had with the commission.
“They have been trying to kick us off for 20 years by starving us of money,” Miller said.Greg Picken, the port commission's lawyer, said the port has no intention of razing the bunker or Coast Guard buildings, but hopes to find a better caretaker when the museum's lease expires. He said the museum's board is in disarray, citing lawsuits members have filed against each other. He said the $500,000 would have been “a drop in the bucket” compared to the millions in repairs he said the site needs and the museum has failed to make.Built in 10 days by Navy Seabees, the minimal, 1,600-square-foot bunker — the size of a small U.S. home — could have been the nerve center for U.S. and NATO forces if Soviet nuclear weapons had incinerated Washington and New York.
