The 'John Wayne Saloon': How day drinking went undetected at one of America's top military bases

 WASHINGTON – The email arrived in the middle of a workday: Are you thirsty?

What followed was an afternoon drink at the “John Wayne Saloon,” an invitation-only tavern operating unknown to senior commanders inside the headquarters of the U.S military command center critical to defending the homeland and keeping Americans safe.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, is located at Peterson Space Force Base, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs. It stands watch 24/7 defending the United States and Canada from attack by adversaries such as China, Russia and North Korea.

The day drinking at an installation tasked with safeguarding U.S. national security was worrying. The clandestine ''saloon'' at a base charged with crucial national security responsibility triggered alarms at high levels and led to the changes on site after USA TODAY raised questions.

A keypad with a code restricted access to the clandestine tavern, named after a poster of the iconic actor that was affixed to a door. No cellphones allowed. Inside the room in Building 2, six or seven bottles of top-shelf liquor, including bourbon and whisky, awaited. Nearby, lieutenant colonels and majors planned future NORAD operations. Also at hand: computers with access to the Pentagon’s secret email system.

The official who received the email left after one drink in the middle of 2022. Like several others interviewed by USA TODAY about daytime drinking at the command, the official spoke on condition of anonymity fearing reprisal. All of the officials, a mixture of uniformed and civilian, expressed unease, dismay or disgust at presence of alcohol and drinking at the command. It was designed, as one of the officials put it, to protect America from “its worst day.”  

Based on your inquiry, what I did was immediately direct a walkthrough of all spaces in the command with the intent to corroborate any of the allegations," VanHerck said in an interview Wednesday. "We did find the John Wayne poster outside a door. Behind the locked door, what we found was an office space with a refrigerator that did contain some alcohol. We did find some beer...some hard liquor."

VanHerck described the setting as a standard office rather than a bar. It has about six desks, a medium-sized conference table, storage for books and a refrigerator. "This facility did have access to classified networks for planning purposes," he said.

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The presence of alcohol was "certainly something that was concerning enough to me to direct a commander's-directed investigation.''

The investigation will determine if drinking inside the headquarters affected national security, VanHerck said.

So far, the general said, "I don't sense any compromise."