There are stories that even if they are separated in time or geographically future developments somehow linked them in an unexpected way. Especially true if these are connected to well-kept state and national secrets. They show or imply places hiding under our feet, above our heads, and all over the world, spending or passing most of the time undetected and hiding their existence. The necessity of safe and secure transport for some leaders most likely triggered their design. Some of these special locations are not easy to access while for others we can only speculate.
One of them was Track 61 the secret train platform that Franklin D. Roosevelt used to enter the Waldorf-Astoria. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who most famously used the secret entrance, did so in part to hide his disability from the public. To be more precise we are talking of underground space, which still houses the tracks, the train car, and even the private elevator. In this underground space, everything was made so large that it could even fit entirely FDR's armor-plated Pierce Arrow car. It would then drive off the train, onto the platform, and straight into the elevator.
The story starts the September of 1929 when the NY Times reported on the new hotel's private railway siding underneath the Waldorf-Astoria. Among others, it stated that: "Guests with private rail cars may have them routed directly to the hotel instead of to the Pennsylvania Station or the Grand Central Terminal, and may leave their cars at a special elevator which will take them directly to their suites or the lobby. The arrangement is made possible because the New York Central tracks pass directly beneath the block, which has been obtained by the Hotel Waldorf-Astoria Corporation from the New York Central Railroad on a sixty-three-year leasehold, the lease being in reality only for the "air rights" on the site."
But it was first used by General Pershing in 1938.
Track 61 at one end, is found behind a locked door on 49th Street from where FDR's car would exit and head to the hotel garage. Rumours for the FDR's limousine lifted up and then backed out into the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria existed. One story says that Franklin D. Roosevelt after a full day of campaigning ended with a speech at the Waldorf. He took the hotel's elevator 'and proceeded via New York Central tools to the New York Central Railway siding, located in the basement of the hotel, where his car had been spotted.
To be accurate, we must mention the famous Grand Central Terminal, a building constructed in 1913 with the wealth of the Vanderbilt family. One of the most infamous secrets of the terminal, however, was secret Track 61 leading to the special platform used specifically for a president to access. Track 61, was never used or intended to be used in regular passenger service. But take into consideration that all the surrounding buildings of Grand Central tracks sit on top of it since it occupies 49 acres of below-ground land including the Waldorf Astoria Hotel from 49th Street to 50th Street between Park and Lexington avenues.
But on the eastern side of Europe stands the Moscow Kremlin, the largest surviving fortress on the continent associated with many secrets. Rumors are circulating about hidden treasures, hidden bunkers and/or secret passageways. Besides Ivan's the Terrible library, even rumors of a secret Metro exist.
In the United States, the Department of Defence released a report in 1991 entitled "Military Forces in Transition". Several pages of the report were related to a secret government underground facility in Moscow. It mentioned approximately that: "The Soviets have constructed deep-underground both in urban Moscow and outside the city. These facilities are interconnected by a network of deep interconnected subway lines that provide a quick and secure means of evacuation for the leadership. The leadership can move from their peacetime offices through concealed entryways in protective quarters beneath the city. There are important deep-underground command posts in the Moscow area, one located at the Kremlin. The Soviet press has noted the presence of an enormous underground leadership bunker adjacent to Moscow State University. These facilities are intended for the national command authority in wartime (...)".
Next year, in the summer of 1992, the author and screenwriter Vladimir Gonik published a novel in the literary and journalistic magazine Yunost ('Юность') entitled Preispodniaia ('Преисподняя'). It had to do with an underground bunker in Moscow perhaps part of the so-called Metro-2. The purpose of the secret Metro was to support the leadership of the Politburo and the Central Committee of the CPSU, as well as their families in case of war. According to the author at the beginning of the 1970s, the secretary-general of the CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev, had personally visited this installation.
He had also declared that the term "Metro-2" had been presented to them for the first time and that the novel had been written from this information collected. Dmitry Gayev, former Moscow metro chief, also remarked in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia. "There is a lot of talk about the existence of secret transport tunnels. I will not deny anything. I would be surprised if they weren't there."
Questioned about the aim to transport passengers he said that "it is not for me to decide, but for those organizations on whose balance these objects are located."
The ex-chief was not the only one. In 2008, Mikhail Poltoranin, a minister under Boris Yeltsin at the beginning of the 1990s, also remarked ."This is an extensive network of tunnels and an emergency command centre in case of war, where you can command the nuclear forces of the country. It can hide a lot of people - its maintenance was necessary. I know that the "Metro-2" has branches that go to the suburbs so that the command could move away from the epicentre of a nuclear attack."
But to be fair and equitable, Metro-2 an underground transport system created for mobilization purposes exists. It is similar to Moscow's public metro (known as Metro-1 in comparison with Metro-2). The underground transportation system was reportedly built, or at least begun, during the time of Joseph Stalin and was coded D-6 by the KGB. Strictly speaking, it is an underground rail line with electric locomotives whose length is supposed to exceed that of the public metro.
The designers of Metro-2 aimed to ensure emergency transport links between the most important defence and government facilities in Moscow. It permitted a successful evacuation of staff from state structures in the event of an attack. It is said to connect the Kremlin with the KGB headquarters and Stalin's Kuntsevo Dacha on the outskirts of Moscow.
Indeed, at the time of Stalin, who was very afraid of assassination attempts, there was an underground railway line with a single track connecting the Kremlin with Stalin’s dacha. Part of Metro-2 might be located beneath the Kremlin, from where the line goes to Stalin's Kuntsevo Dacha. Some sources also report upgrades and repairs of electric locomotives used on the secret metro line.
Many stories have since been published around the world regarding the secrets of Moscow Metro 2 and Manhattan Track 61 independently. But one of them, a scenario with the title The Warfarin Project more specifically, combines and relates both in the same assignation story. This scenario describes and proposes a plot for the assassination of Stalin developed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and executed at Stalin's datcha in the Kuntsevo of the Soviet Union. This scenario also proposes "warfarin" as the poison for Stalin's assassination.
But to what extent does that scenario approach reality?