Sounds like tonight’s Nightline will be worth watching.

“Nightline” expands on a book by James Mann that detailed the birth of the program, named “Continuity of Government,” during the Reagan administration. Under the plan, if the United States were facing a nuclear attack, three teams of 50 federal officials would be sent from Washington to locations across the country — each with a Cabinet member who was prepared to become president.

That is what happened on Sept. 11. “Questions were raised by talking heads about the president’s courage or lack of it because he didn’t return directly to Washington,” “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel said yesterday. “This was absolutely the Armageddon plan put into effect.”

Here’s the excerpt of Mann’s book from last month’s Atlantic Monthly