United States government

The United States federal government was the main governing body of the United States of America before the Great War.

This article is a summary of the known information concerning the appearance and activity of the United States' federal government in the Fallout world, and, where applicable, elements or divisions of it adapted or continued by the Enclave.

Executive branch
In the years prior to the Great War, the executive branch was headed by the last President of the United States, who worked with his Cabinet. It included several departments and agencies with the intended goal of executing the laws of the country.
 * The "War Department" was active in 2077, according to the Maxson log.
 * The Department of Defense was headquartered at the Pentagon, which later became known as the Citadel, and employed contractors that worked with RobCo Industries.
 * It was also involved in the development of HERMES armor.
 * The Department of the Army, a subdivision of the department, authored and distributed the U.S. Covert Operations Manual, and was responsible for the South Boston military checkpoint. After the Great War, it became the Enclave's main military body.
 * The Department of Energy managed nuclear waste disposal in the U.S. at locations like federal disposal field HZ-21 and the Emmett Mountain disposal site. It also oversaw uranium mining operations in Appalachia at Blackwater mine.
 * The Atomic Energy Commission still existed in the year 2241 on the Enclave Oil Rig.
 * At least one federal department was responsible for foreign affairs and relations with other nations, as well as membership in the United Nations.
 * At least one federal department was responsible for the Internal Revenue Service, issuing war bonds.
 * According to the Fallout Bible, the IRS also was responsible for issuing vault bonds.
 * Federal departments responsible for sustaining land and wildlife:
 * Department of Agriculture, responsible for the United States Forest Service.
 * Department of the Interior, responsible for the National Park Service.
 * The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted federal law enforcement, in addition to confiscating and marking seditious books and magazines for burning. The BADTFL regulated alcohol, drugs, tobacco, firearms, and laser weaponry. The Secret Service protected the president before the Great War, and become a branch of the Enclave afterward.
 * The Unamerican Activities Force was also active in finding communists within America.
 * Other independent federal agencies included the United States Space Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Archives, and the Census Bureau.
 * The Environmental Protection Agency is mentioned in the Sierra mission statement but was cut from Fallout 2.
 * Some agencies with uncertain subordination include the Federal Fitness Registry, Civil Defense Administration and the National Catastrophe Relief Auxiliary. The "Department of Water and Power" dispelled rumors about water contamination in the event of a nuclear war, though it is unclear if this was part of the executive branch.
 * The Secretary of the Army was present in 2040.
 * According to the Van Buren tech demo plot, the federal government could exercise only limited power over the units of the U.S. Army. According to their names, at least some Armored Infantry Divisions actually belonged to the American commonwealths rather than the federal government, a situation similar to that of the state volunteer regiments raised by the states and placed into federal service during the American Civil War.

Judicial branch

 * Federal courts were closely connected to the penitentiary system of the United States. One such penitentiary, Tibbets Prison, was "committed to carrying out the judgments" of the federal courts.

Legislative branch

 * On February 15, 2075, both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted unanimously to impeach the President for jaywalking. However, this information comes from the Sierra Depot GNN transcript holodisk, which, in the Fallout Bible, is said to have been jokingly modified by bored soldiers at the Sierra Army Depot.
 * The complete books of the Library of Congress were packed in the G.E.C.K.
 * Congress was responsible for the affairs of the District of Columbia, including the District of Columbia Transit Authority.

Known Congressmen

 * Senator Sam Blackwell of West Virginia
 * Senator Burk
 * Senator Calvert of Maryland
 * Senator Clark
 * Senator Jon McDougall
 * Senator Todd Peterson
 * Senator Jody Sorreset

Enclave

 * Before the Great War, the Enclave acted as a covert branch of the legal U.S. government similar to a shadow government and intended to launch a coup d'état against the real U.S. government. Its members also acted as lobbyists for major American corporations like Vault-Tec, General Atomics International and RobCo.

Post-Great War succession
In March 2077, with the United States government prepared for a nuclear or biological attack from China, the President of the United States and the government and corporate officials who made up the secret shadow government known as the Enclave retreated to remote locations around the globe and made contingency plans for continuing the war against the Chinese.

The president went to Control Station ENCLAVE off the coast of San Francisco, which was later discovered by the Boston-based newspaper Boston Bugle. In the event of a nuclear war, this was intended to ensure the continuity of the U.S. government's leadership and the survival of the Enclave.

Before the war, the organization served as a shadow government within the legal federal government of the United States. Members of the Enclave were military hardliners who both embraced the idea of a nuclear war to rid the world of Communist influence and knew that the common man could not survive it. They believed that as long as the "important people" of the United States survived, they could regroup quickly and finally wipe out communism, and then build a better world without the threat posed by China or anyone else to the American way of life.

The Enclave established itself on an abandoned Poseidon Energy oil-drilling platform off the coast of California that was protected from the nuclear firestorm of 2077. By 2277, there was no U.S. government presence at federal government buildings such as the Pentagon and the Capitol, as the Capital Wasteland had no central political authority or law enforcement mechanism.

The constitutional status of the Enclave's President of the United States was questioned by the Brotherhood of Steel. Matthew, their representative in San Francisco, referred to President Dick Richardson as the "so-called President."

Enclave operations, 2077–2241
According to the Fallout Bible, presidential powers accorded to the leader of the Enclave were as follows:
 * Presidential orders could concern military research and data protection, such as in power armor research, while presidential directives could concern the Enclave's armed forces conditioning and testing programs, such as with the conditioning of Horrigan.
 * Presidential decisions could concern major scientific projects of the Enclave connected to military actions, as seen with procuring Vault 13 inhabitants as test subjects.

The president directly controlled the automatic Emergency Defensive Systems on the Enclave's oil-drilling platform. The Vice President of the United States was present on the Enclave's oil rig.

In the year 2220, Congressman Dick Richardson was elected president for his first term of four years (he would be elected to five), through the aid and political pressure provided by his father, a previous American president under the Enclave. It is not certain that, if Dick Richardson was the president in 2241, he was also the one elected in 2220, over twenty years before. However, it was possible, if under the Enclave a president could be reelected more than once to a new term.

A cabinet is mentioned in the address of the Project report from the United States Chemical Corps and the power plant operations report from the Enclave's Atomic Energy Commission. Its seat was the Executive Office on the Enclave's oil rig. The only known cabinet-level executive officer in the Enclave was the Vice President of the United States, the first person in the presidential line of succession.

There were some executive agencies present after the Great War, like the Secret Service, the Atomic Energy Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (also referred to as the United States Space Agency) and the Environmental Protection Agency. The United States Armed Forces were present and its Enclave patrols at the Navarro perimeter also acted as a border patrol.

No information about the pre-War judicial or legislative branch mirrored after the war is mentioned or provided in the games, except for the fact that courts-martial were performed by officers of the Enclave's armed forces.

After the destruction of the Enclave oil rig, 2242–2277
The destruction of the Enclave's oil-drilling platform off the coast of California in 2242, following the Chosen One’s assassination of the Enclave’s President of the United States, erased all trace of President Dick Richardson from history. However, some broken remnants of the Enclave survived and the commander of the remaining Enclave military forces was Augustus Autumn, who had risen to the rank of Colonel by 2277.

A new self-proclaimed president of the United States appeared, John Henry Eden, from the Raven Rock military base on the East Coast in the Capital Wasteland near the ruins of Washington, D.C. Despite the fact that some of the remnants of the Enclave government had survived after the destruction of the Enclave's oil rig in 2242, according to Eden, Colonel Autumn stated Eden was next in the line of succession. It is unknown if Eden was a member of President Richardson's cabinet.

President Eden ordered Colonel Autumn to relocate the Enclave's military forces from California to the Raven Rock base, as Eden is actually a pre-War artificial intelligence permanently located in the Raven Rock base within the ZAX supercomputer unit.

According to President Eden's propaganda broadcasts on the Enclave Radio, a new presidential election was promised to the surviving people of the United States, but without going into the details for "reasons of national security." Eden also promised to surrender the office of the presidency to the winner of this election, without a clear timetable. According to speeches made on Enclave Radio, there was still some form of Congress at this time. The only person aware of President Eden's true identity as an AI was Colonel Autumn.