The phrasing below is very important. I urge all to put their Critical Thinking caps on.

Knaust saw a business opportunity, amidst widespread Cold War fears, in protecting corporate information from nuclear attack

The eastern seaboard gets nuked and INFO is their biggest concern? Not the buildings. Not the workers. Not the inhospitable conditions for hundreds of millions? Economic standstill? What is the point of saving your tax receipts at that point? How do you justify the cost involved to store them in this crazy vault?

Answer: The corporate information being leaked IS the nuclear threat. Nuclear = Blackmail evidence. That's the symbolism.

Iron Mountain's first customer was East River Savings Bank, who brought microfilm copies of deposit records

This is 1951. Re-read that sentence. Microfilm copies of deposit records. What is a 'deposit record' and why bother to record it on microfilm?

Why would it be important to protect in a nuclear disaster at all costs?

There's your blackmail evidence storage that warrants this level of underground vault protection. You don't need to be a master decoder to figure out what a 'deposit record' means in this context.

The phrasing below is very important. I urge all to put their Critical Thinking caps on.

Knaust saw a business opportunity, amidst widespread Cold War fears, in protecting corporate information from nuclear attack

The eastern seaboard gets nuked and INFO is their biggest concern? Not the buildings. Not the workers. Not the inhospitable conditions for hundreds of millions? What is the point of saving your tax receipts at that point? How do you justify the cost involved to store them in this crazy vault?

Answer: The corporate information being leaked IS the nuclear threat. Nuclear = Blackmail evidence. That's the symbolism.

Iron Mountain's first customer was East River Savings Bank, who brought microfilm copies of deposit records

This is 1951. Re-read that sentence. Microfilm copies of deposit records. What is a 'deposit record' and why bother to record it on microfilm?

Why would it be important to protect in a nuclear disaster?

There's your blackmail evidence storage that warrants this level of underground vault protection. You don't need to be a master decoder to figure out what a 'deposit record' means in this context.

The phrasing below is very important. I urge all to put their Critical Thinking caps on.

Knaust saw a business opportunity, amidst widespread Cold War fears, in protecting corporate information from nuclear attack

The eastern seaboard gets nuked and INFO is their biggest concern? Not the buildings. Not the workers. Not the inhospitable conditions for hundreds of millions? What is the point of saving your tax receipts at that point? How do you justify the cost involved to store them in this crazy vault?

Answer: The corporate information being leaked IS the nuclear threat. Nuclear = Blackmail evidence. That's the symbolism.

Iron Mountain's first customer was East River Savings Bank, who brought microfilm copies of deposit records

This is 1951. Re-read that sentence. Microfilm copies of deposit records. What is a 'deposit record' and why bother to film it on expensive grainy ass microfilm? Critical Thinking, the videotape is of something very important. How are important videotapes used? As evidence.

There's your blackmail evidence storage that warrants this level of underground vault protection. You don't need to be a master decoder to figure out what a 'deposit record' means in this context.