The nuclear football, officially the Presidential Emergency Satchel, is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the president of the United States to communicate and authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room or the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. Functioning as a mobile hub in the strategic defense system of the United States, the football is carried by a military aide when the president is traveling.
Name The briefcase is officially named the "Presidential Emergency Satchel". During the administration of Dwight Eisenhower, the briefcase was most commonly nicknamed the "satchel" or the "black bag."
By the time of President John F. Kennedy's assassination, if not earlier, the briefcase was also becoming known as the "football." General Chester Clifton said in 1986 that the term was used "jokingly", and he described how warrant officers, who were on a twenty-four hour schedule, would regularly hand off the briefcase to the next person. That routine could have inspired the football metaphor, which dovetailed with the Kennedy clan's penchant for touch football. Various sources claim, often mentioning Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as a source, that the term "football" was derived from a nuclear attack plan codenamed "Dropkick." When and where McNamara made such a statement has not been cited nor is there an original source for the "Dropkick" reference. That claim may have a fictitious premise because "Dropkick" appears distinctively in the film Dr. Strangelove when the character General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) informs President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) that the wayward B-52s headed to the Soviet Union "were part of a special exercise we were holding called Operation Dropkick."
During 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson discussed with Robert McNamara an arrangement to eliminate the "need for an aide to be in constant attendance upon him." Word of that proposal began to circulate in the media prompting White House aide Jack Valenti to deny that it had been under consideration. The newspaper article citing the denial, the syndicated "Allen-Scott Report," is perhaps the earliest public reference to the "football," quoting Valenti as saying that "The 'black bag' or 'football', as we call it, goes wherever the President travels."
Contents
In his 1980 book Breaking Cover, Bill Gulley, former director of the White House Military Office, wrote:
The president is always accompanied by a military aide carrying the nuclear football with launch codes for nuclear weapons.Eggen, Dan. "Cheney, Biden Spar In TV Appearances" . The Washington Post, December 22, 2008. Accessed December 16, 2009. It has been described both as a metal Zero Halliburton briefcase and as a leather briefcase weighing about , with photographic evidence existing of the latter. A small antenna protrudes from the bag near the handle, suggesting that it also contains communications equipment of some kind.
A popular misconception, sometimes deriving from pop culture, is that the football contains a large red button, which when pressed, launches a nuclear attack.
Operation
If the U.S. president, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, decides to order the use of nuclear weapons, the briefcase would be opened. A command signal, or "watch" alert, would be issued to the United States Strategic Command and perhaps the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president would review the attack options with others such as the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and decide on a plan, which could range from the launch of a single ICBM or nuclear-armed bomber to options for multiple, even hundreds of ICBMs or bombers. These are among the preset war plans developed under OPLAN 8010 (formerly the Single Integrated Operational Plan). A two-person verification procedure would precede the entering of the codes into a permissive action link.
Before the order can be followed by the military, the president must be positively identified using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the "biscuit".Hacking Nuclear Command and Control, International Commission on Nuclear Non proliferation and Disarmament , p. 10. The authentication is conducted between the president and the National Military Command Center deputy director of operations, using a challenge code of two phonetic letters. The president will read, from the biscuit, the daily phonetic letters, and the deputy director will confirm or deny that it is correct, confirmation indicating the person is the president and the attack orders can be given. Down the chain of command, the United States has a two-man rule in place at nuclear launch facilities. This verification process ensures the order came from the actual president. Many sources indicate that the president has sole launch authority, and the defense secretary has no veto power. A Congressional Research Service provides a detailed reason: There is a short time before nuclear weapons from adversaries will strike US soil and a similar short time when advisers relay options to the US President. During the Cold War, some analysts argued that a launch under attack was the best option, and that the command and control system was designed to permit such a quick launch of U.S. nuclear weapons. The time for any US response was noted as thirty minutes. Secondly, the US may conduct a pre-emptive strike if the assessment was its territory or allies were facing an imminent nuclear attack. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will also be an advisor to the President, but is by law only allowed to advise, and has no operational control over US forces. - Combatant commands: assigned forces; chain of command The secretary of defense also advises but the Goldwater–Nichols Act Section 162(b) states the chain of command to a unified or specified combatant command runs "from the president to the secretary of defense," and "from the secretary of defense to the commander of the combatant command".Goldwater–Nicholls DOD Reorganization Act, 10 USC 162, Combatant Commands; Assigned Forces; Chain of Command, Section (b), Chain of Command.
However, it has been argued that the president may not have sole authority to initiate a nuclear attack because the defense secretary is required to verify the order but cannot veto it. U.S. law dictates that the attack must be lawful; military officers are required to refuse to execute unlawful orders, such as those that violate international humanitarian law.
Some military officials, including General John Hyten, have testified to the U.S. Congress that they would refuse to carry out an unlawful order for a nuclear strike. In addition, off-the-shelf strike packages are pre-vetted by lawyers to confirm that they are legal and, thus, such a strike would be presumed to be a lawful order.
Military service members have been reprimanded for questioning U.S. protocols for nuclear strike authority. In 1975, Major Harold Hering was discharged from the Air Force for asking, "How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?" Nevertheless, the president, once in office, as noted by former defense secretary William Perry and Tom Z. Collina, retains the sole authority to launch a nuclear strike or attack.
The football is carried by one of the rotating presidential military aides (one from each of the six armed forces service branches), whose work schedule is top-secret. This person is a commissioned officer in the U.S. military, pay-grade O-4 or above, who has undergone the nation's most rigorous background check (Yankee White). These officers are required to keep the football readily accessible to the president at all times. Consequently, this officer carries the football either standing or walking near the president at all times, including riding on Air Force One, on Marine One, or in the presidential motorcade with the president.
There are three nuclear footballs in total; two are allocated to the president and vice president, with the last being stored in the White House. The practice of also providing an aide with a football to the vice president, to whom command authority would devolve if the president is disabled or deceased, began during the Carter administration. In presidential transitions, the president-elect does not receive the actual nuclear code card until after the nuclear briefing, which usually occurs when "he meets with the outgoing president at the White House just before the actual inauguration ceremony. The code card is activated electronically right after the president-elect takes the oath at noon".Robert Windrem and William M. Arkin, Donald Trump Is Getting the Nuclear Football, NBC, Jan. 20, 2017 .
If the outgoing president is not present at the inauguration—as happened in 2021 when Donald Trump did not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden but stayed in Florida—one football is kept with him and remains active until 11:59:59 a.m. on inauguration day. After that point, the now-former president is denied access to the football, its codes are automatically deactivated, and the aide carrying the football returns to Washington, D.C. In the meantime, the incoming president receives one of the spare footballs at the pre-inauguration nuclear briefing, as well as a "biscuit" with codes that become active at 12:00:00 noon.
According to military analyst and whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, presidents beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower have in fact delegated nuclear launch authority to military commanders who may then sub-delegate authority further. In Ellsberg's view, the nuclear football is primarily a piece of political theater, a hoax that obscures the real chain of nuclear command and control. Effective deterrence requires it, because otherwise a single nuclear detonation on Washington would prevent retaliation., see esp. p. 69.
History The nuclear football dates to the last years of the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, when it became an instrument for White House emergency preparations and presidential control over nuclear weapons. The notion that a designated military aide should accompany a traveling president with a special satchel for such purposes was the creation of White House naval aide Edward L. Beach Jr. On 19 January 1961, the day before his inauguration, president-elect John F. Kennedy received a briefing from President Eisenhower and his staff secretary General Andrew Goodpaster on emergency procedures in a nuclear crisis. Goodpaster described the contents of the "satchel," with plans for implementing Federal Emergency Plan D-Minus, and a document authorizing nuclear weapons use in a crisis. That was the Joint Chief of Staff Emergency Actions File, which included instructions for U.S. commanders to transfer nuclear weapons to NATO allies and arrangements to enable the president to participate in an emergency telephone conference with the defense secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Goodpaster also showed Kennedy a booklet of instructions for military commanders providing advanced authorization (pre-delegation) for nuclear weapons use in the event that the President had not survived a nuclear attack and communications with Washington, D.C., were cut off.