Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Nuclear Football

Episode Date: January 10, 2021

Odds are, if you have ever seen a photo of the president of the United States over the last 60 years, there has been someone in the background or walking a few steps behind, who had in their hand a leather satchel. In that bag was everything the President would need to start armageddon. Learn more about the Nuclear Football, what it is, and why it is always around, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Odds are, if you've seen a photo of the President of the United States over the last 60 years, there's been someone in the background or walking a few steps behind who had in their hand a leather satchel. In that bag was everything the president would need to start Armageddon. Learn more about the nuclear football, what it is and why it's always around on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time. to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR. This episode is brought to you by the Travel Photography Academy. Have you ever been on a trip and wondered why your photos don't turn out like the images you see in travel magazines? If you're going to spend thousands of dollars on a trip and hundreds to thousands of dollars on a camera, you owe it to yourself to get the highest quality images from your trip. That's why I created the Travel Photography Academy. I set out to travel around the world in 2007 with an expensive camera, and I had no idea how to use it.

As I traveled around the world, I taught myself the art of travel photography, eventually mastering it to a point where I was named Travel Photographer the Year three times in North America. The Travel Photography Academy is an online course that teaches you everything you need to know to master your camera and to take better photos on your next trip. To improve your photography and to get better images on your next trip, visit Travel Photography Academy.com or click in the link in the show notes. The history of the nuclear football starts with the history of atomic weapons themselves. There was a great deal of debate and discussion about the use of the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima.

Then President Harry Truman assented to the use of the bomb. However, when the second atomic bomb was used over Nagasaki, Truman wasn't explicitly in the loop. There is a great deal of doubt amongst historians if Truman knew about the second bomb in its use. The military didn't usually get explicit presidential permission for every bombing run during the war. Once they had presidential approval for the first use, they assumed that they had permission for subsequent uses. Truman knew that Nagasaki was on a list as a potential target, but he wasn't notified in advance when it happened. As soon as the second bomb was dropped, Truman asserted control over the United States atomic weapons,

and required explicit presidential approval for their use. And they have never been used since. While the use of atomic weapons remained under presidential control, issues came up regarding accidental use and what would happen if the president was indisposed. After the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, many of these issues came to a head. President Kennedy wanted to know how the decision-making process would work if they needed to launch missiles at a moment's notice. How would the President contact the war movement with the Pentagon? Who would he talk to if he would.

did, and how would the Pentagon verify that it was the president giving the order? Beginning in 1963, with no fanfare or announcement, a man with a leather satchel began shadowing President Kennedy. This was the origin of the nuclear football. The satchel contained the launch codes for verification information for the president to launch the United States nuclear arsenal. Since the Kennedy administration, there has been someone within close proximity of the president at every outing holding the news. nuclear football. Why is it called a football? The name comes from an early nuclear response plan called Operation Dropkick. The name stuck. The technical name for it is the presidential

emergency satchel. The physical football itself is a hard-sided metal briefcase made by luggage company Zero Halliburton. There is a leather external covering that covers the briefcase. The weight of the football is approximately 45 pounds or 20 kilograms. The exact contents of the football is not publicized for obvious reasons. However, there have been descriptions of the contents from years ago. One of the best accounts dates back to about 40 years ago to the early 1980s. Bill Gully, former director of the White House military office in the 1970s, wrote the following. Quote, there are four things in the football. The black book containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder with eight or ten pages stapled together

giving a description of procedures for the emergency broadcast system, and a 3-5-inch card with authentication codes. The black book was about 9 by 12 inches and had 75 loose-leaf pages printed in black and red. The book with the classified site locations was about the same size as the black book, and it was black. It contained information on sites around the country where the president could be taken in an emergency. This was the contents of the football 40 years ago, and undoubtedly things have changed, but it is still probably the same information in some form. There has been an antenna spotted protruding from the case,

so it's likely that there is also some sort of radio in the football now. Most presidents have never really paid too much attention to the actual plans inside the football. However, one president, Jimmy Carter, actually really studied the plans and found them to be extremely complicated, so complicated that they would be useless in a crisis. They then simplified the nuclear options to the point where they were allegedly almost a cartoon or at least like selecting something off the menu at Denny's.

The aides who are responsible for holding the football are always a military officer of at least the rank of major or its equivalent. There are six of them on staff at any given time and they're taken from each of the branches of the military. The rules regarding the football require that they are always in the presence of the president when the president is out of the White House. Whenever the president is in a limousine,

a helicopter, airplane, or even an elevator, the football has to be there as well. The football can never be more than a few feet away from the president. It's believed that there are three copies of the football. One of them is for the president, one of them is for the vice president, and one that is used for a designated survivor for formal events and or the Secretary of Defense. In addition to the football, there is also a code which is held by the president called the biscuit. The biscuit is about the size of a credit card and has to be broken to reveal the code inside. There have been problems with the biscuit in the past.

When President Reagan was shot, he kept the biscuit in his jacket pocket. When he had his jacket taken off in the emergency room, the biscuit fell out and was later found in his shoe. Likewise, President Clinton one time just flat out lost it. In fact, it might have been lost for over a month before anyone figured out that it had been lost. Jimmy Carter lost his once when his jacket was sent to the dry cleaner. There have been cases in the past where the president has been separated from the football. President Nixon was once at a summit when he got into a car with another world leader and left the football behind.

He was separated for over 30 minutes. President Reagan once got into a different elevator from the football, which caused the aid that carried it to absolutely freak out. It has never been revealed if the case has ever been opened in an emergency, but it's believed that this may have happened on September 11, 2001. The purpose then wasn't to launch missiles, but to get access to the information about where the president should go in the time of a crisis. The transfer of codes is one of the major unseen parts of a presidential transition. Early in the morning on January 20th, before a new president is inaugurated, they and the incoming vice president will have a meeting with military officials who will explain to them how everything works and the procedures for launching nuclear weapons. The incoming president is given a set of codes prior to the inauguration. their own biscuit. These codes are then activated electronically, exactly at noon on January 20th,

and the outgoing president's codes are likewise invalidated at the same time. If the outgoing president and the incoming president are both at the inauguration, then the football is literally handed off to a different aid when the transition takes place. However, this is not done in public. After 60 years of the nuclear football following around the president of the United States, there has been discussion about eliminating the ability of the president to unilaterally use nuclear weapons. The Cold War is long over and the threat of a surprise attack is all but abated. But even if such a thing were to happen, the second strike capabilities of the U.S. are still enormous. So even if that power were to be taken away from the president, there would still probably always be a presidential football,

just so communications and emergency plans are always at hand. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James McAlew. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show. They can be left at Apple Podcasts, Podcasts, Podcast Republic, or wherever you listen to the show. Also, you can help support the show over at patreon.com. Patrons can get merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies, as well as having direct access to provide suggestions for future episodes.