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Speaker 1: From the newsroom and new still come today. Gooday there,

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Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Buffalo and in this episode we are going

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Speaker 1: to talk about a briefcase that contains the power to

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Speaker 1: end civilization as we know it pretty full on huh.

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Speaker 1: They call it the nuclear Football, and today we will

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Speaker 1: crack it open for you. We'll tell you what it is,

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Speaker 1: howard works, and who really holds the keys when the

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Speaker 1: unthinkable becomes reality. This is the story of the world's

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Speaker 1: most dangerous briefcase. Joining me now is news dot com

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Speaker 1: dot Au reporter Sam clench who covers US politics for

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Speaker 1: our site Today.

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Speaker 2: Clenchy, Hello, how you doing.

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Speaker 1: I'm very well. Thanks. I've got you on the line

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Speaker 1: because you are a man who knows about the nuclear football,

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Speaker 1: so please explain exactly what it is and why it's

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Speaker 1: called that.

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Speaker 2: So, the nuclear football is a specialized briefcase, I suppose

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Speaker 2: it's more of a satchel really, which goes everywhere. With

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Speaker 2: the American president, it gives him or her ability to

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Speaker 2: order a nuclear strike within minutes. As for the name,

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Speaker 2: according to Robert McNamara, who was Secretary of Defense throughout

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Speaker 2: most of the nineteen sixties, that comes from an early

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Speaker 2: US plan for nuclear war whose code name was dropkick.

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Speaker 2: To execute a dropkick, you need a football, right, So

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Speaker 2: in this quite tortured metaphor, the president is the guy

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Speaker 2: doing the dropkick, and given the satchel as the mechanism

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Speaker 2: through which he does it. That is the football.

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Speaker 1: And how many of these nuclear footballs are there? Is

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Speaker 1: it just the one?

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Speaker 2: Look for obvious reasons. This is a pretty closely guarded

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Speaker 2: secret in the United States. We believe there are three

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Speaker 2: of them. So one is obviously with the president, another

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Speaker 2: is allogated to the vice president in case something happens

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Speaker 2: to the president, and then there's a third that is

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Speaker 2: stored in the White House.

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Speaker 1: Reportedly, whenever a new president is elected, the nuclear football

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Speaker 1: is handed over in a secret ceremony behind the scenes

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Speaker 1: of the inauguration. He is former Vice President Dick Cheney.

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Speaker 3: The passing of the football occurs at high noon. Nobody

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Speaker 3: says a word, but I knew what to look for,

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Speaker 3: and so you got the ceremony going down front, but

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Speaker 3: up behind, sort of behind one of the big pillars

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Speaker 3: there on the front. These two guys are standing there

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Speaker 3: and there in a form. At the right moment he

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Speaker 3: reaches over and hands it to the newly designated military

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Speaker 3: aid and he takes it. From that moment, the new

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Speaker 3: president is the guy who's in control of our nuclear assets.

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Speaker 1: What info do we have about what's actually inside that satchel?

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Speaker 2: Interestingly, there reportedly used to be way more documentation inside

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Speaker 2: the football until Jimmy Carter became president in the nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 2: So Carter was qualified to command a nuclear submarine, maybe

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Speaker 2: a little more cognizant of these matters than most other presidents,

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Speaker 2: and he realized that the contents needed to be simplified.

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Speaker 2: So now there are essentially two things of importance inside

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Speaker 2: that satchel. The first instrumentation that authenticates the president's identity

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Speaker 2: to the nuclear bunker the Pentagon in Washington, DC, which

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Speaker 2: is called the Military Command Center. Obviously, it's crucial before

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Speaker 2: launching nuclear weapons that you verify it is actually the

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Speaker 2: president giving the order. Right, you don't want to be

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Speaker 2: prank called into ending civilization. There is also something called

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Speaker 2: the Black Book, which contains a list of options for

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Speaker 2: a nuclear strike. One former handler of the football, Colonel

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Speaker 2: Buzz Patterson, very American name. There he served as a

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Speaker 2: military aid to Bill Clinton in the nineteen nineties He

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Speaker 2: described it as being like the menu at a fast

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Speaker 2: food restaurant. So you could order up just a strike

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Speaker 2: on Moscow, for example, or you could decide to obliterate

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Speaker 2: every city in Russia. The president would have all these

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Speaker 2: different options in front of him, ready to go.

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Speaker 1: Tell me more about these people who have to carry

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Speaker 1: the satchel around the president.

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Speaker 2: Well, the football is carried by the military aid. That's

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Speaker 2: a member of the armed forces who is always with

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Speaker 2: the president. You might occasionally see them trailing behind him

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Speaker 2: in photos or videos. So Buzz Patterson, the guy we

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Speaker 2: just mentioned, was one such military aid, and the only

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Speaker 2: one so far to have said anything publicly about what

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Speaker 2: the job of carrying the football fully entails as far

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Speaker 2: as how close it is to the president at all times. Look,

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Speaker 2: obviously the thing is always right there to hand in

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Speaker 2: case it's needed, because in that scenario there will likely

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Speaker 2: be very little time to make a decision.

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Speaker 4: Mister President, this is the nuclear football. It'll be with

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Speaker 4: you whenever you leave the White House. These are the

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Speaker 4: launch codes verification codes, a listing of every classified location

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Speaker 4: capable of launching nuclear weapons in the event of an

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Speaker 4: eminent strake. Can green light are using this phone. It

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Speaker 4: works anywhere on Earth as well as beneath.

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Speaker 1: Talk us through what happens if they do need to

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Speaker 1: make a decision. If a nuclear strike is ordered. What's

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Speaker 1: the process? How does the nuclear football come into play?

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Speaker 2: Well, if a foreign power has launched a nuclear missile

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Speaker 2: at the United States, there is an estimated window of

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Speaker 2: just six minutes for a decision to be made. There's

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Speaker 2: no time for debate, no time for discussion. You can't

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Speaker 2: convene the cabinet. You probably have barely enough time to

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Speaker 2: even call your defense secretary. Speed is essential here. So

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Speaker 2: in this situation, the president would call in to the

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Speaker 2: military command center, have his identity verified, and then order

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Speaker 2: the execution of one of the plans contained inside the football.

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Speaker 2: That order then flows very quickly down the chain. Missiles

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Speaker 2: are launched, and in all likelihood most of us die

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Speaker 2: sooner rather than later.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, thank you for that positive beat. There So,

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Speaker 1: can a presidential nuclear launch order be vetoed or does

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Speaker 1: the president have complete control to launch a nuclear attack

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Speaker 1: whenever they want?

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Speaker 2: There's no veto whatsoever. The president is the commander in chief.

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Speaker 2: He has sole authority on this matter. And if the

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Speaker 2: order to launch a nuclear strike is issued, it will

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Speaker 2: be carried out unless there is defiance somewhere down the

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Speaker 2: chain of command. I guess that is important to note, right,

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Speaker 2: there is no red button in the football like in

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Speaker 2: the films. The president doesn't launch the missiles himself. He

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Speaker 2: issues the order, which is then executed by people further down.

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Speaker 2: There's also, as we mentioned, no time for debate or

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Speaker 2: for a veto to even be feasible. This is all

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Speaker 2: happening in a matter of mere minutes, so a check

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Speaker 2: on the president's power simply would not work practically. The

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Speaker 2: absolute worst case scenario here is a situation in which

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Speaker 2: another nuclear armed country, say Russia has fired everything it

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Speaker 2: has at America. You're not going to stop all those missiles.

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Speaker 2: America is pretty much doomed at that point. So the

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Speaker 2: president has a minute or two to weigh up whether

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Speaker 2: or not to obliterate rushing in return, and that decision

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Speaker 2: falls on one person. It's really it's a genuinely terrifying prospect,

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Speaker 2: which I suppose is why we tend not to talk

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Speaker 2: about it all that often.

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Speaker 1: There has been at least one moment in history when

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Speaker 1: a presidential order for a nuclear attack could have been vetoed.

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Speaker 1: He's investigative journalist Annie Jacobson on the Diary of a

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Speaker 1: CEO podcast.

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Speaker 5: You're reminding me of a famous story when Nixon was president,

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Speaker 5: and it was during the Watergate scandal. He probably knew

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Speaker 5: the end of his presidency was near, and he was

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Speaker 5: very drunk one night and he began to threaten, or

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Speaker 5: rather he just began to talk, you know, in this

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Speaker 5: sort of extremely verbose, drunken manner, about how he could

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Speaker 5: end the world or kill tens of millions of people

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Speaker 5: with a push of a button. And it is said

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Speaker 5: that Kissinger called up the military and said, if the

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Speaker 5: president orders any kind of a nuclear strike, talk to

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Speaker 5: me first.

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Speaker 1: Stick around. In just a moment, Clenchy is going to

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Speaker 1: reveal if a president has ever been separated from the

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Speaker 1: nuclear football or from the launch codeset. A bit of

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Speaker 1: a heads up they have, and it's actually kind of amusing.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back. We are chatting about the nuclear football, a

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Speaker 1: secure briefcase that contains all the tools needed for a

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Speaker 1: US president to authorize a nuclear strike. Now, before a

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Speaker 1: president can actually give the order, they need to verify

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Speaker 1: their identity. Okay, they do that with an object called

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Speaker 1: the biscuit, which they're meant to carry on them at

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Speaker 1: all times. It's basically a credit card sized piece of

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Speaker 1: plastic which has a number of codes printed on it.

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Speaker 4: Right after the oath of office, they give you the

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Speaker 4: nuclear codes the biscuit.

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Speaker 3: Soilvering moment when they explain what it represents and the

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Speaker 3: kind of destruction that you're talking about. It is a

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Speaker 3: very sobering moment.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it's very, very, very scary in a sense.

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Speaker 1: That was President Trump speaking to ABC News in twenty

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Speaker 1: seven Sam Clench. Has a president ever been separated from

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Speaker 1: the nuclear football or from their launch.

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Speaker 2: Codes, from the nuclear launch codes. Yes, that has happened

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Speaker 2: multiple times in fact, And as grim as the subject

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Speaker 2: is and as awful as the ramifications potentially are, there

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Speaker 2: really is quite a dark comedy to it, you have

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Speaker 2: to say so. The aforementioned Jimmy Carter, who was under

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Speaker 2: no illusions about the gravity of nuclear politics. He was

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Speaker 2: carrying this laminated card called the biscuit, upon which were

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Speaker 2: written these codes to verify his identity, and he famously

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Speaker 2: forgot that the biscuit was still inside clothing that he

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Speaker 2: had sent to get dry cleaned, which is very relatable

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Speaker 2: but also with some huge potential consequences. The assassination attempt

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Speaker 2: on Ronald Reagan in the nineteen eighties offered another hairy

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Speaker 2: moment here. First, of all, the military aid with the

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Speaker 2: football was left behind at the site of the shooting

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Speaker 2: when Reagan was rushed to hospital, and then, obviously because

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Speaker 2: he needed urgent surgery to save his life, the president

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Speaker 2: was separated from the biscuit and it was later found

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Speaker 2: inside one of his shoes. Vaguely unsettling. Then, in the nineties,

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Speaker 2: under Bill Clinton, the codes genuinely went missing for a

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Speaker 2: period of months. So there was a boring process that

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Speaker 2: we don't really need to get into, where the Department

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Speaker 2: of Defense was meant to check that the codes were

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Speaker 2: okay and being held carefully, and they sort of got

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Speaker 2: fobbed off by the White House for months on end.

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Speaker 2: Turned out nobody knew where the codes were. Thankfully, nothing

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Speaker 2: world ending happens during that period. A new set of

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Speaker 2: codes got issued to solve the problem, but there was

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Speaker 2: a minute there where if a nuclear attack had been

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Speaker 2: launched against the United States there would have been genuinely

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Speaker 2: utter chaos.

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Speaker 1: There was also an incident back in twenty seventeen when

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump visited China, he very nearly got separated from

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Speaker 1: the nuclear football. Let's have a listen to what Fox

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Speaker 1: News had to say.

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Speaker 6: A nuclear armed brawl. The website Axios is reporting that

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Speaker 6: a US military aid carrying the nuclear codes was being

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Speaker 6: blocked from following President Trump into China's Grade Haul during

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Speaker 6: the president's trip there in November. When Chief of Staff

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Speaker 6: Kelly heard about it, he approached the Chinese guard and

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Speaker 6: a shoving match ensued, leading to the usaid being allowed

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Speaker 6: into the Great Hall. The Secret Service trying to soften

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Speaker 6: the incident, they tweeted out today fact check reports about

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Speaker 6: Secret Service agents tackling a host nation official during the

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Speaker 6: President's trip to China in November twenty seventeen are false.

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Speaker 1: Clinchy, this is a terrifying topic. As you've said, let's

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Speaker 1: just hope that the nuclear football never has to come

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Speaker 1: into play.

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Speaker 2: Amen to that in the while, to.

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Speaker 1: Think that the only thing standing between US and nuclear

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Speaker 1: war is a football and a biscuit pretty harmless names,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, pretty deadly consequences. All Right, that's it for

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Speaker 1: today's episode. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll

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Speaker 1: chat to you again tomorrow. Follow 's subscribe to from

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Speaker 1: the news room, wherever you get your podcasts,