Ronald Kessler: The First Family Detail

The nuclear football is a leather-covered titanium business case that weighs forty pounds. Secured with a cipher lock, it contains a variety of secure phone capabilities and options for launching nuclear strikes that President Obama may authorize.

The president authenticates his identity with codes found on a small plastic card he carries with him. In case the president is incapacitated or dies, an identical nuclear football is assigned to Vice President Joe Biden.

Since Obama or Biden would likely have fifteen minutes or less to respond to an impending attack from a country like China, Russia, or North Korea before the United States could be wiped out by nuclear-tipped missiles, the military aide who carries the satchel is supposed to accompany the two leaders wherever they go.

When they board Air Force One or Air Force Two, the military aide carrying the football can be seen right behind them. Staying over at hotels, the military aide sleeps in a room adjoining the president’s or vice president’s room. When Secret Service agents script an arrival or departure from a hotel or office building, they make sure the military aide rides the elevator with the protectee. In motorcades, the military aide travels in the vehicle right behind the president’s or vice president’s limo. In the event the president or vice president comes under attack during a public appearance, Secret Service agents have standing instructions to evacuate the military aide together with the protectee.

“Whoever has the duty as military aide to the president is responsible for physical custody of the football and ensuring its access to the president 24/7, within a matter of seconds,” says retired Navy vice admiral John Stufflebeem, who was the military aide to President George H. W. Bush and later oversaw the top secret program himself when he was deputy director for global operations assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But as soon as Biden—code-named Celtic—took office in January 2009, he laid down a rule: Instead of the usual retinue of at least fifteen vehicles preceded by a police escort in his motorcade, whenever he was in Delaware, where he has his longtime home, he wanted a Secret Service motorcade of two—the limousine or Suburban he rides in plus a follow-up Suburban behind him with agents.

Biden specifically ordered the Secret Service control vehicle, which holds the military aide and a doctor in case the vice president needs emergency medical treatment, to follow at least a mile behind his limousine. Also ordered to disappear from view were the spare limo, which sometimes carries the military aide and the doctor, and the Secret Service intelligence vehicle, where agents pick up local transmissions to evaluate threats and keep track of people who have been assessed as potential assassins.

Since the vice president and his wife, Jill, travel to their home in Greenville, outside of Wilmington, at least once a week, that puts the country at risk, potentially unable to retaliate against a nuclear attack whenever the second in command hits the road for a golf game at one of his favorite country clubs, a haircut at his favorite barbershop, a party, or a speaking engagement.

“When you go to any city outside Washington, you have a full-blown vice presidential motorcade much like the president’s motorcade,” a Secret Service agent says. “Its length may be fifteen, twenty, or more vehicles, including for staff and a counterassault team. But when he’s home in Wilmington, he has told the service—and for whatever reason Secret Service management bends over and accommodates him—that he does not want anything other than the limousine he’s in and the immediate Suburban that we’re in. He wants everybody else out of sight. That includes the vehicle with the military aide and the doctor.”

As a result, the agent says, “You’ve separated vital assets from the vice president in Wilmington when he’s motorcading around. We are told, ‘Don’t come near us, don’t let us see you, the vice president doesn’t want to see you.’”

Even in normal traffic, in the event of an attack, by the time the military aide caught up with Biden, it would be too late.

“If something happens and they’re caught in traffic, you would lose even more precious time,” an agent says. “If the vice president suffers a heart attack, the doctor would likely get there too late.”

In addition to putting the country at risk when he is in Delaware, Biden insists on only two Secret Service vehicles when he vacations in places like the Hamptons.

In contrast to Biden’s cavalier attitude, “When President Reagan rode his horse at his ranch, the military aide with the nuclear football was on horseback with him,” says former Secret Service agent Patrick Sullivan, who was on Reagan’s detail.

After President Truman ordered the release of the first atomic bomb, President Eisenhower, as a former general, recognized the need to provide the president with a mechanism for ordering an immediate nuclear retaliatory strike from any location. Under what is called the National Security System, five military aides rotate carrying the nuclear football for the president. The Air Force, the Navy, the Marines, the Army, and the Coast Guard each assign an aide. Another five military aides rotate traveling with the vice president.

When the president is in the Oval Office, the military aide with the nuclear football remains just outside, ready to rush in if the National Security System signals an alert through communications equipment contained in the football. The encrypted voice communications may be transmitted by satellite, microwave relay transmission, cell phone, land line, or shortwave radio.

At night, the military aide sleeps in workout clothes in an underground bunker at the White House. If an alert comes, he can rush to provide the president with the football in his bedroom at the residence. The vice president has the same arrangement at his offices in the West Wing and in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and at the vice president’s residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in northwest Washington.

Only the president—or, if he has died or is incapacitated, the vice president as his constitutional successor—can order the release of nuclear weapons. The National Military Command Center provides both leaders with an authenticator card with codes that verify the president’s or vice president’s identity.

Because what is called the Sealed Authentication System is so highly classified, all of the information that has appeared in the press about it has been wrong. Contrary to the lore, the football itself does not operate like an ATM, with the president or vice president inserting the authenticator card and punching in launch codes to authorize a strike. Instead, along with written options, the nuclear football contains a secure phone to open up communications with the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. During a conference call, the president or vice president reads the codes from the authenticator card to verify his identity. Military leaders and White House national security advisors then brief the president or vice president on the nature of the threat and the options for retaliating.

“As part of the conference call, the president is told how many seconds or minutes remain if the president would wish to respond, before he might not be able to do so because nuclear weapons will hit the White House or his current location,” Stufflebeem says.

If the president or vice president wants to consult the written options, he may do so. If he then chooses a retaliatory option or options, his command is read back to him. When he confirms it, the command center uses the military’s launch authorization codes to release nuclear missiles.