Clapper questions Trump's fitness to hold office 01:52
Story highlights
- David A. Andelman: It's terrifying that any one person, and especially President Trump, controls the nuclear codes
- Congress should require that key officials be notified if Trump asks to open the nuclear football, he writes
David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN and columnist for USA Today, is the author of "A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today." He formerly served as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and Paris correspondent for CBS News. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAndelman. The views expressed in this commentary are his.
(CNN)Regardless
of who may be in the Oval Office, the stakes are too high, the
potential outcome too horrific to leave the arsenal of the nuclear
football entirely in the hands of any one president -- especially
President Donald Trump, who, according to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, asked during the campaign, "If we have them, why can't we use them?"
As former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN,
"I worry about (his) access to nuclear codes, in a fit of pique, (if
he) decides to do something about Kim Jong Un, there is actually very
little to stop him." And concern regarding Trump's temperament seems to
be shared quite widely among the American people. A recent Quinnipiac
University poll found that 68% of those polled thought the President is not level-headed, compared with 29% who thought he is.
With Trump's plan to streamline America's nuclear arsenal, removing his sole thumb from the nuclear button is all the more urgent.
In
short, it's terrifying if this President does have full and solitary
control of the nuclear football. The aluminum briefcase contained in a
leather satchel, the entire 45-pound package carried by a rotating
selection of military officers, follows the President everywhere. It
holds the nuclear targets that he alone can activate using the biscuit,
a small card that he carries on his person that bears the actual codes
to launch all or part of the entire American strategic arsenal from
anywhere on the globe where the commander in chief might find himself.
When
he's in the White House, the football is effectively non-operational,
as the President orders the nuclear launch codes activated from the
Situation Room in the basement where there is always full command
authority -- at least six staffers on duty 24/7 in five shifts.
Still, if the President were to order a strike, while there may be more
voices here that could be raised in opposition, his word is still the
final authority.
North Korea makes threat about annual exercise 01:21
The
football was a product of the Kennedy administration when, in the wake
of the Bay of Pigs disaster, the President thought it would be useful to
have a means to retaliate quickly and efficiently if the United States
were ever attacked by a nuclear power. In those days, that meant the
Soviet Union. Today, Vladimir Putin is within range of his own football,
the "Cheget," wherever he travels.
At
his command and fully accessible through the football, President Trump
has more than 900 nuclear warheads with the force equivalent of some
17,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. As Franklin C. Miller, a nuclear
specialist who worked for in the Department of Defense for 22 years,
told The New York Times last year, "There's no veto once the President
has ordered a strike. The President and only the President has the
authority to order the use of nuclear weapons."
The solution to having one person with this amount of power, however, is potentially quite near at hand. As Politico reported,
White House chief of staff "John Kelly is instituting a system used by
previous administrations to limit internal competition -- and to make
himself the last word on the material that crosses the President's
desk."
Specifically, White House
staff secretary Rob Porter "will review all documents that cross the
Resolute Desk," Politico added. Well, why just documents? What about
every time the President even looks cross-eyed at the football, or
heaven forbid, orders it opened?
It is unquestionably a court-martial-worthy offense
to refuse the President access to the football. The individuals chosen
for this job are impeccably vetted for loyalty and sanity up to a
special security level called Yankee White.
But what if the military officer who carries it insists on telling John
Kelly before allowing the President to access its contents? And the
President refuses?
Clearly, any
sentient individual should tuck it under his arm and flee immediately.
What court would ever convict him? Still, there is a solution.
Congress
should, quite simply, write this procedure into law: The bearer of the
White House football, or anyone staffing the Situation Room in the White
House, must communicate immediately with Kelly, national security
adviser H.R. McMaster or Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at any moment
Trump might order the football be opened.
There
is already a bipartisan stamp on a legislative curb to one potentially
volatile international action the President might be inclined to take --
lifting, at his own discretion, sanctions on Russia. That measure
passed both houses by overwhelming, veto-proof majorities, effectively
compelling the President to sign it. A football bill should have equally
overwhelming support.
A decade ago, Vice President Dick Cheney warned
ABC News that the President (at the time George W. Bush) "could launch
the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have
to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress; he doesn't
have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the
nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're
perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have."
What
we really need, a decade and a far different administration later, is
to take new steps to assure the American people, and the world, that
they will not be held hostage by an individual in the grip of some
personal or self-generated emotional crisis.
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