US Presidential Nuclear Codes 'Lost For Months' 322
Martin Hellman writes "Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, has dropped a nuclear bombshell, metaphorically speaking. Shelton's recently released memoir Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, asserts that an aide to President Clinton lost a card containing key phrases needed for ordering a nuclear strike, and that the codes were missing for months. This confirms a similar allegation, made in 2004 by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide who frequently carried the 'nuclear football' during the Clinton presidency. Unfortunately, human error within the nuclear weapons complex is a frequent and dangerous occurrence."
Launch codes are so 1980... (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, who is going to launch a nuclear weapon anyway? It's like committing suicide.
We are all better off losing them and to keep pretending you are going to use them if necessary.
Re:Launch codes are so 1980... (Score:5, Interesting)
>Seriously, who is going to launch a nuclear weapon anyway? It's like committing suicide.
Ignoring WWII, lets look at the cold war. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the Politburo and high-level party members were clamoring for war with the US to the point where Khrushchev made loud patriotic pro-war statements in public to appease them and privately with the US was doing his best to avoid a nuclear war. Turns out a group mentality can culminate into in irrational act like nuclear war. Not to mention the US was considering a pre-emtive strike early during the cold war with the assumption that it could wipe out the USSR but only lose half its own cities.
Consider smaller modern powers like Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea. If felt like their regime was going to collapse and their leaders killed or sent to the Hague, why not launch for revenge? Its not like dictators or theocrats are known to be especially rational or compassionate. Most likely we'll see nuclear war in the mideast sooner than later. I'd be willing to bet within 20 years.
Clinton wouldn't have pushed the button (Score:2, Interesting)
Obviously Clinton had decided he would never push the button and didn't much care about the button's whereabouts. If Russia had decided to launch 500 nuclear warheads at the U.S., there wouldn't have been much point in pushing the button anyway, other than, perhaps, for some sort of twisted revenge. Nuclear weapons are the kind of weapon that gives Iran's Ahmadinejad an Islamic hard-on...just thinking about nuking Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and...perhaps New York and Los Angeles...and...even better...thinking about the massive amount of fear that the the intended victims will experience in the time leading up to the actual nuking. Fear...it's all about fear. Clinton was not someone who wanted anyone to be afraid anywhere...more of an anti-fear President.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
Every president supplies (maybe supplied?) sealed orders for the nuclear submarines under the north pole ice as far as what to do if the US is nuked into oblivion. Allegedly, at least a few presidents' orders were to stand down in such a situation, and a lot more were to seek out any surviving allies. So at least a few people in positions of power probably agreed with your assessment.
Re:Launch codes are so 1980... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh piss off (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Launch codes are so 1980... (Score:3, Interesting)
I predict once North Korea sees a regime change they're going to open up dramatically and all their rhetoric will finally come to an end. North Korea is a pariah and has nothing to gain from launching a strike. Even merely having a nuclear weapon doesn't necessarily improve their position.
Iran, on the other hand, does have a lot to gain by having a nuke. And they might even have an incentive to launch it, even if it resulted in Iran's obliteration. Likely, they'd bring down Israel with them, turn the region into chaos and almost certainly spark a real war. And some might actually consider Ahmadinejad a hero.
Re:awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
I often wonder if Iran would nuke Israel if they obtained/developed nuclear weapons. I'm sure they'd threaten it left and right and use it as a bargaining tool, but would they press the button? Remember that a lot of the sites in Israel that are holy to Christians and Jews are holy to Muslims as well. (One of the big reasons for the whole fighting over the land thing. If Muslims didn't care about that stretch of land, there would have been peace long ago.) If Iran nuked Jerusalem, they'd be destroying spots considered holy in Islam (e.g. Dome of the Rock). On one hand, the extremists would be happy that Israel was gone, but on the other hand, they'd blame Iran for desecrating the holy sites. Actually, I think all Muslims (whether extremist or moderate) would be upset over the loss of the sites (whether or not they mourned the deaths). Iran would find itself ostracized, if not outright attacked, by Christian and Muslim nations alike.
No, I think they'd love to have the bomb and would use it as a negotiating tactic and threat, but I don't think they'd actually launch it.
Re:Time to take the men out of the loop ... (Score:1, Interesting)
That report http://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/general-drops-nuclear-bombshell/ mentioned in the post is a pile of assumptions, rumors, maybes, what ifs, etc ...
If you compare, Tchernobyl and 3 miles islands did occur.
Re:awesome (Score:1, Interesting)
You are assuming the leaders of those countries have some semblance of sanity. While this was true of the Soviet Union during the cold war (and Russia and China these days) Its not true of Iran and North Korea. Arm-a-dinner-jar thinks he'd get to spend eternity with 72 virgins for nuking the infidels, and Kim is mentally ill...
Re:awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
"(they have already shown to have nuke capability, but no real way to deliver it "
Put it in a container, marked as 'rare earth' and ship it to the New York harbor.
Re:awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd recommend Richard Frank's Downfall as a good read on the subject, although there are others.
Japan did not offer surrender terms. The governing council was far too divided to do so. The offer they might have agreed on was: Repatriation of Japanese troops to be conducted on a Japanese schedule and procedure; No foreign trials of Japanese war criminals; No occupation of Japan; No change in the Japanese government. The Japanese government did ask the Soviet Union to be a go-between for diplomatic proposals, and then couldn't agree on a diplomatic proposal to send.
Nor did Japan surrender unconditionally. They were offered terms, although it was fairly close to an unconditional surrender. Whether to keep the Emperor as an institution was fundamentally left to the Japanese by the terms (although the Emperor in power at the time expected to be tried as a war criminal).
There has been a great deal of speculation on how much Soviet actions affected the decision, but the bombs were dropped in an attempt to force Japan to accept peace terms. (My take on the nukes is that they offered the Japanese a way to surrender while saving a certain amount of face.)
So, since they didn't offer surrender terms before, they would have asked for more than a figurehead Emperor, the Allies laid down conditions of surrender, the US dropped the nukes as part of forcing the Japanese to surrender, the US dropped the second bomb because the Japanese didn't respond to the first (and they wouldn't have, either), the Japanese never offered unconditional surrender, and the conditions of surrender allowed retention of the Imperial line, you have achieved a (+1, Informative) while being completely wrong in every statement. Congratulations.