![]() Shelton places the event “around the year 2000” rather than January 1998. There are some important differences between Shelton and Patterson’s account. He also makes minor mistakes, like promoting Bruce Lindsey from Deputy to White House Counsel.) The Clinton schedules don’t have a meeting before 9:00 am, though they’ve been heavily sanitized. (Among other reasons to be skeptical, Patterson claims he was in the oval office at 7:00 am on January 21, 1998. Patterson, who was one of Clinton’s military aides for a time (the guy who carries the President’s Emergency Satchel, more colorfully known as “The Football”) wrote a book so scurrilous in its accusations about Bill Clinton that no one took it seriously. He further describes the employment of nuclear weapons without the codes as “impossible” and a “deal-breaker.”Īlthough Shelton claims this “has never been released,” the story actually tracks with a similar claim in Robert “Buzz” Patterson’s Dereliction of Duty. In Shelton’s telling, President Clinton’s nuclear authorization “codes were actually missing for months.” Shelton describes this as “a big deal - a gargantuan deal” - “we would be unable to launch a retaliatory strike” with nuclear weapons. The story has been revived by the memoir of General Hugh Shelton, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for much of the Clinton Administration. That is an important distinction to keep in mind, when reading about this story that Bill Clinton - or, rather, a Clinton aide - misplaced the President’s laminated card (the “biscuit”) containing the codes to authorize the use of nuclear weapons. The authority to launch a nuclear weapons is not the same as the capability to do so. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is like many others the film - it is darkly humorous, but also accurate. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964 And although I hate to judge before all the facts are in, it’s beginning to look like General Ripper exceeded his authority.ĭr. You are the only person authorized to do so. I was under the impression that I was the only one in authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. ![]() President Muffley: General Turgidson, I find this very difficult to understand. The aircraft will begin penetrating Russian radar cover within 25 minutes. The triangles are their primary targets, the squares are their secondary targets. Now the central display of Russia will indicate the position of the planes. The planes are fully armed with nuclear weapons with an average load of 40 megatons each. Now, it appears that the order called for the planes to attack their targets inside Russia. President, about thirty-five minutes ago, General Jack Ripper, the commanding General of Burpleson Air Force Base, issued an order to the 34 B-52’s of his wing which were airborne at the time as part of a special exercise we were holding called Operation Dropkick. “Fortunately we’ve never-these are all hypothetical scenarios.General Turgidson: Mr. “Well, I don’t know exactly,” Kehler said, chuckling. Pressed by lawmakers on what would happen if a military commander felt uncomfortable about moving forward with the launch and thought it may be illegal, Kehler grew uneasy. “If there is an illegal order presented to the military, the military is obligated to refuse to follow it,” he said. Strategic Command, which oversees the nation’s nuclear arsenal, told the committee in 2017 there are military checks in place should a President order a nuclear strike if the U.S. ![]() Robert Kehler, the retired Air Force general who commanded U.S. It was the first time a hearing on the topic had taken place since 1976, which came after it became known that President Richard Nixon was frequently drunk and depressed in the waning days of his administration.Ĭ. It did not have bipartisan support, however, and did not pass.Ĭongressional hearings were held on the issue in November 2017. In 2017, the Democrats drafted a bill that calls for the President to obtain a declaration of war from Congress before he or she can first launch a nuclear strike. Even before Wednesday’s insurrection, many in Congress believed there should be a mechanism for the President to get lawmakers’ approval before launching.
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