 “Hmmm, I Wonder if I left those codes at Mickey D’s”
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TOWARDS the end of the Clinton administration the US would have been unable to launch an instant nuclear strike because the President had lost the secret codes.
The extraordinary lapse is described in a book by General Hugh Shelton, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirming an earlier account that was dismissed at the time as too outlandish to be credible. Without the codes it would have been impossible to begin the launch sequence for a retaliatory or pre-emptive nuclear strike, an officer formerly in charge of the President’s “nuclear football” told The Times yesterday. “The codes were actually missing for months. This is a big deal – a gargantuan deal,” General Shelton writes in Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior.
In what the general describes as a comedy of errors, a Pentagon aide assigned to visit the White House to check on the code card every month was twice rebuffed with the explanation that the President was not to be disturbed. When the time came to replace one set of codes with another, “we learnt that the aide had no idea where the old ones were because they had been missing for months”, the general writes.
According to General Shelton’s account, the episode took place during 2000. However, Robert “Buzz” Patterson, a retired air force colonel who was assigned to carry the “nuclear football” for Mr Clinton until late 1998 and who first reported the loss of the codes, said that he discovered they were missing on January 21, 1998. “When I asked President Clinton at the time when he recalled last seeing the codes, he said he didn’t know,” Colonel Patterson said.
“I said, ‘Days?’ He said, ‘I don’t know’. Weeks? ‘Possibly’. Months? ‘Possibly’.”
Mr Clinton normally kept the codes, printed on a laminated piece of card, “rubber-banded to his credit cards” in a trouser pocket, Colonel Patterson said.
What, have you never lost something before?
Under Bush they were 1-2-3-4, the same as his luggage
#2 – You mean 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Spaceballs quote fail.
So just where did they find the trousers?
I thought the codes were changed everyday? I think saying that we were defenseless is a bit of a stretch. They’re are contingency plans in the case that the President is incapacitated during a nuclear attack. Most of the guidelines were put in place after the football carrier was separated from the President and the gold codes lost following the assassination attempt on President Reagan.
Reminds me of the time Reagan said a top secret code word in a non-secured location.
It costs million$ to change the code word when it was compromised.. Sometime in 1984 if I remember correctly.
So they’re saying that if the President had gone into the situation room, called up the Joint Chiefs and ordered a nuclear attack (either first strike or retaliatory) – they would have refused because he forgot his PIN number?
#7. yes, and the support desk is a guy in New Delhi called “Chuck”.
Oops, sorry Chuck. I mean’t “Skip”.
It’s Monica’s fault.
I bought them on ebay.
I never used them “Promise”
So the story should be who lost them? Clinton was not the one carrying the ball this officer formerly in charge of the President’s “nuclear football” was he the one? and “What did the President know and when did he know it?”<Baker)watergate.
Were we really crippled or our their other additional ways to get-her-done?( that must be a National Secret) for all we know this whole “nuclear football thing could be a red herring.
At least I am wearing my freaking Republican Tie, for Pete sakes!..”we cant get fooled again..>shame on you..shame on m.. fool meee..no..shame on me..”
Another example of what morons we perpetually put into the Whitehouse. Nice to know this is an indication of how seriously he took his position. Then again I’ve always said, Bubba was in to politics for one thing, partying and chicks.
In his book Breaking Cover, Bill Gulley, the former director of the White House wrote “There are four things in the Football. The Black Book containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder with eight or ten pages stapled together giving a description of procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, and a three-by-five inch card with authentication codes. The Black Book was about 9 by 12 inches and had 75 loose-leaf pages printed in black and red. On the ‘vital’ page listing possible responses to a nuclear attack, retaliatory options appear in red and were labeled: ‘Rare, Medium or Well Done.’ The book with classified site locations was about the same size as the Black Book, and was black. It contained information on sites around the country where the president could be taken in an emergency.”
They found them in Monica’s va-jay-jay next to the humidor.
“During their presidencies, both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan preferred to keep the launch codes in their jacket pocket.[6] On one occasion, Jimmy Carter left nuclear launch codes in his suit when it was sent in for dry cleaning.[7] Congressman John Kline served as a colonel in the United States Marine Corps and carried the football for Presidents Carter and Reagan.”
Didn’t the silo codes turn out years later to have been 0-0-0-0?
IIRC Nixon ordered there to be codes on each silo to prevent a ‘Dr Strangleove’ incident. SAC objected because of the risk that communications could be lost and the codes not get through – but the president insisted. It was only recently that it was admitted that they followed the presidents orders to have codes – and left them at 0-0-0-0.
I think this story needs a B.S. meter.
The president has a military guy who carries around the codes for him, right? It’s called the “nuclear football” or something like that.
Clinton remains one of the most popular politicians in the nation and this POs conservatives to no end. I suspect this story was released to undermine Clinton as he stumps for Dems in the mid-terms.
NobodySpecial,
Maybe the top secret code was “password”.
It was probably on the cigar. 🙂
#17 — you are correct that a military guy carries the actual “football”, but I believe that the President has to enter the actuall codes.
You would not want both the football and the codes to be carried by a single military “lacky” — 🙂
that’s not all Clinton lost…. 🙂
>> rwest said, on October 22nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
>> #17 — you are correct that a military guy carries the actual “football”, but I believe that the President has to enter the actuall codes.
You could be right but this story has a stink about it.
Are we supposed to believe that the codes got lost in the sofa cushions and nobody was sent to rifle through the apartment for them?
I could easily believe codes may have been misplaced briefly or left behind on a trip, but gone for MONTHS? The president has a gigantic staff who could work 24/7 to fix an issue like this. Or just get new codes.
I still think this story needs a B.S. meter.
Remember how the Bush administration lied and claimed that Clinton staff stole all the “Ws” off the Whitehouse computer keyboards?
This story has that same stink.
All bullshit to sell a book.
Clinton’s launch code was “bukkake”.
If the story is true it’s not so worrying that the President lost the codes and told no one,, but more so that there is no system in place to prevent this.
So just don’t buy they they hand you a card and that’s it.
I also don’t believe the president carries credit cards on him. I’m sure he also has the keys to the white house front door on a PBR bottle opener key chain.
“I’m sure he also has the keys to the white house front door on a PBR bottle opener key chain.” Only the southern presidents. The northerners keep them on a corkscrew for the wine bottles. Unless they are really young presidents, boones farm has a screw top.
Alfie, Obama is way smarter than you are. Dubya spent most of his administration working on his Alfred E. Neuman impersonation, and the rest developing his Alfred Persson peudonym.