The Vice President in the Nuclear Age
Backup Quarterback or Demigod
This month eighty years ago, the nuclear age began with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The detonations destroyed cities and demonstrated an exponential rise in our ability to deal death, destroy human civilization, and even render our planet lifeless. The decision to use nuclear weapons rests with specific individuals, elevating them to deities.
The power of presidents and other national leaders had been expanding thanks to modern technology and organization. The demands of the Great Depression and World War II transformed the president from a weak king to a mighty emperor. Nuclear weapons elevated presidents into gods.
What does this mean for the president’s designated successor?
The Atomic Pigskin
The president is accompanied by an omnipresent aide carrying “the football,” which enables the launch of nuclear weapons. The origins of the nuclear football and the nuclear command and control process are with President Eisenhower. The system matured over the decades (here’s a good brief history and here is another.)
Eisenhower assigned a military aide to Vice President Nixon and made advance arrangements to transfer control American nuclear forces to Nixon if Eisenhower were unable to do so.1 Nixon’s successor as vice president, Lyndon Johnson, was sent his own football, but he returned it. Johnson didn’t like having a military aide hovering around. When Kennedy was assassinated, the aide carrying the football went to Johnson and then joined him on Air Force One.
There is no information on the next several vice presidents having a “football” until Carter took office. As part of his broad plan to elevate the vice presidency, Carter ensured that his vice president Walter Mondale had a football and was familiar with its operation. It was an important symbolic step in the advancement of the vice presidency (which is central to my research.) This practice of providing the VP with a football has continued through to the present.
The football consists of plans and procedures as well as the verification transmission equipment. If someone grabbed the football and ran off with it, they would not be able to order a nuclear launch. (Although it obviously wouldn’t be good!)
Time to stop playing football
The idea behind the football is that should anyone dare to launch a surprise nuclear strike on the United States the President can order U.S. missiles to launch before they are destroyed. Welcome to the world of deterrence.2
But the United States has a secure second-strike capability. Roaming the deeps of the world’s oceans are nuclear monsters—our nuclear armed and powered ballistic missile submarines, the boomers. Even if an enemy strikes an overwhelming nuclear first blow, the boomers are secure and would be able to deal death in turn. This secure second strike capability is accompanied by a robust chain of command, authorized to make decisions should the national leadership be incapacitated.
So why does the president need to be able to respond instantly?
We have all encountered salespeople who tell us about a special price, but we have to act now. They are trying to short-circuit our ability to make a careful thoughtful decision with pressure. Presidents are still people. Good advisors try to ensure that the president has time, space, and options to avoid hasty decisions. The nuclear football could circumvent this process.
During the Cold War there were several nuclear close calls. The ability of the president to launch nuclear strikes near instantaneously makes such an accident more likely, not less.3
Puncturing the Aura
Before I write anything else, let me say loudly and clearly I do not want to see ill befall our national leaders (or anyone) whether by accident or intent. Assassinations of national leaders are very bad for a nation. As I’ve written before attempts to assassinate the vice president (unsuccessful so far) are serious things. Reasonable security measures should be taken to protect them.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Vance’s Watergate (not quitting this joke, sorry—not sorry). The vice president’s Secret Service detail had the Army Corp of Engineers open a dam to ensure there was enough water in the river where Vance was canoeing so that their motorboats could accompany him.
The nuclear football, a bit bureaucratic carry-on, has become a talisman of ultimate authority. As such, its user must be ever ready, ever vigilant—an ever ready guardian for our precious country. Thus the security of not just the president, but also the vice president must be paramount. If even the slightest chance exists that ill could befall them, we would stand naked, vulnerable to our enemies.
But this is absurd.
Realistically, what is the probability that both the president and vice president are brought down at the same time?
And so what if they are?
In movies and on Netflix, presidents make crucial decisions in the moment. But these scenarios not believable. Presidents do not have super-powers to instantly disarm terrorists or disable cyberattacks.4
But in an often frightening world, we want to believe that they can. The president’s authority over nuclear weapons is a central component to this myth.
It was this mindset that led to Secretary of State Al Haig’s infamous moment at the White House after Reagan was shot and Vice President Bush was in transit. Haig declared, ignoring the line of succession: “As of now, I am in control here, in the White House.”
Haig was thinking like a military commander in battle. Trouble could occur at any instant and we needed to be ready. There must be a commanding officer on the bridge.
But this is not the president’s role. The best crisis management is carefully considered; serious responses to complex crises demand planning and time. The nuclear football and the vice president’s role in the nuclear age both highlight the unrealistic expectations we have of our presidents. It is bad for the presidency. It is bad for our democracy. And, because it highlights the powers and authority of the president it thereby downgrades the ultimate power that resides in the citizenry. It is bad for all of us.
Eisenhower suffered serious illnesses in office.
Just to be clear, yours truly is something of a hawk and does not see a reasonable path to nuclear disarmament in the near future. But that doesn’t mean we need increasingly complex nuclear force structures to try to win a nuclear exchange.
This argument is not original to me. Others have also argued that we should retire the football.
It isn’t that presidential leadership in crisis isn’t important—but the importance is in formulating the broader response and communicating to the American people. The president’s actions are most effective when carefully considered.
Although the football can be used to quickly respond to a surprise nuclear strike on the United States, that isn't its only purpose. For example, if the president is unable communicate with the Joint Chiefs of Staff after a nuclear attack, and is unable to return to Washington because, say, it is "a smoking radiating ruin," POTUS needs the capability to order the use of nuclear weapons, wherever he or she may be.