The President of the United States has the sole discretion to launch nuclear missiles. A military aide is always within reach of the POTUS, holding the “Presidential Emergency Satchel” or “nuclear football” containing the codes and communications to decimate nations with a moment’s notice. The only key required to open the box of death is a laminated card called the “biscuit” that authenticates the president’s identity using special codes. What would it take for someone to press the button?
President Harry S. Truman was the first and only president to attack a foreign enemy with nuclear weapons. In August 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first cities in the history of civilization to experience a nuclear attack. At the time, no one knew the sheer power that these weapons contained.
Albert Einstein described his role in developing the atomic bomb as “the one great mistake in my life.” In his well-known 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he admitted that he helped develop the bomb out of fear that the enemy had a superior weapon. “Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.” Over 130,000 people had a hand in the Manhattan Project, with most expressing deep regret for their role in altering warfare.
Robert Oppenheimer, who many call the Father of the Atomic Bomb, famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita after seeing the destruction: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” As with Einstein, Oppenheimer spent the rest of his life advocating for nuclear regulation. “If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima. The people must unite, or they will perish.”
“We have made a thing, a most terrible weapon, that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world. We have made a thing that, by all standards of the world we grew up in, is an evil thing. And by doing so, by our participation in making it possible to make these things, we have raised again the question of whether science is good for man, of whether it is good to learn about the world, to try to understand it, to try to control it, to help give to the world of men increased insight, increased power. Because we are scientists, we must say an unalterable yes to these questions; it is our faith and our commitment, seldom made explicit, even more seldom challenged, that knowledge is a good in itself, knowledge and such power as must come with it.” – K. Robert Oppenheimer
Truman acknowledged his “awful responsibility” of deciding to drop not one but two bombs on Japan. “Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. … If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth,” the president warned after unleashing the first bomb. Yet, Truman believed that the Japanese would not have surrendered without the use of nuclear warfare. “For myself, I certainly regret the necessity of wiping out whole populations because of the ‘pigheadedness’ of the leaders of a nation, and, for your information, I am not going to do it unless absolutely necessary.”
“And he alone, in all the world, must say Yes or No to that awesome, ultimate question, ‘Shall we drop the bomb on a living target?’” Truman questioned. No world leader has since been faced with such a question.
A Harvard law professor by the name of Roger Fisher believed that the president should feel the weight of choosing to end a life first-hand before deciding to open the nuclear case. Rather than a nuclear football, Fisher believed that the codes should be placed in a capsule implanted near the heart of a volunteer who would always accompany the president. The volunteer would also always be in the possession of a butcher knife, and if the president wanted the code to launch a nuclear weapon, he would be required to personally retrieve the code by murdering the volunteer.
The idea may sound far-fetched, but Fischer presented it to the Pentagon back in the 1980s. “If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, ‘George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.’ He has to look at someone and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home,” he explained.
The Pentagon naturally refused the concept, acknowledging that the president would be unlikely to ever push the nuclear button if he were required to take an innocent life. And yet, presidents are required to greenlight military attacks that do claim innocent lives.
The neocons continually push this idea of using tactical nukes as if it’s a video game. That’s the real danger—people in power have no sense of consequence.
