SALT RESEARCH
December 13, 2008
How the President Would Initiate a Strike
In the event of a crisis where the President is forced to initiate a nuclear or conventional launch against an enemy The President will always use the “football” which is carried with him constantly by the MIL Aide (“mil” as in “milk”). The football is a specially outfitted briefcase and the MIL is the key to assisting the President in connecting and authenticating codes. This protocol is designed this way so that the ability to launch on a moment’s notice is entirely mobile and available to the President wherever he is or whenever it’s needed. Even in the PEOC the President would have to authenticate launch codes via the football.
There is a technological component to the football. There is no DNA scanning or retinal scan but it’s entirely possible there is a voice recognition component in order to insure that the person giving the codes is in fact authorized to do so. The football generates random codes and the contact at the other end of the football communication must verify them.
There are also “distress” words or signals so that the President can appear to be doing what he needs to initiate a launch but really he’s telling the other end, “help – not all is as it seems.” It’s set up with redundancies so a crazed General can’t just start shooting off nukes. There are back-up footballs and if the President were incapacitated then the Vice President would be readied to go.
In general this kind of crisis would not be a calm and orderly situation. Information would be coming in fast and furious from all directions and the President would have to ultimately have to rely on his judgment and the MIL Aide.
Inside the football is the Strategic Integrated Operation Plan (SIOP), “which contains different scenarios. SIOP strategic targeting involves four groups:
1. Russian Nuclear Forces
2. Conventional military forces
3. Military and political leadership
4. Economic/Industrial targets
The "Black Book" is said to contain 75 pages of options, to be used against these four primary groups. The options are further divided into:
Major Attack Options (MAO's)
Selected Attack Options (SAO's)
Limited Attack Options (LAO's)
The SIOP also allows the President to select Regional Nuclear Options (RNO's) for use against enemy forces leading a conventional attack against U.S. forces. These plans allow the President to execute the SIOP during an attack. He may decide to activate Launch on Warning (LOW) or Launch under Attack (LUA) plans in the event an actual nuclear attack.”
Even though the term SIOP is still used the formal name for the plan was changed to OPLAN 8040 in February 2003. The first plan to carry the new name was OPLAN 8040 Revision 3 from March 2003 (http://www.nukestrat.com/us/stratcom/siopname.htm) ‘In September 1992, Butler signed a memorandum for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that said he had "decided to rename the SIOP." The reason was that the nuclear war plan was more than one plan and was "involving to a collection of far more differentiated retaliatory choices, tailored to a threat environment of greater nuance and complexity" "
“It is rumored that the strikes on 9/11,” led to the creation of new nuclear strike options against regional states seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, according to a military planning document obtained by the Federation of American Scientists. Rumors about such options have existed for years, but the document is the first authoritative evidence that fear of weapons of mass destruction attacks from outside Russia and China caused the Bush administration to broaden U.S. nuclear targeting policy by ordering the military to prepare a series of new options for nuclear strikes against regional proliferators.
Responding to nuclear weapons planning guidance issued by the White House shortly after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, U.S. Strategic Command created a series of scenario driven nuclear strike options against regional states. Illustrations in the document identify the states as North Korea and Libya as well as SCUD-equipped countries that appear to include Iran, Iraq (at the time), and Syria - the very countries mentioned in the NPR. The new strike options were incorporated into the strategic nuclear war plan that entered into effect on March 1, 2003.
The creation of the new strike options contradict statements by government officials who have insisted that the NPR did not change U.S. nuclear policy but decreased the role of nuclear weapons.”
The 26-page declassified document, an excerpt from a 123-page STRATCOM briefing on the production of the 2003 strategic nuclear war plan known as OPLAN 8044 Revision 03, includes two slides that describe the planning against “regional states.” The first of these slides lists a “series of [deleted] options” directed against regional countries with weapons of mass destruction programs. The planning is “scenario driven,” according to the document. The majority of the document deals with targeting of Russia and China, but virtually all of those sections were withheld by the declassification officer.
The names of the “regional states” were also withheld, but three images used to illustrate the planning were released, and they leave little doubt who the regional states are: One of the images is the North Korean Taepo Dong 1 missile; another image shows the Libyan underground facility at Tarhuna; and the third image shows a SCUD B short-range ballistic missile. The SCUD B image is not country-specific, but the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center report Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat from 2003 listed 12 countries with SCUD B missiles: Belarus, Bulgaria, Egypt, Iran, Kazakhstan, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Vietnam and Yemen. Five of these were listed in the NPR as examples of countries that were “immediate, potential, or unexpected contingencies…setting requirements for nuclear strike capabilities”: Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria.
The inclusion of regional nuclear counterproliferaiton strike options into the national (strategic) war plan is a new development because such scenarios have normally been thought to reside at a lower level than the national strategic plan, which has traditionally been focused on targeting of Russia and China. During the 1990s, STRATCOM developed adaptive planning capabilities that enabled quick production of strikes against “rogue” states if necessary, but “there were no immediate plans on the shelf for target packages to give to bombers or missile crews,” a former senior Pentagon official told Washington Post in 2002. OPLAN 8044 Revision 03 changed that by producing executable strike options to the nuclear forces.
The “target base” for the regional states is outlined in the STRATCOM document, but everything except the title has been withheld. But the target base probably included weapons of mass destruction, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons, or the command and control infrastructure required for the states to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies. The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy (NUWEP) that entered into effect one year after OPLAN 8044 Revision 03 stated in part: “U.S. nuclear forces must be capable of, and be seen to be capable of, destroying those critical war-making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world.”
The creation of a “target base” indicates that the planning went further than simple retaliatory punishment with one or a few weapons, but envisioned actual nuclear warfighting intended to annihilate a wide range of facilities in order to deprive the states the ability to launch and fight with WMD. The new plan formally broadened strategic nuclear targeting from two adversaries (Russia and China) to a total of seven.
Iraq presumably disappeared from the war plan again after U.S. forces invaded the country in March 2003 - only three weeks after OPLAN 8044 Revision 03 went into effect - and discovered that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. Libya presumably disappeared after December 2003, when President Muammar Gaddafi declared that he was giving up efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The nuclear strike plans against Iran, North Korea and Syria, however, presumably were carried forward into the next OPLAN 8044 Revision 05 from October 2004, a plan that was still in effect as recently as July 2007.”
(http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2007/11/white_house_guidance_led_to_ne.php#more).
1. Nuclear Football
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football
The Nuclear Football (also called the Atomic Football, President's Emergency Satchel, The Button, The Red Button, The Black Box or just The Football) is a specially outfitted black briefcase used by the President of the United States of America to authorize the use of nuclear weapons. Adopted to permit the president to make a nuclear-attack order while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room, it functions as a mobile node in the strategic defense system of the United States. While exact details about the Football are highly classified, several sources have provided information about the bag, its contents, and its operation.
The football's specific contents are highly classified, but it holds a secure Communications satellite (SATCOM) radio and handset for communication, and any other materials that the president would rely on should a decision to use nuclear weapons need to be made. These include summaries of various predetermined attack options (commonly referred to as the "playbook") as well as plans to handle the national emergency that would follow a nuclear attack and retaliation. These materials are generated by, respectively, the National Security Agency, the United States Strategic Command (attack options), and the United States National Security Council (security/continuity-of-government plans). Contrary to popular belief, the Football does not contain the daily revisions of the nuclear launch codes (known as the "Gold Codes") which are typically kept on the president's person, but rather is a means by which the president can decide upon nuclear attack options and transmit that decision. The attack options provided in the football are part of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), which contains different scenarios that involve the use of nuclear weaponry.
Some accounts specifically assert that the case contains equipment and protocols for activating the Emergency Alert System (EAS). This is a logical assumption since, by the Federal Communication Commission's own official description, the EAS is designed to allow the president to address the nation within ten minutes of a national emergency, regardless of location.
The case itself is a metallic, possibly bullet-resistant, modified Zero Halliburton briefcase which is carried inside a black leather "jacket." The entire package weighs approximately 40 pounds (18 kg). A small antenna, presumably for the SATCOM radio, protrudes from the bag near the handle. Another common misconception is that the Football is handcuffed to its carrier. Rather, a black cable is employed that loops around the handle of the bag and the wrist of the aide.
The Nuclear Football functions as the primary "trigger" for the United States nuclear arsenal. According to experts, if the president, who is commander in chief, must order the use of nuclear weapons, he would be taken aside by the "carrier" and the briefcase would be opened. At that point, the aide and the president would review the attack options and decide upon a plan, such as a single cruise missile or a large ICBM launch. Next, using the SATCOM radio, the aide would make contact with the National Military Command Center or, in a post-first strike situation, an airborne command-post plane (likely a Boeing E-4B). Before the order would be processed by the military, the president must be positively identified using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the "biscuit." Once all the codes had been verified, the military would issue attack orders to the proper units.
The Football is carried by one of the rotating presidential military aides (one from each of the five service branches), who occasionally is physically attached to the briefcase. This person is a commissioned officer in the U.S. military, pay-grade O-4 or above, who has undergone the nation's most rigorous background check (Yankee White). These officers, who are armed, are required to keep the Football within ready access of the president at all times. Consequently, an aide, Football in hand, is always either standing or walking near the president or riding in Air Force One, Marine One or the presidential motorcade with the president.
The Football dates back to Dwight D. Eisenhower, but its current usage came about in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, when John F. Kennedy worried about the commander in chief's ability to authorize a nuclear attack. First, he was worried that a nuclear attack order would be given without his permission. Second, in an era without cellular telephones, Kennedy felt that he would be unable to make and communicate a nuclear attack decision unless he was at a location hardwired to the Pentagon. The result of these concerns was an overhaul of America’s nuclear weapons command and control system, including the invention of a remote node for the decision-making system. This node was the Nuclear Football.
2. SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan)
The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) is a blueprint which specifies how American nuclear weapons would be used in the event of nuclear war.[1] At a NATO level, an agreement to use nuclear weapons envisages the United Kingdom participating in the SIOP (see below). The plan integrates the nuclear capabilities of the "triad" composed of bombers with intercontinental range, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and sea-based submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). The SIOP is a highly classified document, and has been one of the most secret and sensitive issues in U.S. national security policy.
Montage of submerged submarine launch to the reentry of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles of a Trident missile
SIOP plans were named after the fiscal year in which they come into effect. This was first officially applied to SIOP-93; prior to that, plans used a two-character alphanumeric designation. A new SIOP is approved every year, although the plan may well be unchanged. The term SIOP has been replaced by one or more CONPLANs (Contingency Plans), but the term SIOP is still widely used in strategic discussions. The most recent plan (see below) involving general nuclear war is CONPLAN 8044.
The US nuclear arsenal holds around 7,000 individual warheads. A strong counterforce strike (military targets) using up to 1,500 warheads is estimated to cause approximately 120 million casualties; a limited countervalue strike (civilian targets) of 200 warheads is estimated to cause approximately 50 million casualties.[2]
The SIOP is generated from a conceptual guide issued by the President. The guide is converted by the Secretary of Defense into the Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy (NUWEP) of basic targeting objectives, target lists and operational constraints. The NUWEP is then delivered to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and emerges as the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP). The JSCP is then converted into the actual targeting orders, timing, and weapon allocation that comprise the SIOP by the STRATCOM. The entire process takes up to 18 months. Under President Clinton the SIOP held four major attack options, 65 limited attack options, and a number of generalised adaptive options for threats originating outside Russia or China.
Nuclear strike targets are listed as the National Target Base (NTB), which is built from an intelligence list of 150,000+ sites across the world. The number of targets in the NTB has varied enormously - from around 16,000 in 1985, 12,500 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 2,500 in 1995 before rising to the current list of 3,000 targets. Around 75% of the current targets are in Russia; of these, 1,100 are nuclear weapons sites.
United Kingdom participation
While the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent - four Trident Vanguard class submarines - are strictly under UK national control, they do have two distinct roles. The first is part of a UK-only retaliatory response to a nuclear attack, whether a full strategic strike involving all of the Royal Navy's Trident submarines, or a limited tactical strike. The second role is one in which the Royal Navy participates in the SIOP, in effect becoming non-distinct from the U.S. Navy's Trident submarines. This role was to be part of a NATO response to a Soviet nuclear strike.
The Royal Navy's contribution to the SIOP shows the power of the nuclear arsenal committed to the plan. The four Vanguard submarines could strike a maximum of 512 separate targets; this is equivalent to 7% of the total U.S. nuclear strike capacity.
The RAF's V-bomber fleet was also previously assigned to participate in the SIOP, as the Vulcan, Victor and Valiant bombers would have arrived over the USSR before those of Strategic Air Command.
History
SIOP, and its renamed successors, is most importantly an integrated plan that uses both Air Force and Navy delivery systems; it is "single" only in the sense that it comes out of one planning group. The "plan" actually contains multiple "attack options" that are themselves complex plans.
Renaming and refocusing
On 1 March 2003, the SIOP was renamed "OPLAN 8022", and later CONPLAN (contingency plan) 8022.[17] It went into deployment in July 2004, but it was reported cancelled in July 2007. It may have been superseded by an expanded CONPLAN 8044 (see below).
Another set of "Global Strike" plans include a jointly coordinated a nuclear option, intended for other than the general nuclear war situations, principally with Russia but possibly also with China, postulated in OPLAN 8022. Global Strike plans are codified in CONPLAN 8044.
Executing the SIOP
In the United States, the decision to use nuclear weapons is vested in the National Command Authority (NCA), composed of the President of the United States and the United States Secretary of Defense or their successors. The President alone cannot order an attack. The ordering of use, communication of orders, and the release of nuclear weapons is governed by the two-man rule at all times.
No one person ever can take such an action. All military personnel that participate in loading, arming, or firing weapons, as well as transmitting launch orders, are subject to the Personnel Reliability Program (PRP).
If the NCA decides that the United States must launch nuclear weapons, they will direct the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) to do so. At the NCA/JCS level, the orders will be to execute SIOP strike options, broken into Major Attack Options (MAOs), Selected Attack Options (SAOs), and Limited Attack Options (LAOs). Individual countries or regions can be included in or withheld from nuclear attacks depending on circumstances. The CJCS in turn will direct the general officer on duty in addition to one other officer on duty in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon to release an Emergency Action Message (EAM) to all nuclear forces; another officer will validate that order. [19] Additionally, the message will go to the Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC),[20] located in Raven Rock Mountain, Pennsylvania, and also to an airborne command post, either the presidential National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) or the military E-6 TACAMO If the NMCC is destroyed by a first strike, either the ANMCC, NAOC or TACAMO can issue the orders to execute the SIOP.
E-6 Mercury TACAMO aircraft
As the orders go down the chain of command, always subject to the two-man rule, intermediate headquarters, and eventually the nuclear delivery platforms themselves, will receive Emergency Action Messages (EAM) to arm or launch weapons. For most modern weapons, the EAM will also include code(s) for Permissive Action Links (PAL).
At a minimum, a PAL code will actually arm a weapon for release. The circuitry controlling the PAL is deliberately positioned inside the warhead such that it cannot be reached without disabling the weapon, at a minimum, to a level that would require a full factory-level rebuild. There may be separate PAL codes for arming and launch. Some weapons have "dial-a-yield" functions that allow the power of the nuclear explosion to be adjusted from minimum to maximum yield. Most weapons have additional arming circuitry that, even if a valid launch code is entered, will not arm the warhead unless the weapon senses that it has been released on an expected delivery path. For example, the first steps of the final arming process for a ballistic missile depend on physical characteristics of the weapon release, such as the acceleration of a rocket launch, zero-gravity coasting, and various physical aspects of hypersonic reentry into the atmosphere. A gravity bomb dropped from an aircraft will detect the altitude of release and the decreasing altitude as it falls.
3. SIOP Targeting
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuclear-football.htm
SIOP strategic targeting involves four groups:
Russian Nuclear Forces
Conventional military forces
Military and political leadership
Economic/Industrial targets
The "Black Book" is said to contain 75 pages of options, to be used against these four primary groups. The options are further divided into:
Major Attack Options (MAO's)
Selected Attack Options (SAO's)
Limited Attack Options (LAO's)
The SIOP also allows the President to select Regional Nuclear Options (RNO's) for use against enemy forces leading a conventional attack against U.S. forces. These plans allow the President to execute the SIOP during an attack. He may decide to activate Launch on Warning (LOW) or Launch under Attack (LUA) plans in the event an actual nuclear attack.
The National Security Agency is in charge of distributing the daily Gold Codes to the White House, Pentagon, STRATCOM, and the TACAMO aircraft. Use of the Gold Code constitutes an order to execute the SIOP by the National Command Authority (NCA). The National Command Authority (NCA) consists of the President, the Secretary of Defense, or their duly deputized alternates and successsors.
4. Military Aides Still Carry the President’s Football, USA Today, May 5 2005
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-05-nuclear-football_x.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) — They are always there, at the president's side or nearby, hidden in plain sight.
At any given time, five people hold the title of White House military aide, a not particularly revealing description for the men and women who take turns carrying "the football," the leather briefcase stocked with the classified nuclear war plan.
It is a plum assignment and a burnout job, in the estimation of those who have done it.
But do not ask those who carry the football for President Bush. They are not allowed to talk about it.
"You're always kind of on edge," recalls Robert "Buzz" Patterson, who carried the football for President Clinton as an Air Force major and then lieutenant colonel. "I opened it up constantly just to refresh myself, to always be aware of what was in it, all the potential decisions the president could possibly make."
Bob Barrett, who carried the football 20 years earlier for President Ford as an Army major, vividly recalls the job's benefits and burdens: a close-up view of the presidency and the awesome responsibility of being constantly prepared to assist the president in the event of a nuclear attack.
"You're wonderfully overwhelmed by it," said Barrett, who became so close to Ford that he left the military and served on Ford's staff when the president left office.
Barrett also remembers the palpitations he felt during a trip to France when the football inadvertently was left behind at the airport as Barrett departed in a motorcade with Ford. A U.S. security official passed the suitcase through the window to him from a moving car that caught up to the motorcade.
The football is more properly known as the president's emergency satchel. It got its nickname because an early version of the nuclear war plan — the SIOP, or Single Integrated Operational Plan — was code-named "dropkick."
The small black bag first appeared, without public announcement, during the Kennedy administration in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, when the government saw a need for the president to have nuclear decision-making tools at the ready, even when away from the White House.
Now, long after the end of the Cold War, the lethal luggage still shadows the president. The war plans still are updated regularly. Those who carry the satchel still are trained to help the president prepare for a nuclear attack in mere minutes.
Some question whether that is still necessary; others believe it is needed now more than ever.
Specifics of the football's contents are classified. It is known to contain a handbook detailing options for unleashing U.S. nuclear weapons — "everything from firing a tactical nuclear weapon, one of them, to full-born Armageddon," Patterson said.
The plans were so complex that Jimmy Carter, the only president to really study them closely, ordered that a simplified summary be included, said Bruce Blair, president of the private Center for Defense Information and a former Minuteman launch officer. Blair says one source described the summary to him as "virtually a cartoon version."
Patterson equates it to "a Denny's breakfast menu."
"It's kind of like picking one out of Column A and two out of Column B," he said.
There is speculation the briefcase was opened during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, because it contains information about maintaining the continuity of government and about communication and evacuation procedures during a national emergency.
"There was a continuity of government plan that was put into effect, and the documents that lay out what the president should do would be found in the suitcase," Blair said.
Rules for handling the football are classified and probably have changed over the years. Former White House aides recall strict guidelines for keeping it close to the president.
It should always be on the same elevator with him, for example, and always on the same helicopter. Some aides kept it in hand while jogging with the president. Patterson said he would stow the reinforced briefcase, which he estimated weighed 45 pounds, in one of the secure vehicles that shadowed Clinton on his runs.
"It's not difficult to carry around," says Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., who carried the football for Carter and Reagan as a Marine. "You can put it down, and I did often."
When the president is at the White House, the football is kept in a secure location there. One of the military aides always is able to retrieve it quickly.
There also is a spare football at the White House, and a third satchel that remains close to the vice president.
The bags are manufactured by Utah-based Zero Halliburton, which makes much of the fact that its aluminum cases appear in movies including "Men in Black" and "Spy Kids." Otherwise, the company stays mum about what may be the ultimate in product placement.
Football fumbles are rare but do happen.
Clinton once departed a Washington meeting in such haste that he left behind his military aide, who ended up walking a few blocks to the White House, football in tow.
Former military aide Peter Metzger recalls that once Reagan aide Mike Deaver steered him into a different elevator from the president and fooled him into thinking he had missed the motorcade. Metzger said his heart was racing "like a gerbil in a cage" until he realized it was a ruse.
The White House Military Office, which oversees the president's military aides, would not talk about the classified duties. But the aides themselves — and the football — are there for all to see whenever the president is in public. Frequently, the aides and the satchel are caught in the same camera shots that track the president.
Sometimes an antenna can be seen poking out of the satchel, suggesting communications equipment inside.
A retired football is on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, accompanied by a deliberately vague explanation of its purposes. Former aides speak in fairly general terms about the nature of the work; some are happy to mention it prominently on their resumes.
Kline parlayed his tenure as a military aide into a pitch for re-election to Congress. Last year he ran a television ad that opened with images of a black briefcase against a dark background.
"In this briefcase lies the fate of the world," an announcer intoned. "It contains top secret codes to launch a nuclear strike. Two presidents — one from each party — trusted a young Marine named John Kline to safeguard it."
The football's constant presence near presidents has created plenty of odd juxtapositions; Reagan, for example, standing in Moscow's Red Square with a military aide and black suitcase at the ready.
One Sunday, as President Bush was attending church near the White House, his football-toting military aide was seated at the rear of St. John's Church. When the minister directed members of the congregation to greet their neighbors, the aide turned to someone close by and said, "Peace be with you." The response had extra emphasis: "Peace be with YOU."
A snapshot of the contents of the "nuclear football" comes from Breaking Cover, a 1980 book by Bill Gulley, director of the White House Military Office under Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter:
"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."
Gulley said:
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.
The options, in Gulley's words, were: "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.
Source: The Associated Press.
5. The Russian Football
From, “Where’s the Football” Time Magazine, May 4, 1992
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975455,00.html
ANYTIME PRESIDENT BUSH OR RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS Yeltsin travels, an aide tags along carrying the briefcase of electronic controls that Americans call the nuclear football -- the ignition key, in effect, for nuclear war. The former Soviet Union has three operational sets of such devices: Yeltsin has one, which can be used only in conjunction with another set controlled by Defense Minister Yevgeni Shaposhnikov. A third system is usually held by the Defense Ministry and can replace either of the other two. But after last year's aborted coup, Western intelligence lost sight of the third football, and officials were forced to ponder the implications of a nuclear fumble. Now the intelligence boys have cleared up the mystery: the third football is safe in the hands of the Defense Ministry chief of staff. Civilian power may be in flux, but at least the nuclear authority has not changed hands.
