Are You Ready for Some Football?
The Cold War is over bla bla bla. But the football is still around:
At any given time, five people hold the title of White House military aide, a not particularly revealing description of 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....
Bob Barrett, who carried the football 20 years earlier for President Gerald Ford as an Army major, still vividly recalls the benefits and burdens of the job: an intimately close-up view of the presidency with 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 he departed in a motorcade with Ford. Before long, a U.S. security official passed the suitcase through the window to him from a moving car that caught up to the motorcade....
Now, long after the end of the Cold War, the lethal luggage still shadows the president. The war plan still is 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....
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 for a national emergency....
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 4½ blocks to the White House, football in tow.
Former military aide Peter Metzger recalls when Reagan aide Mike Deaver steered him into a different elevator than 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 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 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."
oempomeme: What are your car radio presets?
Technorati Tags: nuclear
[12/28/2006 - my del.icio.us tags for Gerald R. Ford Jr. are here.]
Comments