McNamara, the Football acquired its name from an early nuclear war plan code-named “Dropkick.” (“Dropkick” needed a “football” in order to be put into effect.) The earliest known photograph of a military aide trailing the president with the telltale black briefcase (a modified version of a standard Zero-Halliburton model) was taken on May 10, 1963, at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. “How would the person who received my instructions verify them?”Īccording to former Secretary of Defense Robert S. “What would I say to the Joint War Room to launch an immediate nuclear strike?” The president posed the following chilling, but commonsense, questions: Kennedy believed that nuclear weapons were, as he put it, “only good for deterring.” He also felt it was “insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.” Horrified by the doctrine known as MAD (mutually assured destruction), JFK ordered locks to be placed on nuclear weapons and demanded alternatives to the “all or nothing” nuclear war plan.Ī declassified Kennedy memo documents the concerns that led to the invention of the Football as a system for verifying the identity of the commander in chief.

The Football also provides the commander in chief with a simplified menu of nuclear strike options-allowing him to decide, for example, whether to destroy all of America’s enemies in one fell swoop or to limit himself to obliterating only Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing.Īlthough its origins remain highly classified, the Football can be traced back to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Its primary purpose is to confirm the president’s identity, and it allows him to communicate with the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, which monitors worldwide nuclear threats and can order an instant response. “We were looking for something that would demonstrate the incredible military power and responsibilities of the president, and we struck upon this iconic object,” says curator Harry Rubenstein.Ĭontrary to popular belief, the Football does not actually contain a big red button for launching a nuclear war. A retired Football, emptied of its top-secret inner contents, is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Officially known as the “president’s emergency satchel,” the so-called nuclear “Football”-portable and hand-carried-is built around a sturdy aluminum frame, encased in black leather. Accompanying the commander in chief wherever he goes, the innocuous-looking briefcase is touted in movies and spy novels as the ultimate power accessory, a doomsday machine that could destroy the entire world. It is the closest modern-day equivalent of the medieval crown and scepter-a symbol of supreme authority.

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