Talk:Nuclear Football

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[edit] British PM has a football also?

Guys, here's a question for you, elsewhere in wikipedia it says that the Queen of England is the Commander in Chief of the british military. Putting aside the fact that we Patriots of the United States find it astonishing to see The People of any modern first world nation willing to sacrifice their sovreign power to a monarch ("Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" says the Declaration), how does the launching of nuclear weapons work in Britain? I assume the PM is the one who would give the order, not the Queen? Does Blair have a "nuclear football"? --Brian, former US Navy submariner 71.116.106.31 00:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe launch authority rests with the PM, though I don't have anything offhand to say so. ("War Plan UK" probably would, but it's a few hundred miles away...) Shimgray | talk | 22:49, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Ah, now this is a very interesting question, especially having in mind a curious concept in the 'unwritten' constitution of the UK, that of the Crown and royal prerogative - through which ministers including the Prime Minister derive their executive authority. The Prime Minister, acting in his capacity as a crown officer, can ask for a nuclear strike. However the Prime Minister, unlike the President of the US, is not a commissioned officer in HM Forces and therefore cannot order any serving member of the armed forces to do anything and require them to obey. Instead, s\he will ask the Chief of the Defence Staff (who is a commisioned officer) to order the launch. This, in theory, provides a safeguard against a particularly despotic Prime Minister "going rogue" and ordering a nuclear strike on their own. In practice, however, it is unlikely this distinction would be observed - especially in a crisis situation likely to require nuclear retaliation. Further complications arise due to submarine based Trident weapons and the envelopes on-board. This whole topic is explored in much more detail in the book "The Secret State - Britain and the Cold War" by Professor Peter Hennessy. - Divinedegenerate 16:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Brian - I find the way you worded your question highly offensive. 81.77.204.208 03:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Gotta agree there. In case you haven't noticed, no-one cares about US patriots in Britain. Vitriol 18:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
It looks to me like a friendly jab.--BlackTerror 15:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is also linked from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Rocket_Incident, this article doesn't mention any "nuclear briefcases" other than the US one though. --81.227.83.65 (talk) 19:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russian president has a football too

USSR premiers and Russian presidents also have "footballs". This should be also reflected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.238.92.2 (talk) 13:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure, if you can find a website or something that has more info on the USSR's (now Russia's) football, knock yourself out. I'm certainly interested.76.177.160.69 (talk) 04:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] why a football

And why is it called a football? EAi 17:35, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it's because it's the most popular name devised for it -- it officially doesn't have one.

And why the hell is the fate of the nation's nuclear arsenal entrusted to a suitcase?!?!?!? Ghost Freeman 18:16, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Duane from ABC Liquors can pick up the satcom and say, "Yeah, dude. Code x5793. Glass parking lot! Whoaahh!!" simply because he found the football. Relax. Ayeroxor 20:59, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] disambiguation

I started a discussion at Talk:Football#Nuclear_Football on whether a disambiguation statement is warranted on the Football page since this briefcase is more commonly referred to as the Football rather than the Nuclear Football. Just thought that those of you who follow this topic might be interested if you have any comments concerning this matter. --Umofomia 07:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User "Old Right"

At least twice, user Old Right (you really should check out his history) has vandalized this page, adding or removing information with the intent to lean the article towards a POV. If you see any of his activity in the article history, or any other articles for this matter, please review it.

reply to the above paragraph: I'm not "Old Right", but lmao you can't say wikipedia is "anyone can edit wikipedia" and then turn around and say "but this person is banned". You shouldn't try to give wikipedia credibility; credibility is why we pay for Encyclopedias and Newspapers! lmao I pay for The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or the London Telegraph or the Economist because I find them more credible than Joe Six Pack Blogger! There is a lot of anti-american/communist opinion expressed and implied in supposedly "neutral" wikipedia articles. For example the tv license article implies that somehow the government at one time attempted to have a tv license -- which would be a PATENT violation of the 4th amendment -- but decided not to because the quality of commercial TV had been demonstrated. Complete nonsense! The first radio stations in the USA were completely unregulated and completely private enterprises. The american equivilent of OFCOM was not created for another 30 years. Whereas in England, it was apparently illegal to broadcast unless you were the BBC. It was a totally different process, and Americans in any case would certainly NEVER stand for TV licenses. We proved that in 1776. You might as well have Pencil Licenses, and a British Writing Corporation, to "preserve the quality of works created with pencils". The British Writing Corporation, of course, would have the authority to charge money for the right to own pencils, and to inspect your home to determine if you have any unlicensed pencils. (see www.centreforcitizenship.org.uk if you think no brits agree with me on that) My point here is, to suggest that this guy Old Right should be banned from wikipedia in an attempt to create "credibility" is complete nonsense. Either ANYBODY can edit an article, or they can't. If they can't, that seems to defeat the purpose of having a wikipedia. Again, if I want something edited, with reliable information, I will go to Encyclopedia Britannica. If I want unedited information on esoteric subjects like Star Trek and Lord of the Rings, I will use Wikipedia. But Wikipedia will never be credible to the extent that Encyclopedia Britannica is, because the University of Chicago, the world renown university which currently owns Britannica, is fundamentally more credible than the people who post to wikipedia, including myself. --Brian, former usn submariner

To unsigned complainer, can we see YOUR history please? I looked for Old Right in the page history and his last edit was an addition of extra information on who has "dropped the ball" before. He may have partisan opinions but, in that case at least, I think he acted on those opinions to REDUCE the bias in the article. I'm not American and its clear to me as a neutral outsider that someone has edited this article with the intention of portraying Bill Clinton as more of a clown than his IQ would suggest. Howboutpete 20:44, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Be Careful

A few sentences were clearly copy and pasted from [1], especially the part on the beginnings of "the Football". Bayerischermann 02:02, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pop Culture References

The first place I can think of that I'd ever heard the use of the term 'football' ascribed to the presidential nuclear death satchel would be in the movie Seven Days in May. Having never read the book, I cannot say if the book used the term as well.

It is featured briefly at the begging of the NCIS pilot episode yankee white. It is also featured prominantly in the novel Area 7 by Matthew Reilly. MxAesir 13:17, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Factual Mistake in the Article

Why would President George H. W. Bush losing the briefcase be most recently? Bill Clinton was President after Bush, so I can't see how the article could possibly be accurate as is. Maybe the original author confused George H. W. Bush (41st President) with George W. Bush (current, 43rd President). However, I don't really have any sources to confirm this, just intuition. Duckdid 06:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kaboom!

Has this thing ever been used? Or are we not allowed to know? Vitriol 18:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Since it was designed while Kennedy was in office, and the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used (besides tests) was in 1945... I'm guessing not. Of course it could have other non-nuclear functions, we don't know. -216.138.38.86 18:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nixon

Is there any truth in the story that the football, along with the president's copy of the launch codes, was not present on Nixon's last flight in Air Force One prior to his resignation to eliminate the possibility of him staging a nuclear coup? I've herd this a couple of times but haven't found anything to back it up. Me lkjhgfdsa 21:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images of the football

I don't know if these images are allowed to be used, but they are pictures of something in the Smithsonian(which is allowed for public use). http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuclear-football-pics.htm It's just a leather satchel. It shows the leather strap to connect it to the carriers wrist. This is probably what the un-sourced things from the article are based on. It is also possible that some of the information came from this show http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/tv_guide/full_details/Technology/programme_2236.php Hope someone can at least find some citeable sources from those links! Also, the question of it ever being used to launch nukes... it was developed in the cold war, so obviously there are no reported cases of it being used to launch nukes. Mad Gouki 21:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd be willing to bet that if someone asked the smithsonian[2] reeeeal nice like, they might be willing to give us one :) SQLQuery me! 10:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I understand that pictures of the real thing would be totally classified, but why is it so? Even if terrorists or whatever found out what the football really looked like, they wouldn't be able to fight through a ton of marines and secret service agents to get to it. And even then they would need the launch codes, and probably the presidents fingerprint. Lame, totally lame. --Simpsons fan 66 05:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional references

The article's getting a bit swamped with all the fictional references - perhaps it could be trimmed down to a few lines to indicate that it's a widely used ploty theme? What are other peoples thoughts on this? --RedHillian (talk) 16:30, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the pop culture references should stay as-is. At least until I or someone else has the heart to do a full fledged article on that Chain of Command movie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.177.160.69 (talk) 01:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you. If you want to trim down things in the article to stuff that is from fiction or based on speculation more power to you. 68.50.168.239 (talk) 03:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contents section

It says right in the section that the contents of the Football are highly classified. However, the section then goes on to make assumptions about what it contains. That sounds like patent speculation to me. 98.16.177.138 (talk) 06:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is this an authoritative source?

In the Highlights section, the following sentence appears: "During their presidencies, Jimmy Carter always carried the launch codes in his jacket, while Ronald Reagan preferred to keep the launch codes in his wallet." The source cited for this statement is: http://members.aol.com/thebodie/football.html The author appears to be a man named Martin Bodek. I found his home page at: http://www.martinbodek.com/ His article "Secrets of the Nuclear Football" cited here is described as having been published in something called "The Scoogie Spin", though the web site is defunct and I can't figure out what kind of publication this is. So this leaves me trying to assess Bodek himself as an authoritative source. Reading his web site, I see nothing that indicates that he is directly connected to President Carter or President Reagan, the White House staff, US military command, or any other primary sources. There is no chain of evidence that leads to any other source, primary or otherwise. In my editorial judgment, this citation is not acceptable by Wikipedia's standards. Can anyone find a better reference? If not, I am inclined to remove this sentence and reference, because for all we know this information is completely made up. CosineKitty (talk) 16:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I just did a little more reading about WP policies regarding acceptable sources of information. So, while I understand my talking about "primary" sources is faulty (should have been "neutral third party with a reputation for fact checking", etc.) I still think there is something fishy about this source. CosineKitty (talk) 01:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)