AMERICA IS CONFRONTED WITH ITS OWN DESTRUCTIVE POWER

By Vincent Lyn

America confronts its own destructive power and the single person entrusted with it: Whose finger is on the button?

Fact check: There is no button.

There is a briefcase, though.

It follows the president everywhere — onto Air Force One, onto the golf course, onto elevators. Inside is a manual for conducting nuclear war. A how-to, really.

The briefcase is aluminum, 45 pounds, clad in leather and descends from a line of durable, airtight cases made specially for Erle P. Halliburton, the oil-field engineer who founded the company that would become infamous because of its associations with Dick Cheney, the Iraq war and the Deepwater Horizon oil leak.

Carrying the briefcase is a job shared among five military aides, one from each branch of the U.S. armed forces. The manual inside is more like a takeout menu, but instead of picking between numbered Chinese dishes, the president would choose cities or military installations in, say, Russia, North Korea, Iran, China (or all) to attack.

At the president’s disposal right now are a little over 900 nuclear warheads deployed on various “delivery vehicles” around the planet. Some sit atop missiles buried in the ground in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado. Some are carried by submarines that are patrolling the North Atlantic and western Pacific. Others are ready to be loaded onto aircraft in Missouri, North Dakota, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

Some of these warheads can be launched within minutes of the president’s order, hit anywhere in the world within a half hour, and deliver 20 times the explosive force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The president can order this without consulting Congress, without being checked by the Supreme Court. “One man, the president, is responsible. He makes an error and, who knows, it’s Armageddon.”

THERE HAVE BEEN AN UNNERVING HISTORY OF CLOSE CALLS:

In 1961, a B-52 bomber broke up over North Carolina and dropped two warheads to the earth; each had the potential to explode with the force of 200-plus Hiroshimas.Ten former nuclear launch control officers who once held the keys needed to fire on the president’s order have signed an open letter saying they think Donald Trump should not be entrusted with the nation’s nuclear codes.

In 1979, Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was told that hundreds of missiles were on their way from the Soviet Union; a minute before he called the president to coordinate a devastating response, he was told that the military had misinterpreted a training exercise.The letter, issued Thursday, says the decision to use nuclear weapons requires “composure, judgment, restraint and diplomatic skill” — all qualities that the former Air Force officers who signed it said Trump lacks.

In 1983 and 1995, Moscow came within minutes of retaliating against false alarms — the first prompted by sunlight reflecting off clouds, the second by a NASA research rocket.

In 2007, six warheads were mistakenly flown from North Dakota to Louisiana before anyone realized that nuclear weapons had been in the air over the United States.

In 2012, an 82 year old catholic nun and two fellow peace activists easily intruded into a weapons site in East Tennessee that is nicknamed “the Fort Knox of Uranium” and hosts perhaps the biggest stockpile of fissile material in the world.“On the contrary, he has shown himself time and again to be easily baited and quick to lash out, dismissive of expert consultation and ill-informed of even basic military and international affairs — including, most especially, nuclear weapons,” the letter says. “Donald Trump should not be the nation’s commander-in-chief. He should not be entrusted with the nuclear launch codes. He should not have his finger on the button.”

The following statement was written and signed by former nuclear launch officers in 2016. If there’s ever a more important time than right now to be reminded of the stark and dire reality the world is facing at the hands of our current POTUS.

The letter is the latest in an extraordinary series of missives signed this year by diplomats and national security experts warning of the dangers they think a Trump presidency would pose. Last month, in a break from the trend, 88 retired military leaders endorsed the Republican presidential nominee. But most of the letters have reflected the views of those who consider Trump unfit to be commander in chief.

The former missileers who signed Thursday’s letter served at the nation’s four underground launch centers in the Great Plains from as long ago as the 1960s to, most recently, 2013. They do not endorse Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, or even mention her name, in the letter.

“No one who signed the letter wanted to disclose a position who they would vote for,” said Bruce Blair, who organized the letter and said he is a Democrat who will vote for Clinton but has no idea which candidate the others support. “The letter is focused entirely on Trump.”

Blair said the signatories are part of a circle of friends and acquaintances who were “flabbergasted and flummoxed” by the prospect of Trump winning the election. He said they decided several weeks ago to release an open letter, when polls showed Trump and Clinton much closer than more recent numbers do.

“It sort of snuck up on us,” he said. “They were at a virtual tie in the polls. You kind of woke up one day and realized it’s very possible that this person, this pathological liar, who lacks self-control, who knows very little about anything and is angry and aggressive, who might lash out with nuclear weapons if he’s elected, could win. That sort of dawned on everyone. We felt we needed to weigh in.”

The nation’s nuclear-armed missiles are kept at Air Force bases in Cheyenne, Wyo., Minot, N.D., and Great Falls, Mont. A fourth base’s nuclear facility, in Grand Forks, N.D., has been decommissioned.

If a president orders a missile launch, Blair said, five crews are equipped with keys used to fire a total of 50 missiles. Although the keys are interconnected, the missiles can be launched if just two crews carry out the order.

“Only the president can order a nuclear launch,” the letter states. “That order cannot be vetoed and once the missiles have been launched, they cannot be called back. The consequences of miscalculation, impulsive decision-making or poor judgment on the part of the president could be catastrophic.”

Blair said the officers are trained to put aside any personal doubts and trust in the system and the leadership.

“The presumption is, the commander in chief is acting in the national interest, and his decision should be grounded in knowledge and good advice,” he said. “Everyone would have to assume that, even though they had doubts — very strong doubts, if Trump were president.”

In the final weeks of the presidential election, we sounded our alarm over Donald Trump’s fitness to serve as commander-in-chief, with absolute authority over the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Joining hundreds of leaders across the political spectrum in questioning Trump’s temperament, judgement and indifference to expert advice, we warned that Trump should not be allowed to have his finger on the proverbial “Red Button.”

One year into the Trump presidency, our alarm has only intensified and we must raise our voices again. The president has had ample opportunity to educate and humble himself to the grave responsibilities of his office. Instead, he consistently shows himself to be easily baited, stubborn in his ignorance of world politics and diplomacy, and quick to brandish nuclear threats. The reality of this presidency is worse than we feared.

Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has put the United States on a collision course with North Korea. The most recent back-and-forth with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over the size of their “nuclear buttons” is dangerous and risks catastrophic miscalculation. Threats of “fire and fury” and total destruction of the Kim dictatorship undercut diplomatic efforts and increase the likelihood of stumbling into conflict. Worse, it appears the president is operating under the belief that these threats of nuclear war are working; we can only expect this behavior will continue.

Every one of these episodes points to a flaw in the nuclear launch process that poses a clear and present danger to the country and the world: Every American President has absolute authority to order the first use of nuclear weapons. No one — not the secretary of defense, not the attorney general, not Congress — can veto that order. There are no reliable safeguards in place to contain this power.

As former nuclear launch control officers, it was our job to fire nuclear missiles if the president so directed. Once the president orders a launch, we could have missiles leaving their silos in several minutes. They cannot be recalled. The missiles would reach their destination — whether Russia, China or North Korea — within 30 minutes. There is no act of greater consequence, and it should not rest in the hands of any one person.

There are a number of good proposals before Congress right now that would rein in the president’s power to order the first use of nuclear weapons. Whether it’s assigning the defense secretary and attorney general a role in certifying a launch order, requiring a Congressional Declaration of War before the first use of nuclear weapons, or ending the policy of nuclear first use entirely, any of these common-sense measures would reduce the risk we now face. All are backed by top experts and worthy of consideration. Whichever path we take, it is essential officials on both sides of the aisle come together to reform the system.

We and our nation cannot abide being hostages to the mood swings of a petulant and foolish commander-in-chief. No individual, especially Donald Trump, should hold the absolute power to destroy nations. That is a clear lesson of this presidency and one that we, as former stewards of the launch keys, embrace with full conviction.

Timothy J. Allen

Ellsworth AFB, 1991–92 F.E.

Warren AFB, 1992–96

Offutt AFB, 2002–05

Bruce G. Blair

Malmstrom AFB, 1972–74

Victor D. Bras

Whiteman AFB, 1968–72

Grand Forks AFB, 1983–85

Ken Franklin

Minot AFB, 1967–70

Frank G. Goldman, ESQ. F.E.

Warren AFB, 1988–91

Peter Hefley

F.E. Warren AFB, 2005–07

Calvin W. Hickey

Malmstrom AFB, 1975–76

Geoffrey Kanner

Malmstrom AFB, 1980–84

David Macpherson

Malmstrom AFB, 1969–72

Michael Miller

F.E. Warren AFB, 2009–13

Emma Poon

Malmstrom AFB, 2005–09

James Robertson

Malmstrom AFB, 1999–2003

Ryan William Schmoll F.E.

Warren AFB, 2005–09

David C.W. Wagner

F.E. Warren, 2005–09

Brian Weeden

Malmstrom AFB, 2000–04

Theodore F. Weihe

Whiteman AFB, 1965–70

Thomas C. Xander

Whiteman AFB, 1967–70

Vincent Lyn

CEO/Founder at We Can Save Children

Creative Director at African Views Organization

Economic & Social Council at United Nations

Middle East Correspondent at Wall Street News Agency