This letter comes to you shortly after the anniversary of the Trinity atomic bomb test, and as the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings approach.
For quite some time, the peace movement in this country has been calling for an end to the president’s sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. Before he died, Daniel Ellsberg pointed out that this power does not stop with the president.
It all goes back to President Eisenhower’s belief that if Russia dared to attack the United States, the only proper response would be all-out nuclear war, with the president giving the order. In the event that the president were unable to give the order, that power would pass on to the senior officers in the armed forces, and from there, to officers in the field under their command.
There’s more: On his or her own, the president could designate any of those officers as the one to give the order to launch.
The upshot (pardon the pun) is that a colonel or major in the Army, Air Force or Space Force, or a commander in the Navy, could initiate nuclear war. That plan is still in place, along with the power to launch on warning and strike first. For me, the parallels to “Dr. Strangelove” are a touch too close.
John Raby
Scarborough
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