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US Presidential Nuclear Codes 'Lost For Months'

Posted by kdawson on from the dropping-the-football dept.

Martin Hellman writes "Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, has dropped a nuclear bombshell, metaphorically speaking. Shelton's recently released memoir Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, asserts that an aide to President Clinton lost a card containing key phrases needed for ordering a nuclear strike, and that the codes were missing for months. This confirms a similar allegation, made in 2004 by Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, a military aide who frequently carried the 'nuclear football' during the Clinton presidency. Unfortunately, human error within the nuclear weapons complex is a frequent and dangerous occurrence."

9 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. Time to take the men out of the loop ... by tgd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Turn the decision making over to a computer. I'm sure it can't find the launch codes.

    1. Re:Time to take the men out of the loop ... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Would you like to play a game of tic tac toe?

    2. Re:Time to take the men out of the loop ... by thepike · · Score: 2, Funny

      A Strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

  2. well that just takes the by bugs2squash · · Score: 2, Funny

    biscuit

    --
    Nullius in verba
  3. Re:This is Clinton we're talking about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Duh! He didn't retaliate because he lost the codes. By the time he found them in his other pair of pants, he had been impeached already.

  4. Not lost by PPH · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just mixed up with all the phone numbers on cocktail napkins and bar coasters.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  5. Too bad it was 2004... by mjs_ud · · Score: 3, Funny

    If it were more recent they probably would have been backed up on wikileaks.

    --
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
  6. Re:This is Clinton we're talking about by flaming+error · · Score: 3, Funny

    Well duh.

    Democrats are unamerican, and strategerizing like that just hurts the thinkbone.

  7. Overreaction by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Konami code Easter Egg would have worked if needed.