President Clinton lost nuclear "biscuit" for a couple of months

Published 21 October 2010

The nuclear “football” is a heavy metal briefcase containing the communication information and nuclear release codes which allow the president to launch nuclear weapons against an adversary; the football is carried by a military aide who is never more than a few steps away from the president; before the order can be processed by the military, however, the president must be positively identified by using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the “biscuit”; the biscuit is often carried by the president himself — in his shirt or breast pocket; a new book charges that President Clinton misplaced the nuclear biscuit for a few months — and that the loss was discovered only when he was asked to produce it so it could be updated; President Carter, too, mishandled the biscuit: he left the card with the launch codes in a suit sent to the dry cleaner

 

Retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton wrote in his memoirs that former President Bill Clinton misplaced the nuclear launch card for a couple months, reportedly not the first time a president has dropped the ball for the nuclear “football.”

 

At one point during the Clinton administration, the codes were actually missing. That’s a big deal, a gargantuan deal,” the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman wrote in his new book, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior.

ABC News recounted the incident with Clinton on Wednesday night, but the revelation is not new.

Lt. Col. Robert Patterson, who was responsible for carrying around the “football” — or the briefcase in which the codes activating the U.S. nuclear forces are kept — made a similar accusation seven years ago in his book Dereliction of Duty.

Patterson’s account was taken with a grain of salt because his brief book does not contain much more than a collection of mostly unsubstantiated anecdotes and rumors aiming to denigrate the Clintons (in a TV interview after the book was published, Patterson claimed that Hillary Rodham Clinton “wanted to outlaw uniforms, military uniforms in the White House”). Patterson appears to provide an explanation for his animosity toward the Clintons: he writes that Clinton “ogled” his (Patterson’s) wife in the Oval Office, and that Clinton cheats at golf — which Patterson views as “not just a peccadillo but symptomatic of the way [Clinton] approached life.”

Shelton’s sober account now substantiates at least one story in Patterson’s book.

The briefcase, of “football,” contains the communication information and nuclear release codes which allow the president to launch nuclear weapons against an adversary. Before the order can be processed by the military, however, the president must be positively identified by using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the “biscuit.”

The football — a hefty, heavy metal attaché case — is carried by a military aide who is never more than a few steps away from the president, regardless of where the president is and whether or not the president is at work or on vacation, at home or abroad, in his office or in the shower. The biscuit, though, is often carried by the president himself — in his shirt or breast pocket.

At the time, Patterson described how Clinton misplaced the card for months, confessing the loss after being asked to provide the card so it could be replaced with an updated code.

ABC noted that a similar claim was made about former President Jimmy Carter, who was said to have left the card with the launch codes in a suit sent to the dry cleaner.