Ninjas and lost nuclear codes: New details emerge on Clinton presidency

by Seth Mandel
November 3, 2010

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1064/ninjas-and-lost-nuclear-codes-new-details-emerge

"It's past midnight…" is how General (ret.) Hugh Shelton, the 14th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff often began sentences when he served during the administration of former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton was a night owl, and Shelton often sat at White House soirees late into the night wondering when he could go home and get some sleep. Clinton was less concerned about that because, as Shelton writes in his memoir Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, "President Clinton was noted for being late to a lot of meetings."

The security meetings, Shelton notes, tended to be on the long side, but that didn't seem to bother Clinton. "He seldom attended National Security Council meetings in the White House Situation Room, preferring instead to have Sandy Berger (his National Security Advisor) handle the meetings and report back to him."

The reason for this is clear: As Shelton demonstrates (though it is clearly not his intent, as he is quite loyal to his former boss) Clinton didn't really care all that much about national security. I'll get to some of the clear examples of this in a moment.

Some of the differences between Clinton and his successor, George W. Bush, are in style, some in substance. For example, when Bush came into office, he actually started attending meetings.

"President Bush would show up to meetings early. It was obvious that he liked the meetings to be well organized, crisp, and then get out of there," Shelton writes. "It was very organized, with little time for chitchat. Unlike President Clinton, President Bush attended almost all the NSC meetings, chairing them from the head of the table."

This difference in style results in difference in substance. For example, in one of the most careless moments of Clinton's presidency (and there were many), he lost the so-called "nuclear football"¾the codes that enable the president to launch a retaliatory or preemptive nuclear strike¾for months.

"This is a big deal¾a gargantuan deal¾and we dodged a silver bullet," Shelton writes. "You may look at it and say, Well, nothing happened, and that's true¾but it could have."

Shelton describes the system to protect the nuclear football. The Department of Defense has an entire department in charge of the nuclear codes and all other aspects of U.S. nuclear policy. One employee in the DoD goes to the White House once a month and inspects the codes to make sure they are the right ones. Every fourth month he replaces the codes with a new set.

In 2000, this employee reported that he had gone to the White House to check the codes and was told that the president did not have them¾and that nobody knew where they were.

The events that precipitated this were as follows. The nuclear code employee went to check on the codes, and was told by Clinton's aide that the president had them but was in a very important meeting and could not be disturbed. He decided to take the president at his word and check the codes again the following month.

But the next month the code checker was off, so a different employee went to Clinton to check the codes. This employee was told the same thing by Clinton's aide¾Clinton's in a meeting, but the codes are just fine. This went on until it was time to change the codes.

"At this point we learned that the aide had no idea where the old ones were, because they had been missing for months," Shelton writes. "The President never did have them, but he assumed, I'm sure, that the aide had them like he was supposed to."

The story never got out, and Shelton made sure to fix the system.

The other example involves ninjas¾one of Clinton's bright ideas to catch al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. The controversy over Clinton's failure to catch or stop bin Laden is well known, and Clinton is defensive about the issue for a reason. But that didn't mean he wasn't trying to get creative about it.

He told the 9/11 Commission that he got so frustrated he actually said the following to Shelton: "You know, Hugh, it would scare the [expletive] out of al-Qaeda if suddenly a bunch of black ninjas rappelled out of helicopters into the middle of their camp."

Clinton was entirely serious. Secretary of Defense William Cohen explained that the main obstacle was getting the ninjas into the camp. They had to find the right aircraft and plan for in-flight refueling, as well as arrange for backup forces and exit flights.

"The bottom line that this single helicopter of ninjas we want to swoop right in has suddenly grown to hundreds of individuals and a number of aircraft and support¾and that's not even getting into the State Department end of things," Shelton writes. "We're damn well not going to fly over Iran, so we need to get overflight clearance from Pakistan, perhaps."

These are just a few of the insights into the depths of Clinton's trademark disinterest in national security we can glean from Shelton's new memoir. But they provide invaluable details that enhance the picture of a commander-in-chief who didn't much care about the most important facet of his job. He partied late, showed up to meetings late or didn't show at all, lost the nuclear codes, and tried to divert a tremendous amount of military resources to sending ninjas into caves to fight al-Qaeda. Bill Clinton had great time as president. Just be glad we survived it.

Seth Mandel is Washington DC based correspondent of Weekly Blitz.

Related Topics:  International News receive the latest by email: subscribe to weekly blitz's free mailing list