Lieutenant Commander Woody Lee stands on Red Square with the “nuclear football” attached to his wrist with a leather strap to prevent it from being seized or lost during US President Ronald Reagan’s visit to Moscow with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in May 1988
There are four things in the Football. The Black Book containing the retaliatory options, a book listing classified site locations, a manila folder with eight or ten pages stapled together giving a description of procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, and a three-by-five-inch [7.5 × 13 cm] card with authentication codes. The Black Book was about 9 by 12 inches [23 × 30 cm] and had 75 loose-leaf pages printed in black and red. The book with classified site locations was about the same size as the Black Book, and was black. It contained information on sites around the country where the president could be taken in an emergency.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.