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1/ I started going down a rabbit hole, with the expert help of @AtomicAnalyst, of asking: when did the U.S. Vice President start having a fulltime "football" trailing him/her? You would think it would be obvious, due to decapitation risks, that that was always the case. It isn't! https://twitter.com/NarangVipin/status/1359680142147256325
2/ We are pretty confident Vice Presidents Cheney, Biden, and Pence had full time "footballs" trailing them. But precisely when the practice started is unclear.
3/ Today, Stephen found a riveting account of the Hinckley assassination attempt on Reagan. The story has some pictures that follow the "football" that day. The primary one was left at the Hilton as Reagan left. The secondary one is interesting... http://res.dallasnews.com/interactives/reagan-bush/
4/ It *appears* that a secondary football was brought to the situation room, amidst chain of command chaos as Secretary of State Haig battled with SecDef Weinberger as to who was in charge. Neither was. Constitutionally VP Bush had the authority to launch nuclear weapons.
5/ But where was Bush? He was on AF2 coming back from Texas after being informed of the assassination attempt. The football, however, was not with him. The President was incapacitated in surgery, and the person with the constitutional authority to launch had no ability to do so.
6/ My question to those who may know: was it this event which triggered a fulltime backup "football" with the Veep? We know it was inconsistent prior to this, and if this story was true, US nuclear launch authority was in a pickle that day. Did it take 40 yrs to figure this out?
7/ It's possible this particular story is wrong and that Bush did have a "football". BUT, we do know that it was not SOP for the VP to have a fulltime "football" through the Cold War. Do we know when it started and who finally realized it might be a good idea? Nixon? Mondale?
8/ Addendum: the story implies that Bush did not have a "football" but it could also be that he simply did not have a secure method of communication from AF2, and would have had to land the aircraft to issue any launch order. Either way, fascinating episode.
9/ Addendum II: @fmkaplan went down this hole too and it turns out that the practice started with *Mondale*! The Bush story aside, that means for 40 years of the Cold War if POTUS was incapacitated, American nuclear C2 could have been really dicey. https://twitter.com/atomicanalyst/status/1359949602191990792
