The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel

by Jeffrey Lewis

The president now seemed to recall the briefing he had received about these procedures—or perhaps to become aware of the military aide standing in the bunker with him. Because he suddenly turned his full attention to the soldier. “I just remember the president said, ‘Come over here!’ to the major with the football, gesturing with his hands,” one aide recalled. What happened next is a matter of some dispute. The president, Francis, and others have asserted that the president was simply asking for the football so that he could review the briefing book located inside it, the book that contained the different options for a nuclear attack. The military aide, however, in the Article 92 hearing for his court-martial, explained that he was uncomfortable with the president’s tone and demeanor. He said that he was concerned that he was about to be given an order that he believed was unlawful. He understood the president’s gesture to be a request for the football to order a launch, not merely to review the options.