The repercussions of launching a nuclear attack and murdering millions of innocent people are essentially hard to conceive. You won’t (almost likely) ever have to decide whether to deploy nuclear weapons, thus this might not be an issue for you. However, if you do possess the nuclear codes due to your position as President of the United States, for example, it poses a challenge and requires supervision to prevent you from becoming overly aggressive.
Could you, if necessary, make a properly educated decision and be fully aware of the atrocities you are about to inflict upon millions of civilians? The nuclear codes should simply be implanted into the breast of a member of the president’s cabinet, suggested a Harvard professor and expert in negotiation and conflict management in the 1980s as a way to resolve this contradiction. The president would then need to break the codes if he decided to fire off a nuclear missile.
Roger Fisher explained the idea in an essay that appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in March 1981. “The President is accompanied by a young man who is most likely a Navy officer. The codes required to launch nuclear bombs are kept in the young man’s black attaché case. I can imagine the president debating the possibility of nuclear war in a staff meeting. “On SIOP Plan One, the decision is yes, Communicate the Alpha line XYZ,” he would say in his conclusion. Such language distances what is being said, “Fisher wrote.
“My recommendation was straightforward: place the necessary code number in a tiny capsule, then implant the capsule precisely near to the volunteer’s heart. The volunteer would accompany the President while carrying a big, cumbersome butcher knife. The only way the President could launch nuclear weapons if he ever want to do so would be if he first personally killed one person. George, I’m sorry, but tens of millions must perish, the President adds. He needs to gaze at someone in order to understand what death—particularly an innocent death—is. The White House carpet is covered with blood. It’s a reminder of reality.”
The idea may be sound (if it doesn’t just make the president more bloodthirsty), but fear not—there is little possibility that it will be put to action. When Fisher asked the Pentagon for a response, they provided him with information that isn’t particularly comforting for humanity. Fisher had said that nuclear weapons could solve any issue, “except the population problem.”
“My God, that’s terrible, my pals in the Pentagon exclaimed when I brought it up. The President’s judgment would be clouded by having to murder someone. Maybe he won’t press the button again.”
