the secretary of defense has the power to launch nuclear weapons in the us if the president is alive, other than the president.
the secretary of defense has the power to launch nuclear weapons in the us if the president is alive, other than the president.
who has the power to launch nuclear weapons in the us if the president is alive, other than the president?
secretary of defense
the vice president, the secretary of defense, and the deputy secretary of defense also have nuclear footballs. this is because the president is merely one-half of the national command authority (nca). the secretary of defense (or his successor) must concur with a presidential decision to launch nuclear weapons.









































section::::history.
nuclear football
starting with president eisenhower, authority to launch a full scale nuclear attack has been delegated to theater commanders and other specific commanders if they believe it is warranted by circumstances, and are out of communication with the president or the president had been incapacitated. for example, during the cuban missile crisis, on october 24, 1962, general thomas power, commander of the strategic air command (sac), took the country to defcon 2, the very precipice of full-scale nuclear war, launching the sac bombers of the us with nuclear weapons ready to strike. moreover, some of these commanders subdelegated to lower commanders the authority to launch nuclear weapons under similar circumstance. in fact, the nuclear weapons were not placed under locks until decades later, so pilots or individual submarine commanders had the power, but not the authority, to launch nuclear weapons entirely on their own.
nuclear weapons of the united states