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By the time of President [[John F. Kennedy]]'s [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassination]], if not earlier, the briefcase was also becoming known as the "football."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Manchester |first=William |title=The Death of a President November 20 – November 25,1963 |publisher=Harper and Row |year=1967 |pages=62}}</ref> General [[Chester Clifton]] stated in his 1986 interview that the term was used "jokingly", and he described how [[Warrant officer (United States)|warrant officers]], who were on a twenty-four hour schedule, would regularly hand-off the briefcase to the next person.<ref>{{Cite web |title=War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Chester Clifton, 1986 |url=https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_95F566D8767E46238DE15D0F9A38E67D |website=Open Vault from GBH}}</ref> That routine could have inspired the football metaphor, which dovetailed with the Kennedy clan's penchant for [[Touch football (American)|touch football]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 27, 2007 |title=Shaping Up America: JFK, Sports and the Call to Physical Fitness |url=https://www.jfklibrary.org/visit-museum/exhibits/past-exhibits/shaping-up-america-jfk-sports-and-the-call-to-physical-fitness |website=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library}}</ref> Various sources claim, often mentioning [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]] [[Robert McNamara]] as a source,<ref>{{Cite news |last=McDuffee |first=Allen |date=November 21, 2017 |title=Jimmy Carter once sent launch codes to the cleaner, and other scary tales of the 'nuclear football' |url=https://timeline.com/jimmy-carter-once-sent-launch-codes-to-the-cleaner-and-other-scary-tales-of-the-nuclear-football-add77568346e |work=Timeline}}</ref> that the term "football" was derived from a nuclear attack plan codenamed "Dropkick."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Clymer |first=Adam |date=March 20, 2001 |title=On Tape, Tense Aides Meet After Reagan Shooting |work=The New York Times}}</ref> When and where McNamara made such a statement has not been cited nor is there an original source for the "Dropkick" reference. That claim may have a fictitious premise because "Dropkick" appears distinctively in the film [[Dr. Strangelove]] when the character General Buck Turgidson ([[George C. Scott]]) informs President Merkin Muffley ([[Peter Sellers]]) that the wayward B-52s headed to the Soviet Union "were part of a special exercise we were holding called Operation Dropkick."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kubrick |first=Stanley |date=1964 |title=Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb |url=https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb-1964.pdf |website=Script Slug}}</ref>
By the time of President [[John F. Kennedy]]'s [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassination]], if not earlier, the briefcase was also becoming known as the "football."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Manchester |first=William |title=The Death of a President November 20 – November 25,1963 |publisher=Harper and Row |year=1967 |pages=62}}</ref> General [[Chester Clifton]] stated in his 1986 interview that the term was used "jokingly", and he described how [[Warrant officer (United States)|warrant officers]], who were on a twenty-four hour schedule, would regularly hand-off the briefcase to the next person.<ref>{{Cite web |title=War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; At the Brink; Interview with Chester Clifton, 1986 |url=https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_95F566D8767E46238DE15D0F9A38E67D |website=Open Vault from GBH}}</ref> That routine could have inspired the football metaphor, which dovetailed with the Kennedy clan's penchant for [[Touch football (American)|touch football]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 27, 2007 |title=Shaping Up America: JFK, Sports and the Call to Physical Fitness |url=https://www.jfklibrary.org/visit-museum/exhibits/past-exhibits/shaping-up-america-jfk-sports-and-the-call-to-physical-fitness |website=John F. Kennedy Presidential Library}}</ref> Various sources claim, often mentioning [[United States Secretary of Defense|Secretary of Defense]] [[Robert McNamara]] as a source,<ref>{{Cite news |last=McDuffee |first=Allen |date=November 21, 2017 |title=Jimmy Carter once sent launch codes to the cleaner, and other scary tales of the 'nuclear football' |url=https://timeline.com/jimmy-carter-once-sent-launch-codes-to-the-cleaner-and-other-scary-tales-of-the-nuclear-football-add77568346e |work=Timeline}}</ref> that the term "football" was derived from a nuclear attack plan codenamed "Dropkick."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Clymer |first=Adam |date=March 20, 2001 |title=On Tape, Tense Aides Meet After Reagan Shooting |work=The New York Times}}</ref> When and where McNamara made such a statement has not been cited nor is there an original source for the "Dropkick" reference. That claim may have a fictitious premise because "Dropkick" appears distinctively in the film [[Dr. Strangelove]] when the character General Buck Turgidson ([[George C. Scott]]) informs President Merkin Muffley ([[Peter Sellers]]) that the wayward B-52s headed to the Soviet Union "were part of a special exercise we were holding called Operation Dropkick."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kubrick |first=Stanley |date=1964 |title=Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb |url=https://assets.scriptslug.com/live/pdf/scripts/dr-strangelove-or-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb-1964.pdf |website=Script Slug}}</ref>


During 1965, President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] discussed with Robert McNamara an arrangement to eliminate the "need for an aide to be in constant attendance upon him."<ref>{{Cite web |date=1965 |title=Untitled two-part draft memorandum |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16699-document-18-untitled-two-part-draft-memorandum-n |website=National Security Archive}}</ref> Word of that proposal began to circulate in the media prompting White House aide [[Jack Valenti]] to deny that it had been under consideration. The newspaper article citing the denial, the syndicated "Allen-Scott Report," is perhaps the earliest public reference to the "football," quoting Valenti as saying that "The 'black bag' or 'football', as we call it, goes wherever the President travels."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Allen-Scott Report |date=July 27, 1965 |title=Big Bomber Role is Being Reconsidered |journal=Bluefield (West Virginia) Daily Telegraph}}</ref>
During 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson discussed with Robert McNamara an arrangement to eliminate the "need for an aide to be in constant attendance upon him."<ref>{{Cite web |date=1965 |title=Untitled two-part draft memorandum |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16699-document-18-untitled-two-part-draft-memorandum-n |website=National Security Archive}}</ref> Word of that proposal began to circulate in the media prompting White House aide [[Jack Valenti]] to deny that it had been under consideration. The newspaper article citing the denial, the syndicated "Allen-Scott Report," is perhaps the earliest public reference to the "football," quoting Valenti as saying that "The 'black bag' or 'football', as we call it, goes wherever the President travels."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Allen-Scott Report |date=July 27, 1965 |title=Big Bomber Role is Being Reconsidered |journal=Bluefield (West Virginia) Daily Telegraph}}</ref>


== Contents ==
== Contents ==
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A major component of the "Black Bag" was the "SIOP Execution Handbook," also known as the "Gold Book," with details on the [[Single Integrated Operational Plan#:~:text=The Single Integrated Operational Plan,nuclear weapons would be launched.|Single Integrated Operational Plan]] attack options available to decision-makers. Kennedy had received several briefings on the SIOP, which acquainted him with its basic features.<ref>{{Cite web |date=July 24, 1963 |title=Memorandum of Conference with the President Prepared by Naval Aide Tazewell Shepard |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16691-document-10-memorandum-conference |website=National Security Archive}}</ref> To protect such sensitive contents, the "Black Bag" was by November 1963 a "thirty-pound metal suitcase with an intricate combination lock."<ref name=":1" /> There was some consideration during 1965 of finding ways to reduce the weight, apparently to no avail because recent accounts describe the weight as {{convert|45|lb|kg}}.<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 14, 1965 |title=Untitled memorandum from J.V. Josephson to General Clifton |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16700-document-19-untitled-memorandum-j-v |website=National Security Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dobbs |first=Michael |date=October 1964 |title=The Real Story of the 'Football' That Follows the President Everywhere |journal=Smithsonian Magazine}}</ref>
A major component of the "Black Bag" was the "SIOP Execution Handbook," also known as the "Gold Book," with details on the [[Single Integrated Operational Plan#:~:text=The Single Integrated Operational Plan,nuclear weapons would be launched.|Single Integrated Operational Plan]] attack options available to decision-makers. Kennedy had received several briefings on the SIOP, which acquainted him with its basic features.<ref>{{Cite web |date=July 24, 1963 |title=Memorandum of Conference with the President Prepared by Naval Aide Tazewell Shepard |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16691-document-10-memorandum-conference |website=National Security Archive}}</ref> To protect such sensitive contents, the "Black Bag" was by November 1963 a "thirty-pound metal suitcase with an intricate combination lock."<ref name=":1" /> There was some consideration during 1965 of finding ways to reduce the weight, apparently to no avail because recent accounts describe the weight as {{convert|45|lb|kg}}.<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 14, 1965 |title=Untitled memorandum from J.V. Josephson to General Clifton |url=https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16700-document-19-untitled-memorandum-j-v |website=National Security Archive}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dobbs |first=Michael |date=October 1964 |title=The Real Story of the 'Football' That Follows the President Everywhere |journal=Smithsonian Magazine}}</ref>


During the Eisenhower administration, Vice President Richard Nixon had an emergency satchel assigned to him. When Kennedy became president, one of the White House military aides sent a satchel to Vice President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], but his office returned it for unexplained reasons. According to JCS Chairman General [[Maxwell D. Taylor]], Johnson knew about the satchel, but never received a briefing on it before he became president.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Manchester |first=William |title=The Death of a President November 20-November 25 1963 |publisher=Harper and Row |year=1967 |pages=230, 261}}</ref> As President Johnson possibly found stressful the presence of the military aide carrying the football, on one trip during his 1964 campaign, the aide flew on a separate plane.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Graff |first=Garrett |title=Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government' Secret Plan to Save Itself – While the Rest of Us Die |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2017 |location=New York |pages=177, 250}}</ref>
During the Eisenhower administration, Vice President Richard Nixon had an emergency satchel assigned to him. When Kennedy became president, one of the White House military aides sent a satchel to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, but his office returned it for unexplained reasons. According to JCS Chairman General [[Maxwell D. Taylor]], Johnson knew about the satchel, but never received a briefing on it before he became president.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Manchester |first=William |title=The Death of a President November 20-November 25 1963 |publisher=Harper and Row |year=1967 |pages=230, 261}}</ref> As President Johnson possibly found stressful the presence of the military aide carrying the football, on one trip during his 1964 campaign, the aide flew on a separate plane.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Graff |first=Garrett |title=Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government' Secret Plan to Save Itself – While the Rest of Us Die |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2017 |location=New York |pages=177, 250}}</ref>


[[File:Richard M. Nixon walking out to Marine One in the rain - NARA - 194697.tif|thumb|right|upright=1.5|[[Richard Nixon|President Nixon]] walking to [[Marine One]]—he is being followed by a military aide carrying the nuclear football]]  
[[File:Richard M. Nixon walking out to Marine One in the rain - NARA - 194697.tif|thumb|right|upright=1.5|[[Richard Nixon|President Nixon]] walking to [[Marine One]]—he is being followed by a military aide carrying the nuclear football]]  
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