Maybe He Could Do It, But It Wouldn't Be Easy

I knew I could find it, but I also knew it would take a while. I had to flip through hundreds of pages.

Henry Kissinger wrote a three-volume memoir of his years with the Nixon-Ford Administrations. This is no sketchy deal; together, they run close to four thousand pages. And he can write. He's brilliant. The details are incredible.

I have them all. I haven't read through all of them all the way, but I did remember a passage I found that describes when Kissinger told an anecdote about Nixon that was genuinely scary--as scary as the time we're in right now. It's featured in the third book, Days of Renewal, in which for a while at least, he reviews the great and not-so-great tendencies of Nixon's, being careful to include them after he had left office (which is what I think many will do with 45).

One night, a TWA plane (Remember that airline?) was hijacked and taken to Damascus airport. Kissinger, then national security adviser, reported it to Nixon.

Nixon was at his home in San Clemente, California, apparently having some cocktails with a couple of his buddies. "Obviously trying to impress his pals," Kissinger wrote, "Nixon issued a curt-sounding order: 'Bomb the airport of Damascus.' "

By the way, we didn't. And the method by which the order was belayed, delayed, and eventually countermanded might shed some light on the necessity with which Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi consulted with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Malloy. 

Of course, Nixon was commander-in-chief, with full military authority, so Kissinger couldn't tell him to knock it off. He had to "carry out" the order. But he did so in a way in which enough time could go by without actually launching any planes.

First, he called the Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird. They both knew that we had aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, but out of range at the time. So they would have to be brought close enough for the order to make any sense. That bought both of them time.

Laird then told Nixon that weather conditions were making it impossible to launch the ordered strike, at least at the moment. That delayed any action until the following morning.

Kissinger reported the position of the carriers to Nixon the next morning. They were now in position, and if the order was to be carried out, it could be repeated if Nixon really meant it. But he didn't. " 'Did anything else happen?' Nixon innocently asked. When I replied in the negative, the President--without moving a facial muscle--said, 'Good.' I never heard another word about bombing Damascus."

Should 45, in his last three days in office, decide to launch an atomic attack on, say, North Korea or Iran, that would have to be carried out through channels. It might be easier, this time, since we don't actually have a Secretary of Defense, or Acting Secretary of Defense, since the one he had, Mark Esper, was fired last month. But it's also true that the people in charge of getting missiles into position would have to follow directives, and could probably delay the order to be sure there was a good reason to do it.

Pelosi has not revealed the chain of command necessary to start such an attack. Perhaps she's sworn to secrecy. But that certainly didn't give her any reason to pause or delay impeachment proceedings on 45 (again!), even though the trial won't begin until he's left office.

At some point, someone has to tell 45 "no." At some point, someone must call his bluffs. He's losing his base, he's losing his assistants, he's losing his Cabinet. People are bailing out on him faster than the sinking of the Titanic. But he still has that power, and he still has until Wednesday noon, Eastern time, to utilize it.

Obviously, he would have to convince people that, at the very last minute, an enemy was mounting the same kind of attack upon us to justify the use of atomic weapons. Such reports should be shared and traced to their "sources" and protocol brought into proper order. That might buy enough time. It also might not.

Otherwise, it would take an additional madman to report to the president that some unusual activity was taking place, such that it constituted a genuine threat to America or Americans sufficient to justify a massive attack. Or it might be a mistake. We might have to hold our breaths in such a situation.

But we've come close before. Jimmy Carter was told that the Soviets had launched a major attack one night, and they hadn't. They themselves nearly mistakenly thought that war games off their Pacific coast were in fact an attack launched by us in 1983.

Nearly everything else has happened in this crazy time. Nearly all the other guardrails have fallen away. It's not that much of a stretch anymore to suppose that this one would, too.

45 decides things by the seat of his pants, on a whim, far more than he plans to do anything. If we don't hear anything by Tuesday night, we're probably in the clear. He cares about nothing else but himself and satisfying his enormous ego, though.

Maybe he could do it, but it wouldn't be easy. He might try to scare us by announcing an attack, but verification of that would have to be made by military sources inside the Pentagon. Besides, he's lost his social media connections by which he might easily scare enough people to provide cover. Without it, a 'counterattack' would lose much of its justifiability (though he's been taping commentary from the White House). Disobedience of a direct order that's illegal is permissible under the law. Cooler heads might still prevail.

Still, there's a point at which such an order would have to be carried out. All the layers of checkpoints, at some point, have to be overrun. Someone would have to double-check to ensure reliability.

Nobody knows for sure. He's threatened North Korea with "fire and fury" if they try anything, early in his term. All that does is set up something he could try to leave the rest of the world with. It would be an act of mass murder unprecedented in history, with retaliation upon us ensured.

Layers of verification stopped Nixon, and even he had a conscience about such disastrous possibilities; at no time during the final days of his presidency were there any threats or did he voice any views about attacking anybody, as depressed and morose as he was. He wanted someone to say something good about him in the future. 45 doesn't care.

If there's anyone possibly craven enough to try such a thing, he's in the White House now, for another three days. The possibility must be faced. Let us hope and pray he has a bit of humanity left.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. One day closer to a vaccine. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark