Dan Conway’s Corner
When Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States in 2009, walking out at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington D.C. it was the most viewed presidential inauguration since Ronald Reagan’s in 1981.
Obama became the first African American president of the United States of America. The now cancer-stricken former president, Joe Biden, was his vice president.
Obama was not only the first African American president, but also the first multi-racial president, the first non-white president, and the first president born in Hawaii. (He would be succeeded by Donald Trump who won over Obama’s preferred successor, Hillary Clinton.)
One of the most awesome devices that comes with being President of the U.S.A. is what is officially known as the Presidential Emergency Satchel. It is colloquially called the “nuclear football”. It’s a briefcase.
Its contents (nuclear launch codes) are to be used by the president to communicate and authorise a nuclear attack while away from command centres such as the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre, and the White House Situation Room. It is physically carried by a military aide when the president is travelling. It goes wherever the president goes.
Obama would write in his memoir about being “vested with the authority to blow up the world”. The nation’s first Black president was in fact deeply worried someone would try to blow him up.
According to Michael S. Rosenwald in The Washington Post in 2021: “For Obama, the country was still dealing with international terrorism threats in the wake of the Sept.11, 2001 attacks and the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the days before his swearing-in, President George W. Bush’s national security team warned Obama that there was credible intelligence about a planned attack on the inauguration by Somali terrorists.”
On the night before the inauguration Obama, his wife Michelle, and two daughters, Malia and Sasha, were having dinner at Blair House, the President’s Guest House in Washington, D.C. Just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, it has been called “the world’s most exclusive hotel”, because it is primarily used as a state guest house to host visiting dignitaries and other guests of the president.
At one stage during the dinner, Obama politely excused himself as he had to meet some officials. He didn’t identify them. In fact he was about to receive a military briefing about the “nuclear football”, the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. Nor did he mention the warnings of a terrorist attack. He kept all of that to himself in the interests of saving his family from paralysing fear.
Regarding the military briefing he received, he would in the future say, “One of the military aides responsible for carrying the football explained the protocols as calmly and methodically as someone might describe how to programmme a DVR, (Digital Video Recorder).”
In the background, members of his team, including chief strategist David Axelrod, and incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, were working on a contingency plan in case of a terrorist attack.
Emanuel said to Axelrod: “I’m going to tell you something you can’t share with anyone. There’s a serious threat on the inauguration.” He wanted Obama to have a prepared statement to read.
“Write a brief statement for the President-elect.,” Emanuel said. “Meet him right before the ceremony in the Speaker’s office, and give it to him. He’ll put it in his pocket in case it’s needed.”
Axelrod did what Emanuel had requested, wrote the statement, and handed it over to Obama who slipped it into his coat pocket. He didn’t read it. He walked out onto the stage to face the vast throng waiting to watch the inauguration.
He began to speak: “My fellow citizens, I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you’ve bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors…”
He kept on speaking without interruption. The terrorist attack warning had been a false alarm.
About his speech, Obama subsequently wrote in his memoir: “I felt satisfied that I’d spoken with honesty and conviction. I was also relieved that the note to be used in case of a terrorist incident had stayed in my breast pocket.
He never had to use it. ÷
Read Dan Conway’s column every week in Ireland’s Own
