Mystery of the ‘nuclear football’

In this photo obtained by the National Security Archive, President George W. Bush walking on the Delta Lodge grounds with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and others, as an unidentified military aide carries the Presidential Emergency Satchel, during meetings of the G-8 Economic Summit in Kananaskis, Canada on June 25, 2002. — AP

THE most important – and mysterious – “football” in the world isn’t really a football at all.

Officially called the “Presidential Emergency Satchel”, the “nuclear football” is a bulky briefcase that contains atomic war plans and enables the US president to transmit nuclear orders to the Pentagon.