Recipe for disaster?

Jimmy Carter liked to keep the nuclear launch codes in his Jacket Pocket, and one time he left them there when he got his jacket dry cleaned...

What if a cleaner checked the pockets and either took or copied the codes?

How much peril would America (or the world) be in?

Another time the football could have been intercepted was the 1981 Reagan assassination attempt, his clothing was cut off and separated from himself. In a twist I like to call "Operation Cornerback" the aid holding football was separated from the president, in the confusion, he could have been overtaken, and the other element recovered as it was left unguarded.
 
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Ahem: I have no knowledge of nuclear C2 procedures that are not in the public sphere.

Having said that, the codes alone won't do it. You also need access to the communications net. You can't just call a missile silo in Minot from a pay phone, give them an alpha-numeric code, and tell them to launch. Well you can, but they won't, even if it is the "right" code.

I seem to recall, also, that multiple codes are usually provided (including some to be used in exercises) with only the individual knowing which is the real-life launch code. So you've got a card with, say, five codes on it. One of them is the launch code. One is an exercise code. Three of them are bell-ringers. Better get it right on the first try, because you won't get a second.

Other nations may, possibly, have systems that could be compromised in this way. That should scare you.
 
This would probably only be a problem if Jimmy Carter was stupid enough to write "Nuclear Launch Codes" on that slip of paper.
 
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