In the worst days of Watergate, when Kissinger noted that a drunken Nixon wandered around at night talking to oil paintings, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger instructed the joint chiefs to inform him if Nixon ever sent instructions to launch a nuclear attack (“The Madman and the Bomb,” Politico, Aug. 11).
He was worried about Nixon’s sanity and the consequences to our republic.
Current law does allow the Secretary of Defense to consult with the president, but does not empower him/her to cancel a launch order.
Our current situation is not far from that condition: In his latest statements to the United Nations, he seems ready to launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, even though it would result in the immediate shelling and destruction of Seoul, 30 miles from the North Korean border, and facing 10,000 artillery and rocket tubes, according to news reports.
It might well result in counter attacks on the U.S. by China in support of North Korea.
I hope his vice president and cabinet are read up on the 25th Amendment, where a president can be replaced when the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can declare that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
We face perilous times where our fate is tied to a braggart, an insensitive bully and a dangerous man-child who wants to play with his dangerous toys.
Somebody has to protect us from him as he cannot protect him from himself.
Ian Robertson,
Sequim