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Then he took on the utter idiocy of nuclear weapons. Writing March’s 1981 issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (the entire article is a worthy read) Fisher pointed out that there are no military solutions to the world’s largest problems. “The only means we have available,” Fisher wrote, “is to try to change someone’s mind.” Like any good negotiator, he explains why negotiation must include each side’s interests with full participation in joint
problem-solving. And, further, to understand and to care about one another as the only way to lasting peace. His essay includes specific recommendations but my favorite and the most controversial is the following.
There is a person who is required to accompany the president with an attaché case containing the codes needed to authorize firing nuclear weapons. Fisher imagines this person as a young man, perhaps a naval officer named George, who is around the president every day. That person-to-person familiarity is the heart of Fisher’s nuclear deterrence. Because in his proposal, the nuclear codes are not in the case. Here’s how Fisher explains it.
My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The President says, ‘George, I’m sorry but tens of millions must die.’ He has to look at someone and realize what death is — what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.
When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon they said, “My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the President’s judgment. He might never push the button.”
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