Two Related Questions about Insane Presidents

[Bookkeeper]

@Little Nemo

It would also take Senate approval. An “Acting” Secretary of Defense wouldn’t have National Command Authority. I believe there’s a list of positions that can assume NCA duties if the people above them are dead or missing but I doubt it goes too far down the ranks. If the President went crazy and tried to nuke Canada, I’m sure he’d exhaust the list before he found somebody who was willing to agree with him.

Whew! Guess I can stop worrying about that, then!

[Lionne]

@BACI

Years ago I was in Washington on business, and caught up with an old friend who had recently become engaged to a someone senior in the military. It was during Reagan’s presidency (yes, I’m that old) and over a quiet beer in a Baltimore pub I casually asked the question what would happen should the President burst a blood vessel and start to act irrationally or, well clearly mad. The answer came back very straightforwardly that it would be “dealt with” and the President would the next day be found to have died quietly in his sleep. While I have no idea now of the credentials of my friend’s fiance, I had no reason to doubt him…

Your assurance that the matter would be ‘dealt with’ notwithstanding, how does this answer the OP?

[Lemur866]

@jtgain

I think in a real world situation like this, the first person involved would consider this an illegal order, and relieve the President of his command and order his arrest.

The soldiers around him, having brains of their own, would comply.

No soldier has the authority to relieve the president, or any other civilian official of his command.

A soldier can say “That order is an illegal order and I refuse to obey it” and report the order to the appropriate authorities…in this case the cabinet and congress. But he doesn’t have the legal authority to relieve the president of his post as commander in chief.

Of course, if the solider thinks that if he doesn’t arrest the president then the president will pretty soon find someone willing to carry out the order to nuke Canada, then he can go ahead and “arrest” him. It wouldn’t be legal, it wouldn’t be constitutional, but some times you have realize that some things are more important than the consitution–you know, like not incinerating millions of people in a nuclear conflagration. Afterward the soldier that extraconsitutionally kidnapped the president would have to justify his actions at a court martial, and probably would be discharged from duty and thanked.

[Ravenman]

@Little Nemo

IThe next guy in line may become the acting secretary but he or she does not automatically assume all the authority of the office. There’s probably about thirty or forty people who have NCA status.

I’m not saying you are incorrect, but Executive Order 13394, which replaces earlier EOs, says the following:

Section 1. Subject to the provisions of section 3 of this order, the officers named in section 2, in the order listed, shall act as and perform the functions and duties of the office of the Secretary of Defense (Secretary) during any period when the Secretary has died, resigned, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office of Secretary.

Section 2 then goes on to state the order of precedence, starting at DepSecDef and going down, and Section 3 basically says that no acting DepSecDef (or whatever position) may become acting Secretary, and the President can always choose someone else to do the job anyway.

Only knowing what I read in this executive order, I don’t see how someone who is acting Secretary doesn’t have the functions and duties of the Secretary. I don’t see anything in the Vacancies Act (as amended over the years) that would distinguish the powers of a lawfully acting secretary of any department from the powers of an appointed secretary. Do you have a cite for your claim that an acting Secretary of Defense wouldn’t serve in the same capacity in the NCA as a regularly appointed Secretary?

[UltraVires]

@Lemur866

No soldier has the authority to relieve the president, or any other civilian official of his command.

A soldier can say “That order is an illegal order and I refuse to obey it” and report the order to the appropriate authorities…in this case the cabinet and congress. But he doesn’t have the legal authority to relieve the president of his post as commander in chief.

Of course, if the solider thinks that if he doesn’t arrest the president then the president will pretty soon find someone willing to carry out the order to nuke Canada, then he can go ahead and “arrest” him. It wouldn’t be legal, it wouldn’t be constitutional, but some times you have realize that some things are more important than the consitution–you know, like not incinerating millions of people in a nuclear conflagration. Afterward the soldier that extraconsitutionally kidnapped the president would have to justify his actions at a court martial, and probably would be discharged from duty and thanked.

I’m sorry, my post wasn’t clear. The “first person involved” wouldn’t be an individul soldier, but the SecofD. He would order all of the soldiers around him to arrest the President, relieve him of command under the temp provisions of the 25th amendment, and under the circumstances (the P orders the nuking of London because the Martians are there) they would comply.

The SecofD, as a cabinet member would immediately start 25th amendment proceedings against the President.

[toadspittle]

Regarding the Saturday Night Massacre scenario: do you need an actual, memorized code, etc. (I seem to remember something about this in the Sum of All Fears) to “press the button?” If so, how many people have such a code (i.e., how many people would you have to fire before you ran out of people that could quickly “push the button”), and how long would it take to give a new SecDef his or her codes? Minutes? Hours? A month?