It has featured in spy movies and has been at the centre of controversies surrounding presidential security, but few people outside the White House inner circle will know what the ‘nuclear football’ contains and what it can do.

The briefcase got its nickname due to the early version of the US’s attack plan being given the codename ‘dropkick’. The nuclear war plan was officially known as the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP).

The black satchel that is supposedly stocked with classified documents for launching a strike is always meant to be at the President’s side: the case will always be on the same helicopter as the commander-in-chief and even in the same elevator as him.

And what happens…

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