What is the Nuclear Football?

  WASHINGTON, DC - 09/26/2016 (PRESS RELEASE JET)

In an election year that Ohio Governor John Kasich calls stranger-than-fiction and “almost surreal,” the novel Shadows back to Kennedy is an interesting example of fiction with a significant, and, for many, shocking factual premise: The total discretion of the Commander In Chief to use the “Nuclear Football.” 
A political thriller, Shadows back to Kennedy  features a detective and journalist who stumble upon a plot to gain control of the Football by killing the President and the Cabinet members who would succeed him. The cold war origins of Kennedy’s desire for a single device to control the nuclear arsenal, and the procedures surrounding it now, are an integral part of the action.
The author, writing fiction under the pen name Van Douglas, is a technology entrepreneur who has written and consulted extensively in the area of complex systems and human factors.  His work with the House of Representatives is a main source of inspiration for the characters and the story. 
According to the author, “the technical backdrop of Shadows back to Kennedy is the widely accepted principle that in system consisting of people, process, and technology, the human component is often the most prone to failure. In the case of The Football, the President of the United States is, from a systems perspective, potentially a single point of failure.”
Van Douglas labels himself as “a master of conspiracy theories that you know are made up,” a genre he calls “conspirifiction.” His Twitter handle is @Vandouglasfl.

Promotions for the novel, including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vieSUYZLBog
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RktTYipOoj4, depict the frightening possibility that the Nuclear Football could fall into the wrong hands. In this almost surreal election year where it seems “the Russians are back,” this time hacking emails, and the fitness of the future Commander-in-Chief is an issue, Shadows Back to Kennedy makes for a timely and provocative read.  Purchase at Amazon.com/DP/B00CGM7YZ7