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"Then you've raised the Defcon [defense condition]," I said. He disagreed. This raised the temperature of the conversation. I began to suspect that Weinberger did not know what he had done. He left the room to telephone in private. He was absent for perhaps ten minutes. When he returned, he told us, unequivocally, that he had not formally raised the alert status of our forces. He had merely sent a message to field commanders informing them officially of the situation in Washington. Most important, U.S. strategic forces remained in their normal defense condition.
A short time later, I turned my chair and craned to hear what the assistant White House press secretary, Larry Speakes, was saying on television. The room was hushed. It was oppressively hot. It appeared that Speakes had been waylaid by the press as he returned to the White House from the hospital, and he was fending off hard questions that reporters were hurling at him.
An official White House spokesman was being asked who was running the government at a time of national crisis, and he was responding that he did not know. He was being asked if the country was being defended, and he was saying that he did not know. This was no fault of Speakes'. He had not been part of our group. "This is very bad," Allen said. "We have to do something." "We've got to get him off," I said. Allen and I dashed out of the Situation Room and ran headlong up the narrow stairs. Then we hurried along the jigsaw passageways of the West Wing and into the press room. With Allen at my side, I made the following statement:
"I just wanted to touch on a few matters associated with today's tragedy. First, as you know, we are in close touch with the Vice President, who is returning to Washington. We have in the Situation Room all of the officials of the Cabinet who should be here at this time. We have informed our friends abroad of the situation. The President's condition, as we know it, is stable, [he is] now undergoing surgery. There are absolutely no alert measures that are necessary at this time that we're contemplating."
I then took questions and was asked, "Who is making the decisions for the government right now?"
My reply: "Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of State in that order, and should the President decide he wants to transfer the helm to the Vice President, he will do so. He has not done that. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course."
On my return to the Situation Room, Weinberger expressed displeasure at my statement on the alert status of American forces. I was surprised. "Cap, are we or are we not on an increased alert status?" Instead of answering my question in direct fashion, he made some remarks that were less than relevant about the status of Soviet submarines off our coasts.
Weinberger added that Ed Meese had told him on the telephone that the Secretary of Defense was third in line of command after the President and Vice