Did I Leave The Nuclear Launch Codes In Vienna?

By John Kerry

I travel a lot. When a man travels a lot, he’s bound to leave things in various places. Once I left my good razor in Saigon, and a couple of pairs of dress socks in Beijing. I’m pretty sure I brought all my clothes and toiletries back from the nuclear talks in Vienna, but it’s possible I left the ICBM launch codes there. Haven’t seen them since I got back.

The president had me take the codes in an imposing-looking briefcase, just for extra gravitas in the talks, you know. Had to give Tehran the impression that the man across the table really had authority. Got up to take a leak, and don’t remember seeing the briefcase after that. Really have to wrack my brains to make sure I have that right.

Please don’t tell the president. He’d be quite cross with me – might even leak a few of my more sensitive, easily misconstrued cables to the press. I can handle this on my own. I just have to retrace my steps with the briefcase – it was black, of course, with silver trim – and recall when exactly I had it last, where I was, where I was going, and who else was there with me or right afterwards. It didn’t even occur to me to ask an aide to keep an eye on the thing when I went to the bathroom. I thought I’d be in and out, but all those Twizzlers finally kicked in, and, well, let’s just say not much progress was made that evening in negotiations. I finally got back, and only the Iranians were in the room. Wasn’t about to ask them if they’d seen the launch code briefcase – that would have compromised my authority and competence in the talks. So I had to pretend I knew exactly what was happening. By the time I next thought of the codes, I was back in my suite with my staff, planning what concessions to make the next day, and figured I’d just make a thorough check in the morning.

I did check, but no dice, and the next day’s sessions were brutal – the Iranians somehow felt they had reason to be even more confident, more demanding, more intransigent on things they’d shown flexibility on just the night before. That put the briefcase right out of my mind – I had work to do. The next time it occurred to me to look for the codes again, I just resolved to discreetly ask the front desk if anyone had brought them a black-with-silver-trim attache case.

Did that again when I left, and called them again the next day to make sure their cleanup staff hadn’t found anything – but nothing. Which means it must still be in my possession somewhere. I’m going to have to really tear apart my office, maybe my house. This could get annoying.

I hope we don’t need to think about war anytime soon.