Harold Hering

{{Short description|Officer in the United States Air Force}} {{Infobox military person |name = Harold L. Hering |birth_date = {{birth date and age|1936|02|01}} |death_date =  |birth_place = Olney, Illinois |burial_coordinates =  |birth_name = Harold Lewis Hering |allegiance = United States of America |branch = {{Air force|United States}} |service_years = 1955{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}–1975 |rank = {{plainlist| * {{Dodseal|USAFO4|25}} Major }} |service_number = {{plainlist| * AF 16492089{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} * AO 3080482{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} }} |unit = Air Rescue Service |commands = {{plainlist| * ATC (Air Training Command) * SAC (Strategic Air Command) * MAC (Military Airlift Command) }} |battles = Vietnam War |awards = {{plainlist| * Distinguished Flying Cross<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1975/01/13/archives/air-force-panel-recommends-discharge-of-major-who-challenged.html|title=Air Force Panel Recommends Discharge of Major Who Challenged 'Failsafe System'|date=1975-01-13|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-04-07|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> * Bronze Star Medal{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} * Air Medal{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} * Air Force Commendation Medal{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} }} }}

'''Harold L. Hering''' (born 1936)<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070812112211/http://www.mindspring.com/~sbosecker/02_01_01.htm The Boßecker Newsletter] (Volume 2 Issue 1, Winter 1996)</ref> is a former officer of the United States Air Force, who was discharged in 1975 for requesting basic information about checks and balances to prevent the carrying out of unauthorized orders to launch nuclear missiles.<ref name="slate">Rosenbaum, Ron (February 28, 2011) [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.single.html "An Unsung Hero of the Nuclear Age - Maj. Harold Hering and the forbidden question that cost him his career"] slate.com. Retrieved February 13, 2012</ref> Hering was subsequently presented the 2017 Courage of Conscience Award at the Peace Abbey, Boston, Massachusetts.

==Career== Hering served six tours of duty in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Hering received the Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star Medal{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}, and Air Medal with eight Oak leaf clusters{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} for his work in Vietnam flying helicopters.<ref name=":0"/>

===Discharge=== Hering served in the Vietnam War as part of the Air Rescue Service.<ref name="slate"/> Twenty-one years into his Air Force career{{failed verification|date=July 2022}}, while serving as a Minuteman missile crewman and expecting a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel,<ref name="slate"/> he posed the following question during training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in late 1973, at a time when Richard Nixon was president:<ref name="ww3">Rosenbaum, Ron. ''How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III''. Simon & Schuster. {{ISBN|1-4165-9421-3}}.</ref>

{{blockquote|How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?}}

The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) specifies that, when the National Command Authority (NCA) issues an order to use nuclear weapons, the order will filter down the chain of command. Per the SIOP, decision-making is the responsibility of the NCA, not of officers lower in the chain of command, who are responsible for executing NCA decisions. To ensure no opportunity for execution by a rogue operator, the two-man rule requires that at each stage, two operators independently verify and agree that the order is valid. In the case of the Minuteman missile, this is done by comparing the authorization code in the launch order against the code in the Sealed Authenticator, a special sealed envelope which holds the code; if both operators agree that the code matches, the launch must be executed.

In 1978, journalist Ron Rosenbaum wrote a 15,000-word article in ''Harper's Magazine'' about the nuclear command and control system in which he publicized the case of Hering.<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Ron Rosenbaum|title=The subterranean world of the bomb|journal=Harper's Magazine|date=Mar 1978|page=85|url=http://harpers.org/archive/1978/03/the-subterranean-world-of-the-bomb/}}</ref> Rosenbaum later wrote that Hering's question exposed a flaw in the very foundation of this doctrine, and asked "What if [the president's] mind is deranged, disordered, even damagingly intoxicated? ... Can he launch despite displaying symptoms of imbalance? Is there anything to stop him?"<ref name="ww3" /> Rosenbaum says<ref name="ww3"/> that the answer is that launch would indeed be possible: to this day, the nuclear fail-safe protocols for executing commands are entirely concerned with the president's ''identity'', not their sanity. The president alone authorizes a nuclear launch and the two-man rule does not apply.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/science/donald-trump-nuclear-codes.html|title=Debate Over Trump's Fitness Raises Issue of Checks on Nuclear Power - NYTimes.com|last1=Broad|first1=William J.|last2=Sanger|first2=David E.|work=The New York Times |date=5 August 2016 |access-date=2016-11-09}}</ref>

Hering was pulled from training and, unable to receive a reply to his satisfaction, requested reassignment to different duties. Instead, the Air Force issued an administrative discharge for "failure to demonstrate acceptable qualities of leadership".<ref name=":0" /> Hering appealed the discharge, and at the Air Force Board of Inquiry, the Air Force stated that knowing whether or not a launch order is lawful is beyond the executing officer's need to know. Hering replied:

{{blockquote|I have to say, I feel I do have a need to know, because I am a human being. It is inherent in an officer's commission that he has to do what is right in terms of the needs of the nation despite any orders to the contrary. You really don't know at the time of key turning, whether you are complying with your oath of office.}}

The Board of Inquiry ruled that Hering be discharged from the Air Force.<ref>"Air Force Panel Recommends Discharge of Major Who Challenged 'Failsafe' System". ''The New York Times'', January 13, 1975, p. 16.</ref> After his discharge, Hering became at first a long-haul trucker, and then a counselor.<ref name="slate"/><ref name="runner">Fowler, Wendell (March 24, 2014) [https://web.archive.org/web/20161001202856/http://seniorlifenewspapers.com/news/2014/mar/24/never-too-late-never-too-old/ "Never too late, never too old"] seniorlifenewspapers.com (archived link)</ref>

===Media=== In 2017, Hering was profiled in the ''Radiolab'' episode "Nukes". In the episode he refuted the characterization by General Russell E. Dougherty of his statements.

According to General Dougherty, Hering had always qualified or hedged his assertions that he would turn keys to launch the nuclear missiles, if he was ordered to. Dougherty claims Hering gave subjective conditions for following such an order, expressing his own judgment of the validity of the order.

Hering insists, on the contrary, that he had always expressed a commitment to follow orders. However he would have followed the order with a conflicted conscience, if he was not informed about the checks and balances of presidential decision making, which Hering assumed had to exist. He said, "I think it's an affront to play the game of "you don't have the 'need to know'", for someone who's doing one of the most serious, grave jobs that there is in the armed forces."<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.radiolab.org/story/nukes/|title=Nukes|date=April 7, 2017|work=Radiolab|access-date=2017-04-07}}</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hering, Harold}} Category:1936 births Category:Living people Category:United States Air Force personnel of the Vietnam War Category:United States Air Force officers Category:Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)