A retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who carried the nuclear "football" for former President Bill Clinton says the extraordinary Air Force One shell game departing Ankara, Turkey last month to protect President Donald Trump from a potential attack was hardly unprecedented."It was brilliant," retired Lt.Col.
Robert "Buzz" Patterson told Fox News Digital."I wish I had been a part of it.
That's how well done it was."But Patterson is warning that exposing the vital national security secrets behind such operations could put presidents, military personnel and the White House press corps in danger for years to come.Patterson served as Clinton's senior military aide for a period of two years and was responsible for the president’s emergency satchel, and in a 20-minute interview Wednesday, he explained how presidential decoys, aircraft swaps and other acts of deception are longstanding tools used to protect the commander in chief, his senior officials and the "privileged" Air Force One press corps.TRUMP USED CATERING TRUCK, AIR FORCE ONE DECOY TO EVADE IRAN THREAT: REPORTWhat alarms him, Patterson said, is not that Trump’s security team used the tactic – including the catering truck sleight of hand he was intimately a part of during the Clinton administration – but that details of how it was done are now spilling into public view."I hope that they prosecute this to the fullest," Patterson said."Whoever leaked that, in my opinion, and having been involved in this, was highly placed in that process.""There’s only a few people who actually know exactly what’s going down, and that’s by design," he added.
"So if somebody leaked it, it was somebody involved in the process, and that scares the hell out of me."'DECOY' AIR FORCE ONE WAS PROTECTED BY US FIGHTER JETS, OFFICIAL SAYSPresident Donald Trump boards the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, Britain, after attending a NATO leaders summit in Turkey, on July 8, 2026.(Jonathan Ernst/Re...