Letters of Last Resort
By Albert B. Kelly
I’m old enough to remember a time when people routinely sent
letters as a means of staying in touch with family and friends, not to mention
conducting business, telephones notwithstanding. Letter writing was a common
practice back then, but it was sort of in its twilight years. It’s not that we
don’t write letters today, but more and more we communicate by text message,
email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
What is making me wax poetic about letter writing was a
little nugget of trivia a friend shared about what are known as “Letters of
Last Resort”. Apparently the British Prime Minister, upon taking office, writes
out (by hand) four identical letters that are sealed and sent to each of the
commanding officers of the U.K’s four nuclear submarines. The letters contain
the Prime Minister’s instructions about what these commanders are to do in the
event that the government has been wiped out in a war, nuclear or otherwise.
Every Prime Minister does this upon taking office and the
previous PM’s letters are immediately destroyed unopened so no one knows
whether the instructions were to do nothing, launch a retaliatory strike, place
their submarine under allied command, or use their own judgement as to what’s
best. The letters are kept in a safe within a safe on the submarine. These
letters are only to be opened after a series of checks completed by the
commander of the submarine including whether or not navy broadcasts and BBC
Radio broadcasts have ceased for four straight hours.
There’s something that seems fitting and right about the
fact that each prime minister writes out these instructions in his or her own
hand. Maybe it’s the gravity and weight of what’s being discussed in these
letters or the “personal-ness” of a handwritten letter. The process of
gathering one’s thoughts and then teasing out the words strikes me as a very deliberate
and intentional thing- working as a speed bump of sorts, slowing down the speed
of thought and ensuring that the end result is not hasty and impulsive but
well-considered.
I can picture a newly elected prime minister sitting with
paper and pen thinking about what he or she wishes to say- perhaps making a
mistake and having to start over and then doing this four times, by hand,
thinking the entire time about what they want their commanders to know and do
in the event the unthinkable happens. I’m not at all sure we get anywhere near
the same intimacy or gravitas through a tweet or a text…lol.
As a mayor, my role is insignificant in the larger scheme of
things, but thinking about letter writing started me thinking about what I
might write to my successor. I know that one day I will leave this office and I
hope to do so in reasonably good health with an opportunity to think about what
I might say that could be of help to the person coming after me, especially if
they’re new to government.
Perhaps I will tell them not to be too alarmed or troubled when
they discover that their assumptions running for office bear little relation to
what they’ll encounter once their sworn in- that things are more complicated with
far more limits then they might have imagined. Maybe I’d tell them the learning
curve is steep, that there are good people in the government and that it’s essential
to surround themselves with people who will tell them what they need to hear as
opposed to what they want to hear.
All of that might be in a sealed letter, the last thing I
hand them along with my sincere good wishes. I’ve been thinking about what I
might write to my adult children- certainly expressions of love and support,
but also perhaps some regret for the moments I let pass, the time we won’t get
back. I’ll write letters to my grandchildren to be unsealed when they’re adults
so they know some of where they came from.
Perhaps there are people in your life, personally or
professionally, present or future, who might benefit from a well thought-out
letter. If so, I encourage you to consider the process of gathering your thoughts
and teasing out the right words in a very deliberate and intentional way, slowing
down the speed of thought and emotion and sharing something of yourself -
something worthy of a letter- something more than a text or a tweet.