Ethan Kanin

Ethan Kanin was the Secretary of Defense under President Wayne Palmer during Day 6.

Day 6
Ethan Kanin was the highest ranking member of Cabinet within the presidential bunker during the events of Day 6. After the assassination attempt on President Wayne Palmer, Kanin conferenced with Vice President Noah Daniels over video phone. He suggested to Daniels that he should, given the President's condition, assume the responsibilities of the presidency. Daniels agreed and told Kanin he wanted to meet with Tom Lennox once he arrived at the White House.

Kanin confronted Reed Pollock, the Deputy Chief of Staff. He asked where Tom Lennox was. Reed lied about his location, saying that he was with the Attorney General, but Kanin knew this was a lie as he recently spoke to the latter. He ordered Agent Lowry to do a sweep of the bunker and find Tom Lennox. Two hours later, Daniels' assistant Lisa Miller arranged for the Cabinet to meet. Daniels announced his plans to release the full power of the military on Abu Fayed and Hamri Al-Assad's country if another nuclear bomb went off. Karen Hayes was convinced this would create another world war, as Russia and China would react to the attack.

CTU Los Angeles was able to prevent a nuclear drone from reaching San Francisco, and the drone crash landed in an industrial park. However, the suitcase nuke was damaged in the attack and radioactive poison was released. Vice President Daniels was convinced that this represented a nuclear attack on the United States and he decided to go forward with the nuclear strike. Kanin confirmed that the attack could happen within the next hour.

A few hours later, the terrorist threat was neutralized, as Abu Fayed had been killed, and the suitcase nukes themselves secured, by Jack Bauer. Noah Daniels' nuclear strike plan had been aborted in the meantime.

However, America quickly became involved in another crisis situation shortly after. A Chinese agent managed to acquire a device which would give China access to security codes used in most Russian military defense technology. Through a mole connected to the White House, Russian President Yuri Suvarov became aware of this, and, because it happened within the United States, threatened to take military action against American military bases in central Asia if the United States government proved unable to retrieve the device.

By 5:00 AM, the United States government learned the component had been passed along to Phillip Bauer, an American industrialist who was planning to defect to China knowing his company BXJ Technologies was facing its end for his involvement in the nuclear threat earlier that day, and CTU Los Angeles tracked him down to an oil platform ten miles offshore from California. He was holding his grandson, whom he abducted, there, but regardless Ethan Kanin advised Noah Daniels to authorize a full-scale aerial assault on the oil platform, as it would not only guarantee the destruction of the Russian component, but prove to Yuri Suvarov that the United States of America was doing everything within its power to resolve the situation. Tom Lennox objected, arguing that they should not so easily approve sacrificing an innocent boy, but Noah agreed with Kanin and ordered the air strike.

Redemption
Ethan Kanin is White House Chief of Staff to Allison Taylor.