The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner
Daniel Ellsberg (Author)
"Here, for the first time, former high level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking first-hand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization--and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration--threatens our very survival. No other insider with high level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Framed as a memoir--a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating--this gripping expose reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing "doomsday machine" and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistleblower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book about not just our country, but the future of the world."--Provided by publisher
Autobiography
420 pages ; 25 cm
9781608196708, 1608196704
1012402660
pt. I. The bomb and I
How could I? The making of a nuclear war planner
Command and control : managing catastrophe
Delegation : how many fingers on the button?
Iwakuni : nuclear weapons off the books
The Pacific Command
The war plan : reading the JSCP
Briefing Bundy
"My" war plan
Questions for the Joint Chiefs: how many will die?
Berlin and the missile gap
A tale of two speeches
My Cuban missile crisis
Cuba: the real story
pt. II. The road to doomsday
Bombing cities
Burning cities
Killing a nation
Risking doomsday I : Atmospheric ignition
Risking doomsday II : The hell bomb
The Strangelove paradox
First-use threats : using our nuclear weapons
Dismantling the doomsday machine
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