The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
Dec 2017 · Bloomsbury Publishing
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432
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About this ebook
Shortlisted for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction
From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, the first insider exposé of the awful dangers of America's hidden, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that is chillingly still extant
At the same time former presidential advisor Daniel Ellsberg famously took the top-secret Pentagon Papers, he also took with him a chilling cache of top-secret documents related to America's nuclear program in the 1960s. Here for the first time he reveals the contents of those now-declassified documents and makes clear their shocking relevance for today.
The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising account of the most dangerous arms build-up in the history of civilisation, whose legacy - and proposed renewal under the Trump administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high level access to them. No other insider has written so candidly of that long-classified history, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Ellsberg's discussion of recent research on nuclear winter shows that even a 'small' nuclear exchange would cause billions of deaths by global nuclear famine.
Framed as a memoir - a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating - this gripping exposé reads like a thriller with cloak-and-dagger intrigue, returning him to his role as whistle-blower. It is a real-life Dr Strangelove story, but an ultimately hopeful - and powerfully important - book.
From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, the first insider exposé of the awful dangers of America's hidden, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that is chillingly still extant
At the same time former presidential advisor Daniel Ellsberg famously took the top-secret Pentagon Papers, he also took with him a chilling cache of top-secret documents related to America's nuclear program in the 1960s. Here for the first time he reveals the contents of those now-declassified documents and makes clear their shocking relevance for today.
The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising account of the most dangerous arms build-up in the history of civilisation, whose legacy - and proposed renewal under the Trump administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high level access to them. No other insider has written so candidly of that long-classified history, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Ellsberg's discussion of recent research on nuclear winter shows that even a 'small' nuclear exchange would cause billions of deaths by global nuclear famine.
Framed as a memoir - a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating - this gripping exposé reads like a thriller with cloak-and-dagger intrigue, returning him to his role as whistle-blower. It is a real-life Dr Strangelove story, but an ultimately hopeful - and powerfully important - book.
Shortlisted for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non-Fiction
From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, the first insider exposé of the awful dangers of America's hidden, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that is chillingly still extant
At the same time f...
Ratings and reviews
7 reviews
Jonathon Bulmer
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March 24, 2018
Ellsbergs knowledge of Nuclear War Planning is extremely detailed and you will learn a lot about that. You will likely disagree with a lot of his perceived consequences but that is the nature of debate.
David Ball
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April 30, 2018
Must read.
About the author
In 1961, Daniel Ellsberg, a consultant to the Department of Defense and the White House, drafted Secretary Robert McNamara's plans for nuclear war. Later he leaked the Pentagon Papers. He lectures and writes on the dangers of the nuclear era and the need for whistle-blowing. A Senior Fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Ellsberg is the author of Secrets and the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America. He is also a key figure in Steven Spielberg's upcoming film about the Pentagon Papers, The Post, scheduled to be released in December 2017. He lives in Kensington, California, with his wife, Patricia.
In 1961, Daniel Ellsberg, a consultant to the Department of Defense and the White House, drafted Secretary Robert McNamara's plans for nuclear war. Later he leaked the Pentagon Papers. He lectures and writes on the dangers of the nuclear era and the need for whistle-blowing. A Senior Fellow of th...
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