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The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner

Title
The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner / Daniel Ellsberg.
Author
Ellsberg, Daniel
Publication
  • New York : Bloomsbury, 2017.
  • ©2017

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TextUse in library JFE 18-460Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
420 pages; 25 cm
Summary
  • The former defense analyst who revealed the Pentagon Papers offers an eyewitness account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s and reveals the dangers in the country's seventy-year-long nuclear policy.
  • "From the legendary whistleblower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness expose of the dangers of America's Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that--chillingly--continues to this day. Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand 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."--Dust jacket flap.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages [353]-387) and index.
Contents
Part 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 -- Part 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 -- Glossary.
Call Number
JFE 18-460
ISBN
  • 9781608196708
  • 1608196704
OCLC
1012402660
Author
Ellsberg, Daniel, author.
Title
The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner / Daniel Ellsberg.
Publisher
New York : Bloomsbury, 2017.
Copyright Date
©2017
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [353]-387) and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 18-460
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