The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

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 documents, and makes clear their shocking relevance for today.The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg’s hair-raising insider’s account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy--and renewal under the Obama 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 analysis of recent research on nuclear winter shows that even a "small" nuclear exchange would cause billions of deaths by global nuclear famine.Ellsberg, in the end, offers steps we can take under a new administration to avoid nuclear catastrophe. Framed as a memoir, this gripping exposé reads like a thriller with cloak-and-dagger intrigue, placing Ellsberg back in his natural role as whistle-blower. It is a real-life Dr. Strangelove story, but an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book.

“" The Doomsday Machine is being published at an alarmingly relevant moment, as North Korea is seeking the capability to target the United States with nuclear missiles, and an unpredictable president, Donald Trump, has countered with threats of ''fire and fury.''"- New York Magazine "Daniel Ellsberg''s The Doomsday Machine (Bloomsbury) unpacks the power of our atomic arsenal." - Vanity Fair "Brilliantly and readably tackles an issue even more crucial than decision-making in the U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which is policy on the handling of nuclear weapons." - Huffington Post "A groundbreaking and nightmare-inducing account of how the whole mad system works." - Esquire "One of the best books ever written on the subject--certainly the most honest and revealing account by an insider who plunged deep into the nuclear rabbit hole''s mad logic and came out the other side. - Slate "Gripping and unnerving . . . A must-read of the highest order, Ellsberg''s profoundly awakening chronicle is essential to our future." - starred review, Booklist ("High Demand Back Story") "Ellsberg''s brilliant and unnerving account makes a convincing case for disarmament and shows that the mere existence of nuclear weapons is a serious threat to humanity." - starred review, Publishers Weekly "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner blends personal recollections and historical analysis with a set of considered proposals for reducing the threat of apocalyptic war. Many years in the making, it''s a book that arrives at an opportune moment." - San Francisco Chronicle "In the era of barbed insults regarded as precursors to nuclear threat, the warnings yielded by The Doomsday Machine have become required reading. . . . Daniel Ellsberg''s title evokes Kubrick''s film on purpose, a metaphor that culminates in his definition of the ''Strangelove Paradox.'' The United States has thousands of ''Doomdsay Machine'' weapons and hundreds of ''fingers on the button.'' The question the reader must ask, now mortified by the necessary horrors of Ellsberg''s masterpiece, is how to save the world." - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation "Ellsberg presents his thoughts on how best to dismantle a program that could lead to global annihilation, while once again proving how deeply disturbing and radically ignorant our country''s leaders are when it comes to thermonuclear warfare." - SF Weekly "The Doomsday Machine is chilling, compelling and certain to be controversial." - Minneapolis Star Tribune "Noted gadfly Ellsberg returns with a sobering look at our nuclear capabilities . . . When the author hurriedly copied the contents of his RAND Corporation safe to reveal, in time, what would become known as the Pentagon Papers, that was just the start of it. He had other documents, even more jarring . . . Especially timely given the recent saber-rattling not from Russia but North Korea and given the apparent proliferation of nuclear abilities among other small powers." - Kirkus Reviews "Gripping . . . The Doomsday Machine is essential reading--both a terrifying ''Doctor Strangelove'' saga and a hopeful consideration of future scenarios." - Mercury News "An absolutely imperative read in this day and age of Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un, and global instability." - Helen Caldicott, Founding President, Physicians for Social Responsibility "This long-awaited chronicle from the father of American whistle-blowing is both an urgent warning and a call to arms to a public that has grown dangerously habituated to the idea that the means of our extinction will forever be on hair-trigger alert." - Edward Snowden "Nobody could have told this horrifying story better than Daniel Ellsberg. He introduces us to the men who have coldly and with a God-like sense of righteous entitlement, put in place a plan that can, on a whim--not virtually, but literally--annihilate life on Earth. What a book." - Arundhati Roy, anti-nuclear activist and author of THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS and the Pulitzer Prize-winner THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS "A fascinating and terrifying account of nuclear war planning by a consultant from the RAND Corporation at the highest levels of government in the Kennedy administration. Ellsberg tells us of the close calls with nuclear war and of the policies developed then that still threaten the planet with annihilation. I couldn''t put the book down." - Frances FitzGerald, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of FIRE IN THE LAKE "History may remember Ellsberg as the whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers and helped end the Vietnam War, but his alarmingly relevant new book should also assure his legacy as a prescient and authoritative anti-nuclear activist. Doomsday Machine , which takes its title from Dr. Strangelove, reads like a thriller as Ellsberg figures out that America''s pledge never to attack first was fiction and that the so called ''fail-safe'' systems are prone to disaster." - National Book Review "Ellsberg''s book is essential for facilitating a national discussion about a vital topic." - starred review, Library Journal”

A powerful testament for future students of a war that the United States should never have fought. The Washington Post on SECRETS
An invaluable contribution to understanding one of our nation's darkest hours. San Francisco Chronicle on SECRETS
Daniel Ellsberg risked everything to help end the Vietnam War . . . A real-life political thriller. USA Today on SECRETS

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 Emmy Award-winning documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America. He lives in Kensington, California.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.