The Doomsday Machine
Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
by Daniel Ellsberg · first published 2017
66% recommend34% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Insider account of Cold War US nuclear war planning by someone with broad access, covering escalating civilian targeting, command risks, and deterrence. A sobering read for anyone interested in nuclear strategy.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America's Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that 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 nea
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Ellsberg's job, at the time he copied the Pentagon Papers, was nuclear strategy. His recent book The Doomsday Machine is a sobering account of early US strategy, which he can write about now because a lot has been declassified. It turns out the Pentagon Papers were supposed to be just a sideline. He also copied documents…
on “Daniel Ellsberg: The 90-year-old whistleblower tempting prosecution” ↗…recommend "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War" by Michael Dobbs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2606779-one-minute-to-mi... For extra nightmare fuel "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25663779-the-doomsday... The latter book literally gave me nightmares.
on “If you want peace, study war” ↗Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner certainly gave me a few nights of troubled sleep.
on “What were the creepiest declassified documents of the last decade?” ↗Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner is one of the few books that has literally given me nightmares. Imagine reading memos with stuff like "we plan to kill at least 600 million people, probably a lot…
on “Nuclear war is unlikely to cause human extinction?” ↗I'd also recommend "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg.
on “Nuclear Weapon Archive (1994-2020)” ↗If anyone has not read Ellsberg’s 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine”, I highly recommend it. It covers his work and knowledge regarding potential nuclear war within US policy which was the main reason he wanted to become a whistleblower. Within the book he discuses numerous…
on “Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked The Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92” ↗That's not how these systems work, at least in the US and Russia. "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" by Daniel Ellsberg (who was involved in war planning before he leaked the Pentagon Papers) has some fascinating and scary info about this. Apparently there are…
on “Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’” ↗I don't think that's really plausible that it wasn't intentional. Daniel Ellsberg's recent book "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" has a pretty good analysis of how we went from the idea of bombing civilians being considered barbaric at the start of the war, to purposely incinerating cities…
on “Hiroshima (1946)” ↗Highly recommend the book Doomsday Machine by Ellsberg for those interested in this kind of thing.
on “The U.S. Withdrawal from the INF Treaty Is the Next Step in a Global Arms Race” ↗Plugged it in a previous thread but will plug it as relevant again, since I see debate in this thread about Japanese surrender and wheather the Germans were really developing the bomb. Have a read of Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, he was involved and saw a lot of the nuclear planning during the Cold War. It’s pretty clear from his retelling that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were not essential to end the…
on “Conversations among German Nuclear Physicists at Farm Hall (1945) [pdf]” ↗Daniel Ellsberg's book "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" is a really good rundown of the systems the US had (he was involved in putting together war plans at RAND corporation). It's been a while since I read it, but as…
on “Dr. Strangelove's 'Doomsday Machine': It's real (2009)” ↗I cope with it by learning more about it. Books I've read and recommend include: Command and Control by Eric Schlosser, The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, Hiroshima by John Hersey, The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. More generally I have taken an interest in existential risk, and can recommend The Precipice by Toby Orb.…
on “Ask HN: How do you cope with possible nuclear threat?” ↗The book "The Doomsday Machine" by Daniel Ellsberg. He had access to basically everything. I have read it and highly recommend it. I haven't read the others below but have them all on my shelves, waiting to be read. "Command and Control"…
on “Ask HN: Best resources to learn about nuclear war risks?” ↗Highly recommend Daniel Ellsberg’s recent book The Doomsday Machine if this topic interests you.
on “For 20 Years the Nuclear Launch Code at US Minuteman Silos Was 00000000” ↗Everyone is giving book recommendations but nobody has mentioned The Doomsday Machine Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg?
on “Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True (2014)” ↗