The doomsday machine : confessions of a nuclear war planner / Daniel Ellsberg.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 353-387) and index.

Part 1. 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 -- 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.

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.--Provided by publisher.

English