The Doomsday Machine summary

At the age of nine, Daniel Ellsberg watched the Nazi bombing of London on film. It was the first time he had ever seen civilian casualties in such numbers, and it would prove to be an image that would influence him later in life.

In 1944, when Ellsberg was in ninth grade, he had to write a paper on nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities. Though this kind of weapon did not yet exist, many articles in journals and sci-fi magazines at the time theorized its potential danger. With the help of these sources, Ellsberg and his classmates concluded that nuclear bombs were unstable, easily abused and disastrous for humanity.

In 1957, at the age of 26, Ellsberg began working at the RAND Corporation – a non-profit organization founded in 1948 to conduct research for the US Air Force.

As nuclear strategy analysts at RAND, Ellsberg and his colleagues believed that the research they were conducting could save the world.

Ellsberg spent around 70 hours a week analyzing every piece of information he could obtain on the control and command structures of US nuclear facilities, and he was astounded by what he found.

Specifically, the author noticed issues with the US nuclear system’s command structure. It turned out that the command center was more concerned with responding to the “GO” signal than addressing a false alarm. The priority was to launch weapons quickly enough to attack the enemy before the enemy’s weapons could reach them.

Worried by the weaknesses in the US nuclear command structure, Ellsberg wanted to test the claim that only the president could launch a nuclear attack.

In doing so, he looked into whether other individuals had been given the power to authorize such an attack.

Despite Ellsberg’s recommendations for an improved national strategy, the chance of nuclear war remained high. New aircraft and bombs were being invented, and countries were still considering the bombing of cities as part of their war tactics.

In the spring of 1961, Ellsberg witnessed the potential horror of a first-strike scenario, wherein the US would launch a preemptive strike on the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies.

Amidst mounting tensions from the space and arms race between the US and the USSR came the ill-timed Cuban Missile Crisis: when the US found evidence that the USSR was storing medium-range nuclear weapons on Cuba, they rolled out a naval blockade to stop any further transportation of warheads.

This move led to the most dangerous stand-off in the entire Cold War period.

After the Cold War, the chances of a nuclear winter dropped dramatically. But no matter how low, the fact that the possibility remains is unacceptable. A false alarm or a nuclear strike by terrorists could be all that’s needed for the doomsday machines of the US and Russia to be rebooted and wipe out humanity.

Therefore it’s crucial that we dismantle these weapons. This doesn’t mean destroying all nuclear weapons that exist in the world – though that would be ideal – but the disassembling of the rapid-response, high-alert command of the US nuclear system aimed at Russia. That might not reduce the risk of a tit-for-tat nuclear war, but it would certainly prevent a nuclear winter brought about by a massive, rapid and potentially knee-jerk reaction.