Summary of Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview:

#1 I was nine years old when I saw newsreels of the London Blitz, and I was shocked by the cruelty of the Nazis. I believed what we were told about American and British bombers bravely flying through flak to drop their loads on targets in Germany.

#2 I was 13 when I learned about the challenges of the nuclear era in a social studies class. The teacher, Bradley Patterson, explained that the development of technology regularly moved much faster than other aspects of culture.

#3 The existence of a bomb like that would be bad news for humanity. It would be too powerful to be safely controlled. The power would be abused, and civilization would be in danger of destruction.

#4 The first person to form a judgment about the bomb was Leo Szilard, who first conceived the idea of a chain reaction in a heavy element like uranium. He was in London in 1933 as an émigré, having left Berlin just days after the Reichstag fire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669372035

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was nine years old when I saw newsreels of the London Blitz, and I was shocked by the cruelty of the Nazis. I believed what we were told about American and British bombers bravely flying through flak to drop their loads on targets in Germany.

#2

I was 13 when I learned about the challenges of the nuclear era in a social studies class. The teacher, Bradley Patterson, explained that the development of technology regularly moved much faster than other aspects of culture.

#3

The existence of a bomb like that would be bad news for humanity. It would be too powerful to be safely controlled. The power would be abused, and civilization would be in danger of destruction.

#4

The first person to form a judgment about the bomb was Leo Szilard, who first conceived the idea of a chain reaction in a heavy element like uranium. He was in London in 1933 as an émigré, having left Berlin just days after the Reichstag fire.

#5

Szilard was a key figure in bringing the atomic bomb into the world. He believed that the race was between Germany and America to obtain this explosive power, and he was willing to help America get it.

#6

I was a Cold Warrior, and I had taken note when Churchill, in 1946, pointed to the Iron Curtain that had descended across Europe, dividing free Europe from tyrannical rule in the East. I had come to accept all the Cold War premises and attitudes.

#7

I was a Truman Democrat: a liberal Cold Warrior, pro-labor and anti-Communist, like Senators Hubert Humphrey and Henry Jackson. I admired Truman’s action in sending bombers filled with coal and food instead of weapons to resupply the people in Berlin during the Soviet blockade that began the month of my high school graduation.

#8

I had expected to pursue an academic career as an economic theorist, but I was offered a postgraduate fellowship at the Society of Fellows in 1957. I knew what I wanted to work on: choices in situations of extreme uncertainty.

#9

The first reports from Project RAND, which were a proposal for a world-circling spaceship, were released in 1946 and 1947. They had predicted the political impact of a satellite: The psychological effect of a satellite will in less dramatic fashion parallel that of the atom bomb. It will make possible an unspoken threat to every other nation that we can send a guided missile to any spot on earth.

#10

The summer of 1958 was the high point of secret intelligence predictions of a vast Soviet superiority in deployed ICBMs. But even before those predictions, Top Secret RAND studies had concluded that the ability of the Strategic Air Command to retaliate against a Soviet surprise attack against our strategic bombers was far from reliable.

#11

I was in the company of very smart people at RAND, and it was clear from the start that this was as smart a group of men as I had ever met. I loved working there, and I spent ten years there, in two stints, in 1958 and 1967.

#12

I had the privilege of working at RAND, a think tank that was dedicated to the study of the dangers of nuclear war. My colleagues and I were driven men who felt we