View source for File:Doomsday Machine-Daniel Ellsberg-Recalling the Vietnam Moratorium Oct-Nov 1969.jpg



::::<big><big>2017</big></big>


:::: [[File:Dan Ellsberg - 2017.png]]


&nbsp;

            
'''Steve Schmidt, GreenPolicy360 Founder and Strategic Demands Editor''': 

The peace movement actions in October/November 1969 that grew from our student-led start into the largest anti-war protests in the nation's history were further revealed as impactful in Dan Ellsberg's 2017 book, [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Doomsday_Machine-Daniel_Ellsberg-Recalling_the_Vietnam_Moratorium_Oct-Nov_1969.jpg ''' "The Doomsday Machine"''']. 

Although many know of Dan Ellsberg from his role in releasing the history of the Vietnam War, the story that became known as the "Pentagon Papers", Daniel Ellsberg's role as a U.S. nuclear war planner is much less known. 

I knew Dan and I've worked with [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Roger_Morris_Bio '''Roger Morris'''], formerly of the National Security Council and an aide to Henry Kissinger. Roger Morris resigned from the NSC in protest of the Nixon-Kissinger war actions to invade and bomb Cambodia. Roger went on to tell the story of near-nuke use ....



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Flashback to 2005 ... Green Global Policy and Strategic Demands


<big>'''Strategic Demands of the 21st Century: A New Vision for a New World'''</big>


By Roger Morris - [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Roger_Morris_Bio (Bio)] and Steven Schmidt - [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Steven_Schmidt (Bio)]

&nbsp;

[[File:Strategic Demands of the 21st Century A New Vision for a New World.png]]

[https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Strategic_Demands_of_the_21st_Century_A_New_Vision_for_a_New_World.png 2005 / Morris-Schmidt]

* https://greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Strategic_Demands_of_the_21st_Century_A_New_Vision_for_a_New_World.png

&nbsp;


[[File:Surviving Victory.png]]


Moving beyond failed policies of war and threats of nuclear disaster  

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Surviving_Victory.png



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SJS - Steven J Schmidt / GreenPolicy360: 

The story of how close we came to nuclear war needs to be told again, and remembered. It is a warning of how a president, any U.S. president, sane or not, can order 'first use' of nuclear weapons.

As one of the initial organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, the peace movement actions of October/November 1969, the revealed story of what acted to stop nuclear weapons from being used in Vietnam in 1969, as told in Dan Ellsberg's book "The Doomsday Machine", has special relevance to me. 

Stop and think, with a light now focused on a room in the White House in 1969. One of the singular figures is the US president, Richard Nixon, the other is the president's foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger. They are considering giving an executive order. The commander-in-chief is close to ordering the launch of nuclear war. 

The president then, as is the case now, has [https://strategicdemands.com/?s=singular+authority '''"Singular Authority"'''] to 'pull the trigger' and go nuclear. 

Rational humanity came much too near the brink of nuclear cataclysm in those moments in 1969 as Nixon-Kissinger threatened the "4th rate power" of North Vietnam. The world was spared though, as outside the White House a people's movement had risen up -- and were dissuading the president and his aide. The Vietnam Moratorium turned out to be more powerful, much more powerful than was realized back then.

Today, as we review what has been revealed in subsequent years by insiders -- men with names like Morris, Lake, Halperin, Ellsberg... We must realize it is time to exert further controls on out-of-control nuclear launch power. The 'singular authority' of the US president to launch nuclear Armageddon needs to be seen for what it is and re-thought. 

A new vision of nuclear sanity needs to be delivered by today's generation to protect future life. The potential for nuclear weapons accident, miscalculation, mistake, or purposeful intentional use has been a recurring threat, a threat that needs to be ended.

The Nixon nuclear episode reported here, of a president sending a "signal", a "savage, brutal blow" came too close to reality. God-like good fortune and anti-war Moratorium events, marches, and opposition by the American people prevented the nuclear fire resulting from a singular decision by an American president. Another time looking ahead, a politically powerful peace movement may not be organized in time.

How do we know a future president will not order nukes to be launched?


Read the series of pieces via Strategic Demands:

* https://strategicdemands.com/?s=singular+authority


Read more at GreenPolicy360's associate, Strategic Demands

* https://www.strategicdemands.com

* https://www.strategicdemands.com/doomsday-machine/

* https://www.strategicdemands.com/nuclear-issues-cold-war-2-0/


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December 2017


''Stanley Kubrick’s iconic black comedy Dr. Strangelove remains one of the most insightful works on deterrence. The film revolves around the Doomsday Machine, which will automatically destroy all life on earth if the United States ever launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. After a rogue American general does precisely that, the Soviet ambassador reveals the machine’s existence and explains what is about to happen. American General Buck Turgidson is skeptical, claiming the machine is “an obvious commie trick, Mr. President!” The titular Dr. Strangelove subsequently delivers the film’s biting satirical punch line: “The … whole point of the Doomsday Machine … is lost … if you keep it a secret! Why didn’t you tell the world, eh?”''

* https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/invisible-doomsday-machines-challenge-clandestine-capabilities-deterrence/


&nbsp;


<big><big>'''Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner'''</big></big>

by Daniel Ellsberg

* <small><small>https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704</small></small>


: [[File:Doomsday Machine.jpg]]


&nbsp;

Excerpts from '''Doomsday Machine''' / Published 2017

* https://www.strategicdemands.com/doomsday-machine/


'''Daniel Ellsberg: Nixon Almost Took Vietnam War Nuclear In November 1969'''

[https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_October_15_1969.jpg <small>Revelations: the Vietnam Moratorium prevented use of nuclear weapons</small>]


~


'''1969 - “Nuclear targets were picked.” '''

Ellsberg speculated that the plans would have gone ahead in November 1969.

Instead, a huge demonstration on Oct. 15, 1969, the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, combined a general strike with nationwide protests and teach-ins.

About 2 million people came out to protest across the country, even “little towns that had never protested before,” Ellsberg recalled. 


'''“Without the Moratorium, there would have been an escalation, possibly the use of nuclear weapons in November 1969.” '''

: The Vietnam Moratorium mobilization of October-November 1969 revealed to have stopped Nixon from using nuclear weapons



::::[[File:Moratorium October 15 1969.jpg]]

:::: <small> * https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_October_15_1969.jpg</small>
::::<small> * https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Oct_15,_1969,_Vietnam_Moratorium_Day_in_memory.jpg</small>


::::: George Brown and Steve Schmidt, 1969

::::: * https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr

:::::[[File:Rep George Brown and Steve Schmidt - Oct 15, 1969 - 448x305.png]]




[[File:Vietnam Moratorium Committee-Documentary Intro.jpg]]

Steve Schmidt, Vietnam Moratorium Committee Coordinator

<small>* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Vietnam_Moratorium_Committee-Documentary_Intro.jpg</small>




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<small> * https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_memory,_Dan-Steve,_Doomsday_Machine_inscription.jpg</small>


::[[File:Moratorium memory, Dan-Steve, Doomsday Machine inscription.jpg]]




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June 2023


<big>'''Daniel Ellsberg dies at 92'''</big>


[[File:Daniel - June 16, 2023.png]]

Photo: Wally Fong/Associated Press


GreenPolicy360 founder knew Dan [https://greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Daniel_-_June_16,_2023.png '''up close and personal''']. 

Read a remembrance of Dan and his quest for peace. 


<big><big>'''Daniel Ellsberg'''</big></big>

In Memory of a Man Named Daniel

By Steven Schmidt

June 17, 2023


The  moon was bright that night as I visited Daniel Ellsberg at his house on the beach in Southern California. It was mid 1970 and Dan was surrounded by boxes. "Papers," he called them. He was packing to leave for Cambridge and a new position at MIT and he was worried that night as he showed me the study he had put together at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. 

As we sorted through documents I noticed some had Top Secret stamped on some of them. I learned later that these were part of the 7000 page, forty plus volume report soon to be called the "Pentagon Papers."

Dan spoke of President Nixon and famed advisor, Henry Kissinger with first-hand knowledge. He mentioned he had met with Kissinger recently at Nixon's San Clemente estate. I remember his fear, both that Nixon and Kissinger were repeating mistakes of previous administrations as "the Papers" demonstrated, and how the truth needed to go public. He broke off from the packing and said let's go, "I need to swim". 

Dan was depressed, I knew, and I was not going to convince him not to go into the loudly crashing night surf. I watched as he plunged into the waves. He then reappeared for a moment in the moonlight. He swam straight out, then disappeared. I waited on shore looking out at the dark ocean. Time passed, no sign of Dan. I began worrying. Is this the end of Dan Ellsberg? Did I just witness Dan ending it all? Did a riptide take him? I walked up and down the beach searching. Suddenly, Dan walked out of the surf, nodded then sprinted back toward the house. He quickly shifted back into work mode. Something happened, he had new resolve. 

Today as I reflect on the life of Dan Ellsberg and the announcement of his death, I can say he lived life like few others. He pursued the truth and facts in a way that was astounding and committed. He went on to prove in his actions that he was brave to put his life on the line for the sake of the American people. His decision was purposeful. He thought deeply about the consequences. That night under the moon I saw his fear, and I saw his resolve.

A few months later, when Daniel released the Pentagon Papers to a NY Times writer, Neil Sheehan, the truth came out. Dan's history of the war study subsequently led to the end of the Nixon presidency and, as a consequence, the end of the Vietnam War. Dan would later say the Pentagon Papers themselves didn't directly end the war, but the American people learned of the “evidence of a quarter-century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies, and murder”. This, with Nixon's resignation, brought on the end of the war.  

I learned over the course of our relationship that Dan Ellsberg was gifted, literally. I still say he is the smartest man I've ever known. His 2002 book "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers" is a must read. "On the evening of October 1, 1969, I walked out past the guards' desk at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica," he writes, "carrying a briefcase filled with top secret documents, which I planned to photocopy that night… How I came to do this is the focus of this memoir." Dan's memoir is a true American story.

Beyond the Pentagon Papers and resulting demise of the Nixon presidency, Dan Ellsberg's follow-on 2017 book "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" later explained the inner machinations of the nuclear war complex. He was, as a younger man, a systems man and followed orders. His nuclear war gaming was a Pentagon nuclear plan that he, as an old man, brought into the light with this revelatory book. The extent of humanity's threat to life on earth is part of Dan Ellsberg's legacy now.

Daniel Ellsberg's life is a testament to what generations to come have to deal with -- perpetual wars, the realities of nuclear weapons, modern states with awesome powers for good and bad. Dan Ellsberg revealed and pointed us to harsh realities.

Will we listen to Dan Ellsberg's message that he, risking all, brought to us?

Daniel Ellsberg, after all is said and done, was a man who taught us. He was a man of peace. Dan was a believer in the power each of us has to make a difference and move toward a better world.


-- Steven J Schmidt / Founder/Siterunner of GreenPolicy360



Read more about Daniel Ellsberg at GreenPolicy360 and StrategicDemands.com

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&search=daniel+ellsberg&fulltext=Search

* https://strategicdemands.com/?s=Daniel+Ellsberg



[[File:Dan Ellsberg - March 2023.png]]



<big>'''End of Life Thoughts'''</big>

Dan Ellsberg Reflects, as we do too...

Steven Schmidt, GreenPolicy360 Siterunner:

Yes, as I am reading last words from Dan I know I need to write more about Dan Ellsberg and the time we shared, days long past but still here with reverberations of war and the costs of war. Memories of a student activist in Dan's house on the beach, saying goodbye, packing what later would be called the '''Pentagon Papers'''. 

The war and lies about the war were there in writing, a history commissioned by Robert McNamara, source material, 'cable traffic', secrets... 

When I met Dan Ellsberg he was no longer a gung ho Marine with a 45 strapped to his hip. He was, he told me, a different man before he went to Vietnam. He changed, he was changed and our nation was convulsed by the war. The price was paid in blood and treasure as the nation's 'moral authority' was lost. The costs of the war continues to be paid today even as Vietnam is now a trading partner of the U.S. and vets take tours of old haunts, battlefields in the south and north of Vietnam. The lush countryside, the marshes, the rainforests, the delta... the Agent Orange, the B52s, 'Rolling Thunder', the devastation and the millions of deaths in the region are remembered. Memories are everywhere there - and here. 

At least we didn't use [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Doomsday_Machine-Daniel_Ellsberg-Recalling_the_Vietnam_Moratorium_Oct-Nov_1969.jpg '''a nuclear weapon'''] as years later it was revealed we came close, very close, to using...

Today, in Ukraine, in Russia, it would be a different world of danger and threat, and craziness, if the U.S. had used the Bomb in Asia, as Ellsberg who was a nuclear war planner for the government, later wrote about in detail. After he wrote "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers", Dan wrote "The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner" and it is on my mind just now, before the sun rises here in Florida. 

A few mile from my abode is Fort MacDill, the U.S. headquarters of [https://www.socom.mil/about '''Special Operations Command'''], worldwide command and control ops. Yesterday the international news reported that Russian Federation president Putin was moving "tactical nuclear weapons" to Belarus and again threatening with his nuclear arsenal continuing a new version, a "3.0 version of the Cold War. The nuclear threat is, as experts write and others report, at it greatest risk since the height of the Cold War. Here one can say MacDill is a 'rich targets', as command and control systems and 'beheading' are in the vernacular of nuclear war planners. 

Again, I look back at when Nixon and Kissinger and the nuclear war planners were ready to launch... and I thank God, today, that the room in the White House where they were huddling and talking about 'sending a message' was not a harbinger of nuclear 'end of times' going forward. Right now, I open the Doomsday Machine book that Dan gave me and I look again at the inscription: "12-25-17 To Steven Schmidt - Wed need the Moratorium again !  Dan Ellsberg"

And a now I see Dan post forwarded on Twitter where he is saying he still has hope...

:'''''All the young activists rising up give me hope as I leave my life. As the movement against the Vietnam War showed,'''''

::'''''young people can save lives when they make their care known in action. Keep going. The world is in your hands.'''''

:::<small>* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Dan_Ellsberg_-_the_world_is_in_your_hands.png</small>


As Dan muses of his approaching death, I think back to his 2017 'Doomsday' book on nuclear planning and danger -- and I think back to the late 1960s, talks with Dan, new knowledge he was passing to me as a college student, a founder and activist representing the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, traveling, speaking, and organizing across America and on to Europe for peace work, an international peace conference, and then moving into environmental protection work. 

All along I watched Dan as he dealt with life as a 'whistleblower' and attempted to tell the American people the truth, the McNamara-commissioned history of the Vietnam war as it was, without the cover ups, lies, and deceit. The truth came out. The repercussions continue... Dan Ellsberg risked it all to tell the truth to the people.



[[File:Dan Ellsberg - the world is in your hands.png]]

<small>* https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2023/03/23/amanpour-ellsberg-pentagon-papers.cnn</small>



[[File:Dan Ellsberg - 2017.png]]

<small>* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Dan_Ellsberg_-_2017.png</small>




🌎


<big><big>'''''GreenPolicy360 and Strategic Demands'''''</big></big>

''GreenPolicy360's partner site, Strategic Demands / #StratDem


<big><big>''[[New Definitions of National Security]]''</big></big>

[http://www.strategicdemands.com '''''@StrategicDemands.com''''']


[https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/New_Definitions_of_National_Security ''"New Definitions of National & Global Security"'']

[http://strategicdemands.com/nuclear-issues-cold-war-2-0/ ''Nuclear Issues / Cold War 2.0'']



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[[File:Hourglass-sand-2.jpg|link=https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Nuclear_Weapons]]

&nbsp; 

[http://strategicdemands.com <big><big>'''''Visit GreenPolicy's Associate, Strategic Demands'''''</big></big>]



<big>'''Looking Back at an Imminent U.S. Threat to Use Nuclear Weapons'''</big>

'''50 years ago a student strike that was called a Vietnam Moratorium became the largest [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Moratorium_October_15_1969.jpg US peace movement]'''

'''It was only later that historians documented that marching for peace prevented Nixon and Kissinger plans to use tactical nuclear weapons'''



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(From the "Doomsday Machine".... page 312)

:''"In September 1974, just after Nixon's resignation, [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Roger_Morris_Bio '''Roger Morris'''], a former aide to Henry Kissinger, revealed for the first time in the magazine Washington Monthly that Nixon had directed plans for nuclear attacks on North Vietnam in October-November 1969. Morris had participated in an '''"October group"''' in the White House planning what his boss, Kissinger, had asked to be a "savage, brutal blow" that would bring the "little fourth-rate country" North Vietnam to its "breaking point."'' 


: [[File:Roger Morris - speaking at the Washington DC Green Institute conference.jpg]]

:<small>Roger Morris, former senior staff member, US National Security Council</small>

: <small><small>* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Strategic_Demands_of_the_21st_Century_A_New_Vision_for_a_New_World.png</small></small>

: <small><small>* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Roger_Morris_Bio</small></small>


:'''''"When I asked Morris for specifics after reading that article, he told me that he had read detailed planning folders, with satellite photographs, for several nuclear targets in North Vietnam. One of these, a trans-shipment site for materiel coming in from China, was a mile and a half from the Chinese border. A nuclear attack on this was meant to send a strong "signal" to China. A low-yield airburst nuclear weapon above this railroad spur in the jungle, the planning folder estimated, would cause only "three civilian" casualties. Another prospective target was the Mu Gia pass from North Vietnam into the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos..."'''''

:''"I had not known at the time about this planning going on in October 1969, just as I was beginning to copy the Pentagon Papers. I would have been astonished to learn of it, so soon in Nixon's first term, even though I was already concerned that another, eventual North Vietnam offensive, perhaps three or four years off, might trigger use of nuclear weapons. What I had just learned from my friend Morton Halperin, a deputy to Henry Kissinger who had left the National Security Council in September, was that Nixon---contrary to all public expectations---was not planning to withdraw from Vietnam unconditionally but was threatening to escalate dramatically to achieve a quasi victory."''

:''"Mort told me of the then-secret bombing of Cambodia that was already underway..."'' 



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<big>'''''From the Publisher of the "Doomsday Machine": Framed as a memoir'''''</big> 

'''''A chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating -- this gripping exposé 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 whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful -- and powerfully important -- book about not just our country, but the future of the world.'''''


<big>'''''Reviews'''''</big>


''“A groundbreaking and nightmare-inducing account of how the whole mad system works.” – Esquire

''“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

''“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.” – Fred Kaplan, Slate

''“Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine (Bloomsbury) unpacks the power of our atomic arsenal.” – Vanity Fair

''“Ellsberg, the dauntless whistle-blower, has written a timely plea for a reassessment of a weapons program that he describes as 'institutionalized madness.'” –  San Francisco Chronicle, Best Books of the Year 2017 

''“A passionate call for reducing the risk of total destruction . . . Ellsberg's effort to make vivid the genuine madness of the 'doomsday machine,' and the foolishness of betting our survival on mutually assured destruction, is both commendable and important.” – New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice

''“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.” – Excellent December Books, Huffington Post

''“This candid and chilling memoir describes how Ellsberg came to recognize that the U.S. military's approach to preparing for nuclear war was terrifyingly casual. If war came, the United States was ready to obliterate not only the Soviet Union but also China--a plan that would have immediately produced 275 million fatalities and then led to another 50 million, owing to the effects of radiation.” – Foreign Affairs, "Best Books of the Year"

''“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 Backstory”)

''“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

''“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

''“His point is simple: We and our political leaders must stop thinking of nuclear war as a manageable risk. We must stop thinking of the possibility of nuclear war as normal.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Our Favorite Books of 2017"

''“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

''“Ellsberg's book, perhaps the most personal memoir yet from a Cold Warrior, fills an important void by providing firsthand testimony about the nuclear insanity that gripped a generation of policymakers . . . The Doomsday Machine is strongest as a portrait of the slow corruption of America's national security state by layer upon layer of secrecy. He relates how the Cold War, the nuclear build-up and trillions of dollars of defense spending were compromised by information purposely withheld from the policymakers and politicians who debated and shaped our path” – Washington Post

''“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. The 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.” – Los Angeles Review of Books

''“Ellsberg writes briskly in the service of opinions formed by long and sober study. What he means is never in doubt and it is always interesting . . . He is a vigorous writer with a gift for dramatic tension and the unfolding of events as they cascade toward disaster.” –  Thomas Powers, New York Review of Books

''“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

''“Is it really necessary to declare that a knowledgeable, detailed and passionate book about the odds-on danger of cataclysmically destroying all human life on earth is important? Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine demands to be widely read. Its claims should be examined by experts, corroborated, rebutted, taken up by Congressional committees (alas, unlikely) and generally forced into public consciousness . . . The Doomsday Machine is engrossing and frightening.” – Peter Steinfels, America Magazine (SJ)

''“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

''“The Doomsday Machine is, in fact, a ''Bildungsroman'', a tale of one intellectual's disillusionment with the country in which Ellsberg had placed so much trust. It reveals how the horrors of US nuclear war planning transformed a man of the establishment into a left-wing firebrand.” – Los Angeles Times

''“[The Doomsday Machine is] an important tome that's as optimistic as it sounds. It's vital reading that reminds people that both poor planning--such as the US under Dwight Eisenhower having no contingency in place for only bombing the USSR into dust, but it being a package deal with China, something that confirmed the rigidity of these planners as well as their blithely democidal tendencies--and the potential for simple mistakes still run rampant in US nuclear policy.” – Antiwar.com

''“Gripping . . . The Doomsday Machine is essential reading--both a terrifying 'Doctor Strangelove' saga and a hopeful consideration of future scenarios.” – Mercury News

''“Ellsberg's book is essential for facilitating a national discussion about a vital topic.” –  *Starred review, Library Journal

''“Alarming, galvanizing, and brilliantly written.” – Barnes & Noble Review

''“Given the current crises, both domestic and international, the timeliness of Ellsberg's exposures-and warnings-is unnerving... The Doomsday Machine is not for the faint of heart, but its sense of urgency should make it required reading, and-more importantly-a call to action.” – BookPage

''“From a close insider's perspective, he describes how the U.S. came to create and adjust this potentially world-destroying arsenal, how presidents have used it to threaten foreign leaders, and the responses of other nuclear powers. We have narrowly avoided many previous crises, but he fears that the current U.S. administration could charge straight into a worst-case scenario. This book deserves to be widely read, discussed and acted upon.” – Shelf Awareness

''“In his recent book The Doomsday Machine, Daniel Ellsberg reports that the basic elements of US preparations for nuclear war have been little changed over the past three generations... Ellsberg's warning needs to be taken seriously.” –  Truthout

''“Speaking with the authority of an insider who was intimately involved with nuclear strategy and policymaking at the highest levels, he reveals that practically everything the American public believes about nuclear war and nuclear weapons is, quite simply, a 'deliberate deception.' . . . One can only hope Daniel Ellsberg's singular combination of moral credibility and personal knowledge will work its magic one more time to forestall an even greater tragedy than the Vietnam War.” –  Undark Magazine

''“The book is a revelation, and it raises so many essential questions that have been very inadequately discussed about nuclear war, realistic appraisal of its consequences and nuclear winter. Ellsberg places his discussion inside a history of the law of war since the early 20th century.... Ellsberg has performed his greatest public service yet with the publication of this book.” – The Concord Monitor

''“A treasure of finely woven secrets and insights lies in Daniel Ellsberg's new memoir, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. Their importance grows each day that the nuclear stand-offs on the Korean Peninsula, in South Asia and between the United States and Russia go unabated.” – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

''“Shocking . . . The Doomsday Machine is full of deeply disturbing revelations. The book sometimes reads like a thriller, as Ellsberg describes his mounting horror and revulsion over the discoveries he made over the years.” – Berkleyside, 'Five out of Five'

“Daniel Ellsberg's latest book is a disturbing analysis about how close we have been--and still are--to a nuclear holocaust.” – Buffalo News

''“As with the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg has performed a public service in writing a candid book that states where we are more than seven decades into the nuclear era. This book provides abundant evidence that describes our nuclear predicament and how we got here, as well as ideas and insights that may help extricate us from the potentially devastating path we now walk.” – Arms Control Today

''“This is a compelling and alarming book, and it should be read by anyone who cares about the human future.” – The Montreal Gazette

''“There is much in Ellsberg's book that is new, and may even be revelatory to many readers . . . To be sure, Ellsberg is hardly the first Jeremiah to warn that nuclear war is 'a catastrophe waiting to happen' . . . Ellsberg is, nonetheless, the most recent, the best informed -- and plainly the most motivated -- to remind us, since then, of our present and continuing danger.” – H-Diplo

''“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 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.



○



<big>'''March 2023'''</big>



[[File:The Movement and the Madman - PBS - March 2023.png]]

[[File:PBS Documentary - Movement and the Madman 6.png]]


* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Roger_Morris_Bio


&nbsp; 


[[File:A Film About the Power of Protest.png]]


<big>PBS</big>


<big><big>'''The Movement and the 'Madman' '''</big></big>

'''PREMIERED MARCH 28, 2023 ON "AMERICAN EXPERIENCE"'''


[https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&search=vietnam+moratorium&fulltext=Search '''The Vietnam Moratorium mobilization of October-November 1969'''] is revealed to have politically influenced and stopped US President Nixon from using nuclear weapons

The documentary film tells the story of a dramatic showdown between a protest movement and a president


:* https://www.movementandthemadman.com/home
:* https://www.movementandthemadman.com/history
:* https://www.movementandthemadman.com/preview
:* https://www.movementandthemadman.com/interviewees
:* https://www.movementandthemadman.com/filmmakers

&nbsp; 

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&nbsp; 

<big><big>'''A Call Out of the Blue and a War Remembrance'''</big></big>

Steven Schmidt/GreenPolicy360 Founder/Siterunner: Some fifty years after being an organizer of the Vietnam Moratorium, I received a call from a Vietnam war documentary production. They wanted remembrance comments of what it was like, up close, organizing a national peace movement. My response was "it was overwhelming" and... have you talked to Roger Morris? They said they intended to, they knew about Roger and did I have have his contact number. My next statement, which I repeated strongly over a period of months, filling in details, came from Dan Ellsberg, who was a friend and, in former times, a nuclear war planner. I spoke of Roger and the NSC, and nuclear weapons, and Dan's book, the [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=the%20doomsday%20machine&fulltext=Policy+Search&profile=images&redirs=0 '''Doomsday Machine'''], and suggested the documentary producers look into the Vietnam story of Nixon-Kissinger and "the Bomb". 

Those who objected to secret plans back then by Nixon-Kissinger to expand the war beyond Vietnam, bombing Cambodia, Laos and planning, as it turned out, to 'send a message' to Hanoi via nuclear weapon use. These NSC staffers left government, with personal and professional consequences, and their experiences were not revealed until many years later. The '''Movement and the Madman''' PBS - American Experience film now tells the tale, and it is a shocking story. We should listen carefully, as the story of the Bomb and Vietnam comes to light, how nations of the world came close to experiencing nuclear disaster, a Cold War that would have instantly and forever become a Hot War with reverberations continuing until the present day.

Our peace organizing, it turned out, had profound impacts then and now as revealed by PBS's '''Movement and Madman.'''  



'''[[Vietnam Moratorium for Peace 1969-1970]]'''


[[File:Oct 15, 1969, Vietnam Moratorium Day in memory.jpg]]




Vietnam Moratorium Committee / Strategic Demands /  Daniel Ellsberg / Roger Morris / Steven Schmidt / Peace 




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