Transcripts For CSPAN2 Daniel Ellsberg The Doomsday Machine 20180107

[inaudible conversations] the microphone is right on you. You have two of them theyll be both here. But theyre not on. Just went on right now. [laughter] all right ladies and gentlemen how are we tonight in so welcome to the American Writers Museum i would like to get everybodys attentions as we have a special guest with us tonight. The American Writers Museum is where we celebrate the impact that writers have had on American History and our culture and our daily life now on our wall and exhibit heres here at m fiction and spirituality and politics, and it is not a hyperbole to say that many of them wrote words that changed the course of history. From Thomas Jefferson declaring independence to wells demanding accountability americans writers have forever challenged the status quo, and advocated fearlessly for the rights of all to be heard. Awm surprise bookshelf series shows a man work and words held government accountable this a new book be doomsday machine is latest chapter many a lifetime of confronting power mr. Daniel elsburg. [applause] tonight hes in conversation with rick, journalist and author who political call the chronicaller of the American Conservative Movement because of his books before the storm, nixon land and under the bridge. Please welcome tonight, danielle elsburg and rick. Thank you all. [applause] thank you kiry its great to be here at americas literary culture and, of course, its mice to be here with one of my heros Daniel Elsburg honor to have him here because when the events that he writes about many this book begin, when he basically squirreled away thousands and thousands of pages of documents about Americas Nuclear command and control system in tan dem releasing thousands of pages of documents about the lies of that america told medical in order to created sustain the vietnam war. He expected to spend the rest of his life in jail. He knew this, and he proceeded nonetheless in our interest and in the worlds interest. So before we do anything else, i think we should acknowledge the courage, the vision, and the sacrifice of this man Daniel Elsburg. [applause] hes in jail east here and hes writing a book the book hes written is exquisite extraordinarily well constructed and well put together, and it takes subject that our highly technical an highly obscure and which had the powers that be rely on us believing to be highly tactical an highly obscure and renders them exquisitely crystal line pros. When i embarked on the project of interviewing dan for latest issue of esquire magazine, one of the first people i turned to was an author named fred way back in the 1980s wrote a book called wizard of armageddon which told a portion of the story were going to hear tonight. And i said fred, have you read this book . He said yes i have. Its outstanding. And hes reviewed it in the magazine and i said what is new about this book . What is daniel tell us about how the news clear system works in america that we didnt know before and what he told me was that this is really the first book that has put the whole system together explained how it works from beginning to end. And that it demonstrates that the very existence of a Nuclear Arsenal of the necessity set in motion a logic that creates a doomsday machine. Everything about it that is worth criticizing is inherent feature of the logic of the whole system. This is what it is. This is what it leads to. Thats fred kaplan had, the expert on nuclear wars. Yes, and to quote dans book he gives absolutely astonishing account of the cuban missile crisis, and how that came exquisitely close to ending most life on earth. Dan estimates that there will be one on two percent left so its not really it shall extinction precisely an engineer you say this well not quite. So he says it wouldnt bring us that but brought us probably be 40 or 50 Million People left. But anyway after he narrates this he says this. The danger to humanity of Nuclear Weapons does not rest solely or even mainly on the possibility of further proliferation of such weapons to quote un, quote, rogue or unstable nations. Who would handle and threaten them less quote unquote responsibly than the permanent members of the security counsel nor u does it rest merely on on boundary of the weapon states of israel, pakistan, north korea what is a true history of the cuban missile crisis reveals is that existence of masses of Nuclear Weapons this hands of leaders of the superpowers the United States and russia even when those leaders are about as responsible humane and cautious as anyone we have seen pose then and still do intolerable dangers to the survival of civilization. I would like to begin our discussion in the summer of 1958. You have just taken a job at the iran corporation Extensive Research and development for air force think tank, and in a very arrest image you talk about what happened on a certain moon list might. Well reason it was significant that it was a moonless night was that i was reading then i was trying to read my way many and top secret and secret mostly secret documents at that time. And the sense of last to being an merchandiser and seaing the way it looked from outside. So i was spending really 7 hours week pretty much seven days week reading this stuff late at night and reading into it. And hypothetical soviet surprise attacks in great detail to which the people who found smarter group if that ever encounters a grouch people were con veined that soviet on basis of estimate in air force in particular but National Intelligence as well were concern racing to produce the capability to destroy the u. S. Specifically to destroy our ability to retaliate our deteernt capability theyve been first to put up an icbm effectively by missile that could reach Ballistic Missile the kind that North Vietnam is striving for. North korea. Whanch did i say . Wrong adventure. Right. Thank you. [laughter] right and North Vietnam did not acquire such capability. But north korea is trying to get an icbm and might come to that. We will come become to that. A similarity between their reasons i think for wanting to do that. And for chrisss reason for wanting to put Medium Range Missiles in range of the United States. 195 so coming back to 58 were going towards hundreds of them at a time that we did not really have any and it wasnt thought they have them in 58 but by 59 might have a couple hundred would be with muff to destroy ive seen dircht figures on that but figure we used at the time was 26 depends on what you count as major, major basis in the what was called z. I. All zone of the interior. The American Homeland not including alaska. But readers suddenly youre a threat. So what i was reading is a report saying that they would want to coordinate their taig with intercontinental Ballistic Missiles which by the way were initially called ibm. And a corporation objected o that so they became icbm, and just as by the way, the center for International Affairs at harvard that had i was spending a lot of time at run by krising jeer they change it from cia to center four international cifia same idea. So the idea was, though, that they would be hitting with the icbm into the interior in our basis. But that they would coordinate that attack with short range or medium range cruise missiles from submarines on our coastal basis and on a command and control and submarine would be very close in, and have very short flight tile is they gave essentially no warning time. That phenomenon is still a factor in our analysis on both sides. So okay whats going to be a coordinated attack and they said best time for such a attack would be in august for various weather conditions and so forth when on the night about midnight coordinating this, and i looked out of my window right above mussel beach in santa monica, looking out at the ocean it was a moonless night and it was about midnight i looked at my watch, and this verbal expression that hairs on back of my head rising i remember that from a time a chill actually thinking this could be the night. You know, basically and or a night like this in any case so i was expecting almost to see subs out at sea i could see them because it was cruise missiles they didnt have Ballistic Missiles on submarines they would be on the surface. So i looked out looking, looking for subs but that was a that was a time also probably saw this in the book where the youngest members of the Department Ellen and i from m. I. T. Were offered by people actually mixture tii Crest Insurance where iran paid most of the premium actually. More it was very good retirement insurance. Neither of us signed up because it didnt seem there was a chance that we would pay off [laughter] on that. Retaliation if we could convince him that we would be capable under such a attack for a heavy, heavy retaliation to deter them and we would try to save us and save the world from a soviet nuclear surprise attack from war gone in that fashion. That seemed like greatest danger in the world and we were privileged to work long hours obsessed with a subject of how to avert that. But highest level of devotion and highest level of Energy Concern with a trust that you narrate the course of the book becoming a little more complicated and what im thinking about is one of the reasons why it seemed credible to you that the soviet union might launch this first strike against the United States and had the capacity to do so us not having the capacity to retaliate in time was that there was a very strong belief in the air force and other Intelligence Services that there was something known as a missile gap so why dont you what that was start that because as a i say we i think our first missiles operational were in 1961 if im not mistaken and before 1960 or so we county have icb m. We didnt have those numbers im talking about ours but the thought that they would have hundreds and by 60 at the latest 1960s that they would have perhaps 300 general head of Strategic Air command said in 1960 actually that he thought they had 300. And herman conmy colleague who where a book on nuclear war, and who according to the concept the machine as a hypothetical concept, he was estimating about 300 with the notion that would suffice to prevent our retaliation possibly nothing else qowld come. But a premise of that was why we believe that so much . That all of the intelligence agencies and before defense army navy, and air force, and the cia, all shared a premise with my mentors and wolf and others, all anticommunist as i was a very much cold warrior but premise was that not only there but in his successor we were facing essentially hitler with Nuclear Weapons. And very much the premise that just as hitler had been on World Domination many first domination of asia, that that only congress you mentioned but nathan wrote the operational cold of the communists and a notion that they were total obsessed with idea of taking over by threat by hitler in the 30us or by attack by actual attack and thats what we were facing. Over the world. Taking over the world. Essentially the world World Domination and next built in that logics was that what was in their way . Well the United States was in their way on this. And so we werent threatening them but they want us out of way and field would be clear, and that they might even would coldblooded calculating communist nathan would write willing to sacrifice considerable numbers of their own people. Now, let me say right away, i think looking back on it, that was an extreme falsification lived through world war ii. But the idea was actually say well they lost 20 Million People in world war ii and look at them now. They came through that very well. Now, when i say that, im saying when i said thinking like that to a russian leader they would almost vibrate like we were invaded we suffered this going in russian coming german coming in and fighting out both ways the idea of repeating world war ii is just what happened is this entire logic is based upon the idea that they have a capability to do so. But you found some what im just saying but capability and that missile gap and what happened to missile gap . Well, in 19 stop in corona and i think the corona satellite. Okay. Our actual capabilities were known only to a couple people. Half dozen or so. They didnt know except for this half dozen who have involved in the film about the you two fight from 56 a flying on and what they have until 1960 were able to shoot down. Then, that was replaced by settling which are still operating o of course very much and we use youtube but over russia are various places. Okay. People of didnt know this except or for this handful maybe a dozen at the very most out of 500 professionals. Knew of this that we knew anything about what was going on in the ground and from the photography. It in 61 i was out at Strategic Air command in headquarters in omaha, and spoke to a colonel i had known back in the pent imon who was mow cheer of war plan. And he said, you know what the old man thomas power thinks they have . You know, whats that . A thousand. What was dramatic was what the ci airings and estimating at that time about and the air force estimating about 160 so this was a lot more. And that was in august 1961. Well in september, came in based on total overall photography from the settling. Havevery few people have. Almost no one had. And i was told about it. You know its in the book but i wouldnt go into it right now in detail. There was a leak i wasnt supposed to be told but i was told about this new estimate and the basis for it which i was not able to communicate with something i was not supposed to know and fact that i knew it would expose like a journalist of sources. Would expose a person told me. And what soviets had was four not a thousand. [laughter] and note 160 and not 120 and some other estimate an actually army and navy had been estimating for two years that they have only a handful. And the air force people that i was talking to regarded them as traitors that they were so determined not to give the air force a basis for asking for a lot of missiles of our own but prepared to underestimate you know what the soviets had to o this extreme degree putting our country in danger. It was just normal almost conceivable treason but they taught me that word but they have the u2 had not seen them and satellite had not seen them but there was Overall Coverage cover another thing, million september. And then they said four. Is what they had, and well that was what you asked. That means that soviet union was stunning, Stunning Development for me actually. I went back. And we mostly operate od the secret level. You know most of the documents we dealt with there was top secret reports and top secret but not so often that we took it very seriously unlike pentagon top secret was everyday thing everything was top secret. So i called for top secret briefing, and khan my colleague there had had always said you have to have sorry what youve seen by the way. Funny scene. Funny in a way. [laughter] its funny i didnt operate with charts. He said you have to have a chart power oingt. But then you didnt have power point and so charts with bullet bullet equation complicated stuff. So no very simple on a chart that was the point. So i made some very simple charts and question called it top secret briefing which was unusual and all department heads. And its unlike the pentagon that meant that everybody had to be checked many by a guard and name off make sure that they knew who was there and okay. So i said herman says we should always have a chart and i didnt use charts like tonight, and i said but tonight i have some charts. So i had a flip table hearing. And first and i had letter these myself top secrets. Top secret at the top. And fist chart was yes virginia there is a missile [inaudible conversations] [laughter] second chart is currently wanting ten to 1. Third chart, you know, in our favor. Because we have about 40icbm so their pour. 40 o was not a large number compared to what came later. There was ten times more than they have. Now much more significantly than that really we had 2,000 bombers in range to russia. And strategic bombers. We have missiles on submarines sub line missile cruise missiles tactical bomb rs and they were in range of russia, and in other words, in the immense superiority, and no one believed me. How would you know that . Well how would they know that . I couldnt tell them actually. That was higher than top secret definitely. And i didnt have the clearance for it at that time i did later. For this so i did, i did get it later but u they didnt have it on whole didnt believe it turned everything around thats ridiculous. You know, sort of more than that it raised questions that were not raising at all it took them a long time to come to believe it in a way nef recovered from this buzz it totally turned around this obsession with what but once you have cotoll believe it and they did in washington they didnt have the same problem. Use estimates they questioned the entire so cold war. Chris had not tried to have a first strike camibility yes he could have. His early missiles were very bulky and unreliable. Not going to take over berlin. No he couldnt have aimed he wasnt aiming to have a pierces strike capable which we assumed he was passion mat with having and could have the answer was he could have. But he didnt so who was our adversary and work to their aim and what were they after afterall and what was possible this many the way, for example, another there which by the way applies to north korea right now. You can negotiate with these people, and it was true. You couldnt negotiate with hitler fully he would violate everything. He would just, you know, observe it as long as it was worthwhile for this might be months or weeks or whatever. But it was useless. He couldnt get out of the soviet union had not built these weapons without an agreement. So the idea that you could have perhaps negotiated to agree with with them to keep them down at this e low level just simply never occurred to anybody as far as i know. And there were even reports on the same its striking by ragar but its striking that nobody ever thought of employing what you know, maybe you could get an agreement with these people they werent tempt on taking over the world which they couldnt do. With us in in our way. Well that was simply not that recalculation was not me, and what follows from this reality are many, many profound things but the direction that book goes in different ways is when you talk about the psychology of individuals who are trained to believe and think, and superintend organization and sociology of organizations and bureaucracies is that they do what they were designed to do. So you have the iran Corporation Want to go on doing nuclear strategy. And the generals want to win wars, and were all part of organizations in our lives and we see how they fail and we see how misunderstanding and tragic misconception arise these are human organizations and book is full of tragic misconception even it starts with the reason we decided we have to press ahead with designing Nuclear Weapons and we have to build this enormous infrastructure because of the belief that hitler was working on a nuclear weapon. Although that was like the exactly like the wmd in iraq essentially. The idea was that in this case it was more plausible the jer mans had, in fact, been the first to discover the decision uranium if they were ahead of us and it was hitler then, and it was reason to fear that we would be faceing hit her with Nuclear Weapons, and so even people who felt like we remember just talking 75 years ago this last month in chicago under stag field a field in stadiums, in chicago, university, university, they were putting together the first pile as then called a reactor type a pile called a pilot because it involved piles of graphite and to control the neutron and on the night they got the reactor to get a Chain Reaction going not enough to explode, in fact, they put control in fast muff to keep it from going too far and they were working on this had, and they got the indicator show that new being admitted and you remember getting a reaction so that Nuclear Vision was possible. So they told they put the control rods many, they drank you were saying they did this again to celebrate the anniversary. And at last people had left, and they were left to the room and he said, i believe this day will go down as a black day in history. Because it said earlier when they realized neutron were emitted with uranium more he said i knew that mankinds this for a lot of imreefs. Grief well actually the world hasnt blown up since then. But as you saw in there what i came to realize after cuba and other come closerrer to it. Weve had a lot of very close calls and cuban missile crisis was only one of those, and a major one nobody knew about with president reagan until afterwords and andrew believed that the u. S. Was on the verge for first strike. And abe archer and we were conducting an a exercise which the kjb there and who was premier had been a head of the kjb and they believed that archer who was anywayer nato exercise of Nuclear Weapons was a recover for a cover strike, and by the way, were conducting exercises right now many in korea and we know that kim john unis obsessed with idea not of a Nuclear First strike necessary will you but of an attack on north korea. Where flying b1 bombers which are originally Nuclear Bombers essentially. Now, not so much. We rely on missiles now. But in korea it shall essentially. We have this, you know, human beings coexisting with the ability to destroy life on earth raises, you various question whs it comes to human beings does one the book that so many fashion in a side where Charles Percy who later becomes senator from yit. Illinois with hes basically i think like a Corporation Executive then of howell and he goes to norad because theyre showing arranged all of these vips. And hes sitting in the chair which they give peel the chance to do. You know, share how wonderful it is to sit in the big chair where they command Nuclear Command and control system, and this is 1960 or so, and it shows up on screen that theyre both Nuclear Attack coming from the soviet union. So the alarm bells are going off and screens are going. They rush civilians into a side room, alarm bell going, and everything more icbm from russia coming. More, more and opinionny thing about this was they were more coming than we believe at that point well it turned out that sort of a connection here. It turned out that a radar seeing the Ballistic Missile Warning System had gone into operation, and that seemed the fact they have been involved and building that along with ib m not icbm but leader was will, to the news and these attacks were coming right away. The radar signals were bouncing off the moon and were coming back and by the way they knew radar signals would reach the moon but they didnt think they would be reflected to such an extent that they would appear like incoming missiles, and by the way, if we have been ready if they didnt detect that soon u enough, our bombers would have taken off we didnt have many missiles but bombers would have taken off and might have been old to execute and many those day, once there was in the film dr. Strange love, if an execute message went out, there was no stop message. Why dont you tell the story about visiting control officer and tell the story of visiting control officer way out there in well when i became aware that theyre in the pacific doing research for admiral and chief commander in chief specific admiral harry on command control, i was looking in particular at the possibility that will with this in mind so but the possibility that people might believes that they were under attack and i had become aware that president eisenhower had delegated hort o his field commanders including felt in the pacific but also Strategic Air command sack and omaha, and all of the other major field commanders. In Case Communications were out, and with Washington Communications were out part of every day. In the pacific so he was on his own during parts of the crisis just a year earlier in 1958. And moreover he had delegated this and i found felt delegated it further for the same reason to settle pleat for the same reason. The communications might be out as elsewhere, or eisenhower was concerned that he had had a heart attack he had had a stroke at that point incase of president ial incapacitation you left had had out o, you let them have their own authority. To this day, nearly all, in fact, hearing discussion in the last month, does the president have authority can anybody stop him by the way, a president some reason had question has arisen. People are worried that does the president have Soul Authority can he do this . The answer is no they cant stop him nobody, nobody can with authority. Cant be stoppedded he says to go yes they may hesitate under circumstances and may think not now or we dont think its a good idea but if he insist theres no question. It will be done. It can be done that is the case now. But what people havent asked and what how many other people can launch and president is saved over and over in last two weeks Soul Authority with the implication what he has the soul ability to launch and yes, for example, there was a a combination for only the president has. Now there are lock on weapons at a e low level. But the combination is not held in the white house and its not held in the pentagon. Its way below that and more widespread afterall if there were such a call, i think people when they talk about the codes in the brief case, and that he can do, these are codes that identify him as a president. An the president of whether you like it or not [laughter] i got the majority of the votes and i got im the the president , and identify him as that. But president is not the only one who can give orders by any means if he was i would have to if he was a single mom on washington could paralyze our force. Almost certainly almost certainly i would say just for me intimation of you know, in russia, and elsewhere kim jongun i feel sure is no longer with russia or u. S. Allowed possibility that he could be assassinated and russia and north koreas news Nuclear Weapons they have which would be par liesed almost surely made provision like everybody else that if hes assassinated or theres an attack that takes out central demand and control there will be Nuclear Retaliation but i havent seen that mentionedded in any of the current discussion. We mentioned it in esquire [laughter] anybody, Pay Attention to that . Did anyone read our interview had in esquire . Well now the world knows, well so many theres really i think so many directions we can go there are so many unbelievably pass mating biways to con techt to some thee military officers have for not just individual lives but millions of lives. I think where i want to take the discussion weve done the dead happened device and idea that we have assassination take out kim jongun that might lead it a nuclear exchange. Lets go back to the preatomic era. We have some interesting discussions about what its like writing long detailed book as well as what we have done in dealing with editor both of us have done, and how hard you fought to keep a section of the book that discusses the idea of Strategic Bombing and why it is in the first place that the idea that you could win many a war by killing thousands and thousands of people through bombing from above evolved and what it means. I didnt have to fight my editor on this issue fortunately but i would have had it been necessary because although it seems like history you know, prehistory as you say a long time ago i felt for over half a century from studies elsewhere that you couldnt really understand how we could have come to build this doom day machine. We couldnt understand the nuclear and willingness willingness to e unless you knew the history of our Strategic Bombing program in world war ii. And u how that for operational reasons had evolved from an american theory of bombing which was precise bombing military basis individual factories, parts those ideas. Kind of site that we can use with that newfound decision whats the promise. The secret side. That we could we could do this very precisely and found in days until really quite recently, in fact, the new drones you know is sort of in the last few years achieved the kind of thing that the air force thought they had at the beginning of world war ii. But for that purpose to be fair. But what Collateral Damage. A lot of Collateral Damage in what case and you dont know who to aim at. You can hit what you aim at but who should be but thats, thats the current situation. Back then it took them a while to realize what when they were flying with high High Altitude they like bombing against the aircraft so forth and heavy winds coming, and took great courage and many, many crews were killed in the course of this. But they werent hitting when they were aim at but really there was nothing much you could hit except whole sections of cities you couldnt hit a corner of a factory as they thought they could when they were flying in arizona in weather with no winds and no aircraft stuff like that. You didnt have a kind of accuracy at all pane you were dying you were lose your crew without hitting anything. Had to do it during the day when there was light. Smg during it the day so more and more we did what the british had done for the same reasoning ares early on. Which was to fly at night or in clouds and using incendiaries with the british had started in 42 which was aiming at the built up areas mostly workers housing not because they were workers. But because their houses were closer together as then fire would spread better. Or if you dropped high explosive bomb it would hit something down there whatever people. And more to aim and in japan when we discovered with the jet stream socalled the air winds stated impossible to hit in addition very accurately. They decided to adopt fully the ability to cause a fire storm in hamburg by the british which is getting into it but which is a widespread fire that will simultaneously not just subsequent but dropping in a big manner so a column of air would rise very fast creating low pressure in that area. Bringing many had in winds from all around changing wind patterns basically like a billow in a fireplace. Or a per nays and temperatures would now rise to extremely high temperatures. Pro100 degrees fahrenheit 1500 fahrenheit. People asphyxiated in the shelters or o as they put it and came out of slaughterhouse five, peoples bodies shrunk in sheet isers like gingerbread people. Basically. But in tokyo for example well many preston and hamburg, in tokyo where this was put to great effect, on a much march 9th and 10th, 1945 and how many people here and what im sure is relatively low inform masters degree audience and not school kids here, how many know what im talking about thats more than often. How many do not actually honestly . Okay. They caused a fire storm as i say this, enormous temperatures the asphalt on streets would be melt manying and burning so the people who came out of the shelters would be caught in the asphalt and would burn like torture and see enormous winds that were cause hurricane winds basically cause partly im sorry to tell these details but i put it in the book because i felt it had to be understood by people. Many reported babies being snatched out of the world. So people who got out of the asphalt and out of the shelters ran towards with their family into the canals to escape from the fire. But the canals were boiling and tens of thousands boiled to death in the canal. The winds updrafts were bouncing the aircraft almost flipping them over in some cases b52s always send them over be. But low altitude thousands of feet still above the city. The aircraft, the crews had to put on their oxygen masks even though they were low to escape the burning flesh which was making it sick and throwing up. So as in charge of what of the straw toggic air command told in the book it was great pest manmade killing, date in the history of the world. And he boast about this frankly he said brighter than london fir and greater than San Francisco earthquake and a tokyo fire storm caused by a earthquake which overturned a lot of fuel. Saying 80 to 120,000 people were killed in one night. Burned at least 80,000 maybe 100 now, thats more than hiroshima five months later or the night they put together in one night for their immediate casualties. He then with his success turned to doing the same to the next 67 cities in japan more in order of population another fire storm and had to be just right to get fire storm and only three major fire storms they were all they tried for example, settled almost on every way to cause a fire storm in berlin. They said never do it and they werent close enough together on one night they killed 25,000 people. It was spring of 45 but they kopght get this whole and military until hear shi t gives you a fire storm every time, and big difference here. So that was very good from the point of view and head had of the Strategic Air command by by 19 50 and between 50 and 52 seven times larger than 20,000 ton os of tmt equivalent now thats a thousand times more than the yield exclusive yield of the largest blockbuster of world war ii. So 20,000 tons. And we had a thousand of them which would have burned this was under truman now. Deposited all on russia ussr cities essentially. It wasnt until 1983 that is 20 years after i was working on the war front that scientists discovered including karl and brian tune and 7 or 8 people the fire form could cause smoke to be soaked in soot from burning cities to be lofted into the stratosphere as most have happened in toque yoap and hamburg and it was one of the cities at a time. But if you have a hundred, several burning with fire storm the smoke lofted into the stratosphere were not, will not rain out. It will go around the globe within days, and absorb 70 of the sunlight. At first they thought that would be for about a year a years was all Computer Program was could go to power but that would be muff to starve nearly everyone on earth. And shaken at that time said extinction was possible. But its true now in the last ten years other peel cast doubt on this same people who dealt Climate Change. Handful of people who issue but they said no it is not Nuclear Winter but atom and there were real uncertainties but theyve been dispelled in the last ten years. 83 was 35 years ago. In last ten years not only with with computers that are far more powerful and Climate Change models that are very much more accurate, very Scientific Consensus now, is a faze up there for ten years or o more if they couldnt even compute before. Higher this go in the first month and the first year we have the the food supply on earth who 60 day to the world of the population but a lot it is in the u. S. Some place. So ours would with last longer and stop exporting and we would last most of the year. Maybe two years. But not everybody extinction is very much unlikely near extinction is almost certain. 98 , 99 of the people will starve to death from our other first strike or russian first strike. As a matter of fact theres no difference between striking first and striking second. And everybody goes idea of launching on warning makes no difference whether you go say first or second and thats what i think we were talking earlier. With the title of the book conceive of this idea as a very good deterrent kill everybody, that was the idea. And you could did he thought he was doing it with radio activity like on the beach cold war bomb eventually kill everybody. And that can be done. The idea we say looking at it this would urn, you know why think of doing all of that going but willing to leave very cheap. You could put it in your own country you could put it in the ocean and put it anywhere. We could just mow its our own city and blow them up. You dont have to trek warheads over fly them over to another country. You have them wherever and they go off, and its very cheap. But herman said but you know, obviously, it kills too many people. Everybody, in fact, and qoin the term on the side on the side not genocide its multigenocide but its killing nearly everybody. And as i said with smoke you dont kill everybody but close muff to it. Herman said theres no doomsday machine it is in 59 and 6 0 and i dont believe anyone will ever build one. And he was wrong. We have it then. 59 and 58 russians kpght have it until after the cuban missile crisis when they have to back down and forced out and generals you support me, and you can have whatever you want. What they wanted was to refuse and they wanted what americans say. So they built a doomsday machine but ive gone on about this because on the question of the title, before 1983 nobody knew that a doomsday machine did exist and had existed. For some year, and we have retained it ever since and were about to spend 1. 2 trillion from both sides essentially over the next three years. To rebuild it, to buy new models of everything icbm cruise missiles, bombers, rebuild a capability to what we now know is destroying nearly all humans. Not all life. Most biomass will survive. Thats microorganism, bacteria will survive. Do you see a path do you see a path out . E yes. Actually, it would be easy to dismantle a dolls day machine same principle and in physically it wouldnt take very long because nobody ever intended deliberately to have a doomsday machine they just acquired one without realized what they have there xect. Nobody would build one mow i think to start with but to rebuild it theres okay you could start with get rid of the icbm lightning rods, and for attack and head of the Strategic Command has for years not been saying get rid of the icbm and relieve butler first commander of the missile of the Strategic Command, said that, you know they didnt since we had sub launched missile which are invulnerable and he have some launch missiles which we cant target. And those are more than enough to cause not just 20 million like the russians in world war ii you know, but a much highser number if you want to deterrent, you dont need 1500 warheads and the way both sides have now far more than will cause you dont need capability for what but you have no military rational for it. But there are jobs involved in maintaining those missiles theres an icbm caucus capable in washington many congress. With king the ten senators, 6 from the three states that house minutemen, icbm. One from nevada where theyre refurbished where theyre maintained and one in louisiana where strategic bombers are big and by coincidence these are ten senator who is say we have to have these missiles. Nobody else would make a case for this. What they want them on hot alert 24 hours a day. 7 days week every year, not cold alert not why . More restaurants, more job, more real estate deal whatnotsome it doesnt so many like storm reasons. But you know, its a reason are, and building these 1. 12 billion and getting them involved in profits by the way, russia has profits now. They used to have bureaucratic reasons for wanting what u. S. Had. U now theyve got that same reasons and profits. So both of these are this is overpowering. Hardly any americans realize what it is theyre talking about rebuilding. Its something to deter attack. Herb york a first head of liver mother Laboratory Design laboratory which was a rival to los alamos concentrate on that. But he later said to livemore in the 80s by coins e dense it was about 82, 83 when Nuclear Winter was discovered but he didnt have that in his talk and he said how many weapons does hell take to actually deter Nuclear Attack . He said well, one. Or ten. You know if you want to have extra for some survive and he went ahead from another point of view he said how many deaths should this single human leader be able to inflict as a capability . He said well suppose we take just speck islatively here the number of deaths in world war ii about 60 million. Eisenhower came in and when he left office we had 23,000 weapons, most of them are more Nuclear Weapons, many of them 1000 more times powerful than hirsheema. 23,000. And the height of the 60s for the u. S. And that was under just 37,000 Nuclear Weapons. The russians didnt have as many then but they came to have another 35,000 weapons. Together 70,000 weapons in the world. Now, what do you say about this . What would the effect be . In 1961 question i drafted that was sent to the joint chiefs of staff by president kennedy, under president kennedys name was this question. If you plan a firstrate plan essentially what we call first how many people would die . I go into this in more detail but the bottom line is the questions came back very fast, no apology, no embarrassment just the answer, 600 million. Printed in 25 million and the ussr and china alone. But another 325 million, another 100 million in east europe, the satellite nations, another 100 million and west europe. Those are our allies from radioactive fallout from our strikes in the ussr depending on the wind. With no warheads another 100 million in areas contiguous to the ussr and china. Neutral like austria finland and afghanistan actually from the fallout. Japan, india a total than of 600 or and i looked at that and i thought this machine, the system that we have should not exist. This piece of paper and holding in my hand. What would happen not hypothetically but the joint chiefs said what the consequences would be of carrying out their Operational Plan this year in the berlin crisis. The next year in cuba. The most evil and insane plan and put together by people that i know were not insane. They were not monsters. They were ordinary intelligent americans, the colonel they dealt with on the staff that they had created this. As i said earlier that could not have come about without experience in world war ii word general lemay who become head of command had commanded the killing deliberately up 100,000 people in one night, smudges you could have done. Was the largest at the terror of civilians in our history and in human history, not American History. His successor had its true t. J. Command was thomas power who observed the. Over tokyo. Lemay was not allowed to leave leave. He was a very brave man. He had led rates in germany constantly. Through antiaircraft fire but they wouldnt let it go because he knew what he called a firecracker that was coming. He wasnt allowed to send. I never thought of this implication but that must mean he had power which would have kept power from going and he was the one who knew that at that point. These people come in and lemay had learned as he told my friend sam colin at one point, the father of the neutron bomb by the way. War is killing people. He later said there are no innocent civilians. There are no civilians. They are mobilized, they are the enemy and they all contribute to the war effort. There were no innocent civilians civilians. Anyway war is killing people in the and the way to win the wars you kill enough so when we put atom bombs in his hands and more were necessary when they became hbombs, a number expected to be killed rose from 10 or 15 million a day by atom bombs to several hundred million with the hbomb. They just put them in secretly. Hardly anybody looked at these plans. You just have a bigger bomb and put it in, the same target for cities essentially. So we had this plan which in a first strike over berlin or possibly iran, consideration at that time or yugoslavia. They wanted to recapture yugoslavia. They were fighting soviet troops troops. The eisenhower plan was get every city in russia or i should say the ussr and china. The concept was a sinosoviet lock although as we were saying earlier 59, 60, 61 the intelligent people knew there was a growing split. Anyway he was going to hit every city simultaneously. Do you have the energy for some questions . Sure. 86 years old. We will take questions. If you have a question come up along this site can speak into the microphone. Thanks. He asked if you had any jokes. Well, yes. [laughter] you mentioned the title here earlier. We were talking about how i came to the title. Let me repeat it again because my editors here. My son revealed to me that looms very, very good the british part of it which is their main base published harry potter and that sounded very good. I said well that gives me my title harry potter and the doomsday machine. [laughter] by j. K. Rowling. I dont even have to add my name on the cover and they informed me their Legal Department frowned on it. If all of you could get your friends to buy a copy we will help end the madness. Who would like to ask a question . Please wait for the microphone. Why now . Why didnt he write this book 20 years ago . Ive a lot of theories on that but i would like to hear why now now . Actually rick mentioned earlier that when i started copying the pentagon papers in 1969 with the example of draft resisters very much in my mind on their way to prison and they said what can i do to help with the war in vietnam now that im ready to go to prison. So i thought of putting out something in the pentagon papers and i started 47 volumes of topsecret pages on decisionmaking in vietnam. Then when i started on that i realized something thats more important actually is Nuclear Material that i had been working on for years. I copied everything in my topsecret save them a lot of stuff from the secret saves. I was one of the few people to have a topsecret sake of my own office. Most people had to go to the topsecret office and signed for them. So i copied all that with the intention of putting it out after my trial on the vietnam case and when the pentagon papers that had their attempt to awaken people to the problems of vietnam i would then put out the nuclear. A friend of mine who was going to prison, when i told him to sonboly to prison that he had inspired me and i wanted him to know that he had this effect on my life, he said dont bother with vietnam. We know enough about vietnam. He said to the nuclear right now now. I said well i agree with you it is more important that vietnam is where the bombs and incendiaries are following now. Then i will do the nuclear. He didnt mention what happened to all of that but its in the book here. We have to leave something for the book and the story of what happened to those papers is astonishing. I wont go through it. They were being separately stored, buried in a trash heap near cherry town by my brother and Hurricane Harvey scattered this all about. I will tell you Something Else that is the basis to answer your question as soon as the war was over i found to my anguish ever since that i had lost all those documents. I had some notes. I had a lot of notes left but what i meant to put out was pretty much gone. I say this in the book and not because of the secret, i just didnt get around to it. My lawyer when i began 115 years for the pentagon papers, he said you know leonard would be my main lawyer and he knows very little about the government secrecy. Tell us what you knew about the secrecy system and so forth. For more than five days all day i dictated, transcribed at that point and about 500 pages of transcripts of what i had been telling you with this sort of thing, the cuban missile crisis. So i had that for them. Charlie did not know that i had copied and lost all those documents. Only my main lawyer knew. My wife didnt know that. I didnt want her implicated but i did have that than actually when the war ended i took a large part of that 500 pages and edited a little from my transcript and showed it to a top editor in new york and she said very interesting but we have sold 1400 copies. This was 1975. Nuclear war was not a topic. I said well one for every member of congress. [laughter] and media people. She said no you dont understand. That means we dont publish it. So i gave up on a book because she said that. I think her head turned a little bit. She had just published 2 million copy hardback sellers, Blind Ambition and all the president s men. It did not grab her. I spent most of the next 40 years, all the next 40 years tried to help to build an Antinuclear Movement and with some success. Bilateral Nuclear Weapons treaties i was a nonpitt is a matter of fact one of the cofounders of that was the man who told me to go with the nuclear. Once you decided to write this book you had an easy time finding a publisher. Harry potter was turned down by 12 publishers. I took that as a very good sign. [laughter] before bloomsbury spotted it once again they had a winner. I trusted their judgment. Nancy miller editor from bloomsbury. Lets give her indiana a round of applause. [applause] i want to thank rick for being here tonight. This was an amazing opportunity for everybody and the American Writers Museum was thrilled to be able to host this event. As i mentioned earlier if you are just sitting getting a copy of the doomsday machine they are on sale at the meyer gallery predicted go to the back and turned to the left. Mr. Ellsberg will be upfront signing books. Thank you all for coming tonight. [applause] thank you so much. That was awesome. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] as a judge of 45 years having gone from that active life of making decisions in going to court and advocating a case to judging, was that a difficult transition for you and did you ever miss the life of accuracy . It wasnt difficult. It has been for some. Ive known people who became judges and so disliked the decisionmaking process that they left. I was glad to be an advocate. I thought the decisionmaking process them enormous waste challenging and enormously satisfying. I have to say i loved being a judge because the opportunity to resolve disputes, they all matter to somebody but some of them had large public significance. Thats a very satisfying role. Much of thursdays White House Press briefing was focused on michael whats new book fire and fury about the inner workings of the trump white house. Heres a portion of that reefing. To follow up on the steve bannon issue white house staff including the agreements when they came forth at the white house. Theres an epic agreement to any additional details. [inaudible] the president wants all americans support. He hopes every american in this country wants to see us do take her and better things. Thats his focus. Is not trying to single out support from any one individual but he wants to bring everybody together to move this country forward. Thats what he campaigned on and thats what we have done over last year and thats what well continue to do for the next seven years. The white house is that there all statements in this book. A persons lawyer said they are liable statements. Can you give a few examples of things that have been said in this book that are false that you would like to set the record straight on . Im not going to go through every single page of the book but there are numerous examples of falsehoods that take place in the book. I will give you one just because its really easy. The fact that there was a claim that the president didnt know who john boehner was is pretty rigid and was considering the majority of you have seen photos and frank a. Some way some of you had tweeted out that the president not all may knows him but is played golf with him and tweeted about him. Thats Pretty Simple and pretty basic. It would be super easy to fact check. There were numerous mistakes but im not going to waste my time or the countrys time going page by page talking about a book thats complete fantasy and just full of tabloid gossip. Its sad and pathetic in our demonstrations and our focus will be on moving the country forward. I read the letter that was sent by the president s lawyers to the publisher of this book. Did the president s lawyers share with the present the idea of the this was this prior restraint in prior and prior restraints are unconstitutional . Im not sure about specific details of the president s personal attorneys but i would refer you to them or questions. The president absolute believes in the First Amendment but as we have said before the president also believes in making sure that information is accurate before pushing it out as fact and is certainly a clearly was not. The president said. The same way we have one its been asked before but its disgraceful and laughable. If he was unfit he probably wouldnt be sitting there. The most qualified group of candidates the Republican Party has ever seen. This is incredibly strong and good leader. Thats why we have had a successful 2017 or why well continue to do great things as we move forward in this administration. Thank you sarah. Two questions. First the book repeatedly says candidate trump is family and the top officials of the campaign did not believe he would be elected and it was the farthest from their minds. You said yesterday you believe to this candidate and felt he would win. Can you name any one else who said that the time on the eve of the election they felt he would win and to the president himself leave he would not win the . Look as ive stated many times before go back and look at some of the interviews specifically kellyanne conway. She did several leading up to the days just before the election saying direct leap that the president can win and would win. I know there were a number of other Campaign Officials that echo those same sentiments. The president and the first lady and his family would have put themselves through that process if they didnt believe they could win and they didnt want to win. This was something they were very committed to and have been committed to since taking office and will continue to do so over the next seven years. Again its absolutely laughable to think that somebody like this president would run for office with the purpose of losing. If you guys know anything you know that donald trump is a one or andys not going to do something for the purpose of not coming out on top and not coming out as a winner. That is one of the most ridiculous things in the book. Ill take one last question. You were calling this michael was booked a book full of lies. Didnt does white house give Michael Wolff all the axes that he wanted . Absolutely not. In fact they are probably more than 30 requests for access to information from Michael Wolff that were repeatedly denied including within that at least two dozen requests of him asking to have an interview with the president which he never did, never discussed this book with the president and to me that would be the most important voice that you could have if you are looking to write a book about individual would be to spend some time with him. He was repeatedly denied that. Because he saw him for what he was and there was no reason for us to waste the president of the United States time and frankly frankly. Should a letter from the president s lawyers aimed at steve bannon be interpreted as a thread for United States government from this demonstrations did not publish this book . Its not from the United States government. From the president s personal attorney and its very clear what its purpose is and beyond that if you have specifics on that i would refer you to the president s attorney. Thanks so much, guys. [inaudible] you can watch this entire press briefing at cspan. Org. Another one of my favorite stories is he was so fast. When he was changing instruments you would put them in his mouth so yeah that happened. Not very hygienic at all and it shows certainly how far we have come. He was moving so fast and he accidentally took off and assistance finger in the middle of this operation. And as he was changing instruments he slashed the throat of the spectator. Was said the spec tater died right there friday. The patient died of gangrene and was referred to as the only operation with a 300 mortality rate. He actually performs the very first operation in britain. Ether is discovered in america a few weeks or months before him and it makes his way to london. He doesnt believe its going to work. He walks into the operating tear and he often would say and you could hear the ripple in your minds eye is people pulled out their pocket watch to time him to see if he could beat his record. He walked in and he said time you gentlemen. Hes going to try it because he believed it was american quackery and it wasnt going to work. There were a lot of things were not working at the time. Mesmer was at plaque that went around hypnotizing patients and it didnt guys have to do with operations. He would walk into the rooms and cast them under a spell and of course it didnt work. He walks in and he says tie me. It does work. It does work and what is incredible about this moment to me is if anybody here tonight has thought about the history of surgery which is possible you can never could never thought about it quite frankly but if you have you might think of this woman. You might think about the age. We have conquered pain. We no longer have patients struggling against the knife in crying out for help. Of course this is very liberating for surgeons. A lot of people think it was the discovery of ether that ushered in the modern day of surgery that i but i would argue otherwise. What happens is they are more willing to pick up the knife and willing to go deeper into the body than they did before but its result these operations become slowmoving executions. Postoperative infection rises skyhigh and it just becomes a much more dangerous period. What was incredible about this moment about lipton in december of 1846 when he performed the first operation in london is that a 17yearold was in the audience that day. Decillion live from miami joining us now on the set at the center of the festival is author and National Book award finalist, Edwidge Danticat your most recent