Wellerstein Series on Ellsberg
By 
Alex Wellerstein, historian of the Manhattan Project and nuclear classification, plans a series at his blog on Daniel Ellsberg’s book, The Doomsday Machine.
The book was published in 2017. Ellsberg was a nuclear war planner from the late 1950s through the 1960s. In addition to the Pentagon Papers, he took home volumes of information on nuclear war planning. Through a series of mishaps while trying to hide the papers, they were lost. He said that he felt that this part of what he did was more important than the Pentagon Papers, so he reconstructed what he could from memory and added his thoughts about how the issues of nuclear command and control continue now.
I thought about buying the book then, but most of my attention was elsewhere, and it seemed like the book would be more opinion than history. So I didn’t.
Since then, I’ve written a paper with a colleague that relates to nuclear policy during the 1950s and into the 1960s*, so Ellsberg’s book is now a lot more relevant to my interests. And whatever Alex has to say about it will be worth thinking about. [Disclosure: Alex is a personal friend.]
I’ve ordered a copy of the book and will be reading along with Alex. Should be interesting.
*Not published yet
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner