The new nuclear threat: Worse than ever

This article is adapted from the keynote speech given by the author at the annual conference of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, Sept. 24, 2024.

Everything is at stake. Everything is at stake with nuclear weapons.

While working as a nuclear war planner for the Kennedy administration, Daniel Ellsberg was shown a document calculating that a U.S. nuclear attack on Communist countries would result in 600 million dead. As he put it later: “A hundred Holocausts.”