1/13/22 Daniel Ellsberg: Humans Are Not to Be Entrusted With Nuclear Weapons

Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews

Scott Horton

News, Politics

4.8 • 902 Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2022

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Scott is joined by the heroic whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg to talk about a recent press release he helped put out calling for the abolition of land-based nuclear missiles in the United States. Before getting to that, Scott and Ellsberg discuss how his Pentagon Papers leak contributed to the end of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg then draws on his experience as a nuclear war planner to explain the crazy and perilous thinking behind post-WWII nuclear deterrence plans. They also discuss his most recent leak of classified documents that show how close the U.S. came to starting a nuclear war over Taiwan in the late 1950s. Discussed on the show: “Organizations Call for Elimination of ‘Launch on Warning’ Land-Based Nuclear Missiles in the United States” (Common Deams) Uncommon Cause - Volume II by General George Lee Butler “Risk of Nuclear War Over Taiwan in 1958 Said to Be Greater Than Publicly Known” (New York Times) “The Drone Papers” (The Intercept) The Spoils of War by Andrew Cockburn Daniel Ellsberg is a former Marine Corps company commander and nuclear expert for the Rand Corporation. He is the leaker behind the Pentagon Papers, which revealed the truth behind the Vietnam War. He is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers and The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; EasyShip; Free Range Feeder; Thc Hemp Spot; Green Mill Supercritical; Bug-A-Salt and Listen and Think Audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	For Pacifica Radio, January 16th, 2022.
0:05.0	I'm Scott Horton.
0:07.0	This is Anti War Radio. All right, y'all welcome the show. It is anti-war radio. I'm your host, Scott Horton.
0:25.2	I'm the editorial director of anti-war.com and narrator of a new audio book,
0:30.4	enough already. Time to end the War on Terrorism.
0:34.0	You can find my full interview archive,
0:36.0	more than 5,600 of them now going back to 2003
0:39.7	at Scott Horton.org and at YouTube.com slash slash Scott Horton show and you can follow me on Twitter at Scott Horton show.
0:47.0	All right, introducing the great American hero Daniel Ellsberg leaker, Liberator of the Pentagon Papers, and Ender of the Vietnam War,
0:58.2	and heroic champion of free speech and free media, and author of the book Secrets, a memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and his
1:06.4	latest is called the Doomsday Machine, Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, and he's got this brand new press release out calling for the elimination of ground-based strategic
1:19.2	intercontinental ballistic missiles out now welcome back to the show Dan how are you sir
1:23.8	fine thanks a lot Scott for that introduction let me say right away I'm happy to say
1:29.1	to urge your readers to read not only enough already but your earlier books on Afghanistan, Iraq,
1:35.8	and those wars. They are terrific. They remain terrific even after the horribly executed departure from Afghanistan, which I think you and I both
1:47.2	wanted to see us out of there, but I'll speak for myself not the way he did it which showed absolutely I think no concern for our
1:56.8	Afghan allies Afghans which I think has always been the case well definitely agree with you about that
2:02.1	but thank you very much for saying
2:03.7	that sir and I'm extremely proud to have your name at the top of both of my books there on
2:07.9	Warsaw. Well very very enthusiastically given and then one other thing obviously I didn't end the Vietnam War. But I was in a link of events of people who had to act in unusual ways that were unforeseeable.
2:24.7	I was one link in that shame that finally led actually to the resignation of Richard
2:30.5	Nixon, which was unforeseen a year earlier, which was essential to
	...

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