One day in 1961, an American economist named Daniel Ellsberg stumbled across a piece of paper with apocalyptic implications. Ellsberg, who was advising the U.S. government on its secret nuclear war plans, had discovered a document that contained an official estimate of the death toll in a pre-emptive "first strike" on China and the Soviet Union: approximately 300 million in those countries, and double that globally.
Ellsberg was troubled that such a plan existed; years later, he tried to leak the details of nuclear annihilation to the public. Although this attempt failed, Ellsberg would later become famous for leaking what came to be known as the Pentagon Papers — the U.S. government's secret history of its military intervention in Vietnam.
America's amoral military planning during the Cold War echoes the hubris exhibited by another cast of characters gambling with the fate of humanity. Recently, secret documents have been unearthed detailing what the energy industry knew about the links between their products and global warming. But, unlike the government's nuclear plans, what the industry detailed was put into action.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.