Nuclear War

WITH A NEW AFTERWORD The INSTANT New York Times bestseller Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize One of NPR's Books We Love One of Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Books of the Year Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize “In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail….Terrifying.”—The Wall Street Journal There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States. Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.

Annie Jacobsen is the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist in history The Pentagon’s Brain, the New York Times bestsellers Area 51 and Operation Paperclip, and other books. She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. Jacobsen’s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Apple, and Amazon. Coverage has ranged from The New York Times to Joe Rogan’s podcast.

INTERVIEWS (U.S. Nuclear Command and Control positions are formerly held) Dr. Richard L. Garwin: nuclear weapons designer, Ivy Mike thermonuclear bomb Dr. William J. Perry: United States secretary of defense Leon E. Panetta: United States secretary of defense, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, White House chief of staff General C. Robert Kehler: commander, United States Strategic Command Vice Admiral Michael J. Connor: commander, United States [nuclear] submarine forces Brigadier General Gregory J. Touhill: first U.S. federal chief information security officer (CISO); director, Command, Control, Communications, and Cyber (C4) Systems, U.S. Transportation Command William Craig Fugate: administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Honorable Andrew C. Weber: assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs Jon B. Wolfsthal: special assistant to the president for national security affairs, National Security Council Dr. Peter Vincent Pry: CIA intelligence officer, weapons of mass destruction, Russia; executive director, Electromagnetic Pulse Task Force of National and Homeland Security Judge Robert C. Bonner: commissioner, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security Lewis C. Merletti: director, United States Secret Service Colonel Julian Chesnutt, PhD: Defense Clandestine Service, Defense Intelligence Agency; U.S. defense attaché; U.S. air attaché; F-16 squadron commander Dr. Charles F. McMillan: director, Los Alamos National Laboratory Dr. Glen McDuff: nuclear weapons engineer, Los Alamos National Laboratory; laboratory historian Dr. Theodore Postol: assistant to chief of naval operations; professor emeritus, MIT Dr. J. Douglas Beason: chief scientist, United States Air Force Space Command Dr. Frank N. von Hippel: physicist and professor emeritus, Princeton University (co-founder, Program on Science and Global Security) Dr. Brian Toon: professor; nuclear winter theory (co-author with Carl Sagan) Dr. Alan Robock: distinguished professor, climatologist, nuclear winter Hans M. Kristensen: director, Nuclear Information Project, Federation of American Scientists Michael Madden: director, North Korea Leadership Watch, Stimson Center Don D. Mann: team manager, SEAL Team Six, Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Program Jeffrey R. Yago: engineer; advisor to Electromagnetic Pulse Task Force of National and Homeland Security H. I. Sutton: analyst and writer, U.S. Naval Institute Reid Kirby: military historian of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense David Cenciotti: aviation journalist; 2nd Lt. (ret.), Aeronautica Militare (Italian Air Force, ITAF) Michael Morsch: Neolithic archeologist, University of Heidelberg; co-locator Göbekli Tepe Dr. Albert D. Wheelon: CIA director, Directorate of Science and Technology Dr. Charles H. Townes: inventor of the laser; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1964 Dr. Marvin L. Goldberger: former Manhattan Project physicist, founder and chairman of the Jason scientists, science advisor to President Johnson Paul S. Kozemchak: special assistant to director, DARPA (and its longest-serving member) Dr. Jay W. Forrester: computer pioneer, founder of system dynamics General Paul F. Gorman: former commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command (U.S. SOUTHCOM); special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Alfred O’Donnell: Manhattan Project member, EG&G nuclear weapons engineer, Atomic Energy Commission Ralph James Freedman: EG&G nuclear weapons engineer, Atomic Energy Commission Edward Lovick Jr.: physicist, former Lockheed Skunk Works stealth technologist Dr. Walter Munk: oceanographer, former Jason scientist Colonel Hervey S. Stockman: pilot, first man to fly over the Soviet Union in a U-2, atomic sampling pilot Richard “Rip” Jacobs: engineer, VO-67 Navy squadron, in Vietnam Dr. Pavel Podvig: research fellow, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research; research fellow, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Dr. Lynn Eden: research scholar emeritus, Stanford University, U.S. foreign and military policy, nuclear policy, mass fire Dr. Thomas Withington: researcher, electronic warfare, radar, and military communications, Royal United Services Institute, England Joseph S. Bermudez Jr.: analyst, North Korean defense and intelligence affairs and ballistic missile development, Center for Strategic and International Studies Dr. Patrick Biltgen: aerospace engineer, former BAE Systems Intelligence Integration Directorate Dr. Alex Wellerstein: professor, author, historian of science and nuclear technology Fred Kaplan: journalist, author, nuclear weapons historian