Transcript of conversation between Haywood Alker and Daniel Ellsberg, April 17, 1986

In this April 1986 guest lecture at MIT, Ellsberg traces the multilayered history of U.S. nuclear policy from the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki onward. I chose this document as it highlights just how reckless, dangerous, and ultimately immoral it is to be a country in possession of nuclear weapons. One line that particularly stood out to me was Ellsberg’s warning that “every test of a nuclear weapon by the Soviet Union, every test of a weapon by the United States is a rehearsal for a holocaust.”

Erik Ross