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From MAD to Madness:
Inside Pentagon Nuclear War Planning Paperback – April 1, 2017 by Dr. Paul H. Johnstone (Author), Paul Craig Roberts (Preface), Diana Johnstone (Introduction) This deathbed memoir by Dr. Paul H. Johnstone, former senior analyst in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group (WSEG) in the Pentagon and a co-author of The Pentagon Papers, provides an authoritative analysis of the implications of nuclear war that remain insurmountable today. Indeed, such research has been kept largely secret, with the intention “not to alarm the public” about what was being cooked up. This is the story of how U.S. strategic planners in the 1950s and 1960s worked their way to the conclusion that nuclear war was unthinkable. It drives home these key understandings: • That whichever way you look at it -- and this book shows the many ways analysts tried to skirt the problem -- nuclear war means mutual destruction • That Pentagon planners could accept the possibility of totally destroying another nation, while taking massive destructive losses ourselves, and still conclude that “we would prevail”. • That the supposedly “scientific answers” provided to a wide range of unanswerable questions are of highly dubious standing. • That official spheres neglect anything near a comparable effort to understand the “enemy” point of view, rather than to annihilate him, or to use such understanding to make peace. Dr. Johnstone’s memoirs of twenty years in the Pentagon tell that story succinctly, coolly and objectively. He largely lets the facts speak for themselves, while commenting on the influence of the Cold War spirit of the times and its influence on decision-makers. Johnstone writes: “Theorizing about nuclear war was a sort of virtuoso exercise in creating an imaginary world wherein all statements must be consistent with each other, but nothing need be consistent with reality because there was no reality to be checked against.” While remaining highly secret – so much so that Dr. Johnstone himself was denied access to what he had written – these studies had a major impact on official policy. They contributed to a shift from the notion that the United States could inflict “massive retaliation” on its Soviet enemy to recognition that a nuclear exchange would bring about Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The alarming truth today is that these lessons seem to have been forgotten in Washington, just as United States policy has become as hostile to Russia as it was toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War. U.S. foreign policy is pursuing hostile encirclement of two major nuclear powers, Russia and China. Without public debate, apparently without much of any public interest, the United States is preparing to allocate a trillion dollars over the next thirty years to modernize its entire nuclear arsenal. It is as if all that was once understood about the danger of nuclear war has been forgotten. https://www.amazon.com/MAD-Madness-Pentagon-Nuclear-Planning/dp/0997287098/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482446067&sr=1-1&keywords=Johnstone+From+MAD+to+Madness ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | REVIEWS
"From MAD to Madness could not be more timely reading.
In it, a former senior Pentagon analyst from the last Cold
War comes back from the past to warn us of the disaster
we are courting in the new Cold War. We should heed his
warning."
—Ron Paul, M.D.
Former Member of Congress (R-TX)
" Dr. Paul H. Johnstone's amazing insider account should be
enough to make everyone on earth demand total abolition.
His daughter's framing of this uniquely important piece of
contemporary history is brilliantly written, thanks to her own
immense knowledge and devotion to a moral, peaceful world.
This book deserves the largest possible readership worldwide.
Translate it! Let it enter every relevant university course! And
let it be used to nonviolently force the Military-Industrial-Media-
Academic Complex (MIMAC) to surrender."
—Dr. Jan Oberg, Director
Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research
"From MAD to Madness is a revealing memoir on how the
Pentagon tried to turn its essentially unusable nuclear arsenal into
a normal policy instrument in the early Cold War period by an
insider of singular integrity and independence of mind. Paul
Johnstone's insights into the workings of the war planning system
are still valuable to understanding that system more than six
decades later." —Gareth Porter
"In From MAD to Madness, Paul Johnstone depicts the thinking
inside the Pentagon in years gone by from the perspective of someone
who was there -- and the thinking is sheer insanity ... This ought to
make us stop, think, and perhaps panic just a little.”
—DAVID SWANSON,
author of War Is A Lie
"From MAD to Madness is a detailed, enlightening and frightening
record of Pentagon Nuclear War Planning based on 20 years of
inside experience by Paul H. Johnstone. In excellent background
and updating accounts Diana Johnstone shows that no lessons have
been learned from earlier mishaps and near misses; that with its new
aggressiveness and upgrading of nuclear weapons the U.S. political
class has opened a new round of nuclear madness."
—EDWARD S. HERMAN
SYNOPSIS
This deathbed memoir by Dr. Paul H. Johnstone, former senior analyst
in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group (WSEG) in the Pentagon and
a co-author of The Pentagon Papers, provides an authoritative analysis
of the implications of nuclear war that remain insurmountable today.
Indeed, such research has been kept largely secret, with the intention
“not to alarm the public” about what was being cooked up.
This is the story of how U.S. strategic planners in the 1950s and 1960s
worked their way to the conclusion that nuclear war was unthinkable.
It drives home these key understandings:
• That whichever way you look at it -- and this book shows the many ways
analysts tried to skirt the problem -- nuclear war means mutual destruction
• That Pentagon planners could accept the possibility of totally destroying another nation, while taking massive destructive losses ourselves, and still conclude that “we would prevail”
• That the supposedly “scientific answers” provided to a wide range of
unanswerable questions are of highly dubious standing.
• That official spheres neglect anything near a comparable effort to
understand the “enemy” point of view, rather than to annihilate him,
or to use such understanding to make peace.
Dr. Johnstone’s memoirs of twenty years in the Pentagon tell that story
succinctly, coolly and objectively. He largely lets the facts speak for themselves, while commenting on the influence of the Cold War spirit of the times and its influence on decision-makers.
Johnstone writes: “Theorizing about nuclear war was a sort of virtuoso
exercise in creating an imaginary world wherein all statements must be
consistent with each other, but nothing need be consistent with reality
because there was no reality to be checked against.”
While remaining highly secret – so much so that Dr. Johnstone
himself was denied access to what he had written – these studies
had a major impact on official policy. They contributed to a shift from the notion that the United States could inflict “massive retaliation” on its Soviet enemy to recognition that a nuclear exchange would bring about Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). |
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Book: From Mad to Madness /Johnstone For information.
FH
François Houtart
Profesor en el Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales (I.A.E.N.)
Tel: (593) (2) 382 99 00 Ext 272
Fundación Pueblo Indio del Ecuador
Calle Ruiz de Castilla N 26-92 y Sosaya - 170520 - Quito ECUADOR
Tel. (593) (2) 32.12.100 Cel. (593) 9.69.55.06.40
Rue Kelle, 192/6 - B-1150 Bruxelles
Tel. (32) (0) 2 772 47 69 http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=373
GHA Highest Honorary Title:
WORLD HARMONY CREATOR
(http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=513) 15/01/17 From Mad to Madness: Pentagon's Fascist Madness. Only Trump is able to save America and world from it. My dear Belgian friend François, Many thanks for your valuable information about the next critical book. It continues and develops the great critical anti Pentagon tradition of Chomsky, Corrigan, Galtung, Avery, Engdahl, Bloom, Chossudovsky, Giroux, Burrowes and many other Western thinkers, who are wide presented in the unique, the first in the history "Global Peace Science" (http://peacefromharmony.org/docs/global-peace-science-2016.pdf). I was happy to publish on our site "Peace from Harmony" here: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=736. sent you a note on this brilliant book by Paul Johnstone, nuclear Pentagon analyst, revealing the criminal plans of a nuclear war, which is preparing the American elite. He witnesses that Pentagon planned “the possibility of totally destroying another nation.” It is Pentagon fascism. Pentagon nuclear fascism, nurtured by the democrats Obama, Clinton and other American hawks with the support of the zombie militaristic society part can be stopped and overcome only elected president Donald Trump. His paradigm of global peace (1 page) in comparison with Putin’s similar paradigm is compiled and published here: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=685. His quest for nuclear disarmament with Russia Trump said yesterday in an interview with the British and German journalists. In this regard, we will send to Putin and Trump, immediately after his inauguration, the GHA antinuclear project «RUSAP» (http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=710). Salvation from Pentagon’s nuclear plague can only bring peacefulness of Trump jointly with Putin, as we wrote in our article "Trump: Peacemaking Revolution of the US Aggressive Geopolitics» (http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=685). To this article is now joined the great US religious scholar Professor Rudolf Siebert, World Harmony Creator, who took the mission: "GHAAmbassador of Peace and Disarmament from Harmony for the US" in the Trump administration (http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=51).
We, GHA and the true peacemakers, will do everything possible to support the Trump’s peacefulness. Only the blind, foolish and hawks in spirit cannot see it. We invite all interested in nuclear disarmament and prevention of nuclear war through peacefulness of Trump-Putin to join our projects, send me your "YES". Thank you.With love and best wishes of peace from harmony for the USA and Russia,
Dr. Leo Semashko,
GHA Honorary President,
http://peacefromharmony.org
16/01/17
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