How to Stop a Nuclear War

Directed by

Paul Jay

Follows Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg’s efforts to raise an alarm about the threat of a devastating nuclear war and his concerns about the United States and Russia planning for a globally destructive nuclear attack that could be launched by accident, or intentionally. Ellsberg explains the “institutional madness” of American nuclear war plans and how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made the world far more dangerous. The documentary will trace Ellsberg’s journey from being a Cold War hawk to becoming an anti-nuclear weapons activist, a stance he held right up to his death. Ellsberg warns that the nuclear weapons arsenals of the U.S. and Russia are still very much a threat to global peace and that an all-out nuclear war remains capable of being launched from missile silos or submarines on a few minutes’ notice.