Episode 1: Martin J. Sherwin, Gambling with Armageddon

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Welcome to the Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs!

In this first episode, world-renowned economist and Columbia
University Professor Jeffrey Sachs speaks with Pulitzer
Prize-winning historian Martin J. Sherwin about his book Gambling
with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban
Missile Crisis, which explores the origins, scope, and
consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the
post-World War II world.

Professors Sachs and Sherwin discuss the choices of the Truman
and Eisenhower administrations over the course of the nuclear
arms race, Khrushchev’s and Kennedy’s positions during the Bay of
Pigs debacle, and the often-overlooked role of US Ambassador to
the United Nations Adlai Stevenson—and luck—in preventing a
nuclear world war.

The Book Club with Jeffrey Sachs is brought to you by the SDG
Academy, the flagship education initiative of the UN Sustainable
Development Solutions Network. Learn more and get involved at
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Footnotes:


Biography of John F. Kennedy

President John F. Kennedy, Address before the UN General
Assembly, 25 Sep. 1961

Biography of Nikita Khrushchev 

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

Biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer 

Biography of Frank Oppenheimer

The Day After Trinity (1981)

Biography of Harry S. Truman

Biography of James F. Byrnes

Biography of Joseph Stalin

Biography of Dwight Eisenhower

President Dwight Eisenhower, Address before the UN General
Assembly, 8 Dec. 1953

Missives between Khrushchev and Kennedy

Executive Committee Meeting of the National Security Council
on the Cuban Missile Crisis

Biography of Adlai Stevenson II 

Biography of U Thant

Biography of Robert F. Kennedy



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