YouSaid · the spoken record

Annie Jacobsen

lines on the record: 192
first: 2024-03-22
most recent: 2024-03-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And you'd be suspicious, and you can see that now there's such a Know incredible distrust and sort of real conflict between Russia between its leader and NATO, between its leader and all of the West. And then that is fueled by his closest advisors kind of, you know, they seem to be from the statements they have made that I've read in translation, they seem to be fostering that same idea that, you know, NATO really has it in for Russia. America really has it in. And that is so dangerous and disheartening.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know, but if I had to guess it would go like this. I would look at his background and he comes from the intelligence world, right? So my experience in interviewing Old timers who have spent decades working for the CIA or even NRO or NSA. I know the way they think from having spent hundreds of hours interviewing them, right? And then I know the way that military men think, and it's very different, right? So Putin's not a military person per se. He's an intelligence officer. So what would concern me there if I had to guess about his mindset has to do with paranoia, right? Most intelligence officers must have a degree of healthy paranoia or they're going to wind up dead, right? And so that's not a great quality to have.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was their official position, and that changed just two years ago when Putin gave a speech and he said that their position had changed, that they will no longer wait to absorb an attack, that they, once they learn of how did he phrase it, he called it like the trajectory of the missiles, right, which is a way of talking about parody the same way we see the missile coming over in midcourse. Putin made that same statement and said we would launch.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The launch on warning policy. Now, I don't know if I believe that's true, but I'm just telling you what they say. And this is coming from the generals, the Cold War generals in Soviet Russia, saying, oh, no, no, no, we would wait. They were kind of playing the noble warrior. We would wait to absorb a nuclear attack until we launched, okay? So many Americans, you know, experts will tell you that that's just posturing and propaganda.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“System and they have a super flawed one. Theirs is called tundra. And even Pavel Podvig admitted that there are serious flaws in tundra. The Russian satellite system, for example, can mistake sunlight for flames, can mistake clouds for a nuclear launch. This is a fact, okay? And, you know, what was interesting in interviewing him was also this recent, very, very dangerous shift in nuclear, Russian nuclear policy, which is this. Many Russian experts will tell you that”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Well, for that, you want to go to the experts, right? So for Russia, for example, there's a guy called Pavel Podvig, who is probably the West's top expert on Russian nuclear forces. He works in parallel with the UN. He also studied in Moscow. And he interviewed, so my information comes from him, right? Like you do all the footwork to know what questions to ask. And then you take the very specific questions to him. And I learned from him about how the Russian command and control goes down. And it's very similar to ours because America and Russia have been at sort of nuclear dueling with one another for 75 years now. And so everything we have they have, right? With the exception of we have a great satellite.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Interviewed over the years, right? And what has happened is as I've gotten closer to the present day in arrears, there seems to be a growing movement from some of these cold warriors off the position of nuclear weapons make us great and strong towards. Something must be done to reduce this”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About how important it was to have nuclear weapons. And while I learned a lot about his human side, I also saw the side of him that was very Cold War warrior, right? And then, so he was kind of the first. And then, I don't know, there have been a hundred people that have been directly involved in nuclear weapons along the way. Billy Wa, who was my subject of my main sort of central figure in a book I wrote about the CIA's paramilitary called Surprise, Kill Vanish. And Wa Halo jumped a tactical nuclear weapon into the Nevada test site with a small team, almost unknown to anyone, right? Only recently declassified. And so his position was like tactical nuclear weapons may end up being used. So I'm trying to speak here to the scope of Different people I have.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I first learned about nuclear weapons from a guy called Al Donnell, who appears in my earlier books because I interviewed him for over a period of four and a half years because he was an engineer who actually wired nuclear bombs in the 1950s. He was a member of the Manhattan Project in 1946, worked on Operation Crossroads, the first explosions of nuclear bombs after the war ended after World War II ended and went on to arm, wire, and fire 186 out of the 200 some odd atmospheric nuclear tests that the United States did before this was banned. And so I learned from him the power of these weapons, right? And I learned from him this very almost nationalistic idea.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's it. Well, but now you've raised a great important, you know, presentation essentially, because what you're saying is people be aware, right? Be aware of why you're voting or why certain individuals are being escalated to even being able to run for president. What does that mean? Why are people in America not more involved? As citizens, do we have a responsibility for that? Because you've opened up the door for people to understand, okay, the ultimate thing is the nuclear launch decision. So if a person can't be trusted with that, you know, everything spiral, everything unravels from there.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is trick. All right, so you're raising a really tricky, interesting conundrum here because during COVID, when President Trump and the leader of North Korea were kind of locked in various relationships with one another, good, bad, Just bananas, you might say, like not presidential behavior. If you were someone watching C span like I do, nerding out on what Stratcom was actually saying about all this, you noticed that Stratcom commanders were speaking out publicly to Congress. More so than ever I had ever seen before, and this issue came up would you defy presidential order? So the caveat, I would say, to McDuff's answer of easier to win the power ball, right? Is If the commander of Stratcom interpreted the The president's behavior to be Unreliable to be Non presidential”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oppenheimer movie really, because I've reported on nuclear weapons for 12 years now. And Oppenheimer movie had a very, to me, positive impact on Los Alamos' transparency with people like me. They had a real willingness to share information. I think before perhaps they were on their heels feeling they needed to be on the defensive. But now they're much more forthcoming. They were super helpful. I can tell you the origin story of the football, which they declassified for the book. But I asked this question to Dr. Glenn McDuff, right? In a different manner, I said, Is there a chance that the Stratcom commander would defy orders? And he said Annie, you have a better chance winning Power Ball.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so Good question. I asked that exact question to one of my very helpful sources on the book, Dr. Glenn McDuff, who is at Los Alamos and who for a while was the classified, they have a museum that's classified within the lab. And he was the historian in charge of it, right? So he's a nuclear weapons engineer, worked on Star Wars during the Reagan era, and he does a lot having to do with the history of Los Alamos. And by the way, the...”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Officer underneath the bunk, underneath the Pentagon in that bunker. It's a call and response, Lex. It's like, you know, Alpha Zeta, right? That's it. And then back so that the individual in the bunker realizes they are getting the command from the president. And then that order is passed to Stratcom. And Stratcom, the commander of Stratcom. And I interviewed a former commander of Stratcom, commander of Stratcom then follows orders, which is delivers the launch orders to the nuclear triad. What's done is done”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh no, it's on the president. The president has to make the call. And that six minute window happens so fast. I mean, the president is going to be being moved for part of that time. The Secret Service is going to be up against Stratcom. Stratcom saying we need launcher, you know, we need the launch orders and the secret service is going to be saying we need to move the president. So it's not as much that he's delegating the issues. It's more like the issue is being postponed because there is only one issue for the president to say these targets for him to choose from the Dennis Like menu, okay, this is what we're going to go with. And then this astonishing thing happens. The president pulls, you know, takes out his wallet. He has a card in it that's colloquially called the biscuit. And that card with the codes matches up an item in the briefcase in the football that then is received by an”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Should be of the highest character possible because the programs, the wars that we have fought since World War II have all been how many octogenarian sources have I interviewed? I'm talking about Nobel laureates and weapons designer and spy pilots and engineers in general. They've all said to me with great pride, you know, we prevented World War III, nuclear World War III, right? But that idea that the commander-in-chief and everyone within the national security apparatus should be making really good decisions about war. It's the oldest clich ⁇ in the world that, you know, the wars are fought by the young kids, and that is, it's not a clich ⁇, it's true. And so the character part about the president should be in play whether we're thinking about nuclear war or any war. In my opinion.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I think about that issue with With any war, right? I mean, prior to writing nuclear war scenario, I previously wrote six books on Military and intelligence programs designed to prevent nuclear war. And I believe the president as commander-in-chief”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that has anything to do with ageism. I think it has to do with, I think it's an earnest question, a really powerful one. And if people were to ask that question of themselves or their sort of, you know, dinner party guests or their family around the dinner table guests, you might come to a real good conclusion about how bad our political system is and how bad our presidential candidates are. Because why on earth there would be two candidates, one of whom has cognitive problems and the other of whom has judgment problems? These are the two biggest issues with a nuclear launch. And so, where's the young-ish, thoughtful, forward-looking Wise, dedicated. Civil servant running for president. I know that sounds, you know. Fantastical, but I wish it weren't.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The powers that be, and I write about them in the book in a setup to the first, you know, for the moment of launch, right? Like it's called How We Got Here and you see, and I cite, you know, declassified documents from some of these early meetings where nuclear war plans were being laid out. And absolutely, back in the 1950s, the generals and the admirals that were running the nuclear command and control system believed that we could fight and win a nuclear war despite hundreds of millions of people dying. This was the prevailing thought. And only over time did the kind of concept come into play that no, we can never have a nuclear war. It's the famous Gorbachev and Reagan joint statement. Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. But before that, many people believed that it could be won, and they were preparing for that.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you've raised a really important question that we look to the historical record for that answer, right? Because Astonishingly, all of this began, like when When Russia first got the bomb in nineteen forty nine.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is a term in sort of the national security nuclear command and control, historical documentation that many of the people that you might call the more dovish type people are, you know, worried about, that the more hawkish people are going to, the military advisors. Are going to be jamming the president to make these decisions about which targets, not if.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Secretary of Defense is a human. And imagine that job while trying to advise the president. And then there's also a really interesting term, which I learned about called jamming the president, which is often understood in Washington that the military advisors would, we don't know if this is legit, we've never seen it put to the test, but jamming the president means the military advisors are going to push for a really aggressive counterattack immediately. Again, you're the president who's not really been paying attention to this because he has many other things to do with. Speed is not conducive to wisdom.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, again, we're talking about that six minute window. So it's not exactly like you can, let me put a pot of coffee on and really tell me what you think. And we can strategize here, right? You have your sec def and your chairman, maybe the vice chairman. And okay, we haven't even begun to talk about the fact that at the same time these advisors also have an a parallel concern, and that's called continuity of government. Okay. So while they're trying to advise on the nuclear counter-strike in response to the incoming nuclear missile, they have to be thinking, how are we going to keep the government functioning when the missiles start hitting, when the bombs start going off? And that is about getting yourself out of the Pentagon, let's say, getting yourself to one of these nuclear bunkers that I write about at length in the book. So how much can you ask of a human, right? Because it comes down to a human.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But will help them to hold on to power. So you don't have wise decision makers long gone are the days where we had presidents who had advisers on both sides of the aisle. That's really important because you want to have differing opinions. But as things become more viperous, both here in the United States and in nuclear armed nations, all bets are off at whether your advisors are going to give you good advice.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I hope that's true. I doubt it is, and let me tell you why. Most and neither you nor I are political from what I gather, right? So I just write about POTIS, president of the United States. I don't, you have no idea what my politics are because they shouldn't matter. No one should be for nuclear war, or no one should be for nuclear national insecurity. Yes, you want to have a strong nation. But once you get into politics, then you're talking about sycophants. And the more a political leader becomes divisive, becomes polemic, the more his platform is predicated on hating the other side, either of it within his own country or with enemy alleged enemy nations. The more you surround yourself, as we see in the current day with sycophants, with people who will tell you not only what they think you want to hear,”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, let's back up. We are both presumptuous to assume that communication could even happen prior to. And let me give you a very specific example. During the Ukraine war, okay. If perhaps you remember, I think it was in November of 2022. News reports erroneously stated that a Russian rocket, a Russian missile had hit Poland, a NATO country, right? It turned out to be a mistake, but for several hours this was actually the information that was all over the news, breaking news, okay? Thirty-six hours later, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milly gave a press conference and talked about this and admitted that he could not reach his Russian counterpart during those thirty six hours. He could not reach him. How are you going to not have an absolute Armageddon like Fhuhrer.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not only do the Russians have a very flawed satellite system so that they cannot interpret what is happening properly. But there is an absolutely existential flaw in the system, which Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed with me, which is that our ICBMs do not have enough range. If we launch a counterattack against, say, North Korea, our ICBMs must fly over Russia. They must fly over Russia. So imagine saying Oh no, these eighty two, you know warheads that are going to actually hit the strike the northern Korean peninsula are not coming for you, Russia. Our adversary right now that we're sort of saber-rattling with, just trust us. And that is where nuclear war unfolds into Armageddon. And that hole in national security is shocking, and as Panetta told me, no one wants to discuss it.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which brings us to the most terrifying facts that I learned in all of that. And that has to do with Errors, right? Not just errors of like we spoke about a minute ago with the simulation test tape. I'm talking about if one madman, one nihilistic madman were to launch nuclear weapon, as I write in this scenario. And we needed to escalate, to de-escalate. We needed to send nuclear weapons at, let's say, North Korea, as I do in my scenario. Well, what is completely unknown to 98% of the planet is that”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, here's a crazy nomenclature jargon thing for you. Ready? Escalate to de-escalate. That's what comes out of it. Think about what I just said. Escalate to de-escalate. Okay, so someone strikes you with a nuclear weapon. You're going to escalate it, right? General Hayton recently said he was Stratcom commander. He was sort of saber-rattling with North Korea during COVID. And he said, they need to know if they launch one nuclear weapon, we launch one. If they launch two, we launch two. But it's actually more than that. They launch one, we launch 80. That's called escalate to de-escalate, like pound the you know what out of them to get them to stop.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And, you know, everyone that mattered was involved. They were running the war game scenarios. And what we learned from his declassification is that no matter how nuclear war starts, there was a bunch of different scenarios with, you know, NATO involved, without NATO, with all different scenarios, no matter how nuclear war starts, it ends in Armageddon. It ends with everyone dead. I mean, this is shocking when you think about That, coupled with the idea that all that has been done in the forty some odd years since is, okay, let's just really lean in even harder to this. Theoretical phenomena of deterrence because that's all it is. It's just a statement, Lex, like deterrence will hold. Okay. Well, what if it Well, we know from Proud Profit what happens if it doesn't.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost entirely redacted. And then there'll be a date, you know, or it'll say like phase one. And that one was called Proud Prophet. But what was incredible about the declassification process of that is it allowed a couple of people who were there to talk about it. And that's why we have that information. And I write about Proud Prophet in the book because it was super significant in many ways. One, it was happening right in 1983 there was an It was an insane moment in nuclear arsenals. There were 60,000 nuclear weapons. Right now there's 12,500. So we've come a long way, baby, right, in terms of disarmament. But there were 60,000. And by the way, that was not the ultimate high. The ultimate high was 70,000. Okay, this is insane. And Ronald Reagan was president and he orders this war game called Proud Prophet.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, again, they are very classified, right? I mean, it was interesting coming across levels of classification I didn't even know existed, like ECI, for example, is exceptionally controlled information. But the Pentagon were nuclear war gaming scenarios, they're almost all still classified. One of them was declassified recently, if you can call it that. I show an image of it in the book and it's just basically like,”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Point of view and not just from the mechanized systems. Because, and I only lightly touch upon this because it's such a fast, sweeping scenario, but Perry, for example, spent his whole life dedicated to building weapons of war Only later in life to realize this is mad. And he shared with me that it was that idea about one's grandchildren inheriting the These nuclear arsenals and the lack of, you know, wisdom. That comes with their origin stories, right? When you're involved in the ground up, apparently, it has Perhaps you're a different kind of steward of these systems than if you just inherit them and they are, you know, pages in a manual.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For me personally, that's the only firsthand story that I ever heard because it's so rare and it's so unique. And most people in the national security system, at least in the past, have been loath to talk about any of this, right? It's like the sacred oath. It's taboo. It's taboo to go against the system of systems that is, you know, making sure nuclear war never happens. Bill Perry was one of the first people who did this. And a lot of it, I believe, at least in my lengthy conversations with him, we had a lot of Zoom calls over COVID when I began reporting this. And he had a lot to do with me feeling like I could write this book from a human.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The mistake was that there was a training tape with a nuclear war scenario, right? We haven't even begun to talk about the nuclear war scenarios that the Pentagon runs. An actual VHS training tape had been incorrectly inserted into a system at the Pentagon. And so this nuclear launch showed up at that bunker beneath the Pentagon and at the bunker beneath Stratcom because they're connected. As being real. And then it was like, oh, whoops, it's actually a simulation test tape. And Perry described to me what that was like, the pause in his spirit and his mind and his heart when he realized I'm about to have to tell the president that he needs to launch nuclear weapons. And he learned just in the neck of time that it was an error. And that's one of five examples.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There have been at least six known, like absolute, like, oh my God, close calls, how thank God this happened type scenarios. One was described to me with an actual personal participant, former Secretary of Defense, Bill Perry, right? And he described what happened to him in 1979. He was not yet Secretary of Defense. He was the deputy director of research and engineering, which is like a big job at the Pentagon. And it was the Night Watch fell on him, essentially, right? And he gets this call in the middle of the night. He's told that Russia has launched not just ICBMs, but submarine launch ballistic missiles are coming at the United States. And he is about to notify the president that the six-minute window has to begin when he learns it was a mistake.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For no red, right? And confirmed all of this as fact. This is the situation, right? So in the scenario I have the nuclear ICBM coming in, the interceptor missiles try to shoot down the warhead. The capability is not like what's called shoot and look. There's not enough time to go like, and we're going to try to get it. We missed it. Okay, let's go for another one. So you have to go, right? So in my scenario, we fire off four, which is about what I was told would one to four because you're worried about the next one that's going to come in. You're going to use up 10% of your missile force, of your interceptor force on one, and all four miss. And that's totally plausible.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they North Korea has fifty, let's say fifty nuclear weapons right now. Some NGOs put it at more than 100. It's impossible to know because North Korea's nuclear weapons program has no transparency. They're the only nuclear armed nation that doesn't announce when they do a ballistic missile test. Everyone else does. No one wants to start a nuclear war by accident, right? So if Russia's going to launch an ICBM, they tell us. If we're going to launch one, and I'm talking test runs here, you know, with the dummy warhead, we tell them, not North Korea. That's a fact, okay? So we're constantly up against the fear of North Korea. In the scenario, I have the incoming North Korean one megaton, you know, weapon coming in. And the interceptor system tries to shoot it down. So there's not enough time, and this, by the way, I ran through by all, you know, generals from the Pentagon who run these scenarios.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any of these systems and it's full out nuclear warfare. So that's not the solution. More nuclear weapons is not the solution.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have systems I write about called the Thad system, which is ground based, and then the Aegis system, which is on vessels. And these are great at shooting down some rockets, but they can only shoot them sort of one at a time. You cannot shoot the motherload as it's coming in. Those are the smaller systems, right? The tactical nuclear weapons. And by the way, our Thad systems are all deployed overseas, and our Aegis systems are all out at sea. And again, reporting that, I was like, wait, what? You know, you have to really hunker down. Are we sure about this? People really don't want to believe this. It's an actual fact. After 9-11, Congress considered putting Aegis missiles and maybe even Thad systems along the west coast of the United States to specifically deal with the threats against nuclear-armed North Korea. But it hasn't done so yet. And again, you have to ask yourself, wait a minute, this is insanity. One nuclear weapon gets”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's where we get the success rate that's around 50% because of the test, right? And actually, the interceptor program is, are you ready for this? It's on strategic pause, right? Right now, meaning the interceptor missiles are there, but developing them and making them more effective is on strategic pause because they can't be made more effective, right? People have these fantasies that we have a system like the Iron Dome and they see this in current events and they're like, oh, our interceptors would do that. It's just simply not true.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of them is going Mach 20. I mean, the speeds at which these two moving objects hurtling through space are going is astonishing. And the fact that interception is even possible is really remarkable, but it's only possible 50% of the time.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara. Okay. And they are responsible at about nine minutes into the scenario, right? After the ICBM has finished that five-minute boost phase we talked about. Now it's in mid course phase and the ground radar systems have identified, yes, this is an incoming ICBM. And now the interceptor missiles have to launch, right? It's essentially shooting a missile with a missile inside the interceptor, which is just a big giant rocket, in its nose cone, it has what's called the aptly named exo atmospheric kill vehicle, okay? There's no explosives in that thing. It's literally just going to take out the warhead, ideally, with force.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was at a dinner party with a very informed person, right? Like somebody who really, you know, should have known this. And this is when I was considering writing and reporting this book. And he said to me, Oh Annie, that would never happen because of our powerful interceptor system, okay? Well, he's wrong. Let me tell you about our powerful interceptor system. First of all, we have 44 interceptor missiles total period full stop. Let me repeat, 44, okay. Earlier we were talking about Russia's 1,670 deployed nuclear weapons. How are those forty-four interceptor missiles going to work, right? And they also have a success rate of around 50%. So they work 50% of the time. There are 40 of them in Alaska, and they're four of them.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Basically, it happens in three acts. There's the first 24 minutes, the next 24 minutes, and the last 24 minutes. And that is the reality of nuclear weapons”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These are the contingency plans for when nuclear war happens. So again, going back to this absurd paradox, nuclear war will never happen. You know, mutual assured destruction, that is why deterrence will hold. Well, I found a talk that the Deputy Director of Stratcom gave to a very close-knit group where he said yes, deterrence will hold, but if it fails, everything unravels. And think about that word unravels, right? And the unraveling is, you know, the doomsday plane launches, the Stratcom commander jumps in. He's in that plane. He's flying around the United States. And he's making decisions because the Pentagon's been taken out. At nine eleven, by the way, Bush was in the doomsday plane.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, ready Going to fly in circles. Where it's going. It's flying in circles around the United States of America so that Nuclear weapons can be launched from the air. After the ground systems are taken out by the incoming ICBMs or the incoming submarine launch ballistic missiles, this has been in play since the 50s.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Yes, and so these kinds of the humanness. Know balanced out with the mechanization of it all. Is Just really grotesque.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or, okay, so imagine this imagine being the president. You got that six minute. You have to, you're looking at your list of strike options. You're being briefed by your chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and your SACDAF. And this other really spooky detail in the Stratcom bunker. In addition to the nuclear strike advisor who can answer very specific questions if the president's like, wait a minute, why are we striking that and not that? There is also a weather officer. And this is the kind of human detail that kept me up at night because that weather officer is in charge of explaining to the president really fast how many people are going to die and how many people are going to die in minutes, weeks, months, and years from radiation follow.”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Stratcom commander will receive word from the president launch orders and then directs the hundred fifty thousand people beneath him what to do from the bunker beneath Stratcom. That's before he gets the orders. Then he has to run out of the building and jump onto what's called the doomsday plane. We'll get into that in a minute. Let me just finish the, I mean, but again. These are the details. This is like these are the systematic sequential details that happen in seconds and minutes and reporting them. I never cease to be amazed by what a system it is. You know, A follows, just it's just numerical, right?”
2024-03-22 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #420 – Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source