Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59) was a top secret document titled "Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy" prepared by the

Carter administration Jimmy Carter's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 39th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Jimmy Carter, his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. Carter, a Democratic Party ...

and dated 25 July 1980 that contained plans for carrying out an extended

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...

. Carter's National Security Advisor

Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński (, ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), known as Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was Jimmy Carter's National Securi ...

described it as an addition to National Security Decision Memorandum 242, a Nixon administration document that it superseded. Parts of its contents were leaked shortly after its creation, causing a public furore about nuclear escalation. A redacted version of PD-59 has since been declassified and released publicly.

References

1980 in the United States Nuclear weapons policy {{US-gov-stub