Apparently, it surprised McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara. It took them some effort to even get a hold of the plan, which the joint chiefs just lied about when Ellsberg tipped Bundy off about it. Upon learning of this plan, they promptly scrapped it...And then McNamara gave a speech about how bad we were going to buttfuck the USSR if we had to, which sent the arms race to 11. It's not so much surprising to learn about MAD. We all know MAD. It's surprising to learn about how much the various branches of the military lied to each other and to the civilian leadership to pad their own budgets, while risking the life of every single living thing on Earth. For example, the Air Force was "estimating" that the USSR had 200-1000 ICBMs in 1961, when it was known to the highest levels of the CIA that the real number was 4. Exactly 4, not "some low number probably less than 10".

I also find it surprising how secretive they all were. As Dr. Strangelove asks, "Why didn't you tell us?!" The whole point of a Doomsday Machine is to advertise it, and the Air Force wouldn't even advertise it to the President of America, let alone some random Soviet citizen.

I guess it's a testament to how seriously the commanders took the issue (on both sides) that we never had a nuclear exchange. I don't think that Trump gets that. He is too disinterested in the world around him. However, even though he's more bellicose in his rhetoric, he basically has the same policy as every president since Truman: the US is prepared for first use/first strike on anyone in the world for any reason we see fit to for national security. Clinton tried to undermine Obama in '08 when he said he wouldn't use nukes on Iran preemptively. She chided him that that's not how "a president" talks. So when the short-fingered vulgarian tries to take all the ambiguity out of whether the arms race is in fact a dick measuring contest, he's really only doing a more crude job of stating long held US policy. Not sure if that should frighten or relax people.