Narrator: The threat of a nuclear doomsday
Haunts the nation.
Man: The destructive power of the weapons is so vast.
Narrator: In the cold war,
Filmmaking is at the front lines of the arms race.
Man: They were dealing with the most secret activities
Of the cold war state.
Narrator: Images of mushroom clouds
Put americans face to face with the apocalypse.
Civil defense propaganda sells the hope of survival.
Woman: The overall message of the civil defense films
Is if you're prepared, you'll survive.
Narrator: While a top-secret program
Struggles to capture the true power of the bomb.
Man: The only reason why we have access to these images
Is because of a declassification process.
Narrator: Cold war films tell the story
Of a world on the brink of annihilation.
♪
Alamogordo, new mexico.
The dawn of the atomic age.
After two years and more than $2 billion,
A massive scientific research project...
About to test a new weapon
Promising unimaginable destructive power.
But even some of the world's most brilliant scientists
Have no idea how powerful the bomb will actually be...
Or if it will work at all.
James hershberg: On the night of the first test,
There was incredible tension.
Expectations ranged from a high of close to 50,000 tons of tnt
To those who predicted zero.
Narrator: Famed italian physicist enrico fermi
Jokes that the blast will ignite the atmosphere,
Ending all life on earth.
Dozens of cameras are set up
To film this first atomic explosion.
Kevin hamilton: Film was crucial to the science of the bomb
From the very first test.
This wasn't just a matter of seeing what they could destroy
With a sample bomb.
They needed to measure it.
Narrator: Only film could show them
What's invisible to the human eye.
Hamilton: Most of what's happening
That scientists need to know about and study
Is happening in milliseconds
Right at the point of detonation at an atomic-level reaction.
Narrator: But even the team that built the bomb
Has no idea how to film it.
Greg spriggs: Los alamos initially designed the weapon;
They were also responsible for doing the photography.
They had never tried to film a nuclear weapon before.
A lot of people didn't know what to expect.
They didn't know how bright the fireball was gonna be.
They weren't quite sure about what frame rate they needed.
They had set up 52 cameras.
And when the detonation occurred...
[rumbling]
A lot of the films were overexposed.
And out of the 52 cameras that they had running,
Only four of them actually produced scientific data.
Narrator: Three weeks later, they get a second chance...
When atomic bombs are dropped on japan.
Spriggs: On the hiroshima detonation,
The photo plane failed to rendezvous
With the b-29 bomber that dropped the bomb,
And so there was no film record of the hiroshima shot
Other than what was taken by one of the scientists.
And he had smuggled on his own personal camera,
And he filmed the mushroom cloud out one of the windows.
♪
Narrator: Attempts to film at nagasaki also fail.
Spriggs: Because the guy that was supposed to run
The high-speed cameras
Didn't have a parachute,
They didn't let him on the plane.
So again, there was no photographic record
Other than one camera captured the late cloud.
♪
Narrator: But what pictures can document
Is the horrific destructive force
Of america's new super weapon.
Reporter: An explosion equal to 20,000 tons of tnt
Brought the greatest man-made disaster
In the history of the world.
Completely leveled four square miles.
Narrator: For the military,
The bombs achieve their primary objective.
Japan formally surrenders on September 2, 1945.
But images of mushroom clouds and destruction
Don't help scientists understand how the bomb works.
Spriggs: From the first three detonations,
Trinity, hiroshima, and nagasaki,
We basically have very little data to analyze.
Narrator: It's the fireball before the mushroom cloud
Scientists need to analyze.
To learn more, they have to detonate more bombs.
July 1946.
The bikini atoll in the pacific.
The military begins
An aggressive atomic weapons testing program
Called operation crossroads.
Hamilton: Photography at operation crossroads
Was a huge part of that project.
Ned o'gorman: It was a major, major adventure
For the united states.
Crossroads called for over 700 photographers
And for thousands of cameras.
Narrator: Radio-controlled autopilots are installed
In eight b-17 bombers,
Converting them into drones
Filled with hundreds of automatic cameras
So they could fly directly into the mushroom cloud.
The photography team brings 1.5 million feet of film.
O'gorman: Crossroads created
A worldwide shortage of film stock,
And not only that,
Camera equipment in the united states.
The government had to go to private labs
And borrow equipment.
Narrator: Journalists are also invited
To witness operation crossroads
In a kind of public relations spectacle.
O'gorman: Crossroads was part of an initiative,
An effort by the u.S. Government
To make americans more comfortable with the bomb,
To, in a sense, sort of domesticize it
By creating beautiful pictures
And making the mushroom cloud itself
A kind of a cultural icon.
Narrator: Conditions are perfect
For a front-row seat to the blast.
Film announcer: The world's fourth atomic bomb
Plummets earthward,
Falling for slightly more than 48 seconds.
The bomb explodes.
[rumbling]
Unfolded are a myriad
Of majestic, startling and awesome effects,
A panoply that only the cameras can record in faithful detail.
Narrator: Only they don't.
At least not what the scientists need most--
Those crucial first few milliseconds
Of the formation of the fireball.
Spriggs: The timing mechanism
That was supposed to start all the cameras failed,
And so all of the scientific films started late,
And they were unable to get satisfactory scientific results.
Narrator: The country that built the world's most advanced weapon
Is failing to understand how it really works.
Hamilton: What the military learned from photography
At operation crossroads,
That if they were really gonna begin to learn more
From these weapons,
They were going to take a more technical approach
To documenting these tests.
Narrator: Traditional photographic equipment
Can't deliver.
So the military turns to three high-tech wartime innovators
At m.I.T.--
Harold edgerton, kenneth germeshausen,
And herbert grier,
Who would go into business as eg&g.
Peter zavattaro: Eg&g got involved in the nuclear program
Right from the beginning
Because of the expertise they had
With photography and flash systems.
Narrator: They invent ultra high-speed cameras
That can capture atomic detonations
In their first critical milliseconds.
Hamilton: You begin to need such precision
And such fine slicing of time
That you need cameras
That don't even look like cameras to our eyes.
O'gorman: One of the technologies that they built
Was the rapatronic camera.
It was a still camera that could shoot a frame
Of about two milliseconds.
These are some of the more spectacular images
That you see come out of eg&g work,
These sort of almost otherworldly
Alien-like fireballs.
♪
[rumbling]
♪
O'gorman: Through images of the bomb detonating,
You could get both to things like yield,
How powerful was this bomb
Through very careful measurements
Of photographic frames.
Zavattaro: We would take high-speed photography
Of the fireball,
And analysts would measure frame by frame the growth rate.
And that was a very accurate yield measurement.
Narrator: Now for the first time,
They could begin to calculate
The impact their weapons would have.
It's the critical information needed to build better bombs.
And that was the plan,
Even when america stood alone as the world's sole nuclear power.
[rumbling]
♪
What all cameras can record, and what the public sees,
Is an image that would characterize the atomic age.
The mushroom cloud quickly becomes
An iconic symbol of death and destruction.
O'gorman: By 1948 the white house
And the department of defense
Thought atomic publicity was creating more panic and anxiety
Among the american public
Than it was reassuring them.
Narrator: The sense of anxiety would skyrocket
On September 23, 1949,
When president truman announces
The soviet union has tested its own atomic weapon.
This is the moment that changes forever
The balance of power on a global scale,
Jump-starting the arms race
And redefining virtually all geo-politics
Through the prism of east-west conflict.
America is in shock.
The constant threat of atomic attack
Is now a fact of life--
A terror that never goes away.
[siren wailing]
Announcer: Only in practice now.
But tomorrow this siren may mean the real thing.
♪
Narrator: America comes out of world war ii
The most powerful, most prosperous nation on earth.
But now the soviets have the bomb, too.
[explosion]
And there's still a lot to learn
About the weapon that ended the war.
The military is determined to test a lot more bombs
And get a lot more serious about filming those tests.
For serious filmmaking,
There is only one place for the u.S. Military to go.
Hamilton: They look for a way to create a routine resource,
A routine set of laborers
That can be in charge of photography for these bombs.
They set up a new place called lookout mountain laboratory.
Narrator: Hidden away in the hills overlooking hollywood,
The u.S. Military starts a new top-secret operation
That fulfills two primary needs.
Hamilton: One is secrecy,
Where they know that they can shoot and develop film on site
Without sending it out to other locations
Where it might get eyes on it they don't want.
And two is they want to have regular access
To people who are experts
In the production of motion pictures.
Narrator: Official designation:
The u.S. Air force 1352nd photographic squadron...
Staffed by both civilian and military filmmakers
With expertise across every aspect of film production.
O'gorman: Lookout mountain was arguably
The only self-sufficient hollywood studio in its time.
You could shoot an entire movie inside the facility.
Hamilton: That included everything from the engineering
And development of cameras
Through the machine shop and engineers on hand,
Through the shooting of these images on site or off site
To the development and storage of those films.
They had scriptwriters,
They had musicians and composers to create the scores.
They had the prop shops.
They had a robust art and animation studio.
They had a full-on sound stage.
They had sound technicians on board.
O'gorman: No other studio in hollywood
Could do that kind of thing all in one space,
And lookout mountain was set up
That you never had to go outside of the walls of the studio.
Narrator: Crucial, because most of the movies are top secret.
O'gorman: Everybody who worked at lookout mountain
On a daily basis
Had the highest form of security clearance,
The q clearance.
They had to have that security clearance
Because they were dealing with the most secret activities
Of the cold war state.
Narrator: It's a mysterious operation,
With some staff arriving by school bus.
Residential neighbors living nearby
Have no idea what's happening inside the complex.
Hamilton: Lead animators would be going
Back and forth between disney
And lookout mountain's animation shop.
Actors would be going up and down the mountain
To take turns with doing voice-over
Or even on-camera work
For some of lookout mountain's projects.
O'gorman: John ford, jimmy stewart, walt disney,
Marilyn monroe, kim novak,
I mean, the list goes on and on.
Narrator: The '50s are a time of dazzling innovations
In moviemaking.
Lookout mountain is often a step ahead of hollywood
In pioneering some of the most advanced technologies.
Hamilton: Lookout mountain would sometimes serve
As a sort of research and development wing
For cutting-edge cinematic technologies in hollywood.
They were doing 3-d cinema
Before others were doing it in hollywood.
They were doing cinemascope
Many months before the first cinemascope film
Was released in hollywood.
Narrator: Like hollywood, lookout mountain films
Often target very specific demographics.
O'gorman: Each film project, um, came with an audience in mind,
And those audiences varied widely.
Sometimes they were foot soldiers.
Film announcer: If you've ever been on an atomic test before,
Either here in nevada or overseas at enewetak...
O'gorman: Other times they were military brass.
Film announcer: When the department of defense
Requirements for...
O'gorman: Only those at the highest levels of the pentagon.
Film announcer: The various manufacturers
Under contract to the...
O'gorman: Other times it was the general public.
Film announcer: On the morning of shot day,
Official observers, technicians and scientists
Gather at news knob to await the momentous event.
Narrator: Lookout mountain isn't alone.
There's an explosion of military
Filmmaking in the cold war.
While the most highly technical material
Would remain top secret for decades,
The government is eager to exploit the propaganda value
Of the atmospheric detonations.
Atomic sabre rattling--
A very public warning to enemies,
While reassuring allies and the american people
That they are being protected
By weapons of awesome destructive power.
Film announcer: The armed forces will be ready with the know-how
To put them into immediate use--
Knowledge for the deadliest kind of atomic strikes
On enemy targets
And experience for effective defense of our own cities.
Narrator: From 1951 to 1957,
Multiple tests under the code-name desert rock
Attempt to prepare troops to fight this new kind of war--
Boots on the ground of an atomic battlefield.
Camera crews capture troops piling into trenches
Just a few thousand yards from ground zero...
And turn the footage into training films.
Joseph masco: They created documentaries
For military personnel that would be involved
In nuclear warfighting,
Communicating for the soldier
That was gonna be on the frontline.
[squeaking]
Narrator: In 1953, there's still a lot they don't know,
Especially about the effects of radiation poisoning.
Chaplain: What seems to be the trouble, soldier?
You look a little bit worried.
Soldier: Well, I am, chaplain, just a little bit.
Chaplain: Actually, there's no need to be worried,
As the army has taken all of the necessary precautions
To see that we're perfectly safe here.
Soldier: Sir, have you ever been out
On one of these shots before?
Chaplain: Yes, I've had the opportunity
To see a number of the atomic tests...
♪
Narrator: For thousands of troops,
The desert rock detonations are the ultimate leap of faith.
Stationed in trenches right out of world war I...
Waiting for hours in the nevada sun...
For the inevitable countdown to armageddon.
Announcer: The b-50 type aircraft you see overhead
Is the drop plane on its bombing run.
Masco: Soldiers were involved in various kinds of operations
Around and nearby those detonations.
There were two things going on there.
One was a literal experiment on those soldiers
To see what the psychic effects would be
For seeing a nuclear detonation.
So, there were all sorts of questions
About just psychologically
How soldiers would understand the nuclear battlefield,
What their reactions would be.
Announcer: Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,
Four, three...
Narrator: The stage is set
For the desert rock atomic test in nevada.
Thousands of troops wait in trenches,
Some just a few thousand yards from ground zero.
Announcer: Look down and stay down.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six,
Five, four, three, two, one, zero.
[rumbling]
♪
Narrator: Training films made from operations like this
Prepare troops for both the military tactics
And emotional impact of fighting on an atomic battlefield.
Film announcer: The biggest value of the operation
Is for us to prove to ourselves that it can be done
And find any weak points in the training.
Masco: A second project was teaching soldiers
That the battlefield of the nuclear age
Would not be so different
From the battlefield they knew during world war ii,
That they could, uh, use their skills
And that they would be trained
To protect themselves on the frontline.
O'gorman: Numerous films meant to sort of reassure soldiers
Of the safety of being at the nuclear test site
Or train soldiers on how to behave at a nuclear test
Or in the future occasion of nuclear war.
Narrator: Even as the effects of radiation
Become a subject of concern and study,
It would still be years before its full impact is understood.
Film announcer: As they enter the blast area
Within an hour after the detonation,
They realize the danger of radiation sickness
From an air burst is slight.
Masco: There are early episodes in which radioactive fallout
Is dismissed as not a... Not a major health concern,
Something that could be handled very easily.
Film announcer: A thorough head-to-foot examination
Will reveal any accumulation of radioactive material.
A vigorous sweeping with a broom
Removes contaminated dust and dirt from shoes and clothing.
Narrator: In the end, desert rock is comprised
Of five different test operations,
Each with multiple detonations-- 69 in all.
More than 50,000 troops participate.
Guinea pigs in america's new atomic age.
Film announcer: As exercise desert rock is concluded,
Initial reactions are
It is possible to utilize an atomic weapon
In close support of ground troops
In those cases where the conditions surrounding its use
Are carefully considered.
Narrator: While training films are seen by thousands of troops,
Some of the most elaborately produced
And most expensive films
Are seen by the fewest viewers.
Hamilton: The films that lookout mountain
Spent the most time on
Were called special project films.
These would be the films
Mostly about the nuclear tests themselves.
O'gorman: Film reports were distributed
To government officials of various kinds.
They could be government officials
In the department of defense,
They could be congressmen, even the president himself.
Narrator: More and more, policymakers
Who control defense department purse strings
Get their information on america's nuclear program
From military filmmakers.
Film announcer: Five successful airdrops
That saved the weapons research program
Months of time, considerable money,
And help los alamos prove
The radical new idea of small atomic bombs.
O'gorman: When they produced these for congressmen
And for the president, produced them to reassure them,
These were highly, highly risky affairs
As well as very costly affairs,
And, uh, both the atomic energy commission
And the department of defense
Wanted to reassure congress and the president himself
That everything was under control.
Hey, we got this. We got this.
It's all under control.
Narrator: But the nation is nervous,
Locked in an atomic arms race with the soviet union;
Living with a constant state of apocalyptic threat.
The cold war is about to shift into overdrive.
Hamilton: Operation ivy was a pivotal moment
In the history of nuclear weapons
And in the cold war itself.
Narrator: The u.S. Prepares to test
The world's first thermonuclear weapon--the h-bomb.
Hamilton: The scale of magnitude here
Is really hard to comprehend.
Narrator: Atomic bombs are measured
In thousands of tons of tnt.
H-bombs, in millions.
It's the subject of a fierce public battle...
Whether such a monstrously powerful weapon is necessary
Or even moral.
[rumbling]
But after October 31, 1952, there's no turning back.
Elugelab island is completely destroyed.
Film announcer: This is the largest fireball ever produced.
At its maximum, it measures
About three and one quarter miles in diameter.
Compared to the skyline of new york,
This means that with the empire state building
As zero point,
The fireball alone would engulf
About one quarter of the island of manhattan.
O'gorman: We were talking about a scale of destruction here
That, uh, was absolutely unprecedented.
Narrator: The blast force at ivy is 10.4 megatons,
More than 500 times the destructive power
Of the nagasaki bomb.
A huge lookout mountain film team
Captures the first h-bomb detonation.
Hamilton: Lookout mountain produced a feature-length film
About operation ivy,
And this time, they even used an onscreen actor, reed hadley,
Known from the television show racket squad.
Reed hadley: It's been a pleasure to help bring you
The story of operation ivy,
The work of task force 132.
Narrator: With so few cleared to see the film,
The lookout mountain lab produces only three prints.
Hamilton: It was screened for a very select audience,
For eisenhower and for the cabinet,
For members of the pentagon.
And at that point, a lot of folks thought that film
Would never be seen by another audience.
O'gorman: Reports were that president eisenhower responded
Very, very strongly to the film
And said every american should see this film.
Film announcer: Pt neutrons from the mike reaction...
Narrator: But nobody can agree
On how much the public should be allowed to see.
Hamilton: A huge argument began
Amongst multiple agencies within the u.S. Government,
And for many months, there were debates back and forth.
Narrator: For more than a year,
The film is recut countless times
In the lookout mountain edit rooms.
O'gorman: The federal civil defense administration
Wanted the american public to know as much as possible
About the power of these bombs.
The atomic energy commission, on the other hand,
Wanted as little information about operation ivy
Disseminated to the american public as possible.
The department of defense was sort of somewhere in between.
The eisenhower administration was thinking about this
Not only from the perspective of domestic policy,
But international policy.
And so anything that might be released to the american public,
They assumed, correctly,
Was also going to be shown to the world.
Announcer: H minus 5 minutes.
The shockwave will not arrive
For several minutes after zero-time.
Keep firm footing until after the wave passes.
Hamilton: The end result:
A 20-minute version released to the public
That had cut out huge parts of the actual bomb test itself.
Hadley: I've been a member of firing parties before,
But this was different somehow.
Narrator: The new version plays on television
And in movie theaters beginning in April 1954.
Hadley: Oh, by the way,
To help you understand this problem,
These weathermen are covering...
Narrator: Reviews pan the film, calling it overly theatrical,
With science that's bewildering.
Hadley: The ever-interesting history of neutrons...
Hamilton: The shorter film ended up somewhat of a flop.
It didn't make nearly as much sense as the longer version.
All the work that lookout mountain had put
Into carefully scripting an explanation
Of this terrifying technology,
A lot of it was largely lost.
[rumbling]
Narrator: What wasn't lost was the overwhelming sense
Of a terrible threat that would never go away.
The image of the h-bomb's mushroom cloud
Would haunt the lives of generations.
The dangerous standoff in the cold war
Teeters on the threat of massive retaliation.
Any aggression would be met with total annihilation.
Mutual assured destruction--
Mad.
Claire pia love: The idea was that each side
Would build up their nuclear arsenal
Till they reach a point
Where they had enough to destroy the entire world.
If one side enacted a first attack,
The enemy would still have time to launch all of their missiles
And destroy the first attacker.
So, this was meant to deter any attack
Because everyone would be destroyed.
Narrator: It's a key reason both sides
Put their nukes on public display.
Hamilton: Deterrence only works
When your opponent knows what you can do and you can prove it.
So, the films of these tests
Performed a central role in deterrence through proof.
Narrator: It's a time of peace,
Constantly haunted by the threat of nuclear war.
Nuclear films have helped sow atomic anxiety
Across the country.
Now the government hopes they can also relieve it.
Masco: In response to the soviet nuclear program,
The united states creates
The federal civil defense administration
To do the work of both training and protecting american citizens
From nuclear danger.
[siren wailing]
Film announcer: Only in practice now.
A rehearsal, a training exercise.
Narrator: The federal civil defense administration
Launches a massive effort to manage public fear
And promote the idea
That a nuclear attack can be survived...
If the american people are prepared.
Masco: If one looks through the, the films
And the written materials,
One of the recurring refrains
Is that a nuclear war could break out at any second.
Film announcer: Enemy jet bombers carrying nuclear weapons
Can sweep over a variety of routes
And drop bombs on any important target in the united states.
Masco: A crucial aspect of this was to create a productive fear,
A kind of fear that mobilized in a military sense
For a new kind of war, now known as cold war.
[boom]
Narrator: The fcda's message is a call to action.
Film announcer: Civil defense will teach you
How to take care of yourself, your family and neighbors.
How to get official instructions and act according to plan.
Love: You are afraid of the atomic bomb,
But it's empowering.
It motivates you to try and do something about the bomb.
You can't lob your own bombs at the enemy, um,
But you can protect yourself from the effects of these bombs
So that once these attacks happen,
If you follow the right procedures,
You can come out and recreate society.
Film announcer: First, you have to know what happens
When an atomic bomb explodes.
Narrator: Schools sign on early to participate in fcda programs.
A teacher would be the inspiration
For one of the fcda's first films,
After describing drills
For students to "duck and cover."
Masco: Duck and cover is a transformational moment
In which federal agencies are telling citizens
That there is a new kind of danger,
Literally an existential danger.
♪ deedle dum dum, deedle dum dum ♪
Jake hughes: They mix animations of this turtle
Who's wearing a civil defense arm band
And a air raid warden's tin helmet
With live action footage of children.
♪ when danger threatens... ♪
Narrator: Duck and cover becomes
One of the iconic propaganda films of the cold war...
For all the wrong reasons.
Love: Duck and cover is probably
The most memorable symbol of civil defense,
And it's because people laugh at it.
But this film fails in being effective
Because it's so laughable
That people don't take the bomb seriously enough
And enact duck and cover.
Narrator: Few americans may believe
They can survive an atomic attack.
But in the east-west standoff,
There's not much doubt about who the good guys are.
Patriotism sells.
Companies line up to cash in on the cold war.
Film announcer: This is the town,
A community with a civil defense plan to meet a major disaster.
The time is anytime...
Narrator: The federal civil defense administration
Never has big budgets.
During the cold war,
Large organizations and industry groups
Sponsor government films,
To have their name or trade
Associated with civil defense.
It's a golden age for product placement.
Hughes: You had a number of industries
That saw a brand-new market opening up for their products,
In the event of an atomic attack.
Promoting different products that they make,
But it's also going to promote
Some very valuable advice on civil defense.
Hamilton: In the civil defense film
The house in the middle,
You see three small houses exposed to nuclear blast
With a variety of degrees of kemptness.
One house has trash in the front yard,
The house in the other end has a nice white picket fence
And it's freshly painted.
And the idea there is that it's meant to show
How a house with trash is more likely to be susceptible
To flames and fire from an atomic blast.
Film announcer: A house that's neglected
Is the house that may be doomed in the atomic age.
I am going to show you how protective measures
Can help guard your home
Against the heat effects of an atomic explosion.
Narrator: The fcda produces the film,
Using images of the blast from lookout mountain.
[dramatic film score]
♪
Film announcer: The dingy house on the left;
The dirty and littered house on the right;
Or the clean white house in the middle.
It is your choice.
Narrator: Sponsored by the national
Clean up-paint up-fix up bureau
Of the national paint, varnish and lacquer association.
Hamilton: It's indicative of a lot of civil defense films.
They're meant to encourage
A certain way of living in the '50s
As much as they are a certain way
Of managing your fear in relationship to the bomb.
Narrator: In many civil defense films,
It's the american way of life that's under threat.
♪
So the fcda creates an elaborate portrait
Of how the american dream will stand up
Against a nuclear attack.
Love: Operation cue is one
Of the most interesting civil defense films produced.
It is the one that tries the hardest to domesticate the bomb.
Woman: Here at the nevada test site,
I covered the story of operation cue,
A program to test the effects of an atomic blast
Upon the things we use in our everyday lives.
Narrator: The film reflects many of the family stereotypes
From television shows of the period.
Love: Home is imperative to civil defense.
If you bring these civil defense measures into your home
And everyone follows their specific role
That's assigned to them,
Then you'll be able to survive the bomb.
Film announcer: Turn off the burners
Of your gas or electric stove.
Disconnect any heating elements
Such as electric irons, hot plates
Or bathroom heaters.
Narrator: Women play a central role in the fcda's vision
For the survival of the american family.
Love: In civil defense films,
Domestication is really important
In terms of gender
Because the biggest way to domesticate the bomb
Is to relate it to women.
The woman's place is in the home,
According to the 1950s stereotype.
So, she's the one who's in control
Of what takes place in the home when the blast occurs.
Narrator: Sponsored by motorola,
An entire film about a nuclear attack on new york city
Takes place in the suburbs--
Mostly in one family's home.
Love: In atomic attack,
Mrs. Mitchell doesn't have a plan for civil defense
And she suffers because of it.
The bomb is not domesticated.
Narrator: Her husband is killed at his office in manhattan.
Her daughter suffers radiation sickness...
Treated by a doctor played by a young walter matthau.
Doctor: Well, mrs. Mitchell, she's going to need
A long course of treatment.
In plain english,
She took in a lot of particles resulting from the bomb.
Love: Atomic attack is a really interesting counter example
To operation cue
Of a woman not playing her role
And seeing her family fall apart around her because of it.
Narrator: But in the end, mrs. Mitchell, her daughters
And her home in the suburbs survive.
The message: The american way of life is indestructible.
Literally.
Masco: In operation cue, one of the chief projects
Was to distribute, uh, a variety of different housing styles,
Populate that with contemporary appliances...
With mannequins dressed and posed
In, uh, kind of moments of everyday home life.
And to connect those different
Utilities, commodities and clothing
To particular manufacturers,
Some of whom wanted to advertise their projects as bomb-proof.
Narrator: For films like operation cue,
Mock homes, whole cities and fake forests
Are erected in the nevada desert
To see how different kinds of materials and constructions
Would be impacted by an atomic attack.
[rumbling]
It produces some of the most memorable images
From the atomic tests.
[boom]
♪
Masco: The problem is that the destructive power
Of the weapons is so vast--
Instruments that can destroy cities with single devices.
The technical capacities of nuclear warfare
Outstrips the protective powers of civil defense.
Narrator: The message of survival
Doesn't match the images.
The public isn't buying it.
By the late 1950s,
The fcda starts pulling earlier films from distribution
When the information proves too unrealistic
Or just downright misleading.
Film announcer: The majority of people exposed to radiation
Recovered completely,
Including a large percentage of those
Who suffered serious radiation sickness.
Today they lead normal lives.
They bear children. Their children are normal.
Narrator: So the fcda tries a new tack--bomb shelters.
Love: So, if everyone's prepared,
If they go into their bomb shelters, they'll survive.
Narrator: Bomb shelters represent the perfect marriage
Of civil defense
And public relations.
Hughes: Walt builds
A family fallout shelter
Was a film that was released
Instructing people to create block-style shelters
To protect themselves and their families from fallout.
Narrator: Brought to you
By the national concrete masonry association.
Walt: This shelter is a real good idea.
If we should ever have a nuclear war,
We could get a heavy fallout
Even though we were not anywheres near the target area.
Thick, heavy walls and ceiling protect against radiation.
The thicker the better.
Concrete blocks therefore are very well suited
For this type of construction.
Narrator: The idea captures the imagination
Of the entire country.
A poll in the late '50s finds more than 40% of the country
Is considering building a shelter.
But the polls don't tell the whole story.
Love: People said they supported it,
But they supported it if the government paid for it.
The government didn't want to pay for it.
Narrator: In the end, civil defense films
Get a lot of families talking about building shelters,
But few follow through.
At best, they offer a grim vision of survival--
Little more than a chance to sit out the apocalypse above.
Love: As a whole, the civil defense films
Had a neutral effect on the american public.
They don't seem to have instilled confidence
Or motivated people to actually build shelters
Or participate in evacuations or stock up on food.
But it's important to try to understand
The way people processed that information.
Narrator: In 1958,
The fcda evolves
Into the office of civil and defense mobilization.
More films follow.
But the images of nuclear explosions
Make survival seem patently absurd.
October 1963.
Just a month before he's assassinated,
Jfk signs the limited nuclear test ban treaty,
Ending all atmospheric detonations.
The last pictures of an american above-ground nuclear explosion
Are taken in a final series of tests
At johnston island in 1962.
The era of nuclear filmmaking comes to an end.
After shifting its focus to vietnam for a few years,
Lookout mountain closes its doors for good in 1969.
For decades, films from the early days of the cold war
Are locked away, classified, lost or forgotten.
Now, as many are being declassified,
An epic project is under way to find and analyze
The only images of nuclear explosions
We hope we'll ever have.
The u.S. Conducted its last nuclear test of any kind
Underground on September 23, 1992.
With the cold war over, the clinton administration
Begins releasing nuclear test films to the public
That had been classified top secret for decades.
Hamilton: The only reason why we know
About the existence of lookout mountain
And why we have access to these images
Is because of a declassification process that began in the '90s.
Narrator: For half a century and more,
Some of the most technical eg&g films sat idle
In cans and boxes, in vaults and basements,
Many never opened
After the one or two times they were originally played.
Until today.
A team at lawrence livermore national laboratory
Is re-analyzing the scientific films of the era.
Jim moye: It's an amazing body of history.
The scientific photography is amazing.
I mean, they were really forward-thinking about it.
It should be preserved
Even if it wasn't going to be re-analyzed.
The cool thing to me is how much information is there
That can be re-analyzed
And is valuable to scientists all over.
Spriggs: The value of these scientific films
Is almost priceless.
These films represent the only test data
That we're ever gonna have
Of nuclear weapons detonated in the atmosphere.
We cannot increase this data because the united states
Is never gonna do another atmospheric test.
We did 210 atmospheric shots, and this is it.
Narrator: Analyzing the images with 1950s technology
Was no easy task.
Spriggs: In the '50s when they started analyzing these films,
Uh, they had to do everything basically manually.
Narrator: The process was labor-intensive in the extreme.
The results, they're now learning,
Were not very reliable.
Spriggs: This image would be shined onto this grid,
And then somebody would sit there
And actually try to read it.
Moye: They had to position the film, the frame
On the grid manually, each frame,
And they had to use that grid to measure the fireball.
Hundreds of people
For just months, days, years, to analyze all of this.
Spriggs: And so there was a large potential
For human error.
Narrator: With some film running at 2,400 frames per second,
It could take hundreds of analysts an entire day
To study two seconds of film.
Today, with specialized software and supercomputers,
The process is exponentially faster and more accurate.
Moye: We can automate the process of analyzing the films.
So, running a program, it can go through a film
Of thousands of frames in minutes instead of days.
Narrator: For scientists re-analyzing the films,
The most accurate calculation of yield
Is still their primary focus...
A chilling assessment of a destructive power
We hope we'll only see on these films.
Moye: Eg&g did an amazing job
Capturing that scientific record in the '50s, '60s,
And we're hopefully restoring it
For generations maybe 200 years out
Who can look at this and not only get scientific information,
But they can know the history firsthand.
Narrator: The war that would never be fought
Would become the story
Dominating the second half of the 20th century.
The arms race and the cold war cast a constant shadow of threat
Over both sides of the conflict for decades.
Hamilton: Films of nuclear explosions,
Photographs of nuclear explosions,
The iconography of this
Played such a role in the science
And the policy around the bomb
That they are now also part of our popular culture as well.
Love: They're an important part of our history.
They teach us about the way the government wanted us
To view safety and to view something that was terrifying.
[roaring]
Narrator: Nuclear weapons haven't gone away.
The threat remains.
But the atomic anxiety in a new century doesn't compare
To the overwhelming terror of the cold war...
Yet.
But nuclear weapons will always be headline news.
Man: We believe that it is imperative
That we be prepared for every disaster.
And in today's world, that includes a nuclear attack.
Narrator: Even before a cold-war-style false alarm
Of a missile attack,
Hawaii started a new generation on civil defense.
Hughes: Hawaii is now testing
Their nuclear civil defense sirens
In answer to the, uh, north korea threat.
Narrator: The islands adapted their tsunami warning siren...
[siren wailing]
Announcer: This is a test of the attack warning signal.
Narrator: ...With a new alert tone,
Signifying an imminent attack.
Love: Now with the nuclear tensions ratcheting up again,
It will be really interesting
To see if the language of civil defense
Begins to come out again
And if it's different from what it was in the 1950s and '60s
Or if there's new twists, um,
To account for the things we know about those weapons now.
Narrator: The terrifying threat of nuclear weapons
Still hangs over the planet.
Images of mushroom clouds are burned in to our imagination.
We built the bomb.
[rumbling]
The films of the atomic age will never let us forget it.