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Stephen Schwartz

20 Nov, 11 tweets, 5 min read

Tonight in 1983, more than 100 million Americans saw multiple thermonuclear weapons destroy Lawrence, Kansas, in “The Day After” on ABC. A.C. Nielsen Co. reported that 62% of television sets that night were tuned in the film. I watched in my college dorm lounge. Where were you?

Nothing can re-create the feeling of collectively watching that night—during rapidly escalating tensions with the Soviet Union while the Reagan administration openly advocated fighting and winning a nuclear war—but you can stream “The Day After” here:

Here is the parental advisory ABC ran before the film began regarding its depiction of a nuclear war: “The emotional impacts of these scenes may be unusually disturbing, and we are therefore recommending that very young children not be permitted to watch.”

To try and reassure its massive audience and point the way toward a world where the horrific devastation it had just witnessed could not occur, ABC followed “The Day After” with a 90-min. special discussion with a distinguished (but all white male) panel.

The scenes aboard the “Looking Glass“ airborne command post that open the film—and the subsequent scenes of B-52 bombers, Minuteman missile silos and alert facilities, etc.—were taken from the semi-official 1979 nuclear war dramatization “First Strike”:

@SecDef19

“First Strike,” which advocates for a US nuclear buildup, also features a young @SecDef19 discussing ICBM and SSBN vulnerability and outfitting B-52s to carry the then-new ALCM, beginning at 3:29 here . (Also notable, not a single woman was interviewed.)

@TelevisionEvent

Last year, @TelevisionEvent, an outstanding, enlightening, and highly-entertaining new documentary about the genesis and making of “The Day After,” and its impact on the cast, crew, and audience, premiered @DOCNYCfest. It has since won multiple awards. croomp.com/documentary/te…

That’s all Folks!

https://twitter.com/CONELRAD6401240/status/1314928951261892617?s=20

President Ronald Reagan screened the movie in private at Camp David in early October. It had a profound effect on him and his views on nuclear weapons, although that would not become evident to most people for several more years.

https://twitter.com/CONELRAD6401240/status/1314928951261892617?s=20

@NicholasMQ

“The Day After” director @NicholasMQ has some thoughts on the film 38 years later (part 1):

https://twitter.com/NicholasMQ/status/1462208697665421315?s=20

https://twitter.com/NicholasMQ/status/1462209320519565318?s=20

And part 2:

https://twitter.com/NicholasMQ/status/1462209320519565318?s=20

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More from @AtomicAnalyst

Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

22 Nov

Tonight in 1975, the guided missile cruiser USS Belknap (CG-26) collided with the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) when the Belknap turned into the Kennedy's path in rough seas during night-flying exercises in the Mediterranean Sea about 70 miles east of Sicily.

The Kennedy's massive flight deck sliced into the Belknap's superstructure, severing a fuel line on the Kennedy and setting off multiple fires on the Belknap, which burned out of control for two-and-a-half hours and came within 40 feet of the Belknap's nuclear weapons magazine.

Inside that magazine were Terrier surface-to-air missiles armed with W45 nuclear warheads (with a yield of 1 or 5 kilotons). The Kennedy was also carrying nuclear weapons at the time of the accident: approximately 100 air-delivered gravity bombs.

Read 6 tweets

Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

22 Nov

Tonight in 1963, the Presidential Emergency Satchel was caught on film at Andrews AFB after newly-sworn-in President Lyndon B. Johnson returned from Dallas, Texas, on Air Force One following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Johnson is in the crowd at center left).

Here's a short film clip:

Although Johnson was informed by White House military aide Gen. Chester Clifton about the existence and purpose of the “Football” for the first time sometime after he was sworn in, he was not actually briefed on the Single Integrated Operational Plan until August 20, 1964.

Read 5 tweets

Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

21 Nov

https://twitter.com/DrJCrawford/status/1462221185924702211

One advantage of being older is that you have often actually lived through the history you're discussing, rather just hearing or reading about it long after the fact. During its first term, the Reagan admin absolutely planned to fight and prevail in a nuclear war. Some evidence:

https://twitter.com/DrJCrawford/status/1462221185924702211

https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1070491999994830848?s=20

More evidence:

https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1070491999994830848?s=20

Lastly, I never claimed “The Day After” was a masterpiece of filmmaking. From today's vantage point, it has some obvious weaknesses. But watching it _collectively_ (something we seldom get to experience anymore) _at that moment in time_ was an absolutely compelling experience.

Read 4 tweets

Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

18 Nov

Writing for the Boston Globe today in 1952, science writer Michael Amrine shared the news that the hydrogen bomb—successfully tested for the first time on November 1 but not yet deployed—would allow the United States to conduct mass slaughter at the low low cost of $1 per person.

Amrine's column echoed comments made in a September 18, 1951, speech by Sen. Brien McMahon (D-Connecticut), chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, noting the “startling fact” that using atomic bombs to deter and fight wars would be “hundreds of times cheaper than TNT.”

This was because one atomic bomb could destroy more “enemy war plants” than a single TNT bomb. McMahon then declared: “If we mass-produce this weapon, as we can, I solemnly say to the Senate that the cost of a single atomic bomb will become less than the cost of a single tank.”

Read 7 tweets

Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

9 Nov

At 8:50am today in 1979, data from a full-scale Soviet nuclear decapitation attack simulation running at NORAD were inexplicably sent to live warning displays there, at SAC, the NMCC, and the ANMCC at Site R, triggering a false alert and a ~6-minute threat assessment conference.

“… software simulating a Soviet missile attack [on] NORAD’s … computers ‘was inexplicably transferred into the regular warning display’ …. Indeed, NORAD's Commander-in-chief later acknowledged that the ‘precise mode of failure could not be replicated.’” nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb3…

During this false alarm, NORAD activated all air defense interceptors and at least 10 planes took off, as did the president’s “doomsday plane.” Some air traffic controllers were ordered to immediately ground all commercial aircraft. At no point were POTUS or the SecDef notified.

Read 5 tweets

Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

8 Nov

Today in 1958, two miles south of Christmas Island (Kiritimati) in the Pacific Ocean, the UK conducted Round C (Operation Grapple X), its first successful H-bomb test. A Valiant bomber dropped an experimental device which exploded at ~7,382 feet with a yield of 1.8 Megatons.

Here is an excerpt from a documentary recounting the preparations for, execution, and aftermath of this test, including detailed recollections from some of the hundreds of servicemen who observed the explosion from the northern end of the island.