Power of Decision - Simulated Nuclear War Documentary (1958)
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- "The Power of Decision" may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force's implementation of war plan "Quick Strike" in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies. By the end of the film, after the Air Force launches a massive bomber-missile "double-punch," millions of Americans, Russians, Europeans, and Japanese are dead.
Two hours of prep before first impact? What luxury they had before the 60's!
With Operational Plan "Quick Strike", the Strategic Air Command or "SAC" would insure overwhelming nuclear strike response capability. 25 years later, once WOPR was installed inside NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain complex, all the problems of having to wait to determine the focus of a Soviet nuclear attack would be solved by artificial intelligence. Or so they thought. Then some teenager with a computer in Seattle decided he wanted to play a game of Global Thermonuclear War and nearly destroyed Earth.
A great film. I remember going to the pictures to see that.
Quick Strike, also known as Wing Attack Plan R.
And we would have gotten away with it except for those meddling kids and their dog.
@@Zooumberg😢😊 it
@@t.j.s.2913 Yeah I'm getting old. Shall we play a game?
Be sure to when you're flying to fight the Reds, smoke your WInston Cigarettes. Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should!
The Russian ambassador is here? Why he'll see everything. He'll see the big board
Lol Strangelove
I love how everyone is sitting around fully uniformed writing something, with 5 phones on their desk and 2 hidden under the desk, or is in a meeting with 15 other people. Some one is always smoking something.
Some serious smoking going on in this. Looks strange to see it on screen these days.
Shit if I was in charge of destroying an entire country I'd be smoking to! Except mine would be wacky tobacco just one more joint before the world ends lol
"Just smoke that cigarette."
According to Carl Sagan, the rest of the story. Agricultural production hampered by darkness caused by smoke ash and dirt and ozone reduction and by concomitant global cooling. Billions dead from starvation, illness, and desperation fighting over food supplies. Increases in blindness, skin cancer, other cancers.
Nuclear winter/global cooling was a ploy by the soviets to create more anger and anti nuke protestors in western Germany/USA. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
“Former Soviet intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov claimed that, under the directions of Yuri Andropov, the KGB invented the concept of "nuclear winter" in order to stop the deployment of NATO Pershing II missiles. They are said to have distributed to peace groups, the environmental movement and the journal Ambio disinformation based on a faked "doomsday report" by the Soviet Academy of Sciences by Georgii Golitsyn, Nikita Moiseyev and Vladimir Alexandrov concerning the climatic effects of nuclear war.”
@Hissam Ullah I don't think nuclear catastrophe will be our downfall. Were destroying ourselves from the inside...
Back during the late fifties, the anticipated yield of US and Soviet weapons would have been about three gigatons. Every weapon back in those days was a megaton weapon. The US had about 500 B41's, each of which had a 25MT yield. Half of these bombs we the Y model, and had a nice big U238 tamper.
Thousands of nuclear weapons were detonated around the world from 1945 through 1976. There was no detectable affect on the climate. Like wise from 1939 to 1945 thousands of cities burned from bombing attacks while thousands more were intentionally set ablaze in "scorched earth" tactics, again no appreciable effect on the climate
It’s generally accepted that a nuclear exchange in 2023 terms wouldn’t lead to a nuclear winter the same way we’ve always envisioned it. New models and sims expect less ground burst weapons and lower yields causing less fallout and the “nuclear winter” scenario
This is a dramatization, not a documentary or a training film. The people with speaking roles are actors, not military personnel. A few of the faces look familiar from movies and TV shows of that time. The procedure for calling an alert was much more elaborate than depicted here. I suspect that this was made to show to congressmen.
Based on existing data it was meant for internal use. Showing a simplified but somewhat accurate version of how it should go. Its uncertain if it was ever shown though.
Yes indeed. I think the guy in the opening scene (who says "in-STAN-taneously" TWICE in the same movie) was a character named "Dutch" in an old science fiction movie from that era. The guy who played "general Larson" is a George Cloony lookalike.
Meanwhile kids are being told that hiding under tables will protect them from nuclear bombs and radiation.
The fumes from all the bombers alone, would be enough to block out the sun & cause nuclear winter!
I liked how the B-52s, after delivering their weapons, all landed safely at intact, undisturbed runways in bases of friendly countries. Good thing they all made it back safe and sound. I was worried that they may get hurt!
😆😂🤣
Probably home in time for dinner with the family (though it might have been a wee bit overdone).
watch the video next time. they lost 256 b52s, the commander commented “thats bad”
ICBMs really changed the game. Within less then a few minutes an entire bomber base could be destroyed before even 5% could take off.
That's pretty much the reality as opposed to the theory of every member of staff indoctrinated to the point that they aren't in the least bit concerned of they or their family and friends die under horrific conditions..
The deterrent is more likely oh look there comes an invasion of a foreign nuclear country, shall we just surrender to possibly save all our citizens or attack and end up killing them all..
The problem with nuclear weapons is the fact that they exist and as long as they do exist there's always the chance that mankind could just stumble into a nuclear war...
By them them existing means the biggest threat is likely a terrorist group gets hold of or makes one and sets the thing off in a high population area killing half a million people and there's no real way of retaliating or knowing if it's going to happen again..
@@florinivan6907 exactly..
the Russian diplomats suddenly booking 1 way flights🛫 back to Russia.
would be the 1st indication🤔 that something big is "going on" 🤔
possibly a ""surprise"" inbound air attack ..
this is also why we have/ need
those out there..
in the ""cold""
- .... . / .-- .... .. - . / .-. .- -... -... .. -
Not if the aircraft were on ground alert. Not even close.
I don't know where you grew up, but in the America of my youth the SAC kept about 15% of the nuclear bombs they had in the air 24-7. The planes flew from US or allied bases, flew out to the Soviet Union, turned and skirted their border for a few hours, then turned back to land. They used B-52's and refueled them with tankers on the outbound and inbound legs of the flight. In addition to the 15% in the air, another 15% were on the ground on alert, 24/7. With an alert, 15% of the bombs are instantly on their way to primary and secondary targets, 15% are in the air in 8-10 mins, and the rest are going up as fast.
I think this was a motivational training film for the Strategic Air Command. Dr. Strangelove was funny but this is scary.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
that was oppenheimer pretending he had a conscience, in fact he never gave a hoot. in fact he blocked Szilards Petition urging the bombs not be used from being shown to other Project sceintists- a total fascist. the joke was on him - he was denied his security clearance on allegations that he was a commie rat.
50mins.. now it would be 6-15mins until the first hit. SSBNs of the coast could hit within 3-5.
30mins for ICBMs.
this scenario makes no mention of nuclear winter or radiation casualties.
I was on duty, in (West) Germany, on line with Ground-based air defense/surveillance radar systems during Able Archer '83; picking up/hanging up telephones and jabber-relays to command staff would have been laughable; everyone was on headsets, with data on-screen, everything was check-listed/scripted... not nearly as chaotic and noisy as depicted... still pretty adept with writing backwards....shortly thereafter, 407L was in full-swing of being mothballed.
This was made in 1956-57, headsets had not been invented yet.
I bet that was butt puckering! 😆 We came too close during Able Archer. We have come close to total nuclear war too many times. On a different note I’m not so sure the Reds would have had that many ICBMs at that time of 58-60. I remember reading after they started the U2 flights they found out they had no more than a dozen ICBMs at most. I’m glad we never found out for real…
@@lylarose2696 There are films of people using headsets in WWII.
@@RCAvhstape oh yeah you’re right. I’m was wrong thank you for correcting me.
@@lylarose2696 Radio headsets definitely before and during WW2. Not the same as modern ones of course.
Killer production! We as a human family got to the point where we made this movie. Imagine being 18 and having to watch this, or pull this crap for an exercise. No way.
Wow nuclear fallout and smoke weren’t really taken into consideration in these war games
God bless the Chair Force
Just out of curiosity, how are they supposed to surrender after you've destroyed all their government and communication centers?
Good Point. I guess you let the major radioactivity decay for a couple of years and send in Green Beret Teams to try to find somebody of authority. That might make a good scenario for a retro-post-apocalyptic movie or video game.
White flags I suppose
Assumption was that some form of government might survive or some high ranking officer who could still communicate. And they would send out a ceasefire call. It was considered unlikely that every last radio station would be taken out.
WWIII was lost when someone forgot to shovel the stairs.
Lol classic.
Imagine the B-52 crews going down hard with sprained ankles and hurt backsides.
Guys hobbling to the Planes.
This film precedes the advent of the Polaris, Strategically functional SLBM... relieving the USAF of its' monopoly... FWIW, Alaska received Statehood, 3 Feb. 1959
Wing attack plan R?!?
Funny the airforce naming their B52 bombers after a punk band.
B-52's were around long before those folks decided to form a band,the bombers were in service in 1955
Pretty optimistic. Almost unrealistically so.
At the time we really did have a great deal more nukes than the Soviets, but in the 60s-70s they caught up and passed us.
@@josephpowell7749 Maybe so, but I still don't see us getting out of the whole thing practically unscathed like in the movie.
@@Nomad416 It might actually have gone better than this. I don't think in 1958 the Soviets had enough bombers to pull off two massive waves over such a long distance as this. At best, most of those bombers would've been on one way trips. The USAF was way ahead of them on things like tanker technology and other long range tech. ICBM tech wasn't ready for prime time, either. These things are why the Soviets tried to set up a missile base in Cuba.
40 million Americans killed and 20 million injured doesn't sound very optimistic to me!
In fairness they do mention 60 million casualties 40 million of those presumed dead out of about 180 million americans at the time. There is also some dialogue implying Europe is gone for the most part. Plus in the timeline shown here its only been days. There is nothing about the postwar world.
Shit...In this timeline, I was erased from existence. Both of my future parents were among the 60 million who perished.
29:36 - Excellent rare video of the SM-62 Snark InterContinental cruise missile launch. It launched with rocket motor boosters and carried the W39 thermonuclear warhead, yield about 3.8 megatons.
Oooooh, "spasmodic" communications. I hate that kind of communication.
I love that they still were flying B-47 back then
And would be until c. 1966.
A number of the actors In this film, had appeared in old B-movie science fiction.
Larnch the bombers ... larnch then immediately
08:27 - Truer words never spoken.
Spasmodic communication- me in the 6th grade talking to girls.
Love those 1505s tan uniforms.
Khaki but yeah. 👍🏼😉
At 47:05, “The New York, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles industrial areas were completely destroyed.”
Never needed to worry while I was growing up in Pittsburgh-after about eight hours, it would all be over.
One thing I didn’t understand was the targeting of Richmond VA. Other than the headquarters of Reynolds Metals, what was there to hit? Seems like Norfolk/Newport News would have been a more profitable target (CVN-65 was being built at Newport News at the time).
Iafiv Iv The Soviets pulled out of Moscow with the Germans “at the gates” and headed about 500 miles to the east to Kuybyshev (Samara), so I guess that’s a possibility. It seems that construction on the “Bunker” at the Greenbrier resort had just begun at the time that this film was produced. Maybe that’s the meaning of the reference to “the Command Post” where the President and the JCS were riding out the attack.
Funny thing. Hearts of Iron IV has a cold war mod. I'm currently in September of 1958 and just started building the Enterprise a couple of months ago.
What surprises me is that the Soviets didn’t seem to make ANY attempt to hit DC. Was it just too fortified with anti-air back then?
@@Trainlover1995 Maybe they figured we’d be worse off with Congress left intact.
Yeah I don’t get Richmond either other than maybe a bigger population center to destroy. If the commies where to nuke anywhere in Virginia in the 1950’s it would have been Radford in SW VA. It was a big ammunition production plant and also made the fuel for the ICBMs and other nuclear missiles. I live in Dublin just 15 minutes away from the Radford plant and right below the storage plant in Dublin. My grandparents would have been vaporized; many of the bombs back then where 25 megatons. The Soviets tested a 50 megaton bomb in the early ‘60s, it was configured to be a 100 megaton bomb but the Soviet scientists begged for it to be half the yield because of the shear damage and fallout a 100 megaton bomb would create. Even at the 50 megaton configuration the plane that dropped it was almost destroyed by the fireball !!!
So that Canadian Interceptor didn't down any of the bombers.
Too busy eating Poutine and washing it down with some Molson, I guess.
@@josephpowell7749 Too busy treating truckers like terrorists for protesting.
All that and not a sheared away teleflex drive cable anywhere.
Word...
They were able to “fire the explosive bolts!”
Actually Teleflex drives are a real thing in aviation and marine usage. Today Teleflex Inc. is a medical device company and the teleflex drives were spun off to other companies.
Snake Pliskin for President.
“The name’s Plissken.”
or Kurt Russell, anyway. Great flick, even Escape fr New York seems better than now.
When we took our National security seriously...
And the “victory” would be over what? A wasteland, a corpse of a world
The military is tasked with winning. Its the politicians who determine if the 'victory' was worth it.
If you're not willing to burn the world down, then the world will burn down anyway. That's how MAD works.
@3:59 ....I wonder why they call it that
@Natural Healing Methods legend has it they called the glowing things on the ceiling the lights too.
LOL! Stanley Kubrick's research for "Dr. Strangelove" is the stuff of legend. He read every public sector book and article on SAC he could find. The unofficial nickname for the displays at SAC Hq was known to the public, just not any details on what it looked like. SAC was envious of the sophisticated "Big Board" in Dr. Strangelove because the real Big Board as depicted in this film remained in that form until the early 1980s.
17:09
Greetings Highlander, there can be only one.
The heavens declare the glory of the Bomb, and the firmament showeth Its handiwork. Glory be to the Bomb, and to the Holy Fallout. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. May the Blessings of the Bomb Almighty, and the Fellowship of the Holy Fallout, descend upon us all. This day and forever more. Amen.
Planet O' the Apes 2, I think, "Beneath". My favorite, good ol' Victor Bueno.
“Almighty Bomb, that destroyed all Devils, and created Angels!!!”
I reveal my inmost self unto my god!
Curious that at 22:02, the first report of a Soviet missile strike was 10 miles SE of Lockbourne AFB (later Rickenbacker AFB/ANGB) southeast of Columbus Ohio. There should have been a B-52 wing based there in the late 50s, but you’d think the Sovs would first get in a shot at Loring AFB outside Limestone Maine, as it was the domestic SAC base closest to Soviet territory.
It seems like the Soviet missile attacks depicted here are kind of random and not very numerous. At the time in 1957 when this was filmed ICBMs were very new and not very accurate, so they're being optimistic here. The main weapon delivery system for both sides was still aircraft.
It's possible the Soviet missile attack vs. Loring AFB simply malfunctioned, or their sub was destroyed, or they had a command and control issue that led to their sub not being able to attack on time - just some ideas
While the public was kept in fear of Soviet missiles, the top secret assessment of the USAF was that in case of war most of the Soviet missiles wouldn't work. They'd immediately blow up on ignition or shortly after liftoff. We assessed that the Soviets kept them operational in silos to suck off our attacks and allow more of their functional missiles to survive. Their guidance systems, especially in the 1950s was abysmal.
@@kevinhammond2361 The only operational sub based missiles used by both sides at this time were cruise missiles that had to be launched from surfaced submarines.
@@doncarlton4858 Our Regulus vs. the Soviet “Reguluski”?
this guy reminds me of my 4th grade teacher, except she had a ruler in her hand whereas this guy has only attitude
Ugly bags of mostly water, yer crazy!
Zappa 750 i love star trek quotes.......trek on
FAA Inspector i cant believe u got it, u win a tribble. : )
@@faainspector6353 Do not take that tribble unless you intend to consume it. And for the love of everything don't store them in the maintenance hatches!
I can only guess since this was once classified that these were actual soldiers. Good Lord, they sound like a million bucks.
Sounds like "SAC"early years...notice at the beginning it said"Declassified",your only going to hear and see what's "declassified.
I'M very familer
Nothing about what happens afterwards ???
I wonder what "central part of the United States" he was talking about at the beginning? Was Cheyenne Mountain built yet?
Yeah, pretty sure it was still Omaha then.
Most likely Offutt AFB in Nebraska. Even when Cheyenne was online, a lot of SAC command stayed there.
Cheyenne Mountain wasn't in operation in 1958, and in any case NORAD is primarily involved with air defense, not strategic offense. That would have been at Offutt.
@@baraxor thanks for this reply. I though maybe this was Omaha of something but knew folks with more knowledge than me might know. Great reply.
I'd like to show this vid to a social studies class full of snowflakes.
And what would happen, do you think? Because I probably am a snowflake to you and would really like to know.
@@PigletCNC I dunno, pal. You tell me!
It’s 2019 🤷♂️
@@christophernicholls4893 No it's not, it's 2021.
@@PigletCNC Who doesn't love comfort puppies?
Look we won what's left
This almost sickens me. At least in the 80s with Threads or the Day After, regular people and the hell they would have to go through was accounted for. Not here.
That wasn't the purpose of the film. Next you'll be complaining that your AR-15 didn't come with a manual depicting lots of ghastly wounds. :p
Spasmodic!!!
Can someone please now play the Song „I don‘t want to set the World on Fire.“? I relax with a Nuka Cola :-)
Pffftt.... analog
America 1 russia 0
In reality it would have been USA -1 USSR -1. WWIII is not winnable. If the bombs did not get you the fallout might. Then years of Ice Age conditions across the globe in nuclear winter would pretty much wipe out all humans, because even if we could survive the radiation and cold, we could not grow crops or raise livestock etc.
Yeah, if you're making a "If they start a war, here is what would happen!" film, you're already in trouble (especially after the 2.5 hour window to gey your bombers out of the way of an attack gets cut to 30 minutes and your air defense system is rendered pointless)
Nuclear war would be horrible, devastating, and certainly Not A Good Thing. But it's naive to assume it isn't winnable or that if, God forbid, it should happen, we shouldn't plan to come out in front.
Nuclear war isn't winnable, and there's no way to come out in front. The collateral environmental damage from the detonation of the number of warheads involved in a full exchange would essentially destroy agriculture, and of course modern civilisation would be extinguished. There would be no outside world to aid in rebuilding. Those who did survive the initial bombardment and heavy radiation fallout period would emerge from their bunkers to die slowly from starvation or any of the numerous pandemic diseases that would rage unchecked due to there no longer being a health care infrastructure of any kind. The Office of Naval Intelligence knew this as far back as 1958, about the time this movie was made, calculating upon the basis of the then-existing arsenals of the two superpowers. The "winner" of the war could not escape the consequences of the war, which makes concepts like victory or defeat in a nuclear context utterly meaningless.
Aquila Rossa “Former Soviet intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov claimed that, under the directions of Yuri Andropov, the KGB invented the concept of "nuclear winter" in order to stop the deployment of NATO Pershing II missiles. They are said to have distributed to peace groups, the environmental movement and the journal Ambio disinformation based on a faked "doomsday report" by the Soviet Academy of Sciences by Georgii Golitsyn, Nikita Moiseyev and Vladimir Alexandrov concerning the climatic effects of nuclear war.”
I would think Omaha,NE
I don't think this video was made for US military use. I think it was to show the russians we have are shit together.
🤣
No this was for our citizens to feel comfortable, thinking we had our shtt together (hence why its all BS and dumbed down)
We had far more advanced and complex strategy than splitting the globe into 3, with just 1 officer looking after a third of the world lol
@@KazenoniKakuremi Both wrong, it was made for SAC personnel, not for Soviets or civilians.
The best info I have was that the USAF produced this film to be shown to Congress in Executive Session as an attempt to get Congress to appropriate more money for additional B-52 construction.
Of course this is a fictionalized pic
Quackmire....😂
Giggity!
This movie needs a more diverse cast.
@Iafiv Iv Go fuck yourself, you and your draft dodging racist President Trump.
David was just being sarcastic, and amazingly predictive for 1 year ago. A "more diverse cast" would be exactly what movie makers today would say, even if it would be historically inaccurate.
@@kennethmartin1300 Lol, they'd make Curtis LeMay female!
@@josephpowell7749 With a haircut and dye job, Hillary could make a convincing Le May. 🤔
lol smoking used to be so cool,did tobacco companies pay for this
James Deco No, but their customers sure did. 🤒😷🤕
Nah they got paid to stock fallout shelters with anxiety control...
If you are old enough to remember before about the late 80s, literally everyone smoked.
Get a load of the old tan colored uniforms
Hmnn
🤣 this is laughably stupid!
Clearly created for civilian consumption, to make them feel comfortable, thinking we had our shtt together (hence why its all BS and dumbed down)
We had far more advanced and complex strategy than splitting the globe into 3, with just 1 officer looking after a third of the world lol
And one commander receiving phone calls and using two phones at one time, necking the one on hold 🤣🤣🤣
You're completely wrong. This was obviously a training film intended to introduce officers into the strategic air command and general military culture; you can see this introduction and the fact that it has been declassified. it would never have been classified if it had been intended as a civilian propaganda.
Rather, this was SAC talking to its newly assigned personnel. You've got to stop believing the willfully ignorant misconcepcions produced by Hollywood.
Remember that all of this being shown is the Strategic Air Command as it was in 1958. If you research that organization at that time, you will find it was a very centralized organization, very much under the sway of Curtis LeMay and his successors. The character of general Larson seems to be based on them.
@@TheJKCrawford Larson wasn't a character. He was real. All of the officers depicted were real people. They're dead now, of course, from old age!
As a retired USAF officer I can say this was pretty realistic for the time. Remember its 1958. The three areas were CONUS, (North America) PACAF (Pacific Air Forces) and USAFE (European Air Forces). The best info I have on this is it was a film produced to show to Congress in Executive Session to ask for more money for SAC and B-52 production. This may be why some of the jargon was simplified for a non-military audience.
yikes... hokey