The specter of nuclear war is haunting Europe these days with increasing tension between Russia and the NATO regarding the war in Ukraine. Putin has launched a hypersonic ballistic missile (but without a nuclear payload) and threatens to attack a US base in Poland “with advanced weapons.” This after Washington authorized kyiv to launch its long-range missiles over Russian territory.
The context is worrying and reminds us of the worst scenarios of the cold warthe political, economic, ideological and military confrontation that took place after the Second World War between USA and the Soviet Union. Historians consider that the The most tense stage occurred between 1979 and 1989.this last year of the fall of the wall of Berlinwhich announced the end of the USSR.
Those were the Ronald Reagan years. In 1980, he won the election with a promise to increase military spending and confront the Soviets anywhere in the world. The former Hollywood actor called the USSR the “Evil Empire” and assured that communism would end up in “the ash heap of History.”
With Reagan in the White House and Yuri Andropov as Soviet head of state, on November 8, 1983, the feared nuclear war was about to break out. He episode, known as the “War Scare 1983” (the war scare), almost caused a real confrontation between the US and the USSR, between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which would have been nuclear and with terrible consequences.
The day nuclear war almost broke out
Documents released in 2021 by the History Office of the US State Department showed evidence that the “War Scare 1983” came very close to unleashing a true nuclear conflict, closer than previously thought. US-USSR relations were deteriorating and even more so after Washington deployed the new Pershing II nuclear missiles on European soil.
In this context, in November 1983, NATO carried out a military exercise, Able Archer, which culminated in several nuclear launches. They were maneuvers, but so realistic that the Soviets believed they were a real threat of war. Between that and the Pershing IIs, the USSR put its nuclear forces and the air units of Poland and the German Democratic Republic on alert. The danger was real, but the threat of nuclear war ended with the conclusion of exercise Able Archer.
A nuclear holocaust with effects of 1983
Only a few days later a film was broadcast in the US on television (that’s how it was released) that told it in detail. Because the fear of nuclear conflict was real and omnipresent. The film was titled The Day After (‘The day after’).
Directed by Nicholas Meyer, starring Jason Robards and John Lithgow, JoBeth Williams and Steve Guttenberg, the film premiered on the network ABC on November 20, 1983. The film tells in 122 minutes how a war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact rapidly escalates until it ends in a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR.
The film narrates the devastating effects of a nuclear holocaust. The action of The day after focused on residents of Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, as well as several family farms located next to the missile silos American nuclear weapons.
“Its inhabitants led a normal life, many of them oblivious to the growing tension between the Soviet Union and the United States over a conflict in Berlin. But when war breaks out, Lawrence’s proximity to an American nuclear missile base will sign the death sentence to the majority of its inhabitants“. So Filmaffinity summary the content of a film that left viewers around the world impressed.
Nuclear disaster in cartoons
Quite a few movies have been made about the terrible consequences of nuclear war. In addition to The Day After, another of the best known is the British ‘When the Wind Blows’. It is an animated film based on a graphic novel by Raymond Briggs. Directed by Jimmy Murakami, released in 1986, the protagonist couple is based on their own parents. The film is a hybrid between cartoons and stop motion technique: the characters are drawn, but their home and most of the objects are real. The ‘When the Wind Blows’ soundtrack includes music by Roger Waters and David Bowie, who performed the credits song.
Reagan saw the movie before
The audience of The day after That November 20th was a record: more than 100 million viewers. The media covered it for days. Newsweek He dedicated his cover to him with the title Television nuclear nightmare.
The Day After received 12 Emmy nominations and won two. In Spain it premiered in September 1984.. They say that it was in a cinema in Madrid and that it was full of politicians.
Reagan saw the film in October 1983, a month before its release. In his diary he wrote: “The film is very effective and left me very depressed.” What’s more, the then president of the United States assures that The day after It changed his mind about the prevailing policy regarding a “nuclear war.”
The effect of the film on reality
In his memoirs, Reagan drew a direct relationship between the film and the signing, in 1987, of the Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forceswhich on the Soviet side was endorsed by the then prime minister, Mikhail Gorbachev. The film was also screened for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It is said that the American president later sent a telegram to the film’s director, Nicholas Meyer. “Don’t think that your film had nothing to do with it, because it did,” the text said. In 2010, in an interview, Meyer said that the telegram was a myth. There is another apocryphal story that claims that, after seeing the nuclear apocalypse on film, Reagan said, “That won’t happen on my watch.”
Before the fade to black that gives way to the final credits of The day aftera character (the professor played by John Lithgow) is heard asking: “Hello? Is there anyone there…anyone, alive?” Beyond, nuclear winter begins. But the viewer no longer sees that; He senses it, which is even worse.
At that moment the ABC added an explanatory sign that the more than 100 million spectators read, still frozen: “The catastrophic events you have just witnessed are, in all probability, less devastating than the destruction that would occur in the event of an all-out nuclear attack on the United States.”