Newsreel and archive footage covering the post nuclear age from 1945 to 1960 and how Americans coped with it. The documentary start with the first atomic explosion on July 16, 1945 in the desert outside Alamogordo New Mexico that ushered in the atomic age. It was within less then a month that the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki thus ending the Second World War and hopefully war itself in just how destructive those weapons of mass destruction are. That was soon to end with the US monopoly in being the only nation with nuclear weapons broken in the summer of 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated an atomic device in the wilds of Soviet Siberia. It was then that it became obvious that a major spy network in the US and UK were involved in stealing the secret of the atomic bomb and handing it over to the Russians.
The documentary "The Atomic Cafe" goes into detail in how the Cold War with the Soviet Union developed with the paranoia of a Soviet nuclear attack on America causing many Armeicans to build fallout shelters as well as stock up with cans and dry food as well as water in order to be able to survive a major nuclear attack. In fact the only Americans who suffered from the tragic results of an atomic bomb explosion were the tens if not hundreds of thousands of American servicemen who were used as guinea pigs in the dozens of unclear tests conducted by the US Government from 1951 to 1957 in the Western United States desert who came down with radiation sickness that ended up killing, from cancer, ten of thousands of them! That's about as much losses suffered by the US Military in both the Korean and Vietnam wars!
We get to see how the American people were programed through newsreel US military and US Government educational or propaganda films in how to survive a nuclear attack in the, among many, silly cartoon of "Burt the Turtle" telling us telling us that the best way to survive a nuclear attack is to just to "Duck & Cover" just before the bomb explodes. Later were told in a government documentary that if a 20 megaton nuclear weapon explodes on a major US City it would wipe out every living thing, human animal and plant life, within a 12 to 15 mile radius of ground zero. So much for "Burt the Turtle's" excellent and well thought out advice of ducking and covering in the event that a hydrogen bomb explodes practically on top of our heads!
The film has a number of historic event that took place between that time in American History notably the arrest conviction and execution the the infamous Rosenbergs, Julius & Ethel, who gave the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. As well as Senator Joe McCarthy who's wild and unsubstantiated accusations of Communists in the US State Department helped the real Communists, who were anything but visible in what they were doing, from being either hurt or exposed them.
The documentary ended on a light note with the famous Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's "Kitchen Debate" that almost came across like the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" comedy routine! It looked like Khruhchev seemed to get the best of Nixon by showing how misinformed he was on the theories and virtues of Communism and which is why it would end up being the economic system that would triumph in the end. As history later proved Nixon turned out to be right with Communism in the Soviet Union ceasing to exist in a scant 30 or so years into the future. But by then Nikita Khrushchev wasn't around to see it!
The documentary "The Atomic Cafe" goes into detail in how the Cold War with the Soviet Union developed with the paranoia of a Soviet nuclear attack on America causing many Armeicans to build fallout shelters as well as stock up with cans and dry food as well as water in order to be able to survive a major nuclear attack. In fact the only Americans who suffered from the tragic results of an atomic bomb explosion were the tens if not hundreds of thousands of American servicemen who were used as guinea pigs in the dozens of unclear tests conducted by the US Government from 1951 to 1957 in the Western United States desert who came down with radiation sickness that ended up killing, from cancer, ten of thousands of them! That's about as much losses suffered by the US Military in both the Korean and Vietnam wars!
We get to see how the American people were programed through newsreel US military and US Government educational or propaganda films in how to survive a nuclear attack in the, among many, silly cartoon of "Burt the Turtle" telling us telling us that the best way to survive a nuclear attack is to just to "Duck & Cover" just before the bomb explodes. Later were told in a government documentary that if a 20 megaton nuclear weapon explodes on a major US City it would wipe out every living thing, human animal and plant life, within a 12 to 15 mile radius of ground zero. So much for "Burt the Turtle's" excellent and well thought out advice of ducking and covering in the event that a hydrogen bomb explodes practically on top of our heads!
The film has a number of historic event that took place between that time in American History notably the arrest conviction and execution the the infamous Rosenbergs, Julius & Ethel, who gave the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. As well as Senator Joe McCarthy who's wild and unsubstantiated accusations of Communists in the US State Department helped the real Communists, who were anything but visible in what they were doing, from being either hurt or exposed them.
The documentary ended on a light note with the famous Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's "Kitchen Debate" that almost came across like the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" comedy routine! It looked like Khruhchev seemed to get the best of Nixon by showing how misinformed he was on the theories and virtues of Communism and which is why it would end up being the economic system that would triumph in the end. As history later proved Nixon turned out to be right with Communism in the Soviet Union ceasing to exist in a scant 30 or so years into the future. But by then Nikita Khrushchev wasn't around to see it!