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00:00:10in the beginning of weapon history there was the word and very little more
00:00:19then progress set in through the centuries man has increased the effective range and efficiency
00:00:25of his weapons as rapidly as his science would permit
00:01:02we need nuclear weapons because having them makes peace more secure
00:01:10it is time for us to start a build up a rebuilding of the military might of america
00:01:38and it is time for us to build that to the point that no other nation on this earth will
00:01:43ever dare
00:01:43raise a hand against us and in this way we will preserve world peace and we're the only ones who
00:01:49can do it on august the 7th 1945 president truman announced the atomic bombing of hiroshima with
00:01:57these words the experiment he said has been an overwhelming success three days later the
00:02:06destruction of nagasaki was officially described as having achieved good results these announcements
00:02:13and especially the words used experiment success good results to describe the unique and horrific
00:02:21carnage of nuclear war were the first public examples of a new kind of propaganda by using
00:02:28reassuring even soothing language language which allowed both the politicians and us to distance
00:02:36ourselves from the horror of nuclear war this new kind of propaganda created acceptable images of war
00:02:45and the illusion that we could live securely with nuclear weapons even those first two bombs on japan
00:02:52had nice comic book names little boy and fat man and soon bombs were no longer bombs at all but
00:03:01devices
00:03:02and hardware with names like mule and sow and little bambi bigger and more lethal weapons were called modernized systems
00:03:14above all we were conditioned to accept a so-called strategy for possessing nuclear weapons called
00:03:22deterrence which no one could explain rationally and which blurred the fact that a massive nuclear arms race
00:03:28was well underway for 15 years of this arms race up to 1980 the british parliament did not once debate
00:03:38nuclear
00:03:39nuclear weapons such was a secrecy aimed not so much at a potential enemy but at the british people
00:03:47it was all very simple our side was simply the good guys of the west and the other side were
00:03:53the bad guys
00:03:54a dark threat seldom portrayed in human terms surely what has been overlooked is that we are a democracy
00:04:03unlike the soviet union and that in a democracy secrecy and propaganda ought not to control how we
00:04:11think especially in matters of national survival and that principle is assumed throughout this documentary
00:04:20today for many of us the unthinkable nuclear war has become the thinkable although we may not be
00:04:28aware that we have been led across this threshold today we are guided by new reassuring words like theater
00:04:36nuclear war and limited nuclear war that is a nuclear war limited to europe a nuclear war in which victory
00:04:46is possible but victory is possible but victory for whom the good guys or the bad guys
00:04:59today in nuclear weapons there is the equivalent of four tons of tnt for every human being
00:05:06enough to wipe us out 30 times or is it 50 times the official truth or propaganda
00:05:13is that the deterrence of this nuclear arsenal has given us a generation of peace the unofficial truth
00:05:20is that a total of 36 countries now either have the bomb or the capacity to build it
00:05:26and that nuclear war between the superpowers has never been closer
00:05:38the nuclear arms race began with the war against germany in 1939 the physicist albert einstein urged
00:05:46president roosevelt to speed up uranium research because he feared a german atomic bomb
00:05:52under j robert oppenheimer scientists were assembled at los alamos in new mexico
00:05:57their assignment to build an atomic bomb this was the manhattan project by 1944 special allied agents
00:06:07codenamed alsos had proved beyond doubt that germany did not possess an atomic bomb
00:06:13this vital information was classified top secret it meant in effect there was no longer a need to build
00:06:20the bomb but the military head of the manhattan project general leslie groves was obsessed by one
00:06:26consuming fear that the war would be over before his bomb was ready even after germany surrendered groves said
00:06:34we must not lose a single day for they were still japan
00:06:40a rebellion broke out among leading scientists einstein and leo zillard sent a petition to the white house
00:06:47pleading for the bomb not to be used but this was still on roosevelt's desk when he died in april
00:06:521945
00:06:57the distortion of language thought and culture was now well underway
00:07:01the word bomb was not used officially it was a gadget and the first explosion was to be called a
00:07:07trinity
00:07:08and if this bomb was successful it would be called a boy and if it failed a girl partly to
00:07:16cover up the
00:07:16growing descent from einstein zillard and others which might have stopped the atomic age oppenheimer
00:07:22and his inner circle on the manhattan project were asked to become propagandists in this remarkable
00:07:28propaganda film they act out the last minutes before the first test explosion the automatic controls
00:07:36got it now rob this time the stakes are really high it's going to work all right robert and i'm
00:07:43sure
00:07:43will never be sorry for us incredibly dance band music was played and an official report rushed to
00:08:00president truman said the explosion had a beauty that cannot be described the beauty great poets dream
00:08:07about 21 days later a plane called the enola gay took off for hiroshima in spite of the fact that
00:08:15the
00:08:15americans had broken the japanese code and knew the war was all but over military intelligence director
00:08:21alfred mccormack said later we were secretly mining their harbors we had command of their skies but still the
00:08:29bomb was dropped
00:09:01Daily Express correspondent Wilfred Burchard was the first Western journalist to reach Hiroshima
00:09:07after 80,000 people had died in the first nuclear fire.
00:09:11First of all, I'd seen plenty of bombed cities during World War II, but this was a very eerie thing.
00:09:17At first I thought there was nothing left at all.
00:09:20It just seemed as if, I think as I expressed it in the story I wrote at the time,
00:09:25as if it had been a city steamrolled out of existence.
00:09:31There was not rubble in the normal sense of the term, there was dust that had been pulverised.
00:09:37The city was red dust where there had been brick, there was grey dust where there had been concrete.
00:09:43It seemed to me that there couldn't possibly have been any survivors at all,
00:09:48because all of it was great waste.
00:09:57People were, they were really dazed.
00:10:00Nobody stopped to speak to anybody else.
00:10:03They were human beings, but you felt that somehow or other they'd become dehumanised human beings.
00:10:07They were sort of robots.
00:10:10Occasionally people were, people were scratching away with their hands in ruins
00:10:15to try to find some bits of family possessions.
00:10:18Burchard was on his own, while other reporters were being closely shepherded by public relations officers.
00:10:25Victims were carefully avoided.
00:10:27Hospitals were off limits.
00:10:29A bunch of correspondents arrived.
00:10:32They were Washington correspondents who were flown out and were assured they would be the first ones to visit Hiroshima.
00:10:39And I met this group, and the public relations officer in charge of them were furious to find that there
00:10:45was a correspondent already wandering around.
00:10:47And he actually held a sort of a press conference, a press briefing for his colleagues in Hiroshima, at the
00:10:57prefecture.
00:10:59And he dwelt exclusively on the great success of the bomb, the great power of the bomb, dealt with the
00:11:07physical effects of the bomb,
00:11:09but none of those correspondents visited the hospital.
00:11:14None of them, they were not interested, I mean, they were briefed not to be interested in what actually happened
00:11:22to the victim.
00:11:23So the question of atomic, of radiation, radiation sickness was absolutely suppressed.
00:11:31It is not surprising that Burchard's story was publicly denied.
00:11:35For three times as many people died in the five-year period after the bomb fell on Hiroshima,
00:11:40then on the day of the explosion, most of them from the effects of radiation.
00:11:48What we in the West got used to seeing was physical damage in Hiroshima.
00:11:52Even film of what really happened to the victims was suppressed.
00:11:57The film on the right of the screen represents what we mostly saw on newsreel and television right up to
00:12:031968.
00:12:04This film was shot by Japanese cameramen in the only hospitals operating.
00:12:10The Japanese film was confiscated and shipped to Washington,
00:12:14where it was classified secret and not released for 23 years.
00:12:22The deputy head of the hospital, Dr. Katsube, explained to me,
00:12:27we don't know what we're dealing with.
00:12:29People come in, the symptoms are standard symptoms of dizziness,
00:12:34loss of appetite, hemorrhage, internal hemorrhage, diarrhoea,
00:12:37and then later there are spots and there are the final stage before death
00:12:43is the hair falling out and bleeding from the nose, from the mouth.
00:12:48The symptoms are similar to that of acute vitamin deficiency.
00:12:53Whatever we had available, we started giving vitamin injections.
00:12:56But where we put the needle then, then the flesh rotted.
00:13:04The first target in Japan decided a secret Manhattan Project Committee
00:13:08should be one that has escaped earlier bombardments
00:13:12so that the effect of a single atomic bomb can be ascertained.
00:13:17Official truth?
00:13:18The bomb was dropped to end the war.
00:13:21Unofficial truth?
00:13:22It was an experiment.
00:13:26In Tokyo, the military held a press conference
00:13:29to deny Birchard's story about the new dangers of radiation.
00:13:35The officer giving the press conference
00:13:37was Brigadier General Thomas Farrell,
00:13:39who was Deputy Director to General Groves,
00:13:42who was in charge of the Manhattan Project.
00:13:44And he was denying flatly
00:13:46that there was any such thing as atomic radiation,
00:13:50that people were suffering from this.
00:13:51He conceded that there may be...
00:13:53The people that are dead there,
00:13:55they have died through bomb and through blast effects.
00:13:58He said,
00:13:59there may be a few who suffered from radiation
00:14:02from the gamma rays released at the time of the explosion.
00:14:06That's normal.
00:14:06There are no residual radiation effects.
00:14:09There can be no residual radiation effects.
00:14:12The bomb was exploded at swish and hide to avoid that.
00:14:15I assuredly what I'd seen in the hospitals
00:14:17and what they'd told me in the hospitals,
00:14:19the people who had not even been in Hiroshima
00:14:21were dead and were dying.
00:14:24In the end,
00:14:25all I can assume is you've fallen victim to Japanese propaganda.
00:14:30In fact, for all of Japan,
00:14:32the rate of leukaemia suddenly increased by 50%
00:14:35and stayed at that level until the 1950s,
00:14:38although this was not reported at the time.
00:14:41The official truth was quite different
00:14:44and even as propaganda was extraordinary.
00:14:47Here, in the New York Times,
00:14:49the War Department denies categorically
00:14:52that the bomb produced dangerous radioactivity.
00:15:11Today, in Japan, they are still dying.
00:15:14This is the atomic bomb hospital in Hiroshima
00:15:17where last year, as every year,
00:15:19more than a thousand people died from cancers
00:15:21resulting from that one bomb.
00:15:23In 1945, the unthinkable was acted upon.
00:15:28As a result,
00:15:29perhaps half a million Asians have died
00:15:31often slow and terrible deaths.
00:15:34What is truly unthinkable
00:15:36is that it now might happen to us.
00:15:46This was America after the Second World War,
00:15:49victorious and rich and untouched by war.
00:15:53This was Russia at the same time,
00:15:55victorious and utterly devastated.
00:15:58In 1946, former Vice President Henry Wallace
00:16:01revealed that he had warned President Roosevelt
00:16:04that the U.S. military were planning what he called
00:16:07a preventative atomic strike against the Soviet Union.
00:16:11In 1949, a Russian bomb was exploded
00:16:15and arms technology soon dominated
00:16:17both American and Soviet economies.
00:16:23In America today, the military-industrial complex
00:16:27helps to keep alive some 22,000 major corporations.
00:16:32New weapons mean an endless cycle of competition and profit.
00:16:37In the Soviet Union,
00:16:39the military is the most modern and national
00:16:42and respected of all institutions
00:16:44to which much of the nation's resources are mortgaged.
00:16:49In both countries, nuclear weapons like space technology
00:16:53are linked in the public mind
00:16:55with national prestige and progress.
00:17:01Over here on the floor is a Poseidon missile.
00:17:04That one happens to come from the James Madison.
00:17:07And this one is going to be replaced by the new Trident
00:17:10that's just being built.
00:17:11They have a much longer range than the Poseidon over here.
00:17:17They will have a range of about 4,000 miles, I think.
00:17:20Now, if you will come over here,
00:17:21I will show you how we launched the men to the moon.
00:17:25This process of conditioning us to accept nuclear weapons
00:17:28and a nuclear arms race
00:17:30really got underway with a lie called the Missile Gap.
00:17:35The Missile Gap dominated headlines in the late 50s and 60s,
00:17:40especially following the launch of the Russian Sputnik,
00:17:43the first satellite into space in October 1957.
00:17:48An hysteria swept over the three American services.
00:17:52Sputnik, they said,
00:17:54proved that the Russians were ahead in missile technology.
00:17:58But this was not true.
00:18:00Indeed, the very notion of a missile gap was ridiculous,
00:18:03as every American scientist working on missiles now concedes.
00:18:07Dr. Herbert York, one of the most distinguished and key figures
00:18:12in the early development of nuclear weapons,
00:18:14wrote this in his book Race to Oblivion.
00:18:17By 1955, the principal inter-service battle
00:18:22had become a power struggle
00:18:24over who would get the juiciest and sexiest roles
00:18:27and missions in long-range missiles.
00:18:29When Sputnik went up,
00:18:32each of the services hoped to take advantage
00:18:34of the public confusion and consternation over Sputnik.
00:18:39Sputnik did not really represent
00:18:41a big technological lead on the part of the Soviets.
00:18:44The two programs at the fundamental level,
00:18:46that is, the American Missile Program,
00:18:48Missile and Space Program,
00:18:49the Soviet Missile and Space Program,
00:18:51were rather evenly balanced.
00:18:53In fact, the American program was bigger
00:18:55and somewhat ahead in terms of a technological base.
00:18:58But the Russians put up the first satellite
00:19:01and so for the man in the street,
00:19:03that was what counted
00:19:04and not more detailed questions
00:19:06about how the two technological bases compared.
00:19:11As a result,
00:19:13an unprecedented missile building program
00:19:15began in the United States.
00:19:18This arms race was fueled by intelligence reports
00:19:21which credited the Russians
00:19:23with all kinds of technological wonders,
00:19:26including an elusive atomic-powered bomber.
00:19:30Again, to quote Dr. York,
00:19:32today it is quite obvious
00:19:34that no such nuclear aircraft
00:19:37ever existed in the Soviet Union
00:19:39and that stories to that effect
00:19:41were simply one more very clear attempt
00:19:44to generate what may be called
00:19:46self-serving intelligence.
00:19:50Admiral Gene LaRock, United States Navy,
00:19:53was number two at Strategic Plans Division
00:19:55in the Pentagon.
00:19:56That means he was a senior nuclear strategist.
00:19:59Before that, he was admiral commanding
00:20:01the Mediterranean Nuclear Task Group.
00:20:04We have been three to five years ahead
00:20:06of the Soviet Union
00:20:08in the development
00:20:09of every strategic weapons system
00:20:11that has come down the pike
00:20:13since we developed and exploded
00:20:15the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
00:20:18the hydrogen bomb.
00:20:20We deployed our ICBMs first.
00:20:22We had the first jet aircraft
00:20:24to carry the bombs to the Soviet Union,
00:20:26the first nuclear-powered submarines,
00:20:29the first solid-propellant missiles
00:20:33in our submarines.
00:20:34We went to MIRV ten years
00:20:36before the Soviets came up
00:20:39with their multiple independent re-entry vehicles.
00:20:41When you say that the United States
00:20:43is three to five years ahead,
00:20:46that flies in the face of everything
00:20:47that we've heard
00:20:48from the White House,
00:20:50from Whitehall,
00:20:51everything our governments tell us.
00:20:53Well, you just have to look at the facts, John.
00:20:56We have more strategic nuclear weapons
00:20:58than the Soviets have.
00:20:59We have 9,200 today.
00:21:01The Soviets, at the highest estimate
00:21:03by our government,
00:21:04is 7,000 strategic nuclear weapons.
00:21:07We have a bomber force
00:21:09of about 400 strategic bombers.
00:21:11All of them very fast,
00:21:14jet-propelled aircraft,
00:21:16the F-111s and the B-52s.
00:21:19The Soviets have only 140 strategic bombers.
00:21:23And of that,
00:21:25100 are still old propeller planes.
00:21:28We have most of our nuclear weapons
00:21:31at sea, where they're secure.
00:21:33We have 5,000 nuclear weapons
00:21:35in our submarines.
00:21:36And we keep 3,000 nuclear weapons
00:21:38off the Soviet Union,
00:21:40day in and day out.
00:21:41And have done so for 20 years.
00:21:43The Soviets, on the other hand,
00:21:45have only 1,000 nuclear weapons
00:21:47in all of their submarines.
00:21:49And they keep 200 nuclear weapons
00:21:51off of the U.S. coast.
00:21:53By every criterion that you can think of,
00:21:55the United States is ahead today
00:21:58in absolute terms.
00:21:59And we are building in such a way
00:22:01that we are going to stay ahead,
00:22:03no matter what the Soviets do.
00:22:07Professor Lawrence Friedman
00:22:09is head of war studies
00:22:10at King's College London
00:22:12and formally with the Royal Institute
00:22:14of International Affairs.
00:22:16I think most people would accept
00:22:19that in quantity of military power,
00:22:21whether one's talking about
00:22:22conventional or nuclear forces,
00:22:24the Soviet Union has more numbers.
00:22:27It has 1,400 ICBMs
00:22:32to the American 1,000
00:22:34with multiple warheads.
00:22:36The Americans may have more warheads
00:22:37at the moment,
00:22:38but they're losing that lead too.
00:22:41So I don't think the argument is quantity.
00:22:43Quality is relevant.
00:22:45The United States certainly
00:22:46has been the pace-setter
00:22:48in some ways on quality.
00:22:50But even then,
00:22:51I think the qualitative differences
00:22:53are not as great as they once were.
00:22:57The Soviet Union has,
00:22:58with enormous effort,
00:22:59caught up,
00:23:00and is very proud of doing so.
00:23:04For impartial analysis,
00:23:06the Stockholm International
00:23:07Peace Research Institute
00:23:08enjoys a rare reputation
00:23:10its 1982 report
00:23:12says that America
00:23:14is up to five years ahead
00:23:16of Russia.
00:23:18We believe in the Russian army.
00:23:22We believe in the skill
00:23:24of the Russian generals.
00:23:26Birmingham,
00:23:26where in the shadow
00:23:27of the Queen Victoria statue
00:23:28and beneath the red flag,
00:23:30a vast crowd listens
00:23:31to a fighting speech
00:23:32speech by Lord Beaverbrook.
00:23:34And we believe in Stalin's leadership.
00:23:37Yes!
00:23:39In Stalin's leadership.
00:23:41I'm very, very glad to have met you.
00:23:44Very glad indeed.
00:23:47Official truth or propaganda
00:23:50often depends on the image
00:23:52of a people
00:23:52whom our government
00:23:53wants us to regard
00:23:54as an enemy
00:23:56in order to justify
00:23:57its own foreign policies.
00:23:59As Lord Beaverbrook,
00:24:00wartime cabinet minister
00:24:02under Churchill,
00:24:02made clear,
00:24:04the Russians then
00:24:05were good Russians.
00:24:07Now take, for example,
00:24:08the Germans.
00:24:09These were bad Germans.
00:24:11Although they were
00:24:12the same people
00:24:13as Willy Brandt's
00:24:14good West Germans
00:24:16who live next
00:24:17to their communist countrymen
00:24:18in the East
00:24:19who are, officially,
00:24:21bad Germans.
00:24:22All this may sound ridiculous,
00:24:24and it is.
00:24:25But conditioning us
00:24:26to fear and mistrust
00:24:28an entire nation
00:24:29of human beings
00:24:30is vital
00:24:31if we are to regard them
00:24:33as a threat.
00:24:34Remember the bad Chinese.
00:24:36The Red Guards,
00:24:37the Yellow Peril,
00:24:38weren't they then
00:24:39the embodiment
00:24:40of the evil threat?
00:24:41And what are they now?
00:24:43Now,
00:24:44they're the good Chinese.
00:24:50When I last went
00:24:51to the Soviet Union
00:24:52in 1977,
00:24:54I interviewed
00:24:55many of those
00:24:56called dissidents,
00:24:58people who dared
00:24:59to speak out
00:25:00in a police state.
00:25:02Simple Democrats,
00:25:03you might call them,
00:25:04like the courageous
00:25:05Volodya Slepak,
00:25:07now in prison,
00:25:08and Irina Ginsberg,
00:25:10now in the West
00:25:11with her husband,
00:25:12Alexander Ginsberg.
00:25:14What I learned
00:25:15from these people
00:25:16was this.
00:25:17When international
00:25:18tension is relaxed,
00:25:20detente,
00:25:21we used to call it,
00:25:22the Soviet bureaucracy
00:25:23finds it more difficult
00:25:25to justify
00:25:25open repression.
00:25:27And as a result,
00:25:28there is a dialogue,
00:25:30private and cautious,
00:25:31certainly,
00:25:32but a dialogue
00:25:33on matters of war
00:25:34and peace,
00:25:35and in a country
00:25:36ever mindful
00:25:37that 22 million
00:25:38of its people
00:25:39died in the last war.
00:25:42Eventually,
00:25:43this dialogue
00:25:43finds an echo
00:25:44in the Soviet leadership,
00:25:46burdened by military spending,
00:25:48and unable to feed
00:25:49its own people
00:25:50without imported
00:25:51American grain.
00:25:52When tension is relaxed,
00:25:55these reformist elements
00:25:57have influence,
00:25:58and the result
00:25:59has been
00:26:00a partial test-ban treaty
00:26:02and strategic arms limitations.
00:26:05But when the West
00:26:07rattles its missiles,
00:26:09there is no dialogue
00:26:10and no echoes,
00:26:13only a state of siege,
00:26:15only danger.
00:26:17In the 1950s,
00:26:19at the height
00:26:19of the old Cold War,
00:26:21John Foster Dulles,
00:26:22then American Secretary
00:26:23of State,
00:26:24said,
00:26:24In order to make people
00:26:25bear the burden,
00:26:26we have to create
00:26:27an emotional atmosphere
00:26:29akin to a wartime psychology.
00:26:31We must create the idea
00:26:33of a threat from without.
00:26:35The manipulation
00:26:36of statistics,
00:26:37sometimes known
00:26:38as disinformation,
00:26:39is one way
00:26:40of creating
00:26:41this wartime psychology.
00:26:46If you read a statement
00:26:48by the American
00:26:49Secretary of Defense
00:26:50about the number
00:26:51of Soviet divisions
00:26:51in Eastern Europe,
00:26:52you'd probably take
00:26:53that as a hard fact.
00:26:54And if you read
00:26:55a statement actually
00:26:56issued in the same month
00:26:57by the Chairman
00:26:58of the American
00:26:58Joint Chiefs of Staff
00:26:59about the number
00:27:00of Soviet divisions
00:27:01in Eastern Europe,
00:27:02you'd probably take
00:27:02that as a hard fact.
00:27:04And when you found out
00:27:05that the Secretary of Defense
00:27:06said there were 31
00:27:07Soviet divisions there,
00:27:08and the Chairman
00:27:09of the Joint Chiefs
00:27:10said there were 27,
00:27:11which was what
00:27:12they said in 1978,
00:27:14then you start
00:27:15by realising
00:27:16there are no agreed facts.
00:27:18Can you develop that
00:27:19from those diagrams
00:27:21with the tanks
00:27:22lined up against each other?
00:27:24Now, what's been
00:27:24left out of those?
00:27:26The age of the tanks,
00:27:28for example.
00:27:29Some of the Warsaw Pact
00:27:30tanks are nearly 30 years old,
00:27:32much older than NATO tanks.
00:27:34So they're not as efficient?
00:27:36They're not as efficient.
00:27:37They break down more easily.
00:27:39They don't have
00:27:39as powerful guns.
00:27:40Their guns aren't as accurate.
00:27:41They can't fire on the move,
00:27:43and all other kinds
00:27:44of questions like that.
00:27:46Anti-tank weapons
00:27:47are left out.
00:27:49NATO has got about
00:27:49a quarter of a million
00:27:50anti-tank guided weapons,
00:27:52and it's got
00:27:54numerous other weapon systems
00:27:55which are capable
00:27:56of destroying tanks
00:27:57with quite extraordinary
00:27:59and really rather nasty
00:28:00efficiency.
00:28:02And so if you see
00:28:04this comparison of tanks,
00:28:06I suppose the first question
00:28:07to say is,
00:28:09are these facts?
00:28:10For example,
00:28:11if you compare
00:28:12the number of tanks,
00:28:14that in a sense
00:28:14is a half-truth
00:28:15because you must throw
00:28:16in the number
00:28:17of anti-tank weapons
00:28:17when you're making
00:28:18that kind of comparison.
00:28:21From half-truths,
00:28:22one moves on
00:28:23to distortions,
00:28:25and from distortions,
00:28:26one goes on
00:28:26to downright lies.
00:28:29In 1979,
00:28:31a secret committee
00:28:32of NATO
00:28:32decided to base
00:28:34572 American cruise
00:28:36and Pershing missiles
00:28:38in Europe.
00:28:39160 of these
00:28:40would be based
00:28:40in Britain,
00:28:41mostly here
00:28:42at Greenham Common
00:28:43near Newbury.
00:28:44The official truth
00:28:46was that the cruise
00:28:47missiles would balance
00:28:48Russia's SS-20 missiles
00:28:50which are aimed
00:28:51at Western Europe.
00:28:52The unofficial truth
00:28:53is that the cruise
00:28:55was designed
00:28:56for a nuclear war
00:28:57in Europe
00:28:57and will be controlled
00:28:59by the United States.
00:29:01Parliament was never
00:29:02consulted,
00:29:02nor were local people
00:29:04who received
00:29:05this Ministry of Defence
00:29:06brochure.
00:29:07This is the soft sell
00:29:09for nuclear weapons,
00:29:10and as you may know,
00:29:1196 cruise missiles
00:29:12are coming to Greenham Common.
00:29:14So this is a brochure
00:29:15by which they try
00:29:16to persuade local people
00:29:17that they should welcome
00:29:18this new development.
00:29:20But of course,
00:29:21they say that
00:29:22in a time of tension,
00:29:24as they put it,
00:29:25the cruise will be moved around
00:29:26and that the rations
00:29:29really won't strike
00:29:30Greenham Common
00:29:31and Newbury.
00:29:32That is the whole rationale
00:29:34for them
00:29:34of sighting cruise here.
00:29:36But for us,
00:29:37I mean,
00:29:37there is the problem
00:29:38of actually transporting
00:29:39these things,
00:29:40even if that should happen.
00:29:41Clearly,
00:29:41there's the risk of accident.
00:29:43But more importantly,
00:29:45since they made
00:29:46that statement,
00:29:46we now know
00:29:47that one flight
00:29:48of cruise missiles
00:29:49is to be permanently armed
00:29:51when on the base.
00:29:52With nuclear weapons?
00:29:53Oh, indeed.
00:29:54And they are building
00:29:54super-hardened silos
00:29:56in order to protect
00:29:57those armed weapons.
00:29:59So we think
00:30:00it's a nonsense
00:30:00that they will be moved around.
00:30:02When they feel
00:30:04that they ought
00:30:05to tell the people something,
00:30:06then the propaganda
00:30:07is extremely crude,
00:30:09just as crude
00:30:09as one might think
00:30:10it would be
00:30:11in the USSR.
00:30:12And this is
00:30:13a blatant example
00:30:14of that.
00:30:17In January 1980,
00:30:19Francis Pym,
00:30:20then Defence Secretary,
00:30:21reassured people
00:30:22living near the bases
00:30:23that the cruise missiles
00:30:25in no way
00:30:26endangered them.
00:30:27From the air,
00:30:28one can see clearly
00:30:29just how close
00:30:30danger would be.
00:30:32In September 1980,
00:30:33a civil defence exercise
00:30:35was carried out
00:30:36based on what
00:30:37British intelligence
00:30:37understood would happen
00:30:39in a nuclear attack.
00:30:40The first three
00:30:41nuclear bombs
00:30:42fell here.
00:30:43Greenham Common
00:30:44and Newbury
00:30:45were wiped down.
00:30:52When I first saw this,
00:30:54I noticed the subtitle,
00:30:56which is
00:30:57a vital part
00:30:57of the West's
00:30:58life insurance.
00:31:00And it struck me
00:31:01that I was being sold
00:31:02a life insurance policy.
00:31:05And I suppose,
00:31:06in a sense,
00:31:06the thing to do
00:31:08is, as one does
00:31:09with any advertising
00:31:09that one's thinking
00:31:10about carefully,
00:31:11if you want to buy
00:31:12a life insurance policy,
00:31:13you really start
00:31:14asking some hard
00:31:15questions about it
00:31:16and take that
00:31:16package apart.
00:31:18To begin with,
00:31:19it's headed the
00:31:19balance of longer-ranged
00:31:21land-based
00:31:22theatre nuclear forces.
00:31:24I want to know
00:31:24why they're only
00:31:25talking about
00:31:26land-based forces.
00:31:28Britain has got
00:31:29its Polaris submarines.
00:31:30The French,
00:31:31if one were to
00:31:31count them in,
00:31:32have got their
00:31:32submarine-launched
00:31:33missiles.
00:31:34missiles, and the
00:31:35Americans have
00:31:36earmarked 40 to 45
00:31:39missiles carrying
00:31:40400 warheads to
00:31:42NATO's use, which
00:31:43should be included
00:31:43in this category.
00:31:44Well, I think it's
00:31:45quite simple, really.
00:31:47It's expected that the
00:31:48ordinary member of the
00:31:49public will look at
00:31:50these tall pink blocks,
00:31:51USSR, and the low blue
00:31:54blocks, NATO, and come
00:31:57to the conclusion that
00:31:58NATO is miles behind
00:31:59the USSR, but this is
00:32:02only one category of
00:32:04weapons, and so this is
00:32:06an extremely dishonest
00:32:08presentation.
00:32:09And then when I look
00:32:10and see that on the
00:32:11NATO side they have
00:32:13referred to just two
00:32:13types of aircraft, when
00:32:15in fact based in
00:32:16Western Europe there are
00:32:17half a dozen types
00:32:18which are capable of
00:32:19dropping nuclear weapons
00:32:20on the Soviet Union,
00:32:21then this really does
00:32:23become rather a worthless
00:32:24piece of advertising.
00:32:25I regard this as quite
00:32:26low-quality propaganda.
00:32:29The brochure also says
00:32:31nuclear weapons have
00:32:33been stored in this
00:32:34country for many years
00:32:35and at no time has one
00:32:37been involved in an
00:32:38accident.
00:32:39In July 1956 a United
00:32:41States B-47 crashed
00:32:43into an atomic bomb
00:32:44store at Lakenheath
00:32:46Base in Suffolk.
00:32:47Roads jammed with people
00:32:49escaping in panic from
00:32:50the base.
00:32:51President Eisenhower
00:32:52ordered all mention of
00:32:53nuclear weapons cut from
00:32:55the accident report at
00:32:56the time.
00:32:57Twenty-three years
00:32:58later a retired
00:32:59American general said
00:33:00that part of Eastern
00:33:01England almost became an
00:33:03atomic desert.
00:33:04Today nothing has changed
00:33:06at Lakenheath.
00:33:07It is still a nuclear base.
00:33:12The Dorses says there's
00:33:13been no leak of radiation.
00:33:15Not far from where we're
00:33:16standing is Aldermasten where
00:33:18there have been leaks of
00:33:19radiation and where indeed
00:33:2170 people are known to be
00:33:22contaminated as a result of
00:33:24working on nuclear warheads.
00:33:30We can't use that cruise
00:33:32missile in the United States.
00:33:33We can only use the land-based
00:33:35cruise missile in Europe.
00:33:38We fought World War I in
00:33:40Europe.
00:33:41We fought World War II in
00:33:43Europe.
00:33:44And most of the Americans would
00:33:46like to fight World War III in
00:33:48Europe if we have to fight
00:33:50another world war.
00:33:53The United States for many
00:33:55years, really since World War II,
00:33:57has had this concept of a
00:33:59forward-based system.
00:34:00We want to keep a forward-based
00:34:02system in the United Kingdom,
00:34:05Europe, Southern Europe, that
00:34:07whole tier so that if we do
00:34:09become involved in a war with the
00:34:11Soviets, we can fight the war
00:34:13there and not fight the war in
00:34:15the United States.
00:34:18Britain has more foreign bases
00:34:20on its soil than most
00:34:22countries, all of them American
00:34:24and many of them Soviet nuclear
00:34:26targets, according to British and
00:34:29Soviet information.
00:34:31At Lakenheath, walls are two feet
00:34:33thick with special air filters to
00:34:36protect their American personnel
00:34:37from radioactive dust.
00:34:40Hardly any of these American bases
00:34:42are directly committed to the
00:34:44defence of Britain.
00:34:45Instead, they are here to provide
00:34:47America's front line.
00:34:51Now let's play a new television
00:34:52game called Find the Missing Bases.
00:34:56In June 1980, Bob Cryer, the Labour
00:34:59MP, asked the then Defence Secretary,
00:35:02Francis Pym, to provide a total list
00:35:04of American bases in Britain.
00:35:06Mr. Pym obliged with a round dozen,
00:35:09so our score is 12.
00:35:12But there were, he added, a few
00:35:15storage, logistic support,
00:35:17communications facilities.
00:35:19So a month later, Mr. Pym was asked
00:35:22to list these extra bases, and the
00:35:24dozen suddenly grew to 53.
00:35:28Then, a month later, Mr. Pym was
00:35:31asked to list any emissions from his
00:35:34two earlier lists.
00:35:35Well, yes, there were three more
00:35:37bases, including, as it happens, the
00:35:40largest American underwater spy base in
00:35:43the world.
00:35:44So that makes 56.
00:35:47But that wasn't all.
00:35:49The journalist Duncan Campbell of the
00:35:51New Statesman found and listed another
00:35:5547 bases, making a grand total of 103.
00:36:01That's a long way for Mr. Pym's dozen.
00:36:06This is the Ministry of Defence in London,
00:36:08where we have sought cooperation in making
00:36:11this documentary.
00:36:12We did get permission to film at three
00:36:14British installations, and a Ministry
00:36:16Public Relations man offered us
00:36:18government film, some of it 14 years old.
00:36:22The British public, he said with a laugh,
00:36:24would not know the difference.
00:36:26I asked to interview the Secretary of State,
00:36:28Mr. Knott, but this was refused.
00:36:31Instead, I was offered what is called an
00:36:33unattributable briefing.
00:36:35Sorry, I've broken rule number one in
00:36:37telling you that.
00:36:38As my colleagues and I were led upstairs by
00:36:41the public relations man, Mr. Ian McDonald,
00:36:43of Falkland's fame, Mr. McDonald laid out
00:36:46the rules.
00:36:47You cannot, he said, name the man you're
00:36:49about to see.
00:36:50You cannot report to anyone what he tells
00:36:52you, you cannot say it came from the
00:36:54governor.
00:36:54You cannot say it came from a Whitehall
00:36:56source, or a NATO source, or a Western
00:36:58source.
00:36:59Later, I asked him, are you saying this
00:37:01briefing did not happen?
00:37:03You've got it, he replied.
00:37:21Filingdale's early warning base in Yorkshire,
00:37:24where they are trained to give us an early
00:37:26warning of a nuclear attack.
00:37:28Three times a week they play a game here,
00:37:30which seems to be called confidence high.
00:37:33The people at Filingdale's refer to it as the
00:37:36all singing, all dancing show.
00:37:39If the game had been a reality, there would
00:37:41now be about eight minutes to impact of the
00:37:44first nuclear bomb to hit Britain.
00:37:49Empire test details bearing 060 range 800 miles.
00:37:55UK alienizer.
00:37:58This is the SPO, confidence report now, confidence
00:38:02report now.
00:38:07MIP confidence high, sir.
00:38:09My confidence high.
00:38:11Hi, all airs checked.
00:38:14Confidence high, inform missile warning, inform
00:38:17sentence.
00:38:19Hello, missile warning.
00:38:22We have an IRBM in the system and our confidence is high.
00:38:25This is the SPO, confidence report.
00:38:27Roger, whiskey, echo, echo.
00:38:28UK standards informed.
00:38:29Missile warning informed, sir.
00:38:39Five minutes to impact.
00:38:41All they can do is wait.
00:38:42And in all probability, we would know nothing about it.
00:38:54Early morning London.
00:38:56Now only one minute to impact.
00:38:59A child of Hiroshima wrote,
00:39:01It was a nice day.
00:39:02I was playing outdoors when I saw a sudden flash.
00:39:06Fire broke out everywhere.
00:39:07Our house and gate were burned down before I knew it.
00:39:10Then we went under a bridge.
00:39:13There were many people there dying from burns.
00:39:16When I came back, Daddy was dead.
00:39:19A few days later, Mummy died too.
00:39:21My sister and I cried to ourselves.
00:39:28This diagram, inspired by the book London After the Bomb,
00:39:32shows you second by second how London would be destroyed.
00:39:36Immediately after detonation, a flash of light
00:39:39will blind anyone looking at it.
00:39:41Within three seconds, clothes are burned off.
00:39:44All exposed skin is charred.
00:39:46Within 12 seconds, there are winds of up to 200 miles an hour.
00:39:50Cars are tossed about like toys and people like dolls.
00:39:54Survivors are crushed or trapped inside their houses.
00:39:56As far away as 8 miles, people are blinded and receive second-degree burns.
00:40:02And this is the effect of only a one megaton bomb.
00:40:06And such a small bomb, it has been calculated,
00:40:09will make a crater large enough to swallow 10 Wembley stadiums.
00:40:13Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!
00:40:16Of course, the only real evidence we have
00:40:19are the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
00:40:26The whole city was on fire.
00:40:29The faces were so badly burnt,
00:40:31it was impossible to tell whether they were men or women.
00:40:37I noticed my face was swelling,
00:40:41getting so big I couldn't see,
00:40:45and my hands swelling like balloons.
00:40:49I couldn't grasp anything,
00:40:52couldn't reach the children.
00:40:57We looked for survivors,
00:41:00dragging them from the wreckage,
00:41:02but their skin was so badly burned,
00:41:04it was actually melting.
00:41:07The limbs came away in our hands.
00:41:34Nuclear war is becoming big business,
00:41:36a rare growth area.
00:41:38Indeed, you can now get a Billing Society mortgage
00:41:41for a fallout shelter.
00:41:43Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that it will work.
00:41:46Some people, of course, won't need a mortgage,
00:41:49because we have already paid for their shelter.
00:41:53I'll go and ruin it there.
00:41:55Go on.
00:41:56Yes, I won't.
00:42:10What about us?
00:42:18Beneath these flats is a nuclear bunker in South London,
00:42:21typical of cosy bunkers throughout Britain.
00:42:24It is not for the use of people living in the flats,
00:42:27which will collapse in a nuclear attack.
00:42:30Of course, the bunker is designed not to collapse,
00:42:32and is only for police, military, and public servants.
00:42:36The government's published civil defence plans called Protect and Survive
00:42:41tell you to tape up the handles of your toilet
00:42:44and get in lots of tin soup and put your head in a bag.
00:42:48Like being snowed in at Christmas, nuclear war sounds almost fun.
00:42:52However, there are no evacuation plans,
00:42:56and this means that most of the population is to be sacrificed
00:43:00and that the establishment will outlive the people.
00:43:03Parks, commons, even your local golf course
00:43:06have been secretly designated areas for mass graves.
00:43:10What all this reveals is that civil defence is simply a propaganda term
00:43:15and that preparing us for war is the real aim.
00:43:31The most widespread danger from nuclear explosions is fallout.
00:43:38Fallout is dust that is sucked up from the ground by the explosion.
00:43:44Fallout can kill.
00:43:47Since it can be carried for great distances by the winds,
00:43:51it can eventually settle anywhere.
00:43:54So no place in the United Kingdom is safer than any other.
00:43:59In this Home Office film, the buildings are miraculously untouched
00:44:03and of course nothing looks like Hiroshima.
00:44:05Its main aim is to pacify us and to keep us literally in our place.
00:44:10Stay where you are.
00:44:13If you leave your home, your local authority may take it over for homeless families.
00:44:19And if you move, the authorities in the new place will not help you
00:44:24with food, accommodation or other essentials.
00:44:34A Home Office circular to local authorities states that the first aim of civil defence
00:44:40is to control public dissent.
00:44:42With a nuclear attack imminent, the Cabinet will approve Queen's Order 2,
00:44:47the suspension of Parliament and democracy.
00:44:49In the Police Manual of Home Defence, a restricted document,
00:44:53priority is given before an attack to
00:44:56detention or restriction of movement of subversive or potentially subversive people.
00:45:02Lowest on the list is advice to the rest of the population on how to survive.
00:45:14This is the Land Battle Tactics Manual of the British Armed Forces for the year 1960.
00:45:21On page 12, it says this.
00:45:24Nuclear weapons of varying yields will be used in large but not unlimited numbers.
00:45:32In other words, the planning for a limited nuclear war in Europe
00:45:36began at least 22 years ago.
00:45:39But haven't we been led to believe that nuclear war
00:45:42as a practical military option is only a recent development?
00:45:46And was there any debate at the time in Parliament and the press?
00:45:51No, there was not.
00:45:53It says here,
00:45:55Restricted.
00:45:56The information given in this document
00:45:58is not to be communicated
00:46:00either directly or indirectly
00:46:02to the press
00:46:04or to any person
00:46:06not authorised to receive it.
00:46:08And that meant
00:46:10almost everybody.
00:46:12Except, of course,
00:46:13the generals who play war games
00:46:15every autumn.
00:46:17You are NATO's fire brigade,
00:46:19ready to assemble and move on short notice
00:46:22to either flank
00:46:23to act as our Alliance's collective deterrent force
00:46:27during those ambiguous days of rising tension.
00:46:30When you and your comrades return to your bases,
00:46:33you should be able to look back with pride.
00:46:36Pride in your performance,
00:46:39pride in your unit's achievements,
00:46:41and pride that you in the military uniform of your country
00:46:44serve the most noble of causes,
00:46:47the preservation of peace
00:46:50with freedom for your countrymen.
00:46:52Good luck, men.
00:46:53Have a good and a safe exercise.
00:47:02Through early morning fog I see
00:47:07Visions of the things to be
00:47:11The pains that are withheld for me
00:47:15I realize and I can see
00:47:21That suicide is painless
00:47:26It brings on many changes
00:47:30And I can take or leave it
00:47:34If I please
00:47:38The game of life is hard to play
00:47:43I'm gonna lose it
00:47:46You're gonna lose it anyway
00:47:47The losing card I'll someday lay
00:47:51So this is all I have to say
00:47:59Suicide is painless
00:48:03It brings on many changes
00:48:06It brings on many changes
00:48:06Changes
00:48:07As I can take or leave it
00:48:10If I please
00:48:13Welcome to the integrated battlefield
00:48:16A new improved concept in war
00:48:18Now if you don't know what that means
00:48:21Well, neither do I
00:48:22It's what the military call this battlefield in Germany
00:48:25Where a limited nuclear and chemical war
00:48:28Is at present being fought
00:48:30Remember, it's only a limited nuclear war
00:48:34The enemy are of course
00:48:36Those evil non-people, the Russians
00:48:38And their Warsaw Pact allies
00:48:40Including the bad Germans
00:48:41These are known in this war
00:48:43As the orange forces
00:48:45Outside are the Americans
00:48:47And their NATO allies
00:48:49Including the British
00:48:50And the good Germans
00:48:51And these are known as the blue forces
00:48:55Now in this limited nuclear war
00:48:57Nasty old-fashioned terms
00:48:59Of death and destruction
00:49:01Have been done away with
00:49:02And not before time
00:49:04Horrible bombs are now systems
00:49:07Soldiers are human assets
00:49:10Civilians, that's innocent bystanders
00:49:13Are now called support structure
00:49:16And dead civilians
00:49:18Always a rather emotive term
00:49:20Have been replaced with collateral damage
00:49:23That old favourite from Vietnam
00:49:34This morning, both nuclear and chemical systems
00:49:37Were activated without degradation
00:49:39That means they are fired without a hitch
00:49:42And all the human assets
00:49:44That's the soldiers
00:49:45Changed into their protective knotty suits
00:49:48Knotty suits
00:49:49Knotty suits is another military term
00:49:52Unfortunately, no knotty suits
00:49:54Were available for the support structure
00:49:56That's the civilians
00:50:05In November 1980
00:50:06The Ministry of Defence
00:50:08Discussed with Washington
00:50:09The possibility of acquiring
00:50:11American nerve gas weapons
00:50:13For Britain
00:50:14Here are our NATO boys
00:50:16After a nerve gas operation
00:50:18Playing a game called
00:50:20Decontamination
00:50:22Come on, sit down right here
00:50:23Come on over here and sit down
00:50:25Both of you
00:50:25Face me
00:50:26Yeah, face me
00:50:27Okay
00:50:28You take your right boot off
00:50:30You take your left boot off
00:50:31Okay
00:50:35After you take your boots off
00:50:36Do not let your right boot
00:50:38Touch the ground
00:50:39Put it over that, okay
00:50:42Take your left boot off
00:50:43Take your right boot off
00:50:44Now when you pull that off
00:50:47Do not let your boot
00:50:48Touch the ground
00:50:48Put it on the other side of the bench
00:50:51You understand?
00:50:57You understand?
00:50:57All right
00:50:57All right
00:50:58All right
00:51:04Yeah
00:51:04Woohoo
00:51:04Woohoo
00:51:04Woohoo
00:51:05Woohoo
00:51:05Now, now, now
00:51:07I need to sweep
00:51:07And help me get that
00:51:08This way I'm going
00:51:09Yeah
00:51:10Here I'm going
00:51:12Huh?
00:51:14Same thing
00:51:15Take your shoes off
00:51:17Take your shoes off
00:51:17Your boots off
00:51:28Latest scores in this limited nuclear war are not yet in
00:51:31But it does seem likely that outsiders won
00:51:34Proving that a nuclear war can be fought and contained in Europe
00:51:39Fortunately, it's all a game
00:51:42A NATO war game
00:51:43But such nuclear games are being played regularly in Europe
00:51:47As dehumanized rehearsals for the kind of limited nuclear war endorsed by NATO in December 1979
00:51:54When the decision was taken to accept American controlled cruise and Pershing missiles
00:52:01The unthinkable is now the planned and the practiced
00:52:08Through early morning fog I see
00:52:14Visions of the things to be
00:52:17The pains that are withheld for me
00:52:21I realize and I can see
00:52:28That suicide is painless
00:52:32It brings on many changes
00:52:36And I can take or leave it if I please
00:52:45One of the means of conditioning you, the public, to accept a nuclear arms race is secrecy
00:52:52And duplicity
00:52:54That is, you're told one thing by government and the very opposite happens in secret
00:52:59When the Labour Party was returned to power in 1974
00:53:04Its manifesto was clear on one issue
00:53:06We have renounced, it said
00:53:08Any intention of moving to a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons
00:53:15Indeed, Mr Callaghan, on becoming Prime Minister
00:53:19Promised a full and informed debate on nuclear weapons
00:53:23During 1978, a series of extraordinary meetings took place in the Cabinet Office in Whitehall
00:53:30These meetings were convened by Mr Callaghan
00:53:34And were attended by Foreign Secretary David Owen
00:53:37Chancellor of the Exchequer Dennis Healy
00:53:40Defence Secretary Fred Mulley
00:53:43And senior civil servants from the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence
00:53:48Parliament knew nothing about these meetings
00:53:51Nor did other members of the Cabinet
00:53:54So secret was this committee
00:53:56That it didn't have a name or a number
00:53:59It took the decision to spend a thousand million pounds
00:54:04To massively increase the British nuclear arsenal
00:54:07In what was called the Chevrolet programme
00:54:10This thousand million pounds
00:54:13Was buried without trace in civil service accounts
00:54:17And no one questioned it
00:54:19And of course you knew nothing about it
00:54:29Trident 1, a powerful new three-stage missile with a range of 4,000 nautical miles
00:54:35Capable of delivering multiple warheads to widely scattered targets
00:54:39Britain's new so-called independent deterrent grew out of the Chevrolet programme
00:54:44And is to be based on the American Trident missile
00:54:47Trident is not a defensive nuclear weapon
00:54:50It's designed to attack first
00:54:52The Trident will cost around 8,000 million pounds
00:54:56The Ministry of Defence official who briefed me said
00:54:59With Trident you get more bang for a buck
00:55:04In the 1980s the Soviet Union cannot feed itself
00:55:08And conceals the growing poverty and hardship of its people
00:55:12In the United States unemployment in cities like Detroit
00:55:16And in the black ghettos is more than half the adult population
00:55:20With malnutrition now officially recognised as a disease
00:55:24In Britain many of this generation may never work
00:55:28And the closure of hospitals and schools is no longer news
00:55:32In the 1980s having nuclear weapons gives you more bang for a buck
00:55:41If the United Kingdom had no nuclear weapons
00:55:44I think they'd be in a much stronger bargaining position
00:55:47Now they're captive appendages to the United States' strategic
00:55:52And other nuclear weapons systems
00:55:54You're just a little adjunct here of our total nuclear capability in the United States
00:56:02Well there are contingency plans in the NATO doctrine
00:56:07To fire a nuclear weapon for demonstrative purposes
00:56:11To demonstrate to the other side that they are exceeding the limits of toleration in the conventional area
00:56:19In November 1981 US Secretary of State General Alexander Haig
00:56:24Revealed that NATO had a plan to fire a nuclear warning shot in a time of tension
00:56:29In NATO's 1977 exercises General Haig, then Supreme Commander
00:56:34Ordered a first nuclear strike
00:56:37Only a dry run of course
00:56:39I can never figure out from a military point of view or an economic point of view
00:56:43Of why the Russians would want to make an attack in Europe or on the United States
00:56:48The Russians are very late imperialists
00:56:51They're lousy imperialists
00:56:53They come in with a heavy hand and they blunder all over the place
00:56:57I don't think they're going to be successful
00:56:59But dumb they are not
00:57:01And they'd have to be dumb to make a frontal attack in Europe
00:57:06It'd be suicide for them and they know that
00:57:08August the 17th 1982
00:57:11The Guardian newspaper reported that the Pentagon had completed a strategic master plan
00:57:17To give the United States the capability of winning a protracted nuclear war
00:57:22August the 23rd Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger wrote to newspaper editors complaining that the media had got American war
00:57:31plans all wrong
00:57:35I wrote the letter to get an unfiltered and from my parochial point of view correct statement of what you're
00:57:44actually about in Washington
00:57:45I was concerned because rightly or wrongly and without in any way attacking the credibility or accuracy of the press
00:57:52I was concerned that the impression was being given that we had a large unit in the Pentagon that was
00:57:59assigned to fighting protracted nuclear wars
00:58:01And that is totally wrong
00:58:03We have not changed the American policy strategic or otherwise basically at all
00:58:10But the Soviet capability has changed and our policy has always been the same
00:58:15That is to maintain an effective deterrent
00:58:17And an effective deterrent against nuclear war has to be one that is correctly perceived by the Soviets as being
00:58:23strong enough to discourage
00:58:25And totally deter any kind of a nuclear attack
00:58:29As their capability increases we have to strengthen and modernize our capability
00:58:33And that is the only policy in which we're engaged and it's exactly the same policy on which every American
00:58:40government has been engaged since the end of World War II
00:58:43It ought to be kept in proportion
00:58:45We allocate something under 15% of our budget to strategic weapons and nuclear capabilities
00:58:54In keeping with the unanimous agreement at the bond summit
00:58:57We are spending the balance of our budget on strengthening and increasing our conventional capability
00:59:04Again, not with the idea of launching a war or getting a protracted war or anything of the kind
00:59:09But with the idea of deterring every war
00:59:11It's the paradox of our time that all of the things we are trying to do in the Defense Department
00:59:17are focused totally and completely on preventing a war through deterrence
00:59:21And if I'm completely successful in everything I'm trying to do, we'll never use any of the things we're trying
00:59:27to persuade the Congress we should and need to have
00:59:30Can I just follow that up?
00:59:32Because the fears in Europe arose particularly around last October, didn't they?
00:59:37When President Reagan was quoted as saying he could see where you could have the exchange of tactical weapons against
00:59:44troops in the field
00:59:45Without it bringing either one of the major powers to pushing the button
00:59:49That sounds very much like nuclear war fighting around the same time
00:59:54Secretary Haig talked about a demonstration shot of nuclear weapons
00:59:58I think you should set that in the context in which it was said
01:00:02And the context in which it was said was a hypothetical question by a Midwest editor at a group of
01:00:08editors meeting at the White House
01:00:11And the President, as always, was trying to be very helpful in responding to all of the questions
01:00:16And he gave a perfectly honest opinion, which I don't think anyone had any particular quarrel with
01:00:22It's the raising of the subject that seems to cause so much problem
01:00:27And I noticed one article recently that was critical of my letter because it said I shouldn't be discussing the
01:00:34subject at all
01:00:35Well, there's a great temptation not to discuss the subject
01:00:38But sadly others aren't quite as self-restrained
01:00:42The subject is being discussed, but it's being discussed, frankly, as I said in the letter, inaccurately
01:00:47The policy of nuclear deterrence, wrote Mr Weinberger, has been approved through the political processes of the democratic nations it
01:00:56protects since at least 1950
01:00:58That is a fine example of official truth
01:01:02It implies that the West's nuclear policy evolved through the normal democratic checks and balances
01:01:08When in fact the policy was conceived in utmost secrecy
01:01:14Typical of this secrecy is the directive for plans to fight a protracted nuclear war
01:01:19Which, says the Guardian report, is part of a top-secret national security decision document that was drawn up in
01:01:26the autumn of 1981
01:01:28President Reagan's strategic doctrine goes further towards accepting nuclear war as a practical option
01:01:33In that it specifically states the goal of winning a protracted nuclear war
01:01:40The decision to use nuclear weapons in Europe is purely a U.S. decision
01:01:44One of the great myths that's been perpetrated in Europe
01:01:49Is that somehow the NATO countries, Chancellor Schmidt or Prime Minister Thatcher
01:01:57Will have something to say about whether or not the U.S. uses nuclear weapons
01:02:01They will not
01:02:03Now we may consult with them, and we may take their advice, and we may not
01:02:07But if we decide to use nuclear weapons, there's nobody in Europe that could stop us
01:02:12Is the West our way of life?
01:02:14The 1979 decision to deploy cruise missiles was to counter Soviet SS-20 missiles
01:02:20That was the official reason given
01:02:22What is seldom mentioned is that on the integrated battlefield of Western Europe
01:02:27There is already nuclear artillery and nuclear mines and all manner of small convenient nuclear weapons
01:02:35The purpose of having a war
01:02:37Let me rephrase that
01:02:39The purpose of battle
01:02:41Whether we like it or not
01:02:42Is to destroy the enemy
01:02:46And keep yourself from being destroyed
01:02:49Now
01:02:52You want to have as efficient weapons as you can in order to accomplish your mission
01:02:56You keep pressing the technological and scientific community of your country, you see
01:03:01Find us better ways to be more efficient on the battlefield to accomplish our mission
01:03:06Now that decision of 1979 reflected NATO's determination to do several things
01:03:16One, to close the gap which we had in the spectrum of forces which we need
01:03:21In order to implement our strategy of flexible response
01:03:25And secondly, to deny to the Soviet Union a sanctuary from which she could launch these kinds of weapons against
01:03:34Western Europe
01:03:35Without fear of having retaliation upon her own soil from Western Europe
01:03:42First of all, these are American weapons under American control that are coming
01:03:46But number two, they are breached, a direct breach of the Cuba-Kristoff-Kennedy agreement
01:03:52Where it has been said there should be no such weapons stationed on the soil of allies
01:03:57And these weapons, Pershing II and cruise missiles, have a completely new quality
01:04:01And cannot be compared to the SS-20 in our feeling
01:04:04And will reach deeply into the Soviet Union
01:04:07So in fact they are there for first strike capacity, capability
01:04:11And we feel that we have enough already on overkill in Europe
01:04:15Enough land, not land but sea and air-based systems to combat any threat, even conventional forces
01:04:21We feel this is completely an excess on nuclear weapons
01:04:26And we also feel it's a whole new weapons generation
01:04:28Which we as Germans and as Europeans reject
01:04:31Because it will mean limited nuclear war in Europe
01:04:34And we will be the first victims
01:04:35General, why do you think increasing numbers of Europeans are frightened
01:04:39By the presence of NATO nuclear weapons in Europe?
01:04:46Well, that's difficult for me to explain, you see
01:04:49Because I happen to believe that if we're going to deter, we have to deter at all levels, as I've
01:04:57said
01:04:58And it seems to me that they tend to be more frightened of our stationing weapons
01:05:04Or modernizing our weapon system
01:05:08In order to accomplish that mission of keeping them from being used by the Soviet Union
01:05:12More frightened of that, than they are frightened of those weapons which cause us to have to modernize in order
01:05:18to deter
01:05:19We rechecked all mass destruction weapons
01:05:21Also the SS-20, quite clear, because they endanger us, they point at us
01:05:25But the Soviet Union is confronted, in fact, by two systems
01:05:28By the intercontinental system of the United States
01:05:31And very soon by the medium-range missiles from Europe
01:05:34Whereas the SS-20 cannot reach the United States
01:05:36It is just affecting the Allies
01:05:38So there's a total imbalance
01:05:40Don't you understand the fear that people have for another increase in the number of nuclear arms?
01:05:46Listen, young man, don't talk to me about fear of war
01:05:51I've been in them
01:05:53And let me tell you, as I've told you before, this group
01:05:56It's a stupid way to do business
01:06:00It's a folly, it's a waste
01:06:03And nobody wants to go back to war
01:06:05None of us
01:06:06So all of us have that concern
01:06:09But because we fear that there might be a war
01:06:14Doesn't mean we shouldn't take the steps necessary to keep there from being one
01:06:19All that which is claimed to defend us is going to destroy us
01:06:22Because those weapons, which are now being placed in Europe
01:06:26Will in fact, perhaps, that's my fear
01:06:28Call for a pre-emptive or preventive strike by the Soviet Union
01:06:31Because they are threatened outside of their own borders very much
01:06:35And I believe the Americans make it a little bit too easy
01:06:37Because they can very much shove the problem away
01:06:41And say, we can make surgical strikes
01:06:43These weapons are made for small strikes
01:06:45For surgical strikes
01:06:46And thus you could try to limit war
01:06:48Which is, to me, insane
01:06:50Historically, we put nuclear weapons in Europe
01:06:53The United States did
01:06:54In order to deter a Soviet ground attack
01:06:57And in a sense to compensate for what we consider to be the superiority in numbers
01:07:02Of Soviet troops over NATO troops
01:07:06But when the Soviet Union developed the capability to provide nuclear weapons in Europe
01:07:14It negated the capability of our nuclear weapons to deter a war
01:07:18It put us into a war-fighting situation
01:07:20Soviet people are just as much afraid of us as we are probably of them
01:07:24And yet, we in Germany have a historic and moral mission, I believe
01:07:27Because we have started too many wars
01:07:29And we have also made much too much damage in the Soviet Union
01:07:3320 million people have died there
01:07:35Because the Germans have started their war, have marched in
01:07:38So we feel the mission must come from the people
01:07:40To start having another picture of these people
01:07:43Because every time we are confronted by the Soviet Union
01:07:46We see women, men and children
01:07:48We do not see armies
01:07:49And we do not believe, truly do not believe
01:07:52That the Russians will march in here overnight
01:07:54We do not believe it
01:07:54And if they did
01:07:55We know we have enough conventional weapons
01:07:57Enough air and sea-based systems
01:08:00Already in NATO to confront any threat
01:08:02This total overkill capacity is totally insane
01:08:06And we must start somewhere to stop it
01:08:12These are pictures from a BBC film called The War Game
01:08:15Made in 1965 and banned from showing on television
01:08:20Then almost all the press supported the official reason for the ban
01:08:24That the film was too horrible to show
01:08:26The unofficial truth is revealed in this letter by Lord Normanbrook
01:08:30Then chairman of the BBC governors
01:08:32Who wrote that the war game on television
01:08:35Might have a significant effect on public attitudes
01:08:38Towards the policy of nuclear deterrence
01:08:41For many years afterwards
01:08:42The nuclear debate languished
01:08:44But last year
01:08:46The greatest peaceful gatherings of people since World War II
01:08:50Took place in Europe and the United States
01:08:53Last June
01:08:54Almost a million people transformed New York
01:08:57Seventy-two percent of all Americans, said a poll
01:09:01Wanted a halt to all nuclear arms building
01:09:04Those who accused European campaigners of being anti-American
01:09:09Would now have to level the same charge at millions of Americans
01:09:13Who, said one newspaper, are reclaiming our American democracy
01:09:20Paul Warmke was senior negotiator
01:09:22In the strategic arms limitation talks known as SALT
01:09:26You're one of those who have sat down over a long period of time
01:09:29With the Russians negotiating
01:09:31Could you give us a glimpse of how the Russian leadership thinks?
01:09:37I would say that I see them as being very interested in controlling nuclear arms
01:09:43Not because of any sort of philanthropy or anything of that sort
01:09:47But because they are genuinely afraid of nuclear war
01:09:51As a matter of fact, nuclear war to them is perhaps a more real threat
01:09:56And a more real danger than it is to us
01:09:59Why is that?
01:10:00Well, one thing, because of the fact that
01:10:02The last time there was military action on American territory
01:10:06Was 120 years ago
01:10:07And then it was Americans against Americans with muskets
01:10:11And cannonballs
01:10:12Whereas the Soviets, of course, were major casualties of World War II
01:10:19Soviet overtures to us
01:10:21Are invariably described as propaganda
01:10:23Yes
01:10:25How do we receive them?
01:10:27Are they to be believed?
01:10:29Or are they, most of them, propaganda?
01:10:31How do you see them?
01:10:33Well, in my own opinion
01:10:35What we have to do is to find out whether they're serious or not
01:10:39If it's a bluff, we ought to call the bluff
01:10:42It might very well turn out not to be a bluff
01:10:44But if they make this kind of an overture
01:10:46And we do nothing in response except to say that it's propaganda
01:10:51It seems to me what we do is to sow division within the Western Alliance
01:10:54How could arms control in the 1980s be put into practice in your view?
01:11:00Well, really, I see nothing wrong with the process that's been going on
01:11:05Except for the fact that it's taken an inordinately long period of time
01:11:10SALT 1 froze the number of strategic launchers
01:11:15SALT 2 was designed to put an actual numerical ceiling to begin reductions
01:11:20And to begin the process of qualitative restrictions as well as quantitative restrictions
01:11:26I say the only difficulty is that it's taken too long
01:11:29Now it's entirely feasible, entirely realistic
01:11:33To say, okay, at this point, make a few cosmetic changes if you feel that you have to
01:11:38So that you can call it SALT 2.5 or the Reagan Treaty
01:11:42And ratify it
01:11:43And then move on
01:11:45Because once you've got that framework in place
01:11:48Then the opportunities are really vast
01:11:51You could have, for example, a negotiation on fear of nuclear force reductions
01:11:56That could go on concurrently with negotiations on a bilateral basis
01:12:00Between the United States and the Soviet Union
01:12:02To have further reductions
01:12:04To extend the term of the treaty
01:12:06By the end of 1981, the limit was supposed to be 2,250
01:12:11Which would require, as I've said earlier
01:12:12That the Soviets eliminate some 250 to 300
01:12:16Well, by the end of 1984, why not get down to 1,800?
01:12:21By the end of 1985, get down to something like 1,700
01:12:25And extend the term of the treaty for another five years
01:12:27You could have a negotiation of a ban on the flight testing of new missiles
01:12:32We could proceed at the same time to complete the comprehensive test ban
01:12:36That would prevent any explosions of nuclear devices
01:12:40At the present time, that just involves the United States, the Soviet Union, and England
01:12:46But it could be expanded to bring in the French and the Chinese
01:12:50And just in terms of proliferation
01:12:53If the major nuclear powers could agree to a total stop
01:12:56Of any nuclear explosions
01:12:58That would, in my opinion, be the most powerful inhibition
01:13:02Against anybody else getting into the nuclear weapons business
01:13:05So that it's an entirely rational agenda
01:13:09All we have is the question as to whether we have the political will to go ahead with it
01:13:16And does this US administration genuinely want to negotiate?
01:13:21I'm sure that there are some in the present administration
01:13:24That would genuinely like to see serious and effective arms control negotiations
01:13:30There are, regrettably, others that think that it's a waste of time
01:13:34And that the only thing we can do with the Soviets is to out-compete them
01:13:38And what they favor is what I've referred to as the arms race theory of arms control
01:13:43That what we do is just go ahead as fast as we can with as much as we can
01:13:48In the expectation that they won't be able to keep up
01:13:50And that we'll get arms control by default
01:13:53Well, I don't know of anybody who has been a serious student of the Soviet Union
01:13:58Or of Russian history who believes that that would take place
01:14:03They would do whatever is necessary in order to match us
01:14:06So that the race for strategic superiority is a recipe for disaster
01:14:12We'll be bankrupt if we aren't obliterated
01:14:23How many doctors are going to survive?
01:14:25How many urban hospital facilities are going to survive?
01:14:29What do you do with all the bodies?
01:14:32What are the epidemic consequences?
01:14:34What are the fallout consequences?
01:14:35The idea that you can fight, survive and win a nuclear war
01:14:40Is calamitous nonsense
01:14:45This arms race has gone on for a long time
01:14:48And I think we need to slow it, stop it and reverse it
01:14:54And I think the time for that is right now
01:14:58People are beginning to ask questions about secrecy, about security
01:15:03And beginning to feel that if we are a democracy
01:15:06Then we the people ought to be able to say
01:15:09What sort of defence policy we want
01:15:15When we set out to make this film almost two years ago
01:15:18Opponents of the nuclear arms race were still being dismissed
01:15:21As outside the popular consensus
01:15:24As extreme or naive or even pro-Soviet
01:15:28Today opinion polls show that a clear majority of the people of Britain
01:15:32Are against cruise missiles on our soil
01:15:35These are to be deployed throughout Western Europe this year
01:15:39And we may have no control over them
01:15:41And they may well undermine our last chance
01:15:44Of avoiding a new and final stage in the nuclear arms race
01:15:49But are governments listening to the common sense of their own people?
01:15:53Or are they merely concerned with spreading new propaganda?
01:15:57As if wanting peace now is somehow unpatriotic
01:16:01We were told we went to war in the Falklands
01:16:03Of the issue of sovereignty
01:16:05Is not surrendering control of missiles on our own soil
01:16:10Also surrendering sovereignty?
01:16:12Even the so-called dual control is a propaganda term
01:16:17Designed to make the missiles more acceptable but no safer
01:16:21Certainly more and more people are asking impatiently and rationally
01:16:27Why over the years we have allowed this country to become a prime target
01:16:31And more and more people, regardless of their political beliefs
01:16:35Are understanding that the Russians, like us
01:16:38Have every reason not to fight a nuclear war
01:16:42You heard Paul Warnke, the American strategic arms negotiator
01:16:46Say that a rational agenda of disarmament
01:16:49Was not only possible but would work
01:16:52And that to dismiss out of hand
01:16:54The overtures now coming from Moscow
01:16:56Would only bring us even closer to war
01:17:00In America recently an historic motion to freeze the nuclear arms race
01:17:04Was only narrowly defeated in the Congress
01:17:07In spite of our own insidious propaganda and secrecy
01:17:13We live in a democracy and the Russian people do not
01:17:17Surely then, it is we who can and should take the initiative
01:17:22Nuclear weapons were never an act of God
01:17:26Nothing is inevitable
01:17:28The golden flasked
01:17:32Pamela
01:17:33Mensah
01:17:37Erma
01:17:39Erma
01:17:40Erma
01:17:42Albert
01:17:43Erma
01:17:44Erma
01:17:48Erma
01:17:51Erma
01:17:53Erma
01:17:53Erma
01:17:54Erma
01:17:55Oh, my God.
01:18:25Come here, thank you!
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