BOB HARRIS VIEWS AND RESPONDS TO THE DECLASSIFIED GOVERNMENT FILMS ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING – (extracts)

What's most striking about looking at the footage is the difference in content in what was intended for civilian consumption and what was purely for internal military consumption. In the military videos, it's quite clear, these are big, big weapons, blow things up real good, kabloowie, very dangerous things; and by the way, anytime they make a mistake, and additional danger is discovered, that's not a bad thing, that's another potential use of the weapon, which is very handy. When the film's however made for civilian consumption, the weapons are, oh, they're an annoyance, they’re a problem, but if you basically just duck in the basement of a bank, you're gonna be just fine.

I like the phrase "sanitized." ‘This film's been sanitized for your protection.’ Which means, of course, there had to be filth on it before they got a hold of it. I guess that Henry Kissinger table dance will just have to wait for some future declassification.

ON “LET’S FACE IT” - CIVIL DEFENSE FILM

I love the headline here. They couldn't get a newspaper that would hold still, of course. ‘Russians explode H-Bomb. Oh, and by the way, the CIA just overthrew the Iranian government. 300 killed in Iran coup.’

Here we see the giant red arrow gap, and the threat that it leads to in America. The Russians have many more giant red arrows than we do, we must respond in kind.

We can all rest easy, our government has armbands, big maps and ladders.

This is for civilian consumption, and the idea is, 'yes, it goes kabloowie, it's really loud, it's really bright, you gotta duck, but afterward, there's nothing to worry about. Never mind radioactive fallout. Mind you, the blast is enough to incinerate a house in 2.5 seconds, but don't worry about it if you're in a box in the basement, you'll be just fine.

They're gonna be perfectly fine, the narrator says. They just took a face full of radioactive fallout emanating directly form the epicenter, but they're gonna be just fine.

The buildings have been blown completely from their frames, and yet somehow we're supposed to be reassured by this footage. The level of doublethink that's required here to accept any of what we're being told is just outstanding.

One of the things we also see over and over again in the films for domestic political consumption is this repeated shot, both opening and closing the films usually, of a very phallic looking atomic blast, this very, you know, upright, ever-expanding extension of American power. The amount of sublimated sexual imagery that’s involved in these things is really quite striking to me, and the appeal to national pride. If only on a pre-conscious level, I'm not even sure the filmmakers themselves were aware of it. It's there in almost every film.

They show this massive pile of wreckage, and then buried in the wreckage there's one wax dummy that somehow survived the blast. Therefore, nothing to worry about. Here's this row after row of wax dummies. That's a Forbes for President rally, isn't it?

One of the functions of these films, by the way, is to present people with a very limited span of choices that gives them the feeling that there's actually some level of their ability to participate in their own futures, without really giving them any choice whatsoever. If this fallout shelter can be chosen over that fallout shelter, and that one hardly works at all, so let's get this fallout shelter, you're leaving out entirely the possibility of perhaps organizing and fighting to prevent the sort of nuclear escalation that would cause us to need fallout shelters. By presenting a false series of choices this actually limits debate, and runs quite a nice little end run around democratic action.

There's another disturbing element here too, which is the idea that 'your family will be safe.' Mind you, civilization will be destroyed, but what the hell, your family's safe. There's a certain sense that your family is the only thing that matters, that the community that they live in doesn't really matter. If you save your family, then that's sufficient, that's all that really matters. And people wonder why we feel so atomized and separate from each other in this society.

‘However, many of the worst effects of radiation can be avoided by wearing clothes. So if you're planning on surviving a nuclear war, be sure to wear clothes.’ That's very handy, because I normally wear very little more than an ankle bracelet and a couple of henna tattoos.

ON OPERATIONS CROSSROADS

The voice over discusses how these ships are being saturated with radioactive water, radioactive gases, that the men on the ships are being contaminated by radioactive fallout. That's an element that's simply not present in the educational films that are targeted at the American people. The American people didn't hear about the fallout. The American people see a blast then they see the soldiers get up and march right on in. Everything's perfectly fine.

‘You know, some soldiers are so silly in their concerns and nerves over radiation and its ability to cause cancer. Don’t worry about it at all, boys. Hell, relax, have a cigarette.’

ON “EFFECTS OF THERMONUCLEAR WEAPONS”

In this film they discuss the flash of a nuclear weapon from 200 miles away. Imagine if you put that into the films for domestic consumption. Imagine if you show the American people, if you're tying to convince them that an atomic blast say a mile and half away is no big deal, here's what it looks like from 200 miles away. Oh, and by the way, here's some footage of an entire city flattened. Now please proceed to the bank in an orderly fashion.

ON “THE PLOWSHARE PROGRAM”

This one I just love. Project Plowshare, where what they're trying to do is convince the American public that there are peaceful uses for nuclear weapons. ‘Nuclear weapons are our friends. In the future we'll all have atomic microwave ovens and atomic hair dryers, moving sidewalks, picture telephones, bikini underwear, a brave new world.’

That's right, excavating with nuclear explosives. That's like plumbing with nuclear explosives. Gardening with nuclear explosives. Dentistry with nuclear explosives. ‘It's just a pinch. You won't feel hardly anything.’ The Plowshare Program. Which is an obscenity. They're quoting the Bible here in order to rationalize weapons of mass destruction. "Hello, I'm Marlon Perkins, welcome to Radioactive Kingdom."

They're talking about taming the world, taming the environment with the use of nuclear weapons. This is very, very much in the great American tradition of manifest destiny, of bending the environment to the world of man, being separate from the planet and the ruler of his domain, and therefore we will make Mother Nature do what we want her to do, even if we have to use nuclear weapons to do it. 8:02

Using nuclear weapons, we'll be able to construct freeways nationwide by the year 1970. And as the fallout decays, they will be usable by the public in the year 2894.

ON “SPECIAL ATOMIC DEMOLITION MUNITIONS”

Now this is really creepy. Special Atomic Demolition Munitions. Briefcase bombs. Cowabunga, dudes. This is like Lloyd Bridges on bad acid. This is like "Seahunt" from hell. The guy's got a nuclear warhead strapped on his back. Jumping out of an airplane so he can go scuba diving with a nuclear warhead on his back. Talk about your Extreme sports. I'm glad as hell MTV doesn't have hold of this, because there'd be teenagers all over America wanting to do this.

ON OPERATION IVY FLATS

They clean up with brooms. This is to get the fallout off. Because you know brooms, that's the first level of atomic defense. You should always have a broom in your shelter. You know all they really need was a lint roller. You know, a lint roller is your basic protection against nuclear warfare. It keeps your arm from getting an owie.

(With lint roller in hand:) Got a little plutonium here, let me get that for you.

When there are unexpected effects in explosion, they refer these as being of further use, of potential benefit. In other words, "Gosh, it kills people this way too? Cool!"

This picture of the two guys in the bunker; "Oh God, I love you Jim." "Don't talk to me!"

ON HIGH ALTITUDE NUCLEAR TESTS ON RABBITS (OPERATION TEAK)

This is truly sick stuff. They take bunnies. They don’t know whether or not a nuclear blast is bright enough to blind you. Never mind all the anecdotal evidence from Nagasaki, Hiroshima, never mind what your common sense would tell you, they were curious whether a nuclear blast was actually blinding. So, they took a bunch of bunnies, your tax dollars at work, and they strapped them down in these steel bunny bondage devices. Blinding bunny bondage device. Not one or two, but palette-fuls of these creatures. This is the scariest looking doctor I have ever seen. This is the sickest man I've ever seen. This bunny has been blinded by an atomic blast, and he's getting right up in there, and looking right at it, and how does he kiss his mother? If I saw this man on the street, I would run in terror. He's clearly got no soul. Now of course this wasn't for domestic consumption. This was something that would probably cause outrage, you'd hope. Although in some parts of the country people'd look at that and go "Ummm, good eatin'!"

The attitude toward other life forms as being completely separate, and completely usable and completely at our disposal is again part of this whole ethic of the world bending to our whim. Mother Nature will bend, even if we have to use nuclear warheads to make that happen. So it's not surprising, when there was a major atomic accident, where fallout was much more intense than they were expecting and there were human casualties involved, some of the local islanders were affected, it's not surprising then that the islanders were studied and scrutinized very much the same way as the bunnies were. It's deeply disturbing.

(Looking at Dominic nuclear missile launchpad accidental explosion:) Another thing that people don't take into account is human error, which is a very constant presence in all human endeavors. And when you up the ante by employing nuclear weapons, it's a miracle that there hasn't been an accidental detonation somewhere along the line.

They call these things (nuclear weapons accidents) 'broken arrows.' That's a very nice euphemism for 'near death experience for the entire planet.'

ON OPERATION CASTLE

This is the island community downwind that was affected when the Bravo test went awry and the yield of the explosion was vastly larger than they'd originally intended because of there was human error. They simply hadn't accounted for the way that some of the tritium isotopes would continue the reaction. They got what they call a "tritium bonus," using the Pentagon's euphemism. Notice the way that they look at the islanders who are now afflicted with radiation sickness very similarly to the way that they look at the bunnies.

ON “THE WARM COAT,” ABOUT THE CANNIKIN TEST What the film doesn't go into any detail about when talking to the American public is that in the last test about 800 of these otters were killed. It's a bit gruesome, actually; the force of the blast blew their eyeballs back through their skulls and killed them instantly. Also, aquatic sea life, birds had their legs driven right through their bodies. Incredibly twisted things going on. But don't worry about that, the Pentagon is a bunch of concerned environmentalists, which is why they're willing to set off nuclear explosions in Alaska.

I think the only thing that's truly honest in that whole piece of film is the words "The End."

One of the other things the Pentagon leaves out of this footage is, according to Greenpeace, the containment area at the Amchitka blast was breached within two days, and subsequently various radioactive materials began leaking into the Bering Sea and as well (inaudible) gas began moving into the atmosphere just a couple of days after the blast.