WEBVTT - S1E1: Not All Fun and WarGames 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:02.960 Hey there, it's your host ed helms. 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:03.200 Here. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.400 Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.479 to remind you that my brand new book is coming 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.440 out on April twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo, The Definitive 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.000 Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, and you can pre 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.880 order it right now at snafudashbook dot com. Trust me, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.600 if you like this show, you're gonna love this book. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.680 It's got all the wild disasters spectacular face plants we 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.440 just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.880 I am also going on tour to celebrate that's right. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.600 I'm coming to New York, DC, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.560 San Francisco, and my hometown Los Angeles. So if you've 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.800 ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.600 and A or dramatically read about a kiddie cat getting 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.000 turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance again. Head 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.600 to Snaffo dashbook dot com to pre order the book 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.120 and check out all the tour details and day, or 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.440 just click the link in the show notes that'll work too. 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:06.880 Did you ever watch a movie as a kid and 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:13.880 convince yourself that it was real that its outlandish premise 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.679 could possibly come true. I know I did, and for me, 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:21.840 one of those movies was Wargames. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.440 Great to meet you, Great to meet you too. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:32.120 I'm ed by the way. Yeah that's Matthew Broadrick. He's 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.280 a national treasure and also the star of Wargames, a 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:40.280 movie about an almost accidental nuclear war that I watched 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.560 maybe one hundred times as a kid, came out in 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.600 nineteen eighty three, and it was Matthew's breakout role. 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:48.880 The fact that I had gotten the lead of a 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.960 you know, studio movie was incredible, Yeah, absolutely incredible. 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.560 His character was a hacker, a tech genius. David Lightman 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:04.480 was a moister at computer games, and Matthew was great 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.720 in it. I mean, obviously, right, he's an incredible actor. 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.960 But wait, now do I adjust my volume? Can you speak? 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.679 You guys talking talking talking? Say? 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:15.959 Gee? 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.200 No, nodding because I want to now pretend that it's working. Okay, Yeah, 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:21.079 so it's perfect. 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.720 Matthew Broderick is clearly not a tech genius in real life, 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.680 but that's just further proof what a great actor he is. 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.640 So in War Games, teenage hacker David Leitman tries to 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.280 impress a girl at school, Jennifer, played by another eighties icon, 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.720 Ali Sheety. Along the way, he accidentally hacks into a 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.120 supercomputer that the US is using to game out World 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.960 War three scenarios, hence wargamell. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.960 How about global thermallear. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.079 It gets misinterpreted as a real nuclear attack and almost 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:56.400 starts World War three? 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:57.400 Launch detiction. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.679 We have a story launch detction. 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:03.440 Terrifying. 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.320 Yeah, I am not charmed by that. I am terrified 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:12.040 by that. When I was nine years old, wargames really 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:16.040 captured my imagination in the sense that I became utterly 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:21.520 convinced it was real. I even had a breakdown at 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.040 summer camp because of it. All the other kids were 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.640 having a grand old time. Meanwhile, I was just terrified 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.040 that at any moment we'd all die in a fiery 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:36.480 nuclear armageddon. Yeah, I guess I was a bit of 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.320 a wet blanket while everyone else was just trying to 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:43.400 get pumped up for s'mores. So why am I talking 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.920 to Matthew Broderick about wargames? After all, It's just a movie, 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:49.440 an outlandish premise, a fantasy. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:49.800 Right. 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.320 Eventually we all grow up and realize that movies aren't real. 0:03:54.120 --> 0:04:03.840 There are no accidental nuclear wars. Right, Well, my friends, 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.240 imagine my surprise when I learned that the premise of 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:14.680 Wargames was fucking real. Yeah, it came true only months 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.880 after the movie's release. That's right. As it turns out, 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.200 in nineteen eighty three, a real life military exercise, a wargame, 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:28.880 almost started an actual nuclear war, just like Wargames. This 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.039 exercise that almost ended at all. It goes by the 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.120 code name Able Archer eighty three, and that's what this 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:37.920 show is about. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:42.760 Wow, that's an amazing story. 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:44.720 I I'm surprised. 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.159 I don't know about that, but I don't think I 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:48.119 do know about it. 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.320 Too bad they don't give out an oscar for best 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.440 nuclear war prediction. The Wargames screenwriters would have been a 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.360 shoe in. It's like kind of a perfect screenplay. I 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:02.760 don't think they were too far off. When I first 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.599 heard the story of Abel Archer eighty three, let's just 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.359 say my childhood fears were instantly validated. Thinking back on 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.960 that moment at summer camp, paralyzed by the fear that 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.119 the outlandish plot of war Games would come true, camp 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.360 counselors hovering around me, trying to console me, saying, come on, dude, 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.320 it's just a movie. Let's go canoeing. Everything's gonna be fine. Well, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.480 looking back, I realize now it was not fine. It 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.920 was so incredibly not fine. They were wrong and I 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.360 was right. I'd just like to say, on behalf of 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.400 nine year old me, I fucking told you so? Who 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:44.440 That felt good? But vindication aside, Learning this story still 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:50.520 leaves me a little unnerved, maybe even alarmed, Because if 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.760 a military exercise almost caused a nuclear war in nineteen 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:59.840 eighty three and nobody knew about it, what a complete 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:07.040 and utter snaffoo. Snaffoo is a military term first used 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.920 by soldiers in World War Two. It's an acronym snaffho. 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.840 It stands for situation normal, all fucked up, meaning this 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.480 is so fucked up. But then again, isn't it always? 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.000 That's what this show is about. The gas, the disasters, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.400 history's greatest screw ups. This season the story of Able 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.919 Archer eighty three. It's the ultimate Cold War mystery, a 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:37.560 stew of espionage, paranoia, shady politics, and dangerous miscalculations. Oh 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.520 and a lot of mind games. Put on your hazmat suits, listeners, 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.919 I'm ed Elmes. Your host and this is Snaffo Able 0:06:46.040 --> 0:07:01.800 Archer eighty three. 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.600 It's just this whole game of deception and count deception 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:12.800 of who can you trust? 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.600 Oh wait, he's preparing a sudden. 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.559 I heard a young father saying, I love my little 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.680 girls more than anything, and I would rather see my 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.800 little girls die now than have them grow up under communism. 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.760 Really, for the first time in my life, I felt 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:31.800 like there could be nuclear war. 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.600 It wasn't a question of would it happen, It was 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:36.320 a question of when was it going to happen. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.560 We were preparing to fight armageddon. 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:39.680 That's what we're. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.040 Told, That's what we believed. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.240 We were training to fight the end of the world. 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.840 It was a week just like every other week. Abral 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.920 Archer eighty three was not anything out of the ordinary. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.640 This is Jean Gay. He was a participant in the 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.320 nineteen Able Archer wargame. Gene like a lot of men 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.280 who participated in Able Archer that year recall it the 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.000 same way, which is to say, they don't really recall 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:09.680 much at all. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.200 Nothing to me from that exercise at the time. You know, 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:15.120 jumped out. 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.880 That's Colonel Spike Calendar and he says the same thing Nope, 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:22.920 nothing of note to these men. That week in early 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.760 November nineteen eighty three was just a week like any 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:30.000 other week, just another week of standard military exercises, practicing 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.680 how to fight the end of the world as one does. 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.800 The whole purpose of able Archer was the emphasis on 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.760 the practice of the nuclear weapons release for caizures. 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.640 Able Archer was a NATO exercise in November of nineteen 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.520 eighty three. The Able Archer players sat in a bunker 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:51.160 in Belgium practicing how if it came to it, they'd 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.320 fight a nuclear war against the Soviet Union. It's like 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.840 a soccer team doing drills, but instead of training for 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.440 a game, they're training for armageddon, which, like a soccer game, 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.880 you can't use your hands because they got blown off. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.679 The whole idea was if you ever had to do it, 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:10.800 you know you didn't want to do it for the 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:11.319 first time. 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.679 When Spike says do it, he's referring to the task 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.760 of launching planet destroying weapons. It's an example of how 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:23.400 military professionals are weirdly cavalier when they're talking about their work. 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.040 It's kind of shocking how something so gnarly can sound 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:27.960 so routine. 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.880 How do you look at what the requirements truly are, 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.720 you know, for those weapons systems and the numbers of them. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.000 So it would be a matter of being counting and 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.839 in some respects if you have a Soviet division, what 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.440 is the number of weapons that might be required to 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.360 reduce the effectiveness of that division to where it was 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:49.920 no longer military capable? 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.079 See what I mean? My point is this, to men 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.280 like Gene and Spike, there was nothing exceptional about gaming 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.800 out of fictional war during a b large It was routine. 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.800 But a few decades later Gene and Spike would learn 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:12.720 that Able Archer eighty three was anything but routine. 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:15.719 I was in my own little world. I hate to 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.280 use the word oblivious, but I've used that word before. 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.400 It was many years later they found out about it, 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:24.600 that anything other than the exercise took place in the 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.760 real world situation that occurred at during that time. I 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:29.760 was not aware of that until years afterwards. 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:34.480 Yeah, I never heard of anything more about this exercise 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.400 until what twenty or twenty five years later. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:42.960 What Gene and Spike would come to learn is that 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.360 while they were sitting in their bunker back in nineteen 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.599 eighty three rehearsing the end of the world missiles to 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:53.720 strike targets in Moscow. How the Soviets were listening, and 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.839 they seemed to be convinced it was not a rehearsal 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.920 at all. Soviet missile commanders were placed on high a. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.480 Soviet leaders retreated to their bunkers, fingers hovering over the 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:10.040 proverbial big red button, and NATO had no idea. 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.000 I mean, it is a miracle. We did not all die, 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.360 Like it's just goofy. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.080 This is Jeffrey Lewis. He's an expert on nuclear history 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.959 and geopolitics, and he finds the whole story of Able Archer, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.840 what he calls the war Scare to be sort of funny. 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.000 Almost all of the war scare is totally self inflicted, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:33.400 which makes it like really darkly comic. 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.160 I have to agree. There's an old saying that tragedy 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.960 plus time equals comedy. Well, if that's true, then a 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.439 story about a nuclear near miss plus about forty years 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.079 should be fucking hilarious. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.240 Because if you step back, it sounds crazy, right, It 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.720 sounds crazy that we could have had a serious nuclear 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.560 crisis that nobody knew about. Like that's nuts. 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.720 It is nuts. Jeffrey because it's not just that able 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.839 archer participants like Gene and Spike didn't know that a 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:03.640 newnuclear crisis was unfolding under their noses. No one knew. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:09.160 Let that sink in for a second. If it's possible 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.600 that a nuclear crisis could unfold right under our noses, 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.800 that we were in danger without knowing it, does that 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:21.520 mean it's still possible? All right, let's set the stage 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.560 a little bit. It's the nineteen eighties. There was certainly 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:29.120 a general and very pervasive anxiety about nuclear weapons. Pretty 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.840 Much everywhere you looked, you'd find nuclear paranoia. It wasn't 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:38.440 just wargames. It was all over pop culture. This delightful 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.360 little number is ninety nine Loft Balloons by Nina. It's 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.080 about one hundred red balloons accidentally inciting a nuclear war. 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.320 Kind of heavy for a kitchy pop hit. The nineteen 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:53.920 eighty three Bond film had a nuclear plot. The doctor 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:55.240 Seuss was feeling. 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.080 The heat this bomb on the zekes just as fast 0:12:58.080 --> 0:12:58.680 as you can. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:07.040 Evening chimed in, I love that shit personally, I love 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.080 that song, and I just love that Sting threw his 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.000 hat right in the middle of an international conflict. Anyway, 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.920 when it comes to examples of nuclear anxiety in nineteen 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.000 eighty three pop culture, there's actually one that stands above 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.440 all the rest. It was just a made for TV movie, 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:29.600 but it became a cultural event and it would actually 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.840 play a role in our Cold War mystery. 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:34.760 It was a movie like no other movie, and it 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.000 had a profound impact on New York. 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:37.840 That's story. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.960 Next, we'll hear from people who like you watch the 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:42.439 Ultimate Disaster. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.880 Movie the day after, a movie that would scare the 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.040 living shit out of America. 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.640 More than seven hundred people packed Riverside Church tonight to 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:52.720 watch the day after. 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.440 Many said they came here because they were afraid to 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:56.319 watch it alone. 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.640 Everyone, and by everyone, I mean a hundred million people, 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.360 almost half the US population at the time, gathered around 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.560 their TVs on the evening of November twentieth, nineteen eighty three, 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:10.280 and tuned into ABC to watch it. 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.120 Before the movie begins, I would like to caution parents 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.559 about the graphic depiction of nuclear explosions and then devastating 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:19.760 effects in a moment. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.840 The day after that, gather around kids, time to fill 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:28.239 your innocent little heads with deep, reverberating drama. Past the popcorn. 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.920 I tried to do my part in making people keenly 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.040 aware of what the real consequences would be. 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:40.000 This is Ed Hume, he wrote the day after. The 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.200 film is set at the border of Kansas and Missouri. 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.800 That's where the US nuclear missile silos are. The main 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:49.280 characters are average townspeople in the American heartland. 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.880 A bunch of people living in the Midwest doing ordinary things. 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:56.200 At first, the whole nuclear war thing isn't really front 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.880 and center. It just kind of lurks in the periphery. 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.960 But even as it creeps in, the characters can't accept 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:02.440 their fate. 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.680 What was that. There's one saying where a woman is 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.880 so in denial that she's running around making beds as 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:11.920 they know that missiles are being launched. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:13.120 Don't bother with the. 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.280 Bed just now, even we've got to get down below. Listen, 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:18.040 those missiles have all gone off. 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.080 Oh my gosh, Wow, she really wants to make those beds. 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:33.200 And then it happens. 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:43.360 It happens, the heartland is evaporated. The rest of the 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.600 film is stomach churning. To put it lightly, It showed 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:51.320 what a nuclear war would actually look like. Flashes of light, 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:57.240 lives instantaneously incinerated. But the whole explosion part isn't the 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.600 worst of it, because you get to see what happens 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:05.160 the day after nuclear fallout, radiation, poisoning, blistering skin and 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:10.760 dying organs, piles of bodies and rubble, looting, hoarding, and 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.280 everyday Americans turning on each other. I mean, all jokes aside, 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.200 this is grim fucking stuff. 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.760 The general pabla, they were pardon my language, what they 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:22.760 were scared of shutless. 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.040 I for one, felt that it was just devastating. 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:30.880 Like every horror story you've ever read. Roamed to one story. 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:32.560 We got a glimpse of what is really at stake 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:34.440 in a nuclear war. 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.080 I just want to go die, went to blast and 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.000 not have to live and start all over again. 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.400 Oh okay, didn't heed the parental advisory. This is how 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:54.840 that clip makes me feel. Okay. So yeah, in nineteen 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.840 eighty three, there was a general sense of nuclear doom. Hell, 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.000 it's why I had a mental break down at summer camp. 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.840 But we didn't know that there was a specific crisis 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.200 to be afraid of. We didn't know that we might 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.800 have almost had a nuclear war. During NATO's annual able 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:16.320 archer exercise. So then the question becomes why. 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:20.760 Not there is and you probably need it. About now, 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:22.760 there is some good news. 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.200 This is Ted Copple from Nightline. He's hosting a live 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.760 panel about the day after right after the movie aired. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.159 If you can take a quick look out the window, 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:32.560 it's all still there. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:39.600 Wow, deeply reassuring Ted. Anyway, Celebrity scientist Carl Sagan was there, 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.760 telling an already nauseous audience that he thought the film's 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.080 portrayal of nuclear war was actually not as bad as 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.720 it would be if it really happened. Yeh boy. Henry 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.639 Kissinger was there too, probably talking about feasting on the 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.800 souls of innocent children or something, but before the panel began. 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.240 Joining us live from his home in suburban Washington is 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.480 the Secretary of State, mister George Schultz. 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.920 Ted Copple brings out US Secretary of State George Schultz, 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.120 President Reagan's right hand man. He was a serious man, 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:15.360 loyal to the president, famously bragged about enjoying staring contests 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.960 with the Soviets, waiting for them to blink, comforting and so. 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.240 Mere minutes after the American public watched this horrifying film, 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.000 hearts still in their stomachs. The man who would be 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.280 standing next to the button pusher in chief answers the 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:33.200 burning question at the front of every viewer's mind. 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.200 The future as we've just viewed it tonight. Is that 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:38.479 the future as it will be, or only the future 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:39.240 as it may be? 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:47.280 Neither that is not the future at all. The film 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.800 is a vivid and dramatic portrayal of the fact that 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.720 nuclear war is simply not acceptable, and that fact and 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:58.720 the realization of it has been the policy of the 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.399 United States for decades now, the successful policy of the 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:04.959 United States. 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.640 If you watch the clip, George Schultz is shifty as hell. 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.320 His eyes keep flickering just to the right of the 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.160 camera and then back again, like he's reading Q cards. 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:22.080 He looks scared. Ted Season's journalist that he is smells 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:26.760 a little bullshit, he presses George. 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.080 Mister Schultz, that is the answer of a Secretary of 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.360 State to a reporter. And that's fair enough, because that's 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.199 what you and I, respectively are. But what would a 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:37.240 George Schultz who is talking to a member of his 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.680 family say in response to the same question, same answer, Well, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.199 I would give the same answer. 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.280 I'll tell you why I think George is nervous. It's 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:49.000 because eleven days before this interview able Archer eighty three 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.840 could have caused a nuclear war. A man in Schultz's 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.800 position would have known about that, right. Surely he was 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.000 shitting his slacks for the past eleven days trying to 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:02.680 figure out how such a colossal fuck up could have happened. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.040 Now would be a great time to come clean, to say, yeah, 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.400 we're gonna shake things up with our nuclear policy, because 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:15.919 the movie's right, this is scary shit. And yet, after 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:20.200 watching the day after, George Schultz, Secretary of State, assures 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:24.240 the American public that the administration status quo is effective 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:29.679 in preventing nuclear war. In eleven days after a nuclear war. 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:42.560 Scare, it's a very different kind of crisis because it's 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:44.800 so clumsy. 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:46.520 Here's Jeffrey Lewis again. 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.480 You know, this is more like two drunks in a 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:54.720 bar circling one another. And it's not so much that 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.119 anybody would deliberately choose to start the war. It's just 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.359 that things would spiral out of control. 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.720 The two drunks here are, of course, the United States 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:08.119 and the Soviet Union their drink bombs. And I'm not 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.159 talking Jaeger. Here's the part of the show where I 0:21:11.200 --> 0:21:13.200 give you a crash course on the Cold War. Get 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.600 out your pencils, kids, Welcome to Arms Race one oh one. 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.800 An ADAM bomb destroys or injures in three ways by blast, heat, 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:24.000 and radioactivity. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.359 The og atomic bomb was invented by the Americans in 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.400 the forties, you know, the one Hiroshima, Nagasaki. It only 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.119 took the Soviets five years to figure it out for themselves, 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:36.600 and once they had the bomb too, it began a 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:40.080 decades long race for bigger and better death machines. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:43.640 The fun thing about the Cold War is that there 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:49.280 were a huge variety of nuclear weapons and nuclear yields. 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.840 Jeffrey and I have very different definitions of fun. 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:54.200 So pretty soon after the end of World War II, 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.800 the United States developed a much more powerful nuclear weapon 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.720 than even the sea the destroyers that we saw dropped 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.520 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and these were called therma nuclear weapons. 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.919 This is the early fifties. A thermonuclear weapon uses the 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.400 radiation from the initial blast to ignite an even bigger blast, 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.640 a bomb within a bomb. The result is a warhead 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.399 that's about the same size as the atom bomb, but 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.119 way more destructive, like a million tons of explosive power 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:27.160 instead of ten thousand. In other words, it was economical 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:31.439 a bigger catastrophe for a smaller cost. You can't argue 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:32.320 with savings like that. 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.879 Once the United States, followed by other countries, developed therm 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:40.560 nuclear weapons, there was no limit to how large a 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.520 nuclear weapon one could make. The freeze that came to 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.439 be used about the amount of nuclear destructive power was 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.920 overkill because each side was worried that the other side 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:53.200 would strike them first, so they needed to have backups 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.960 and redundancy and more than you needed. And so in 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:01.240 practice what that led to was each side having the 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:05.000 capacity to destroy the other many, many times over, to 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:09.240 make the rubble bounce. In one particular phrase. 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.280 Back in the sixties, the US had enough nuclear weapons 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:16.080 to destroy the Soviet Union fifty times over, you know, 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.240 just in case some little cockroach escaped the first forty 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:23.639 nine blasts, which set the table quite nicely for this. 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:27.000 Good evening, my fellow citizens. 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:30.000 That's John F. Kennedy back in nineteen sixty two telling 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:32.320 the world in a televised speech from the White House 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:37.440 that a nuclear crisis was unfolding in Cuba. US biplanes 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:40.240 had discovered that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:43.480 sites on the Caribbean island nation, a little too close 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:44.920 to the United States for comfort. 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:48.840 The purpose of these bases can be none other than 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:53.240 to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere. 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:56.320 The US Navy set up a blockade, trying to prevent 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:59.959 any Soviet ships from bringing their nukes anywhere near the island. 0:24:00.400 --> 0:24:04.200 The Soviet Chips approached the blockade nuclear weapons in tow 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:09.679 It was a full fledged nuclear standoff. The news coverage 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:12.560