The Bomb Chroniclers: Secret Corps of Filmmakers Documented Nuclear Bomb Tests

The New York Times ^ | September 13, 2010 | WILLIAM J. BROAD

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

They risked their lives to capture on film hundreds of blinding flashes, rising fireballs and mushroom clouds.

The blast from one detonation hurled a man and his camera into a ditch. When he got up, a second wave knocked him down again.

Then there was radiation.

While many of the scientists who made atom bombs during the cold war became famous, the men who filmed what happened when those bombs were detonated made up a secret corps.

Their existence and the nature of their work has emerged from the shadows only since the federal government began a concerted effort to declassify their films about a dozen years ago. In all, the atomic moviemakers fashioned 6,500 secret films, according to federal officials.

Today, the result is a surge in fiery images on television and movie screens, as well as growing public knowledge about the atomic filmmakers.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

[Waverunner]

#1 problem - Over exposed film

[Paladin2]

#2 is a good documentary pic.

[Pessimist]

So... “nuts”, or just nuts?

[Ender Wiggin]

Smile and wait for flash

[a fool in paradise]

Two new atomic documentaries, “Countdown to Zero” and “Nuclear Tipping Point,” feature archival images of the blasts. Both argue that the threat of atomic terrorism is on the rise and call for the strengthening of nuclear safeguards and, ultimately, the elimination of global arsenals.

There are a number of DVDs will public doman footage from the blasts as well as training films. I've even picked up one title on the "secret corps of filmmakers".

That said, such images of the cameramen filming the low yield blasts (or even being knocked down but not immediately killed by the blasts) are evidence that those who say "you WILL NOT SURVIVE a nuclear blast" are false. That is directed at those who poo-pooed fall out shelters and who today believe that a terrorist strike with a "suitcase nuke" will kill everyone in a major metropolitan area.

It all depends on the strength.

[a fool in paradise]

Viewers include President Obama.

In April, he hosted a White House screening of “Nuclear Tipping Point.” The documentary profiles a bipartisan group of former atomic officials who are promoting a vision of the world free of nuclear arms — an objective in line with Mr. Obama’s own policies.

You aren't going to put the genie back in the bottle, but Obama is hell-bent on diminishing America's nuclear arsenal even if the Russians and Chinese won't.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

I have an old VHS copy of Trinity and Beyond, which was an excellent documentary on the nuclear testing program from 1945 through 1964, narrated by William Shatner.

I highly recommend it!

[katana]

It all depends on the strength.

And the proximity.

If even half of what the doomsayers spout was true we should all be dead already. Over the course of around fifteen years the US and Soviets (and Brits and French) detonated hundreds of nuclear devices. Yet the population of the earth approximately doubled during the same time period.

The alarmists are like the people who wrote and directed the mutant sci-fi films of the fifties, except of course that those films were sometimes entertaining (like Them with the bus size ants).

[johngrace]

I have this in DVD. This Is awesome. It’s the best one on the subject. It’s shows the raw power of nuclear weapons like no other Doc. It’s scary to see the power and horror of the nuclear age. I do not know how we got out of the 20th century except by prayer from the Grace of God. Always Heaven Help us.

[NonValueAdded]

The top photo makes me wonder if a montage of these blasts accompanied by The Beatles’ "Here Comes The Sun" would be as surreal as it sounds.

[TalonDJ]

That is directed at those who poo-pooed fall out shelters and who today believe that a terrorist strike with a "suitcase nuke" will kill everyone in a major metropolitan area.

Yup. I heard people for decades poo-pooing the old 'duck and cover' when in reality if you saw the flash you darn well needed to duck and cover or the flying glass was going to cut you up. If you were a few miles from ground zero you were probably going to be ok.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Virginia Ridgerunner.

Oppenheimer, the principle developer of the atomic bomb, wrote later that during the explosion of the first atomic bomb, he immediately recalled something from the Bhagavad-gita -- "Death I am, cause of destruction of the worlds..."

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[Tax-chick]

Interestingly, some translations of the Bhagavad Gita render the line, “I am become Time, the destroyer of worlds.”

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Tax-chick! And bravo for the alacrity! And the version of this story I originally read had it “shatterer of worlds”. :’)

[Tax-chick]

I don’t know a bit about the original language, but the possible consonance of “death” and “time” gives an English-speaker food for thought, especially with what we sort-of know about the curiousities of time in the sub-atomic sphere.

In “The Hunt for Red October,” Captain Ramius mentioned Oppenheimer’s use of the line.

[KoRn]

Wow...... I wonder how long those guys survived after making all of those films. They HAD to be exposed to more radiation than a growing boy needs.

[bigheadfred]

Read a book a while back by Carole Gallagher. American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War.

Here's a couple of articles.

Interview

Glowing

[Monkey Face]

If one was a “Down Winder,” there was no question: One took Iodine Pills once a week and never, ever asked why; neither did our parents.

[Tax-chick]

Interesting.