those were the years that were

On August seventh, 1945, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. The carnage shocked people the world over as army officials surveyed the city to assess the damage. On that day, world culture changed forever. The Pandora’s Box of nuclear weaponry could never be closed again. August seventh ushered in the Atomic Age: an age marked by paranoia and propaganda, during which an entire nation lived in fear of nuclear annihilation. The films and music of the cold war both reflected and heightened public opinion and feeling on the bomb, creating a fascinating picture of the American psyche as the country geared up for the war that truly would end all wars – if only because there would be no one left to fight.



As it became clear that America was no longer the only country in possession of the bomb, Americans were bombarded from all sides with advice on how to survive in the event of an attack. Animated shorts urged children to "duck and cover" in order to remain safe during an attack, while television specials showed happy American families weathering blasts in basement bomb shelters. Television ads appeared touting lead-lined suits for fallout protection and various other portable shelter contraptions, from fallout-protection capes to collapsible portable shelters. The overwhelming feeling portrayed by all these was a blind paranoia coupled with a lack of education and a willingness to do anything in order to stay safe. Movies such as Rocket Attack U.S.A., an ultra low-budget 1959 film starring John MacKay, reflected this mindset in their panicked portrayals of Soviet missile strikes on major American Cities. The tagline on the original theatrical poster reads "You’ll live, maybe!!!" In this same category belongs the "near-miss": a movie in which an honest American hero narrowly averts disaster and saves the whole country. These include The Day the Earth Caught Fire and The Crack in the World, which served also as propagandistic pieces to persuade Americans of the amazing powers of their good, capitalist heroes.

Directors treated the subject of nuclear weapons in many ways. From the newly reemerging field of black humor to classic monster movies, Hollywood tried it all. Authors of monster thrillers such as The Day the World Ended used nuclear war as a reason for their creatures’ strange mutations – anything abnormal must certainly have been caused by radiation from a Soviet attack. The atomic scare even made its way into the world of pornography with the 1960s release of Cafe Flesh, a porn flick based on post-apocalyptic human sexual mutation.

The application of black humor and satire to the issue came with Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, an over-the-top satirical cautionary tale about the bomb and those in charge of it. Though he initially wrote it as a serious drama, Kubrick soon realized the inherent comic potential of so many of the situations and changed his vision of the movie. The result: a crew of crackpot characters in charge of the fate of the world. One of the first films to deal with the idea of accidental war – whether through human error or mechanical malfunction – Dr. Strangelove is the story of air force general Jack D. Ripper, who sends his bombers to bomb Russia because the Soviets are after Americans’ "precious bodily fluids." The fate of the world rests in the hands of perpetually sniffling president Merkin Muffley, sex-crazed anti-communist General Turgidson, a philandering Soviet premier, RAF Group Captain Mandrake, and a crazed ex-Nazi rocket scientist somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Wernher Von Braun. Kubrick sets up the men in charge of the world as bumbling, sex-crazed fools as they attempt to stop the bombers and prevent a Russian doomsday device from annihilating the entire world. This darkly humorous film addresses one of the important questions of the era of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD): what if something goes wrong and we accidentally touch off the end of civilization? Released at almost the same time as Dr. Strangelove, Sidney Lumet’s Fail-Safe deals with the same question, but treats it as a straight drama rather than a black satire. Though in this case the accident is due to a hardware malfunction in the control circuits, the basic plot of Soviet-American cooperation to prevent the accidental strike is the same. The two films serve to point out one very important thing: that people and technology are not infallible, and one mistake or failure could trigger the end of the world.

Another entire subset of movies was devoted to the exploration of post-apocalyptic life. What would it be like? Where would we live? How would we live? The 1962 film Panic in Year Zero attempted to depict "survivors in a lawless, postnuclear society without normal food supplies, medical treatment, transportation or other forms of social support." These movies often threw together odd combinations of people to be the last survivors, and examined what might happen to sexual politics. What, for example, might happen if there were only one woman left on earth? Most agreed on one thing, though: post-apocalyptic society would be savage and uncivilized, the polar opposite of the American ideals of lawfulness, order, and democracy.

By the early 1980s, MAD had gone the way of the dodo and the Reagan administration was touting a new policy of "winnable nuclear war," partially based on the ability of a large number of Americans to survive in various types of primitive fallout shelters. Determined to highlight the flaws in this plan, independent filmmakers Kevin Rafferty, Pierce Rafferty, and Jayne Loader pieced together The Atomic Cafe, an artfully-edited feature-length black humor documentary made up entirely of 50s and 60s propaganda, training films, vintage test footage, television programs, advertising, and popular music. The film pointed out the similarities between the 50s and 60s bomb shelter craze and the Reagan administration's plan, which the filmmakers saw as a throwback to an earlier, outdated mode of thinking about global thermonuclear war. Clips included animated children's cartoons urging citizens to "duck and cover" as soon as they saw the telltale flash of the bomb. The blatantly satirical view of early atomic era paranoia presented in the film marked the fact that Americans now saw their former extreme fears as rather laughable. Society had adjusted to the presence of the bomb.



Musicians, too, addressed the issue of nuclear war, whether through satire or serious songs. Satirist Tom Lehrer wrote several songs about the bomb, on topics ranging from nuclear proliferation to the end of the world. His 1965 album That Was the Year That Was contains the song "So Long Mom (A Song for World War III)," a satirical look at the changes in warfare since the development of nuclear weapons. Touching upon bomb shelters, the destruction of his home, and anticommunism, the song ends with the cheery thought "I’ll look for you when the war is over, / An hour and a half from now!" "Who’s Next?" a song off the same album, covers the subject of nuclear proliferation worldwide. "Wernher Von Braun" pokes fun at the ex-Nazi rocket scientist and how his "good old American know-how" put us in the forefront of the nuclear nations. However, the quintessential Tom Lehrer nuclear warfare song is 1959's "We Will All Go Together When We Go," from An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer. Described by Lehrer as a "survival hymn," it points out that when you go, everyone else will too, leaving nobody behind to grieve. Though satirical in an over-the-top manner, Lehrer’s songs reflect real thoughts, issues, and fears in cold-war-era America. The idea of universal annihilation is turned around and made into a darkly funny piece of music intended to poke fun at the society of fear.

Country music in the 1950s served the same political and social purpose it does today: namely, to provide a patriotic perspective on whatever the issue. Songs like "Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb" and "Atom Bomb Baby" equated nuclear warfare to everyday life, thereby making it less of a threat. Equating an a-bomb to Jesus puts a much brighter spin on the bomb. Songs were upbeat and catchy, intended to make the nation feel more at ease with the bomb.

On the other end of the spectrum were liberal folk and blues songs, many of which were censored by the government for defying American policy. "Old Man Atom" was one such song. A "talking blues number," it spoke of the dangers of nuclear proliferation and called upon the world to band together and stop the spread of the bomb. It ended with the line "Here’s my thesis; Peace in the world or the world in pieces." Songs such as this one reflected the left-wing view being actively suppressed by right-wing leaders, because left-wing meant communist and no one could be seen who was a liberal and not a communist; people might get confused. Bob Dylan took the black humor approach in his song "Talking World War Three Blues," a folk music look at life after a nuclear war.



Both film and music changed drastically during the cold war to reflect a nation living in constant fear of nuclear attack from communist Russia or China. "Atomic" came to be synonymous with "powerful" – it inspired a sort of awe that America had never felt before and invaded every aspect of life. In the 1953 Dr. Seuss film The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, the protagonist holds up a home-made weapon and declares it to be "very atomic," thus prompting everyone to duck and cover. The atomic bomb defined an era in pop culture in a way that few other things have: it was a subject that had universal appeal and played off the paranoia of a nation. It will not soon be forgotten.