Air Force Special Film Project 416 - Nuclear Warfare (1958)

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Air Force Special Film Project 416 - Nuclear Warfare (1958)

"The Power of Decision" may be the first (and perhaps the only) U.S. government film depicting the Cold War nightmare of a U.S.-Soviet nuclear conflict. The U.S. Air Force produced it during 1956-1957 at the request of the Strategic Air Command. Unseen for years and made public for the first time by the National Security Archive, the film depicts the U.S. Air Force's implementation of war plan "Quick Strike" in response to a Soviet surprise attack against the United States and European and East Asian allies. By the end of the film, after the Air Force launches a massive bomber-missile "double-punch", millions of Americans, Russians, Europeans, and Japanese are dead.

Colonel Dodd, the narrator, asserts that "nobody wins a nuclear war because both sides are sure to suffer terrible damage." Despite the "catastrophic" damage described by a SAC briefer, one of the film's operating assumptions is that defeat is avoidable as long as the Soviet Union cannot impose its "will". The last few minutes of the film suggest that the United States will prevail because of its successful nuclear air offensive. One of the characters, General "Pete" Larson optimistically asserts that the Soviets "must quit; we have the air and the power and they know it". It is the Soviets, not the United States, who are sending out cease-fire pleas, picked up by the CIA.

Little is known about the production or subsequent distribution of "The Power of Decision." It was probably used for internal training purposes so that officers and airmen could prepare for the worst active-duty situation that they could encounter. Perhaps the relatively unruffled style of the film's performers was to help serve as a model for SAC officers if they ever had to follow orders that could produce a nuclear holocaust.

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Air Force Special Film Project 416, "Power of Decision"
Produced by Air Photographic and Charting Service (component of Military Air Transport Service) Circa 1958, For Official Use Only
Source: Digital copy prepared by National Archives and Records Administration Motion Pictures Unit, Record Group 342, Department of the Air Force

This item was obtained and uploaded by the National Security Archive - http://www.nsarchive.org - an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at The George Washington University. Use is authorized in accordance with Creative Commons license and with credit to the National Security Archive. For more information see the complete posting at the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault - http://www.nsarchive.org/nukevault/ebb336

The following description of the film is from the U.S. Air Force Motion Picture Film Depository index card:

6 Reels, 35mm, color, sound, edited, 5600 feet, quality: Good (Basic: Orig color)

Coverage of simulated war plan action, in the event of an attack, which was executed at the Operation Control Room, Offutt AFB, Nebraska, and at the underground control room (location SECRET), by Strategic Air Command. Footage includes pilots and ground crewmen scrambling; pilots boarding aircraft; B-47's, B-52's, and B-58's taxiing, taking off, maneuvering, and landing; and a KC-135 refueling a B-52. Also included are scenes of the launching of the Bull Goose, Rascal, Snark, and Thor missiles.

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Document One: Historical Division, Office of Information, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, History of the Strategic Air Command; History Study 73A: SAC Targeting Concepts, n.d. [circa 1959], Top Secret

Source: Declassified in full by Interagency Classification Appeals Panel [ISCAP]
This history was the subject of successive FOIA and mandatory declassification review requests, spread out over the years. Under an MDR request to the Air Force much more information was released on SAC deployments, alert systems, and modes of executing war plans, including taking the "initiative" [page 5], but it took a decision by the Interagency Classification Appeals Panel [ISCAP] to declassify this document its entirety. What the Air Force had held back, but which ISCAP has deemed as non sensitive, was the discussion of the once highly secret GOLD POT concept of auxiliary landing fields overseas for the recovery of bombers that had accomplished their initial strike missions during a nuclear war. SAC chose 156 landing fields, although it did not inform foreign governments of its choices.

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Document Two: "The Operational Side of Air Offense: Remarks by General Curtis LeMay to USAF Scientific Advisory Board at Patrick AFB," 21 May 1957, Top Secret

Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Curtis E. LeMay Papers, box 206, Top Secret File Number 60725
In this speech, LeMay explained "winning" [page 3] as well his concept of the SAC air offensive, including details on the "Air Power Target Battle System" requiring "immediate attack" on 954 targets, including Soviet bomber forces, bases, government and military control centers, and nuclear weapons storage units.

Comment: Considering that Karl Marx and Vladimir Ilich Lenin were both Freemasons and Joseph Stalin a member of the Illuminati, I wonder why the Masons in the U.S. Government were so afraid of the USSR.
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