Introduction At first appearance, the government film Duck and Cover (1951) appears to be little more than a safety video, designed to help students prepare for the possibility of an atomic attack. The film was made in the early days of the Cold War, not long after the public had been made aware that the menacing Soviet Union had acquired the capability to build atomic bombs, not unlike those the United States deployed against Japan after World War II a mere six years earlier. Attempting to decipher the U.S. government’s intentions when producing this film is a matter for historians to consider. Regardless of their intentions, however, this essay will argue that Duck and Cover was ultimately propagandistic and had much in common with what …show more content…
Propaganda might very well appear educational, precisely because propagandists have “for a long while realized that a lie is not good for their purposes, that ‘truth pays,’ that propaganda must be based upon facts” (p. 62). That said, what is most important is not necessarily whether the facts presented are objectively true, but that the facts coincide with public perception concerning reality. It must appeal, at least in part, to common sensibilities. If the facts are not knowable, it should be recognized that there is something within the corporate, public persona that makes people want to believe the facts as presented. After all, as Ellul notes, people tend to believe that the government knows more than the public, and as such may be more inclined to share the opinion of that government (p. 65). Much of what Duck and Cover posits as a viable means to avoid injury in the event of a nuclear attack is, at least as we know today, rather absurd. Likening the way a child should be prepared if an attack is imminent to a turtle who retreats into its shell, the film depicts mostly children ducking under school desks, diving from a bicycle into a curb, and even covering one’s head with a newspaper. The film likens the impact of a nuclear blast, on one occasion, to a severe
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
In Prompt and Utter Destruction, J. Samuel Walker provides the reader with an elaborate analysis of President Truman’s decision behind using the atomic bomb in Japan. He provokes the reader to answer the question for himself about whether the use of the bomb was necessary to end the war quickly and without the loss of many American lives. Walker offers historical and political evidence for and against the use of the weapon, making the reader think critically about the issue. He puts the average American into the shoes of the Commander and Chief of the United States of America and forces us to think about the difficulty of Truman’s decision.
Kearny, Cresson H. Nuclear War Survival Skills. Cave Junction: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 1979. Print.
Stanley Kubrick’s sexual parody, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, illustrates an unfathomed nuclear catastrophe. Released in the midst of the Cold War, this 1964 film satirizes the heightened tensions between America and Russia. Many sexual insinuations are implemented to ridicule the serious issue of a global nuclear holocaust, in an effort to countervail the terror that plagued America at that time. Organizing principles, such as Kubrick’s blunt political attitudes about the absurdity of war and the satirical genre, are echoed by the film style of his anti-war black comedy, Dr. Strangelove.
Within this controversial topic, two authors provide their sides of the story to whom is to blame and/or responsible for the “Cold War.” Authors Arnold A. Offner and John Lewis Gaddis duck it out in this controversial situation as each individual lead the readers to believe a certain aspect by divulging certain persuading information. However, although both sides have given historical data as substance for their claim, it is nothing more than a single sided personal perception of that particular piece of information; thus, leaving much room for interpretations by the reader/s. Finding the ...
In the third decade of the Cold War, less than two years after the United States population had been scared half-way to death by the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dr. Strangelove invaded the nation's movie theatres and showed the country the end of the world. Touted by critics then and now as the film of the decade, Dr. Strangelove savagely mocked the President, the entire military defense establishment, and the rhetoric of the Cold War. To a nation that was living through the stress of the nuclear arms race and had faced the real prospect of nuclear war, the satiric treatment of the nation's leaders was an orgasmic release from deep fears and tensions. Its detractors argued that the film was juvenile, offensive, and inaccurate. Viewed, however, in its context of the Cold War and nuclear proliferation, Dr....
Discussions of the causes of the Cold War are often divisive, creating disparate ideological camps that focus the blame in different directions depending on the academic’s political disposition. One popular argument places the blame largely on the American people, whose emphasis on “strength over compromise” and their deployment of the atomic bomb in the Second World War’s Pacific theatre apparently functioned as two key catalysts to the conflict between US and Soviet powers. This revisionist approach minimizes Stalin’s forceful approach and history of violent leadership throughout World War 2, and focuses instead on President Harry Truman’s apparent insensitivity to “reasonable Soviet security anxieties” in his quest to impose “American interests on the world.” Revisionist historians depict President Truman as a “Cold War monger,” whose unjustified political use of the atomic bomb and ornery diplomatic style forced Russia into the Cold War to oppose the spread of a looming capitalist democratic monopoly. In reality, Truman’s responsibility for the Cold War and the atomic bomb drop should be minimized.
During World War II propaganda was ubiquitous. It consisted of a wide range of carriers including leaflets, radio, television, and most importantly posters. Posters were used based on their appeal: they were colorful, creative, concise, and mentally stimulating. Posters often portrayed the artist's views on the war. They demonstrated the artist concern for the war, their hopes for the war, and reflected the way enemies were envisioned. Posters also show a nations political status: they reflect a nations allies and enemies, how the nation saw itself, and its greatest hopes and fears of the war.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Gregory, Ross. A. Cold War America: 1946 to 1990. New York, NY: Facts on File, 2003. McQuaid, Kim.
Propaganda posters were used by most countries involved in WWII to persuade their citizens to support patriotism and nationalism in their country. Most countries also used propaganda to persuade their citizens to support their cause and join their armed forces. The Allied Powers used propaganda to persuade their individual countries that winning the war was the only “road to justice”. Most of the propaganda posters distributed by the Axis Powers were aimed towards winning the war and supporting the beliefs of the Nazis. Most of the propaganda posters from WWII were used to recruit for the war, support the war, or spread the racial views of their country.
When one thinks about warfare, the average mental picture is usually a movie war scene with soldiers, and planes; very rarely do people think about about the average Joe, trimming his hedge. In the short story “Grace Period”, by Will Baker, there is a man trimming his hedge outside with an electric hedge trimmer when a nuclear bomb is dropped; his wife has gone to get the mail. In “an instant [he felt as] everything stretched just slightly, a few millimeters, then contracted again” (Baker, 1989, p. 7). Although the character does not know what is happening, the reader may realize that this description is a high altitude nuclear burst. The article “Nuclear Weapon Effects”, by John Pike, describes what a nuclear bomb’s effects are and what could happen if one was dropped. Based on clues in the story and the information from the article, the reader can determine what is happening to the man and what he can expect will happen to him.
The world as we know it was built with events and circumstances that many of us are unaware of. One of the most powerful and deadliest discoveries of the human race in the twentieth century was the development of the atomic bomb. Many are aware that we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in the end of the Second World War, but what many do not know are the extensive research operations that evaluated the technology to be used in future military operations. In the summer of 1946, American Government and Military forces conducted this research in Operation: Crossroads which was performed in the Bikini Islands. More than 40 years later in 1988 director Robert Stone directed and produced a documentary on these tests which was named Radio Bikini: the most terrifying and unbelievable story of the nuclear age. The film was hailed by critics for the content of the film and its use of newsreels and military film for the movie as one critic said, “Wha...
Miles, Rufus E. Jr. “Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of Half a Million American Lives Saved.” International Security (1985): 121-140.
American fear of the world spiraling into devastation, and themselves being attacked by an atomic bomb, quickly ingrained United States citizens – so much they believed fallout shelters were
Maddox, Robert. “The Biggest Decision: Why We Had to Drop the Atomic Bomb.” Taking Sides: Clashing View in United States History. Ed. Larry Madaras & James SoRelle. 15th ed. New York, NY. 2012. 280-288.