The New Nuclear Age

Matthew Bunn (0:02)

Rowhome Productions.

Jane Perlez (0:08)

On the evening of Sunday, November 20, 1983, more than 100 million Americans turn on their TVs to watch a disaster unfold.

There's a skirmish between NATO and Soviet forces on the East and West German border. Things get out of control fast. Diplomatic efforts fail. Then the worst comes.

SPEAKER_3 (0:34)

Missile warning, this is Beale. Roger, we've got 32 targets in track and 10 impacting points. I want to confirm, is this an exercise?

Roger, copy. This is not an exercise.

Jane Perlez (0:48)

The camera cuts to Kansas City, where a man looks up at the sky.

SPEAKER_4 (0:54)

Those are mini-man missiles.

Robert McNamara (0:56)

Like a test, sort of.

SPEAKER_4 (0:57)

Like a warning?

Robert McNamara (0:58)

They're on their way to rush them.

SPEAKER_4 (1:00)

They take about 30 minutes to reach their target.

SPEAKER_6 (1:03)

So do theirs, right?

Jane Perlez (1:07)

Kansas City is irradiated. What follows are the horrific scenes of a nuclear apocalypse.

As you've likely guessed, it was just a movie. But the day after touched a collective nerve. The day after the day after, newsman Ted Koppel took to the airwaves to discuss what no one could forget.

Ted Koppel (1:35)

There is some good news. If you can, take a quick look out the window. It's all still there. What we have all just seen is sort of a nuclear version of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. Remember Scrooge's nightmare journey into the future with the spirit of Christmas yet to come? The old man asks the spirit the very question that many of us may be asking ourselves right now.

Whether the vision that we've just seen is the future as it will be or only as it may be.

Is there still time?

Jane Perlez (2:08)

That very night on ABC News, Koppel convened a legendary panel featuring Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and more. It's a lively discussion. One memorable moment is an exchange between the conservative William F. Buckley and celebrity scientist Carl Sagan. Sagan was describing a nuclear winter.

What might happen to Earth after a nuclear attack?

Carl Sagan (2:40)

There is a real possibility of the extinction of the human species from such a war.

Jane Perlez (2:46)

Koppel stops Sagan right here.

Ted Koppel (2:49)

If our viewers were not depressed enough after seeing the movie, I suspect you've brought them to an even greater nadir.

Jane Perlez (2:55)

And then William F. Buckley jumps in.

William F. Buckley (2:58)

I think that's good news, Mr. Koppel. Because if the Soviet Union knows that a first strike is going to mean the extinction of the Soviet Union, then there won't be a first strike.

Carl Sagan (3:06)

I agree with that. I'm amazed to find myself agreeing with Mr. Buckley, but that is absolutely right.

Jane Perlez (3:12)

The audience laughs nervously, but what Buckley is describing is deterrence. The rationale that using these weapons would ensure mutual destruction, and thus keeps us from using them.

The debate roils on. Eventually, Koppel turns to the former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, and asks him point blank, what, if anything, can be done?

Robert McNamara (3:39)

I think much can be done, Mr. Koppel, much that we're not doing. There are 40,000 nuclear warheads in the inventories of the US and the Soviet Union today, with a destruction power roughly a million times that of the Hiroshima bomb. I don't know any arms expert, and I doubt if anyone in this room believes that in the next 10 to 15 years, we can reduce that number by more than half.

Jane Perlez (4:04)

Yet, this did happen.

Today, the US has roughly 5,000 nuclear warheads. Russia has 5,500.

The day after had a deep effect on President Ronald Reagan. He had been, after all, an actor. He loved the movies. But this one, he said, left him greatly depressed. Afterwards, he doubled down on what he called the zero option, a complete withdrawal of intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

Ronald Reagan (4:39)

As I've said before, my dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the earth.

Jane Perlez (4:46)

Four years later, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev stood in the White House to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. It was a landmark moment.

At the signing, Reagan proudly repeated an old Russian maxim to Gorbachev.

Ronald Reagan (5:04)

General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty, the maxim is doviyai noproviyai, trust but verify.

William F. Buckley (5:21)

You repeat that at every meeting.

Ronald Reagan (5:26)

I like it.

Jane Perlez (5:30)