Jan 272017
 

With thanks to Kenneth Hutchison, Parliamentary Assistant to Dr. Eilidh Whiteford.

The SNP MP for Banff and Buchan, Eilidh Whiteford, has called for the UK Government to come clean to Parliament following the revelations that the Prime Minister knew of a failed Trident test just weeks before a vote on renewal of the UK’s WMDs last year.
PM Theresa May refused four times on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show to answer the presenter’s question on whether she knew about the test failure before the vote was taken.

Parliament voted to renew the deterrent, which experts believe could cost more than £200bn.

SNP MPs opposed the renewal, while Labour were divided. Each missile is estimated to cost £17m, and only five tests have been carried out since the year 2000.

During an Urgent Question to the Defence Secretary yesterday, Michael Fallon MP refused to confirm the details of the failed test, whilst a US Official confirmed the information to CNN.

Dr Whiteford said:

“Whilst the Defence Secretary was refusing to confirm any information during today’s Urgent Question, a US official briefed news channel CNN on the details of the failed test mission.

“It is simply not acceptable that the UK Government has not come clean on the facts of this failure, but US press outlets have received an update from officials in the White House.

“The Prime Minister has real questions to answer about why parliament has not learned about this failure until now, despite knowing the about the failure when she came to Parliament to force a vote on the renewal of the deterrent.

“Notwithstanding the immorality and expense of weapons of mass destruction, capable of incinerating cities, the Government’s stonewalling of legitimate questions about whether the system is working properly only fuels concerns about Trident.”

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Feb 112016
 

By Jonathan Russell, Chair Aberdeen and District Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

No Trident CNDOn Saturday 27th February the CND is calling a massive demonstration in London to protest against the renewal of Britain’s nuclear weapons system: Trident.
The demonstration is being supported by local politicians from across the political divide the SNP, Labour and the Greens in Scotland who are all opposed to the renewal of Trident

Commenting Kirsty Blackman SNP, MP (Aberdeen North) said:

“The UK Government is on entirely the wrong track with its support for out-dated, immoral nuclear weapons.  A great turn out from members of the public at anti-Trident events keeps the pressure up on the Westminster Government.”

 Commenting Dame Anne Begg ex Labour MP (Aberdeen South) said:

“I have been a lifelong unilateralist and have therefore never supported the UK having nuclear weapons.  I would like to see Britain get rid of our nuclear weapons to set an example to other countries. However, the first step should be to cancel any replacement of the Trident nuclear system and carry out a proper defence review looking at where the threats to our country come from today.

“We need a defence policy which addresses the world geo-political landscape at the beginning of the 21st century and not one which supposedly protects us from the threats from the mid-20th century. While I can’t be there, I do hope people from Aberdeen will travel to London on 27th Feb to join the anti-Trident demonstration.”

Maggie Chapman Co-Convenor of Green Party commented:

“Weapons that cause indiscriminate death and destruction are always immoral. Those that can’t be deployed are also useless. The Westminster government claims we can’t afford to have good jobs for our young people, decent care for our older people and clean energy for the future. Yet they want to waste obscene sums of money on weapons that are both useless and immoral.

“We must do everything we can to oppose Trident renewal. The 27th February march will be an important step on the road to ending nuclear weapons.”

The majority of people in Scotland and increasingly those in the UK oppose nuclear weapons. They are weapons of mass destruction that can kill millions. They don’t keep us safe and they divert resources from essential spending. And they are based here in Scotland.

Commenting Kevin Stewart SNP, MSP added:

 “When nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan, at the end of the Second World War, over 200,000 people died. Over seven decades later, that level of death and suffering might be hard for some to comprehend. Unfortunately, over that time our world leaders have developed new nuclear warheads, capable of even greater destruction.

 “Yet, the damage done by nuclear weapons extends further than that. It’s estimated that replacing trident will cost £167 billion. At a time that people are being punished by the UK Government’s budget cuts, that money could make huge differences to lives up and down the country.

 “Instead of punishing poor people, disabled folk, and our youngsters with harsh cuts while money is thrown at trident, we could instead prioritise nurses over nukes, teachers over trident and bairns over bombs.”

Let’s get the message out loud and clear: let’s have a large Scottish block on the march to say Scrap Trident.

Christian Allard SNP, MSP commented:

“With regular marches and meetings in the North East and beyond it is apparent there is strong, popular opposition to the renewal of trident from the people who live here in Scotland.

 “We have political consensus as well in the Scottish Parliament, with the vast majority of MSPs voting against the renewal of the weapons system back in November 2015.

 “The last piece of the puzzle remains convincing UK politicians that getting rid of trident is the right thing to do. This march in London should be a catalyst that gets the Westminster government moving in the right direction.”

 Jonathan Russell Chair of Aberdeen and District Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said:

“There will be people from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire travelling by both bus and train to the demonstration everyone who opposes Trident renewal is welcome to join us”

Buses will leave Glasgow (George Square) at 2100hrs on the Friday then onto Edinburgh (approx. 1hr 15mins later) then down to London. This will have us arriving early morning (so that the driver gets a rest).

We leave London at 1800hrs on Feb 27th. Accommodation available in Edinburgh if needed.
Tickets are £40 and £20. If you can’t come but want to help you can give a DONATION  via Eventbrite to help subsidise the cost.

The EventBrite link is now open:

Bus from Scotland to CND Stop Trident Demo in London 27 Feb

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Feb 012016
 

No Trident CNDBy Jonathan Russell, Chair Aberdeen and District CND

On 27th February the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is calling a massive demonstration in London to protest against the renewal of Britain’s nuclear weapons system: Trident. Join us to say No to government plans to buy a new system at a cost of £100 to 150 billion.

Parliament will be voting on this in 2016. So this is urgent – we can’t delay. Be part of history and join the Demonstration.

The majority of people in Scotland oppose nuclear weapons. They are weapons of mass destruction that can kill millions.

They don’t keep us safe and they divert resources from essential spending. And they are based here in Scotland.

Let’s get the message out loud and clear: let’s have a large Scottish block on the march to say Scrap Trident.

We leave Glasgow (George Square) at 2100hrs on the Friday then onto Edinburgh (approx. 1hr 15mins later) then down to London. This will have us arriving early morning (so that the driver gets a rest).

We leave London at 1800hrs on 27th February .Accommodation available in Edinburgh if needed.
Tickets are £40 and £20. If you can’t come but want to help you can give a DONATION  via Eventbrite to help subsidise the cost.

The EventBrite link is now open:

Bus from Scotland to CND Stop Trident Demo in London 27 Feb

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Aug 072015
 

With thanks to Jonathan Russell.

Sub

Concerns raised regarding “the ‘scary’ shortage of personnel to work on the Trident missile system.”

Aberdeen and District CND are to host a public meeting on Monday 10th August. Speaker, John Ainslie (Coordinator, Scottish CND) will focus on ‘The Trident Whistle Blower and the Safety of British
Submarines.

On 17 May this year the Sunday Herald published serious allegations of safety and security weaknesses on Britain’s Trident submarines.

The article was based on an 18page report from Able Seaman William McNeilly.

McNeilly was training to be a missile technician on a Trident submarine and had been  on board HMS Victorious throughout its patrol from January to April 2015. He said:

“the Trident programme is a disaster waiting to happen”

John Ainslie, Coordinator of Scottish CND has stated:

“McNeilly’s report should not be dismissed as the ill-informed views of a junior sailor. One of his main concerns was the ‘scary’ shortage of personnel to work on the Trident missile system. Official reports show that there is a 25% shortfall in this area and that the lack of suitable people is the greatest risk to the safety of the defence nuclear programme.”

John Ainslie has produced a report on these and other safety concerns entitled. Substandard ‘The Trident Whistle Blower and the safety of British Submarines’.

McNeilly’s report brings together descriptions of what he saw on board HMS Victorious and accounts that he heard of incidents and problems on other nuclear submarines. He outlines safety concerns, defects, security breaches and careless practice.

Official reports show that the Navy does not have enough Suitably Qualified and Experienced submariners to operate the Trident missile system or the reactors on nuclear submarines and that the greatest risk to the safety of the Defence Nuclear Programme comes from a shortage of personnel.

An overemphasis on operational requirements, at the expense of safety, has contributed to a number of submarine incidents in recent years.

The Trident missile was designed in a way that introduces a greater risk than other types of nuclear missile. Between 2009 and 2012 fires on British nuclear submarines took place at a rate of around one every six weeks. Problems identified on a fire on one submarine in 2004 were repeated in a subsequent fire two and a half years later.

There are 13 known collisions involving British nuclear submarines and 11 incidents when submarines have run aground. There have been three major generic defects with the reactor designs on British nuclear submarines. These were discovered in 1989, 2000 and 2012. There is an unacceptable risk of a terrorist attack on a Trident submarine in the Faslane shiplift and there have been instances of sabotage on submarines in service with other navies.

The reactors on British submarines are much less reliable than those on American submarines. This means that there is a significant risk that a submarine could go into an uncontrolled dive.

The Trident Whistle Blower and the Safety of British Submarines.

Public meeting organised by Aberdeen and District CND.
Monday 10th August at 7.30pm
Unite the Union
42-44 King Street.

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Apr 122013
 

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

It was a very warm welcome at the wonderful Blaikiewell’s when I visited over the weekend; it is a great spot.  There is much to do to ensure its future, but certain figures have pledged to help, and hopefully this great sanctuary will carry on.

BrewDog launched its new ‘Fake’ Lager, which  was a huge success.  I had a nice chat with Alicia Bruce, and hope to have an interview with her on Aberdeen Voice shortly.

News-wise Spoiler Alert:  Mrs Thatcher died; North Korea threatens to wage war, and horse meat tainted with the carcinogen ‘Bute’ are in the food chain, despite previous EU assurances this wasn’t the case.

That the EU got something wrong is obviously the surprise of the week.  Worse still, Psy is releasing a ‘serious’ music video, and Kelly Brook accidentally went around with her dress unzipped.

Astonishingly, there was a photographer to hand.

Faced with all these overwhelming developments, and as a mark of something or other, please be advised that this column will be a bit light on the sarcasm this week.  Normal services resume will resume shortly.

On the national scene, Kent Police’s Youth Police and  Crime Commissioner Paris was forced to resign after some of her old tweets came back to haunt her, throwing huge shadows on her role.  Some one-hundred and sixty people went out for the really cool, hip youth police job, but she was the best candidate.  Makes you wonder.

Despite making drug-related and racist tweets prior to taking the job on more than a few occasions, Paris is not a racist, just someone who makes racist remarks to show off.  Confusing her with a racist is an easy mistake to make; apparently all the young people are showing off by trying to look like bigots.

Thankfully nothing like that could ever happen in Aberdeen.  It is not as if there are any would-be youth leaders involved in campaigns at present organising demos, holding meetings, and getting involved with politicians and academics who have previously made any dubious internet postings.  I’m certain our local political parties and august educational institutions would never get involved with anyone with a dubious history.

As Ms Brown learnt, things never really get deleted from cyberspace.  Can you imagine what a web of intrigue would surround such a revelation here?

In life as in death, Margaret has split opinion

There was no shortage of colourful news close to home, either.  I knew our politicians had great talent, but I hadn’t appreciated that faith healing was one of their skills.

We had the one who was able to make money disappear right before our eyes; we named a street after him for a bit.

We have HoMalone who can grow trees on a severely polluted hill. To this goddess a herd of deer were sacrificed (it’s just as well she’s sure those trees will grow: I think more than a few people will be slightly cross if they don’t).  She also could make things disappear, like the people who previously voted Lib Dem.

We also had a councillor who was very gifted with young people, serving on the Youth festival, and kindly offering lifts to any young people who he found walking the streets late at night.  But faith healing.  Wow.

In life as in death, Margaret has split opinion and bitter division erupts. Champagne corks popped in the streets of Glasgow; others mourned her and placed flowers in locations associated with her.

Old Susannah is, as you can imagine, not in the Thatcher fan club.  But I won’t be dancing on her grave, either.

The first person who told me of her death was from a mining family; I can well understand the hatred she inspired in many.  The privatisation of Britain and the selling of the family silverware largely started with her – but others eagerly took up her mantle and mantras.  It’s said that Tony Blair was a sleeper agent of Thatcher’s, and I for one can’t disagree.

She’s gone; many of her destructive policies live on.

There are those who practically want her beatified, and refuse to hear any word against her.  There are those who’d disrupt her funeral.

Gene Roddenberry put forth all sorts of ideas about equality of races and sexes

Once things quieten down, I hope people will increase their focus on the many things that are going wrong under current local, regional and national governments, and start demanding change.

There is a saying ‘only a fool would fight in a burning house’ –  and all things considered, I think we might all be in a burning house together.

This ‘burning house’ proverb is, er, a ‘Klingon’ saying from Star Trek.  Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry put forth all sorts of ideas about equality of races and sexes, applying wit and logic to problems, science and fact over superstition, and of creating a better world.   One of the episodes had a sub-plot based around the simple benign philosophy of ‘Can I Help?’

I wonder what he’d make of the goings-on today.   He cast people from all races, sexual orientations and religions in his original series.

On that note, it’s time for a few timely definitions

Handbag: (1.  Eng noun) – a satchel or case carried by women filled with personal effects; (2.  Eng verb) – for a woman to suddenly and/or violently carry out a ferocious, withering  verbal attack often while carrying a purse.

Well, the Thatch did give us a new word.  BBC presenters, politicians, her cabinet members and advisers – none were immune from a handbagging from Maggie.

Grown men wept; this was the late 70s and early 80s, and in those somewhat less PC days, our first female PM would rage unbridled abuse on those who dared to look at her oddly, let alone challenge her, in a fashion  which would  be cause for legal action today.

The handbag in question held state documents and god knows what else. Likewise, several latter-day women politicians here in the Deen were known to keep interesting items in their handbags, but that is another matter.

The BBC’s Oliver Lee-Stone has an excellent article cataloguing some of the attacks launched by PM Thatcher on her colleagues, cronies and journalists; many of whom lived in absolute terror of this form of abuse.  In it he quoted Kenneth Baker:-

“”When Maggie was really up against it, she would put her handbag on the cabinet table and take out a well-crumpled paper.  This was the brief that came from no-one knew whom – a friend, or someone who had rung her up.  It was unpredictable, sometimes illuminating, at others weird, sometimes an interesting new light, at others a worthless piece of gossip.  Whenever this happened, the cabinet secretary would pale, and the minister would raise his eyes to the ceiling.”

Alas!  Ironwoman was herself handbagged, in a moment which gave birth to another expression.

A Belgrano Moment: (Mod English phrase) to tell politicians ‘not in my name’ and to call them to account

While the men around her might have quaked with terror, Diana Gould was not having it.  When Ms Gould participated in a BBC question and answer session with Maggie, it was handbags at dawn.

The Falklands war raged; the Belgrano was sunk – while in an exclusion zone.  Margaret T was being interviewed; Sue Lawley, who seems to have been unlucky that day, was given the modern equivalent of the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern treatment – she was fired.  Taking questions from callers, Margaret Thatcher met her match in Diana Gould, Geographer of the Royal Navy.

Maggie held her ground – the Belgrano sinking was the right thing to do.  Gould pulled the rug from under Thatcher’s feet.  Gould wasn’t having it, and sparks and fur flew.  Words fail – the only thing to do is to visit this page, and watch the incident again.

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Mark Edwards’ Hard Rain Project – Times Are A Changin’

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Events, Featured, Information  Comments Off on Mark Edwards’ Hard Rain Project – Times Are A Changin’
Mar 252011
 

By Suzanne Kelly.

Some 100 people of all ages and backgrounds packed an Aberdeen University lecture room on 22nd March; most of us were not entirely sure what to expect.

Mark Edwards – internationally known photographer, writer and witness to 40 years of global problems was there to deliver his ‘Hard Rain’ lecture and still photography presentation.

By the time he had finished it was clear that each person present had taken away food for thought on a host of global issues, however much or little they had known before they arrived.

Mark made a brief introduction explaining the Hard Rain Project’s genesis.  At the time of the first moonwalk in 1969, Mark was traveling in the Sahara desert’s unforgiving landscape, got lost, and was subsequently rescued by a nomadic tribe.  They offered him food, shelter and a fire to sit by, and then they produced a radio.  Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall’ came out of it; a track inspired by the Bay of Pigs Cuban Missile Crisis.

Edwards considered his personal situation, the simple nomadic lifestyle, and the moonwalk and out of these events grew his idea of illustrating each line of this moving, evocative song.  Some 40 years on, the Hard Rain project was touring the world.  It features still photography taken from all quarters of our world, and illustrates the issues, which we have to face urgently.  Edwards took his Aberdeen audience:

“…on a journey through the past to a future which is ours to change.”

The photographs are as beautiful and as diverse a collection as you could possibly imagine – Edwards has captured virtually all aspects of humanity and of the earth.   These photographs and Mark both bear witness to the increasingly urgent issues we must solve now:  famine, destruction of habitats, human suffering, war, climate change, waste, disrespect and misuse of people, animals and the planet.  The things Mark has seen in his travels have not led him to despair; he retains faith in human initiative and human spirit, which he sees in the shantytown inhabitants’ resourcefulness.

As to the photographs:  there is a bulldozer in the Amazon cutting a scar through the lush jungle; there is a sea of ghostly, dead tree stumps in an arid wasteland; there are dead and dying women and children from around the world.  I am haunted by a photo of an oil-covered bird taken in Brazil, which is accompanied by the line from Hard Rain ‘I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans’.

This photo presumably was taken years ago, but it could have been the recent Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.   (You have to ask yourself why one oil disaster was not enough to ensure we never let it happen again).
But I am most haunted by (as were several of the students I spoke to including Deepu Augustine and Rita Lwanga) of a poignant image of a newborn baby lying on its side, small hands and feet visible, wrapped in a hooded garment, dead.  It was lying in a shallow, womb-like grave about to be buried.  The number of children who starve to death is legion.

As Mark says when addressing all the various issues:

“Perhaps our greatest mistake is taking our easy lifestyles for granted.”

Edwards explains that “we broke the first law of nature” – for instance how the death of a leaf and its natural decomposition create fertile soil on which new life will grow.  The problem is that we have created a host of chemicals, which do not break down. He does not bombard us with numbers and statistics, but those he does use are unforgettable.  In discussing our chemical dependence and proliferation of chemicals throughout the food chain globally, he says that any pregnant woman anywhere in the world today will have somewhere between 8 to 17 kinds of pesticides in the placenta.

Mark describes himself as a witness; he does not have all the answers.  But he will tell you that we urgently need to increase education around the world, end child labour (which is nothing short of slavery:  buyers of cheap imported goods and clothing please do take note), pay fair prices for crops, encourage family planning, and end extreme poverty.  Another statistic he has hit us with:  the GDP of the world’s 48 poorest countries is equal to the wealth of the world’s three richest people.

A series of photos taken in Haiti show the human impulse to slip away from rational thinking and regress to superstition (a ‘voodoo’ ceremony to pray for long-overdue rain is depicted), and later work shows a flock of brightly-clad Haitian school children.   Edwards then makes interesting comparisons between the 1930s American Dustbowl draught and Ethiopia’s similar situation today.  He compares Industrial age London’s shantytowns to today’s third world shantytowns, they both were born of similar circumstances and had similar problems and potentials.

“The past is not over and the future has happened many times”

– or put another way – those who do not know the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes and tragedies.

His bleak, depressing photos of urban sprawl were based in Mexico City; but if we are not careful the same thing can easily happen in Aberdeenshire on a smaller scale.

The difference in the quantity of goods the Americans have is staggering and it does not make them any happier

We are, after all, getting rid of acre upon acre of (supposedly protected) green belt land to build hundreds of identikit houses, a 21,000 seat stadium where we currently have important wildlife and rare plants, and a car park/mall is planned for our only city centre green sink and beauty spot – Union Terrace Gardens.

Rather than increasing public transport, we plan to cut a highway through our countryside with the AWPR.  And we are going to shoot (sorry, cull) the Tullos Hill Roe Deer, as our elected officials have deemed that building fences or protecting saplings with plastic are more expensive options).  Mark makes a remark that some politicians are:

“…defending political positions they know are no longer appropriate…”

I think I do not need to look any further than Aberdeen City Council for an example of Mark’s assertion.  I get the feeling that 99% of Edward’s audience is receptive and probably actively concerned for our environment – I find myself wishing we could get the local Council to see ‘Hard Rain’.

Edwards shows us a family in Bhutan; they are outside their home and have all of their, not very many, possessions spread around them.  Next we switch to an American family of four – again in front of their home with all of their goods.  The difference in the quantity of goods the Americans have is staggering and it does not make them any happier:  Bhutan is, in fact, the country with the highest percentage of happy and satisfied people on earth.

Edward’s talk is part of the Aberdeen University Students’ Association Climate Change Projects.

Jamie Peters is the Climate Change Project Co-ordinator and he advised me that the Climate Change project has been packed full of events this past week including; tree planting, cookery demonstrations, gardening, meetings and discussions.  Reusable bottles and bags were distributed as well as bookmarks with tips on energy saving and recycling.  The Climate Change Project at Aberdeen University:

“aims to improve life around the campus, provide something fun for students to get involved in and at the same time save 1,000 tonnes of CO2.”

Fraser Lovie, a policy adviser at the University, congratulated the Climate Change Project for bringing Mark Edwards and his exhibition to Aberdeen and welcomed Mark’s hints that a new touring exhibition, based on Hard Rain, is in development, that will support the behavior change agenda in Universities and Colleges.

STOP PRESS:  At the time of writing, it is uncertain whether funding will be found to keep the Climate Change Project going:  I certainly hope they will continue their work.

After a glass or two of wine and a few words with Mark Edwards and others (he is affable and keen to talk), I made my way home.  Another Bob Dylan song came into my head – ‘The Times They Are A Changing’;

“… if your time to you is worth saving, you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing’.”

Change has never happened faster in human history than it is happening now.  But exactly what are we changing our world into?

Regent Walk is the scene of the Hard Rain Project outdoor exhibition, which accompanied this lecture; it will be up for a month.  I urge you –  go and see it.

SOME FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

Quotations from the Hard Rain Project Lecture

*     “In the next 24 hours deforestation will outweigh the carbon footprint of 8 million people”

*     “If forests are the lungs of the world, we have had one lung removed”

*     “All humanity is in trouble; time is the enemy; indifference is the enemy”

*     “We have Stone-Age impulses, Medieval beliefs, and God-like technology”

*     “There is no ‘them and us’

 

Q&A from the Hard Rain Website:

“Mark has been traveling and taking photographs in over 150 countries in the last 40 years. He first decided to illustrate the global environmental crisis in 1969, and Hard Rain really began to take shape as a live presentation in 2000. The DVD has been in development for about a year, since interest in the presentation has exploded.

“How many cities/countries has Hard Rain been seen in?

“The exhibition has been seen in over 50 cities, with a tour of India immediately following Copenhagen. The presentation, on which the DVD is based, has been seen in hundreds of venues on every continent.

“How has Dylan lent his support?

“Dylan and his label, Columbia Records, have been extremely supportive of Hard Rain right from its public launch as an exhibition at the Eden Project in 2006. They have also been very supportive of Hard Rain by allowing us to use the lyrics in the exhibitions.

“This year, the Royal Photographic Society recognized Mark Edwards and Bob Dylan by presenting them with the Terence Donovan Award for their achievement with the Hard Rain Project.”

Hollywood And The Bomb – Part 3

 Articles, Community, Environment, Information, Opinion  Comments Off on Hollywood And The Bomb – Part 3
Feb 252011
 
Hollywood And The Bomb – or Trivialising a Nuclear Holocaust 1945-1990 – Part 3.

Voice’s Dave Watt lifts the lid on the somewhat shady influences at work at the highest levels of post-war US government when McCarthyism and ‘Commie plot’ paranoia was rife. Not even Hollywood’s cinematic art was safe, it seems.

This final section of the series concentrates mainly on Hollywood and the Bomb in the 1970s and 80s with occasional trips across the Atlantic to compare their treatment of the subject with British filmmakers.

The 1970s : An decade of détente, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, humiliating end of Vietnam War for the US and the controversial deployment of short and medium range nukes amongst a largely unwilling European population but with the usual connivance of their governments.

The last instance of using nuclear war as a theme in the 1960s was curiously in the film Planet of The Apes (1968) where the human civilization is revealed to have been destroyed by a nuclear war thereby leaving the planet to the apes.

After this there was a largish gap in the 1970s until: Twilight’s Last Gleaming in 1977 starring Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark. It tells the story of Lawrence Dell, a renegade USAAF general, who escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana, threatening to launch the missiles at the USSR and start World War III unless the President reveals the real reasons why America fought for so long in Vietnam. Control of The ICBM silo is duly recovered by the hero and some special forces sub-heroes although the audience are left in no doubt about the big business interests profiting from the US’s extended involvement in Vietnam.

The 1980s

With the appearance of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher on the scene in 1979/81 international relations took a turn for the worse with much sabre rattling, tub thumping and bear baiting of the mid-1950s variety (and the generation of an unpleasant ‘if you’re not 100% for us you’re against us’ mentality). Thatcher began this with Exercise Square Leg in 1980 despite huge protests by CND and other progressive organisations against it.

However, the campaigners against these chest beating exercises in fatuous optimism refined their strategies and Exercise Hard Rock in 1981 was cancelled by a massive CND campaign with 20 out of 54 county councils refusing to take part and many major cities declaring themselves Nuclear Free Zones.

It plays the devastation with a rather light hand – a bit like most US disaster movies with some photogenic survivors slightly mud and bloodstained

The next film with a nuclear theme was:  The Day After (1983) which portrayed a fictional nuclear war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact that rapidly escalates into a full scale exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union, focusing on the residents of Kansas and Missouri, as well as several family farms situated next to nearby nuclear missile silos.

It plays the devastation with a rather light hand – a bit like most US disaster movies with some photogenic survivors slightly mud and bloodstained in general although Jason Robards does develop an unpleasantly realistic radiation sickness near the end.

It was very lightweight (like most Hollywood offerings) – in fact, probably the  most horrendous shots of a nuclear attack in a Hollywood offering is in Terminator 2(1991) where a children’s play area is shown during a nuclear blast. However in ‘The Day After’ this is pretty sanitised and one gets the impression that help will soon arrive and everything will be back to normal.

Slightly more thought provoking was the film Special Bulletin.which was an American made-for-TV movie first broadcast in 1983 The film has no opening credits Instead, the program begins with a promo for a typical daytime morning lineup: previews of various shows, and a catchy network jingle, “RBS: We’re Moving Up!” Suddenly, an ominous “Special Bulletin” slide appears on the screen, with an announcer saying “We interrupt this program to bring you a Special Bulletin from RBS News.” It shows how a local TV crew, covering a dockworkers’ strike, become caught in the middle of a firefight between the Coast Guard and some people on board a tugboat sitting at a dock in Charleston, South Carolina.

This extraordinary TV movie — shot on video, to make it resemble a news broadcast — shows us how network news might cover a group of terrorists holding a city hostage with a nuclear bomb and in doing so creates extraordinary tension while also getting in subtle and pointed digs at the media.

The government tries to fool the insurgent group and storm the tugboat. The attempt fails disastrously and there is a nuclear detonation.

Interestingly, when this was shown, despite a disclaimer on air there was a certain amount of panic in the  Charleston area

The final shots are of a female reporter and her cameraman trapped on a nearby old aircraft carrier with huge fires blazing in the background and, clearly stunned and dazed, she is terrified of imminent radiation sickness. The cameraman then replays the detonation in harbour which contains nothing but a raging firestorm. At this, the TV anchor breaks down on air crying out and weeping.

There is a break and the next shots are from three days later where the news, with the typical banality of TV news, has gone on to cover all the other events around the world (strikes in Poland, a World Bank announcement) which have continued to occur despite the destruction of Charleston.

Interestingly, when this was shown, despite a disclaimer on air there was a certain amount of panic in the  Charleston area when the film was originally shown on TV.

Back in the UK, the next film up was Threads (1984) – a BBC television play set in the city of Sheffield depicting the effects of a nuclear war and its aftermath on the United Kingdom. The premise of Threads was to hypothesise the effects of a nuclear war on the United Kingdom after an exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States escalates to include the UK.

The primary plot centres on two families: the Kemps and the Becketts — as an international crisis erupts and escalates. As NATO and the UK prepare for war, the members of each family deal with their own personal crises. Meanwhile, a secondary plot centered upon Clive Sutton, the Chief Executive of the City of Sheffield serves to illustrate for the viewer the UK Government’s then-current continuity of government arrangements. The balance of the film details the fate of each family as the characters face the medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war.

Both the plot and the atmosphere of the play are extremely bleak with the UK ending up as a declining medieval society in the throes of a nuclear winter.

Despite the apparent extreme bleakness Threads was actually based on the results for the previously mentioned (and almost unbelievably optimistic) Exercise Square Leg instigated by the Tories in the 1980 in which the Soviets obligingly decide to nuke bizarre out-of-the-way places like Eastbourne but not Central London. In addition, whereas a Soviet attack on the UK could engender up to 1000 megatons, Square Leg was based on an attack involving 239 megatons.

There’s an equally childish disposition towards happy endings despite the mega-deaths on display

Despite this the mortality figures were estimated at 29 million (53% of the population); serious injuries at 7 million (12%); short-term survivors at 19 million (35%) so even at Thatcher’s mindlessly optimistic best we’d all have had it.

The last film on the list is also a British film and is that unusual combination a rather harrowing cartoon.

When the Wind Blows 1986 depicts a nuclear attack on the UK by the Soviet Union from the viewpoint of a retired couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs. [Voices by John Mills & Peggy Ashcroft]  The Bloggs live in rural Sussex and are confused regarding the nature and seriousness of their situation which is sometimes used to generate gentle comedy as well as darker elements. As the film progresses their situation becomes steadily more hopeless as they suffer from the effects of radiation sickness. The film ends on an extremely moving note, with both Jim and Hilda dying as they pray.

CONCLUSION – Hollywood : There was a period of more thoughtful filmmaking in the 60s and 70s but as usual it’s been lots of glitz, glorious technicolour, wonderful special effects, very little in the way of plot lines with rather childish bipolar worldviews of the US as basically good and Johnny Foreigner regarded as rather murderous and irrational demons. There’s an equally childish disposition towards happy endings despite the mega-deaths on display.

British films of the period tended to be rather more thoughtful, socially realistic and less given to mindless flag wagging – in general, somewhere in between the more cerebral European mainland films produced on the same subject and the rather shallow US films made during this period.

Feb 182011
 
Hollywood And The Bomb – or Trivialising a Nuclear Holocaust 1945-1990 – Part 2.

Voice’s Dave Watt lifts the lid on the somewhat shady influences at work at the highest levels of post-war US government when McCarthyism and ‘Commie plot’ paranoia was rife. Not even Hollywood’s cinematic art was safe, it seems.

This section concentrates mainly on Hollywood and the Bomb in the 1950s and 60s with occasional trips across the Atlantic to compare their treatment of the subject with British filmmakers.

Equally upbeat as per the Cheerful Charlie Reader’s Digest was the film Duck and Cover – a civil defence film/public guidance film which first shown publicly in January 1952.
Made with the help of schoolchildren from New York City who were, needless to say, shown ducking under desks and covering their eyes, it was shown in schools as the cornerstone of the government’s “duck and cover” public awareness campaign.

The movie stated that nuclear war could happen at any time without warning and U.S. citizens should keep this constantly in mind and be ever ready (presumably by carrying a school desk around with them).
This was followed up by another public guidance film called  The House in the Middle [1954] which was a short documentary film produced by the Federal Civil Defence Administration, which attempted to show that a clean, freshly painted house is more likely to survive a nuclear attack than its poorly maintained counterpart. As it turned out, however, this film was actually sponsored by the US National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association so I’d take its nuclear protection advice with a large pinch of salt.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic in 1950, the first British Nuclear protestor appeared in the film Seven Days to Noon (beating the first Aldermaston March by a clear eight years).  Starring Barry Jones and Andrew Morell it showed a British scientist, John Willingdon, running away from a research centre with an atomic bomb which he has in a suitcase. He threatens to blow up the centre of London if the Government don’t agree to stop any further nuclear testing. Special agents from Scotland Yard try to stop him with help from his assistant and her fiancé. In a dramatic finish the scientist is accidentally shot a few minutes before the bomb goes off, the hero marries the heroine and everyone lives happily ever after. Nowadays it seems quite a thought provoking item for the time although in the original film blurb Willingdon the scientist was obligingly referred to as a madman.

Back to the US in 1951 there was a sci- fi film called Five which was a  post-apocalyptic US film. The title refers to the number of survivors of an atomic war that wiped out the rest of the human race. Fortunately for the survivors they all lived in the US, spoke English and were within walking distance of each other – just how lucky is that? This was, however, something of a benchmark as it was the first ever film to depict the aftermath of such a catastrophe.

Next film produced by Hollywood with a nuclear war theme was Invasion USA (1952) – basically a pro-military pro-government propaganda film which starts off with a group of anti-government, anti-war people in a bar in Washington decrying  the early military-industrial complex of those days.

However, the film goes on to show that while these misguided peaceniks are chewing the fat the evil robotic Soviets are plotting to attack the US with A-Bombs. The A-bombs duly arrive on American air force bases causing mayhem and after a series of horrifying disasters and the usual heroic resistance the few surviving peaceniks are predictably shown to conclude that their government and military were right after all.

their response to any military face confrontation with the Soviets would be a first strike nuclear attack

And I hope they were all thoroughly ashamed of themselves, too. The Soviets in this film were rather confusingly dressed similarly to Nazi SS men – Mind you it probably wouldn’t be too confusing to modern American audiences over 30% of who think the Soviet Union & Germany were on the same side in World War Two anyway.

There was a gap in Hollywood films involving actual nuclear war over the next few years but quite a few pro-military but specifically pro USAAF films. (Just keep remembering here those horrible, pro-commie, fellow traveller, pinkos in the US Navy have been defeated and the United States Army Air Force is the way to go.)

First of these was: James Stewart in Strategic Air Command [1955] , Stewart plays a USAAF Reserve officer recalled reluctantly to active duty to fly bombers for the Strategic Air Command. The film details the duties and responsibilities of being an Air Force strategic bomber pilot, and the strains such service places on family life. Happily, Stewart overcomes all these and goes on to enjoy his new military career defending the USA from the godless Commie threat.

Similarly in Bombers B52 [1957] Karl Malden plays a US air force sergeant who is tempted by a better-paying civilian job. After much moral deliberation Malden decides that he’s of more value in the service and goes on to enjoy his continuing military career defending the USA from the godless Commie threat.

The lack of films depicting a nuclear exchange is particularly significant during this time as the US military was irrevocably committed to the first use of nuclear weapons under the 1951 New Look Strategy -the concept being that the considerably more powerful Soviet forces represented such a world wide threat to US hegemony that their response to any military face confrontation with the Soviets would be a first strike nuclear attack.

In fact, the next film on the subject was produced well after McCarthy’s decline and is the bleakly realistic 1959 film On The Beach which is set in 1964 in the months following World War III. The conflict has devastated the northern hemisphere, polluting the atmosphere with nuclear fallout and killing all human life there while global air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the southern hemisphere. The only part of the planet still habitable is the far south of the globe, specifically Australia but as the film ends it becomes apparent than everyone is either dying about to die.

Predictably the U.S. Department of Defence refused to cooperate in the production of this little item, refusing access to their nuclear-powered submarines and the film production crew was forced to use a non-nuclear Royal Navy submarine, the HMS Andrew.

The US contrived to lose seven nukes in the years after the WW2 which means that they’re lying around somewhere rusting quietly away.

Despite the loan of the HMS Andrew this did not indicate an anti nuclear stance by the British Government and, in fact, the then Foreign Secretary and future Tory Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas Hume stated in June 1961 that in their commitment to NATO and the US that “The British people are prepared to be blown to atomic dust if necessary” which must have been news to most of the population.

Following the the international concern over the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the groundbreaking film of’ On The Beach’ and there appeared a reaction to this within the US establishment which contradicted the previously held view characterised by the Rand Corporation’s Herman Kahn ‘On Thermonuclear War’ (1960) which postulated the idea yet again of a ‘winnable nuclear war’.

This public outcry engendered by the Cuban Missile Crisis caused Kahn’s to amend his following books ‘Thinking About The Unthinkable (1962) and On Escalation (1965) backpedalled a bit and produced such delights as his Escalation Ladder (seehttp://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog41/escalation.htm) which ranges from Ostensible Crisis and Political, Economic & Diplomatic Gestures for 44 stages up to Unmodified Counterforce Attack or Spasm and Insensate War – which apparently means firing off everything nuclear you’ve got in the general direction of the enemy. According to Mr Kahn, 24 of these 44 stages involve a ‘nuclear exchange’.

Next film up was A Gathering of Eagles [1963] a movie about the Cold War and the pressures of Air Force command. Rock Hudson plays a USAAF Colonel, Jim Caldwell, who despite his misgivings is promoted to be a Strategic Air Command B-52 wing commander –. Needless to say Hudson predictably overcomes all the tribulations and pressures of command and like Karl Malden and Jimmy Stewart goes on to enjoy his new military career defending the USA from the godless Commie threat.

This film was heavily supported by the USAAF and SAC commander Curtis Lemay in particular as it showed SAC in the most promising light imaginable as intelligently led, competent and relentlessly efficient whereas they had been receiving a fair bit of flak for several major nuclear accidents. The US contrived to lose seven nukes in the years after the WW2 which means that they’re lying around somewhere rusting quietly away.

the last poignant scene is of nuclear blasts all over the globe as Vera Lynn sings ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

Curtis LeMay may be a name familiar to some of you as a rather deranged US superhawk very keen on using B52s in Vietnam and was extremely miffed when LBJ stopped him dropping a nuke in front of the threatened US marine base at Khe Sanh in 1967. His alter ego, General Turgidson, was played by George C Scott in the next film which is:

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb which is a 1964 American/British black comedy film directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, and featuring Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn and Slim Pickens..

The story concerns an unhinged US Air Force general Jack D Ripper who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, and follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an RAF officer as they try to recall the bombers to prevent a nuclear apocalypse, as well as the crew of one B-52 as they attempt to deliver their payload. The situation is made more critical by the Soviet Union having created a Doomsday Machine which will fire off a huge cloud of radioactive dust which will envelop the earth if a nuke hits the Soviet Union. The bomber eventually hits a tertiary target within the Soviet Union and the last poignant scene is of nuclear blasts all over the globe as Vera Lynn sings ‘We’ll Meet Again’.

A similar theme appears in Fail-Safe (1964) Sidney Lumet’s original 1964 film  employs a stylized and heightened dramatic structure in its nerve-crushing moral tale. When an off-course commercial airplane triggers the Pentagon’s complex “fail-safe” maneuver, leaving an arsenal of nuclear-bomb-carrying jet fighters at the ready, a mechanical error puts the entire world in danger of destruction.

Walter Matthau gives an uncharacteristic turn as an unpleasantly cold and contemptuous political scientist Prof. Groteschele, apparently based on  Herman Kahn. Henry Fonda plays the American president who manages with the Soviet Premiere to navigate the complex and urgent political trauma and prevent total destruction. As one of the American bombers makes it through to drop an A-bomb on Moscow the only concession the US President can offer to prevent all out war is to drop a similar bomb on New York.

This duly happens (thus incidentally invoking Mr Kahn’s Stage 29 of his Escalation Ladder ‘Exemplary Attack on Population’) and the countdown to the bomb hitting New York involves a series of movie stills taken in the streets of the city.

Back across the Atlantic, The War Game was a 1965 television film on nuclear war. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC’s The Wednesday Play strand, its graphic depiction of the impact of a Soviet nuclear attack on Britain caused dismay within the BBC and in government.

It was scheduled for transmission on 6th of August 1966 but the effect of the film was judged by the BBC to be “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting” and it was not actually transmitted for 19 years and eventually appeared on the BBC in 1985, Presumably, following this timescale they’ll get around to broadcasting the appeal for Gaza in 2038.

Back in Hollywood the forces of good were still battling for God & Profit but a lot of public questioning was going on about US involvement in Laos and Vietnam and the next film revealed a certain ambivalence in US society.

In The Bedford Incident (1965) Richard Widmark plays the stern and unforgiving skipper of an American destroyer on peacetime patrol in North Atlantic waters as an element of the NATO fleet. He develops an obsessive determination to hunt down a Soviet submarine and as the danger in his compulsive chase develops a fatal incident occurs with the US destroyer firing off its missile and the Soviet submarine retaliating with its nuclear weaponry and both are utterly destroyed.

Part 3  (The 1970s onwards) -next week.