“Dr. Strangelove” was a remake? Yikes!
Era of ‘Dr. Strangelove’ produced a recently unearthed Air Force film
“Well boys, I reckon this is it: nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Russkies.”
– Maj. T.J. “King” Kong
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – More than 45 years ago, actor Slim Pickens delivered those words in “Dr. Strangelove,” a seminal Cold War black comedy.
In the film, a rogue Air Force general, Jack Ripper, convinced that fluoridated water is a communist plot, orders a nuclear attack on the Soviets, triggering Armageddon.
It’s a tad late, but the United States Air Force has more to say on the matter.
“SAC Command Post,” an 18-minute film made in 1963 belittling the possibility of such an unauthorized U.S. nuclear strike, has been unearthed at the National Archives in College Park, Md.
The film includes a tour of the Strategic Air Command’s underground control center near Omaha and mentions that several measures have been taken to allow control center operations to continue even during a nuclear attack. Special air conditioners, for example, would filter out “nuclear contaminants.” The “gold phone,” which would be used to receive the orders triggering a nuclear attack, also is shown.
The film also went to great lengths to emphasize that procedures were in place so that, in the narrator’s words, “World War III can’t be triggered by an unauthorized launching of a nuclear bomb.”</em>
Can’t wait to see it. Is it on Youtube yet?
