ABC's movie The Day After stirs a storm of nuclear debate
Peanuts. Or so says a desperate, despairing physician in The Day After. Even Hiroshima was peanuts compared with the irrevocable thermonuclear slaughter visited on Kansas City and its environs. Lawrence. Sedalia. Green Ridge. They have all been devastated. But this is not some horrible, local nuclear accident. This is worldwide atomic warfare. The missiles have been launched, the bombs have gone off. The global village has been nuked.
No escape, no hope. And no happy endings either. Only the suggestion of a blighted tomorrow, full of radiation poisoning that desiccates survivors and deforms unborn children. Say this for The Day After: it has no patience for reassurance and makes no kind of political peace. It sets itself a relatively easy mark—to illustrate the ravages of nuclear war—but a punishingly high goal. It may be that no television film has ever had such ambition, or presumption, and just so no one misses the point, the network and the film makers spell it out in grave white letters just before the final fade: "It is hoped that the images of this film will inspire the nations of this earth, their people and leaders, to find the means to avert the fateful day."
The Day After will not be broadcast until Nov. 20, but its political implications have already been discussed, denounced and championed by proponents and opponents of the nuclear freeze. ABC executives are united and adamant about the apolitical nature of their 2-hr. 5-min. presentation. "We never intended the film to be a political statement," claims Brandon Stoddard, president of ABC Motion Pictures and the initiator of the project. "The movie simply says that nuclear war is horrible. That is all it says. That is a very safe statement." Adds the film's director, Nicholas Meyer: "The Day After does not advocate disarmament, build-down, buildup, freeze. I didn't want to alienate any viewers. The movie is like a giant public service announcement, like Smokey the Bear."
The movie has already started its fair share of brush fires. Tape copies leaked into circulation and were being screened for freeze sympathizers as long ago as July. Congressman Edward Markey, co-sponsor of a House freeze resolution, caught an early show and says, "It's the most important television program ever because it's the most important issue ever. It's the most honest account of nuclear war that has been done." "It's an awesome film," adds Congressman Thomas J. Downey. For Janet Michaud, executive director of the Campaign Against Nuclear War, "ABC is performing an enormous public service. It's giving the American people the ability to become part of the debate over the most important issue of our times." For Roger Molander, founder of the nuclear-war-education group Ground Zero, The Day After is a conduit to confrontation. "To come to grips with the reality of nuclear war, one has to go through a nuclear passage, to confront a nuclear war in all its horror. This will provide a passage for 30, 40, 50 million Americans."