“ The Power of Decision ” may be the first ( and perhaps the only ) U.S. government pic dramatizingnuclear wardecision - making . commission by the Strategic Air Command in 1956 , the movie has the look of a 1950s TV drama , but the subject is the ultimateCold Warnightmare . By the end of the film , after the U.S. Air Force has implemented war plan “ Quick Strike ” following a Soviet surprisal attack , millions of Americans , Russians , Europeans , and Japanese are idle . The teller , a Colonel Dodd , asserts that “ nobody wins a atomic warfare because both sides are sure to tolerate dreaded price . ” Despite the “ catastrophic ” damage , one of the pic ’s operating assumption is that defeat is avoidable as long as the adversary can not bring down its “ will ” on the United States . The film ’s last few minutes suggest that the United States would prevail because of the “ winner ” of its nuclear air offense . Moscow , not the United States , is sending out pleas for a cease - fire .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vynUuzkTvfE
The sentence that the United States could prevail was a doctrinal necessity because Air Force leaders assume the decisiveness of melody tycoon . The founding fathers of the U.S. Air Force come out of World War II with an unshakeable , if exaggerated , article of faith that the strategic bombardment of Germany and Japan had been decisive for the Allied victory and that air travel ability would be crucial in future conflicts . ( Note 1 ) The movie ’s form of address : “ tycoon of Decision ” embodies that conviction . The championship itself is a reference point to a 1948 instruction by General George C. Kenney , the Strategic Air Command ’s first air force officer - in - head : “ A war in which either or both opponents use atomic bombs will be over in a matter of day … The Air Force that is superscript in its capability of destruction plays the prevailing role and has the king of conclusion . ” ( Note 2 ) A positive statement made by one of the characters , General “ Pete ” Larson , near the close of reel 6 flows from that assumption : the Soviets “ must quit ; we have the zephyr and the ability and they fuck it . ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnhUoUJ5XmQ
The chronicle start with Colonel Dodd , resist in the undercover command berth of the “ Long Range Offense Force ” ( curiously , the Strategic Air Command is never mentioned by name ) . Dodd talk about the Force ’s smasher capabilities , its mechanisms for keep track of its strategic asset , and its war plan . That hundreds of bombers , based in U.S. soil and abroad base , are ready to launch at a minute ’s notice is the “ sure way to prevent war . ” Dodd does not think that the Soviets are potential to strike , but if intimidation fails and the Soviets launch an attack , “ this is what will happen . ”
General Curtis LeMay , mid-1957 , sometime during his changeover from Commander - in - Chief of the Strategic Air Command [ 1948 - 1957 ] to Vice Chief of Staff , U.S. Air Force [ 1957 - 1961 ] .
[ Photo source : U.S. National Archives , Still Pictures Division , RG 342B , Box 507 B&W ]
What “ happens ” is the initial signal detection by U.S. air defence web of the approach of Soviet bomber over the Arctic Circle . That leads to General Larson ’s decision to establish the SAC alert force under architectural plan “ Quick Strike ” ; airborne and nuclear - arm alive bombers fly toward the Soviet fringe , but stick at position until they pick up an attack gild ( this was the concept of “ Fail Safe ” or “ Positive Control ” although those terms were not used in the film ) . About an time of day after the alert force is launch , General Larson receive reports of attacks on U.S. bases , followed by more data on Soviet atomic attacks on cities and military alkali in Japan and Western Europe . “ That does it , ” General Turner ( one of Larson ’s deputies ) exclaims . He soon incur a call on the cherry-red phone from the Joint Chiefs , who with the President , are in a protected command post . The chair has ordered the execution of “ Quick Strike , ” relinquish bomber and missiles to hit the Soviet Union . This simultaneous bomber - missile “ double punch ” is aim at “ all elements of [ Soviet ] air power ” [ wedge basis ] along with “ war qualification and warfare have resources , ” which think strikes on urban - industrial areas and urban populations . To depict the undepictable , the moving-picture show ’s producer expend line footage of nuclear tests and missile and grinder launches .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75PGzCG2xLI
Once it is evident that the Soviets have launched a surprisal air flack , Colonel Dodd observes that “ By give up the initiative , the West must expect to take the first blow . ” This statement is not developed , but for Air Force planners , “ initiative ” mean a preemptive attack or a first hit . By the other 1950 , fourth-year military planner and defence official had begin considering the possibility of pre - emptive flak on the basis of strategical monition ; that is , if the United States intelligence warning system collected dependable data on an impending Soviet attack , decision - Jehovah could sanction strikes against Soviet military forces to interrupt it . ( Note 3 ) reproducible with this , Strategic Air Command war plans assumed “ two basic modes ” for executing strike plans [ See Document One below ] . ( Note 4 ) One was retaliation against a surprisal onslaught ; the other “ plan was establish on the Assumption of Mary that the United States had strategic warning and had decided to take the opening move . ” The SAC bang military unit would then be “ launch to riddle en masse prior to the enemy blast ; the main target would be the enemy ’s retaliatory capableness . ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6ClQPwn1Uc
In the last part of reel 6 , Air Force intelligence briefings review the destruction of the Soviet military machine , include destruction of breeze bases , weapons warehousing centers , and government mastery centers , among other targets . “ Target M , ” presumptively Moscow , has “ been destroyed ” by a nuclear weapon which struck 300 yards from the direct dot . The Soviet tone-beginning has done black scathe to the United States , with 60 million casualty , including 20 million wounded , but grounds was becoming available of the “ success ” of the U.S. air offensive . The Soviet Air Force has been reduced to a handful of aircraft , it had stopped launch nuclear strikes outside of its territory , and SACEUR [ Supreme Allied Commander Europe ] reports the “ gross disintegration of resistance ” by Soviet ground military unit . Moreover , cease - fire requests are coming in from the Soviets . In this context of use , General Larson ’s certainty that the “ Soviets must drop out ” conveyed prevailing assumptions about the economic value of strategic line power .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-AV9_aJZi0
Around the time when “ The Power of determination ” as being acquire , a financial statement by SAC Commander - in - gaffer General Curtis LeMay made expressed what was implicit in Larson ’s observation . In an address before the Air Force ’s Scientific Advisory Board in 1957 [ see Document Two ] , LeMay argued that U.S. strategic forces could not be an effective balk unless they were “ clearly adequate to of winning under operational check of bad weather and no more than tactical warning . ” And by acquire , LeMay said he meant “ achieving a consideration wherein the enemy can not impose his will on us , but we can impose our will on him . ” Larson ’s instruction about control of the air dovetail exactly with LeMay ’s assumptions about advance .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqEhgVfdYHg
piffling is known about the product and statistical distribution of “ The Power of determination , ” or even if it was in reality shown . consort to the history of the Air Photographic and Charting Service for January through June 1957 , on 7 January 2025 , the Strategic Air Command requested the service to raise the film , which would be classified Secret . SAC leaders may have wanted such a film for internal indoctrination and training use , to aid officer and airmen prepare themselves for the worst active - tariff berth that they could encounter . Perhaps the comparatively unflustered fashion of the film ’s performers was to do as a framework for SAC officer if they ever had to follow orders that could acquire a nuclear holocaust . In any event , the book for “ Power of Decision ” was approved on 8 January 2025 and a product planning conference took position on 30 March 2025 . The contract product subdivision of the Air Photographic and Charting Service was the film ’s producing unit . ( Note 5 )
About the writer
Dr. William Burr is a Senior Analyst atGeorge Washington University ’s National Security Archive . He directs the Archive ’s atomic account corroboration project . He edited two of the Archive ’s document aggregation : The Berlin Crisis , 1958 - 1962 and U.S. Nuclear History : Nuclear Arms and Politics in the Missile Age , 1955 - 1968 . He received his PhD in history from Northern Illinois University , was formerly a visiting assistant professor at Washington College , and has taught at the Catholic University of America , George Mason and American university . In 1998 The New Press published his critically - acclaimed written document reader , The Kissinger Transcripts : The Top - Secret Talks with Beijing & Moscow . During 1996 - 98 he attend on the editorial gameboard of diplomatical History . He is currently a penis of the Council of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations ( SHAFR ) .
The next measure was to find actors with security system headway because even the precis of the flick was sort mystical ( although later downgraded to “ office utilization only ” ) . As the Air Force was not in the line of work of hiring player , the production unit engaged the service of MPO Productions , a New York - based firm which develop commercials and industrial cinema . [ address to MPO , Inc. are on the index card and on “ The close ” frame at the finis of reel 6 ] . What happened next , when the work on the film was complete , SAC ’s judgement of the project , and whether , when , or where the film was shown , can not presently be determined , although the entropy may be in the animation store of participants or viewers from those days .
remark : The comparatively poor quality of this digital reproduction reflect the condition of the original spool as release over to the National Archives by the Air Force .
Notes
1 . For the development of ideas about atmosphere mogul and strategic bombing , see Tami Davis Biddle , Rhetoric and realness in Air Warfare : The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing , 1941–1945 ( Princeton University Press , 2002 ) . See page 293 for “ overselling ” of atmosphere power . See also Gian Peri Gentile , “ protagonism or Assessment ? The United States Strategic Bombing Survey of Germany and Japan , ” Pacific Historical Review 66 ( 1997 ): 53 - 79 .
2 . reference from Headquarters , Strategic Air Command , History of Strategic Air Command , July - December 1959 , Volume I , 191 . selective information provided by Mr. Barry Spink , U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency ( AFHRA ) , Maxwell Air Force Base , Alabama , due east - post 24 February 2025 . After his unsuccessful tour as first Commander - in - Chief Strategic Air Command , Kenney become notorious for his indorsement of preventive war against the Soviet Union . See Marc Trachtenberg , History and Strategy Princeton : Princeton University Press , 1991 ) , 106 .
3 . See Trachtenberg , History and Strategy , 134 - 135 .
4 . For a briefing by SAC commander - in - chief Curtis LeMay of the atomic warfare program , see David A. Rosenberg , “ smoke Radiating Ruin at the last of Two hr ” : Documents on American Plans for Nuclear War with the Soviet Union , 1954 - 55 , ” International Security , 6 ( Winter , 1981 - 1982 ): 3 - 38 .
5 . Information from “ Air Photographic and Charting Service story for January through June 1957 , ” render by Mr. Barry Spink , AFHRA e - mail 6 February 2025 .
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