How a TV show changed the Cold War

FForty years ago, half the nation was watching the end of the world on their televisions, and only the most powerful man in the world actually saw it. Despite the Chief of Staff’s objections, President Reagan requested the film be shown The next day At Camp David a month before the broadcast date. After watching, Reagan wrote in his memoirs that the film was “very effective and left me very depressed.” Described by historians as a “Reagan coup,” the effects and consequences of a made-for-TV movie made the world safer than it had been for decades, at least temporarily.

In 1983, ABC’s The next day He produced a $7 million disaster film depicting a nuclear attack on the United States and the miserable consequences of a collapsed society. Throughout the months leading up to the event, the media ran cover stories, behind-the-scenes accounts, and deeply partisan commentary about the film. On the right, Reagan’s political and religious allies lined up behind a strategy of unlimited nuclear buildup, under the fatalistic concept of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. For those on the left, the program aligns with global protests by nuclear freeze activists and scientists who have made warnings of a nuclear winter of extinction.

Caught in the crossfire is Brandon Stoddard, the ABC programming genius and “father of the mini-series,” who conceived the film. High-concept films combined with powerful messages have been Stoddard’s calling. Stoddard was determined to awaken Americans from their Cold War slumber and complete Oppenheimer’s mission to warn us of the danger of nuclear oblivion. However, as documented in Apocalypse TV: How The Day After Helped End the Cold War, to make The next day Almost didn’t happen. The path from start to screen meant that Stoddard faced countless obstacles from internal opposition at the network to his brilliant, if blatantly demanding, director, to prominent Reagan revolutionaries and right-wing agitators from arch-conservative William F. Buckley to televangelist Jerry Falwell.

For Stoddard and his team at ABC, the first task was to hire a screenwriter who could deliver a powerful message on a TV movie budget without becoming too “political.” Instead of depicting World War III, Stoddard honed a vision for a character-driven drama revolving around the mundane lives of Midwesterners with little fear of nuclear Armageddon, aside from the Air Force bases and missile silos that dot the landscape. Then, once the bomb drops, the audience will witness how society descends into hell from the fallout, a far cry from the primetime fare filled with procedural dramas, game shows, sports, and sitcoms. In Edward Hume, the ABC team found a gifted, socially conscious storyteller. Hume had directed the most successful television serials by day, while writing television message films at night. However, Hume seemed despondent when he heard that his inspired text had been greenlit. “Do you know what it’s like to wake up every day for the past two years and deal with the world being destroyed?”

The battles between the network and director Nicholas Meyer are the stuff of Hollywood legend. Fresh from the success of the Paramount rescue Star Trek franchise, Meyer had little incentive to return to television where he first honed his craft as a screenwriter. But Mayer’s career path was not in line with fate, or at least with his therapist, who almost dared him to accept this assignment. The trip would send Meyer to the Midwest and he became depressed once the network cut him from the film after showing an extremely slow first clip. After the network cut-off was inadvertently blamed on the Soviets, Stoddard’s soap became controversial and a triumphant Mayer returned to fix it. Before the film was finished, an earlier version of it ended up in the hands of rogue propagandists and anti-nuclear activists who hijacked the film’s message to make their case. The ensuing backlash generated more press than any Hollywood film could ever handle. Stoddard faced internal and external threats, including death warrants and powder envelopes. Then he discovered that his legal department had sent the film to the White House at his request.

During the first three years of his administration, Reagan had successfully promoted a “peace through strength” approach to the Cold War. In fact, Reagan, through rhetoric and policy, was playing a dangerous game of nuking with the Soviets. He withdrew from disarmament agreements, declared the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” and took to the airwaves to announce the launch of his space-based missile defense system, which the press hailed as “Star Wars.” Even after the film aired, he shipped Pershing missiles to European soil. However, by the fall of 1983, the Reagan administration was suffering from a stunning series of crises, some of their own making. The Soviets had blown up an errant Korean plane out of the sky, taking with it 269 passengers, including a contingent of US Congressmen. A suicide bomber blew up an American barracks in Lebanon, eliminating an entire battalion of Marines. That same week, Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada under false pretenses.

Decades later, with the release of declassified documents, we now know that the Soviets were seconds away from launching World War III, the result of either false alarms or Cold War paranoia. In September 1983, Soviet early warning systems indicated the presence of incoming American warheads. One of the officers on duty ignored protocol, and the missiles turned out to be a computer glitch caused by solar flares. Two months later, the United States led war games in Europe called “Apple Archer,” which was none other than the Soviets’ game. Premier Andropov, lying in hospital with kidney failure, placed a trembling finger on Chegit, the Soviet nuclear briefcase.

While members of his administration promoted the possibility of a winnable nuclear war, Reagan was an abolitionist—a fact that was well concealed with the help of his staff for political advantage. Only events that occurred during the fall of 1983, including the impact of the sighting The next dayThis led to a stark reversal in Reagan’s rhetoric and policy. Shortly after the film was shown, his general provided rich detail about the potential consequences of nuclear war. As Reagan described it, the encounter was “the most realistic experience… the sequence of events paralleling in many respects those depicted in the ABC film… which may lead to the end of civilization as we know it.” By early 1984, Reagan’s speeches had shifted from warmongering to Gandhian peacemaker speeches, declaring that “we are all children of God.” His administration was tasked with developing stronger diplomatic relations with its Soviet colleagues, securing disarmament conferences, and even establishing a fax hotline between the Oval Office and the Kremlin. With the emergence of a new Soviet leader, these strategies paved the way for the end of the super-powerful atomic arms race, at least in the twentieth century.^y a century.

Today, the parallels with 1983 are even more troubling, as the lessons of this narrative become more important. As I write this book, Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant is under attack as CNN commentators warn of an impending nuclear disaster. China’s rise has been framed as a renewed Cold War. An epidemic that has swept the planet into darkness has become endemic, as doctors race to thwart the next one. Whether due to lack of will or ability, we are sliding towards environmental collapse.

As with the rise of cable and satellite television in the 1980s, Hollywood, media, news, and communications in all their forms have been cannibalized by ever-more powerful and ever-evolving technologies. Digital and social media platforms have replaced gatekeepers, putting the power once secreted by broadcast professionals literally into the hands of teenagers, terrorists, dissidents and tyrants. However, these same technologies have the potential to reverse the course of history. Broadcast technologies provide the ability to transmit powerful messages capable of thwarting the next extinction. Social media users can organize online communities in the millions. Games can teach empathy. Artificial intelligence may imagine better worlds.

As Stoddard and his allies show in this story, storytellers and media professionals have power. First, they learn how to navigate within media systems and harness the power of the medium. They then develop strategies to deliver emotional and informed messages designed for popular audiences, if they are also able to influence powerful leaders. We will need them again.