"I like Ike!"

The Atomic Café is a really fascinating film. It gives great insight about the terror and culture of the time when atomic power was a new and important entity in the United States. The film is part historical, part propaganda and part insightful into the cult-like qualities surrounding the terror of an attack on America. Many things made me cringe and vocally gasp. Even the very beginning of the film was shocking. Film clips were shown of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Those that were in the airplane reported the monotony of the experience and that it wasn’t until the damage had been done had they realized that the destruction was massive and horrible.

1947 was the Year of Division. There was a clash of ideologies between the East and the West. The ruthless expansion of the Total State challenged the basic ideals of individual and national freedoms.

The propaganda continues as a hypothetical situation took place in which the United States became communist and we lost all of our basic rights. Then a video of a model of the Statue of Liberty blowing up then a large fist crushing residences and places of business and finally human ties and emotional ties in pillar form are pushed over.

Another thing that was interesting about tying together all of these films was that the filmmakers presented the information to you and didn’t have a specific feeling or idea that they wanted you to have making the film watching experience more interesting and more intrinsically edifying. Such as, one explanation for the Korean War which said that fighting in Korea was for National Security purposes and even so far as to say for our own survival.

I especially like the US military training film clips. One of my favorites was one in which they were showing the warning signs of a communist in which a woman protesting war is ridiculed by 3 military men in uniforms. This was immediately followed by incredible chilling sound clips and images explaining the fate of the Rosenbergs.

There was an interesting clip of some kind of minister or priest speaking about the use of the H-Bomb. Normally the thought would be that any type of religiously affiliated persons would be against any type of aggressive war tactics that would potentially result in death. However in this clip a priest mentions the importance of having the H-Bomb though he thinks it must not be used he says that it is important for the protection of democracy.

I think that with the confusion of what exactly it meant to have so many new advancements in the United States it could be safe to say that the people were feeling lost and so they are more likely to have people tell them what to do. I think that it blew people’s minds that within a century we were fighting with muskets and are now involved in nuclear warfare. The film stated that we were scientifically more advanced than we could emotionally handle. Which I think played a huge role in the United State’s society during the Cold War. I think that the lies that the media and the scientists told people also were something that has greatly made an impact on the history of the Cold War and even today. Atomic power became kind of an obsession and was integrated into everyday life. In this time of high stress there was instated a Mental Health week in which a bell was rung to calm citizens and even some husbands were encouraged to give their families tranquilizers.

There was kind of a suggestion that if you followed procedure and protected yourself and your family from fallout that everything that you had lost would return to you.

The idea of *Duck and Cover* was another thing that swept the nation and Burt the turtle was sure to teach you how to protect yourself if you hear a nuclear explosion. I fail to recognize how this in anyway would protect you from something that could give you extraordinarily large amounts of radiation.

The idea of a fallout shelter was also an intensely interesting thing to me especially when bomb shelters used in WWII only suffocated and incinerated those who sought safety in them.

The final scenes, which are quite memorable, all of the propaganda shown in the rest of the film is delegitimized. There is no hiding or escape from an Atomic attack.

Interesting Quotes:

“Well I guess there is nothing for us to worry about, we have the bomb”

“Fight the war to win rather than settle it at the diplomatic table which is impossible when dealing with Russia”

“She died a lot harder” – When speaking about the execution of Ethel Rosenberg

“If you wouldn’t tell Stalin, don’t tell anyone”

“You will be moved out in time to avoid sickness. If that doesn’t happen and sterility or sickness does affect you, you will probably be killed by something else anyway.” – Army general when talking to solders about procedure when dealing with atomic explosions on the battle fields.

“If I don’t know everything then you know nothing about communism, only fear of it.” – Nikita Khrushchev