Professor, do you have any information as to the intended audience for this classified film? Or any information about who might have actually seen it? Ike?
What a great study of perhaps one of the best USAF and Government produced films to see daylight of that era, i posted it in my very elementary adhd blog fallout shelter NYC . I personally loved the film but the extent you took it to Alex was perhaps one of the best educational delights I have come across in a long time kudos to you.and thanks for letting me know a restored version of the "power of decision" exists in plan on watching it this time on my 56 inch TV! Thanks again!
I also plan on checking out your newest book as soon as I can. Thanks for the great dissection of the movies strike plan.
I've read accounts of hearts being cut out of multiple thousands of captives on top of the great pyramid at Tenochtitlan (now called Mexico City). At that time, this project made perfect sense to those who planned the event, arranged the logistics well in advance, assigned the required numbers of personnel and gave the orders. Those leaders only did what was required for their great nation to survive & prosper, of course.
Thank you for the post, the information is very interesting, and I appreciate all your work. You say that “the table is pretty consistent with them being surface-to-surface missiles of the sort that were just going online in the late 1950s, like the AGM-28 Hound Dog”. However the AGM-28 was only ever an air launched cruise missile, and was not in service until after the film came out.
The only ground-launched cruise missile that the Air Force had in service at the time was the MGM-1 Matador, but in 1958 it was only operational from units in West Germany, Taiwan, and Korea. There are a series of thin yellow lines coming from England that could be an obscuration of the launching site in Germany, and other ones missed, but the other image of the man in the lift by the wall shows more GMS sites that don’t seem to be on the map. It is only a hypothetical war plan, as you say, and doesn’t represent full capacity.
The thick yellow lines have to be something else, as the matador would not have had the range to be launched from the mainland United States, as those seem to be. Either those yellow lines don't represent missiles, or maybe the Air Force was planning for Navajo launch sites which did not become operational?
I watched the film on YouTube a few days ago and found it extremely naive for a top secret, in house, production. I do believe Moron and Zaragoza ABs (I’m in Spain so they were my main interest appear in some shots although only Morocco is mentioned South of France. Also, note that several cruise missiles which weren’t fielded of were obsolete by 1958 appear prominently besides the bombers, including interesting footage about the then revolutionary B-58. The fact they discussed “recovery bases” for the bombers felt very naive while I found the sheer time it would take to begin the strikes shockingly long, although ballistic missiles are mentioned and shown. The continental air defense also appears an afterthought, although the large AD force deployed in the Continental US and Canada could have greatly damaged any attempt by the relatively small Soviet strategic bomber fleet.
I'd be surprised if Kubrick didn't somehow see a copy of this film. Beyond the obvious "Big Board" reference, some of the choice of stock footage such as the in-air refueling almost feel like parody at this point.
I would be curious to see an environmental, economic and sociopolitical assessment of this "war". With that many nuclear weapons being detonated more or less simultaneously, what would a reasonable state of the world 1, 10 and 25 years hence be like? Despite the "well, we sure showed the russkies" bravado at the end of the film, I can't see how modern civilization could possibly survive and recover.
I like Power of Decision because you can really feel the war's massive scale. Everything from the information-dense maps, timing charts and target tallies all the way down to the individual bomber crews' post-strike debriefings and simulated radar images. It really hammers home what crazy amount of planning and detail goes into conducting a world war, even a nuclear one fought by thousands of people rather than millions.
They did a great job of restoring the film. The one thing that has always puzzled me about it, though... I don't think the words "SAC" or "Strategic Air Command" or even "SAC Command Post" are said in the film. It's always "strike command."..
"they do not seem to be counting tactical or naval weapons (which makes sense, as they would not be under SAC’s authority)"
Not under SAC's authority, nor in 1958 coordinated with SAC's war planning. That wouldn't happen until the implementation of the SIOP in 1961.
Also interesting that the narrator states "when the button has been pushed"... When pushbutton nuclear warfare as we think of it wasn't a thing yet. I wonder where the phrase comes from, and when it was first used in reference to nuclear war.
And curiously, he states that there are no winners in a nuclear war...
Could do a blow-by-blow, but won't. Just going to watch the rest and note that my war would have been very different from what they depict here. But then, the worm (or more accurately the guppy) doesn't see what the higher ups see.
I can't identify the actor who serves as the narrator, but I'm fairly confident the actor playing the officer giving the report on the outcome of the strike (visible in the photo you have showing the "Preliminary Strike Report") is Earl Rowe, probably best remembered today for his performance as Lt. Dave in the 1958 movie "The Blob." I tried to find out if he ever did any work for MPO Productions but didn't have any luck.
Clearly the narrator is played by none other than Troy McClure.
Their was a fairly detailed paper game on this very subject, I'm pretty sure its out of print. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/142480/first-strike-62
Professor, do you have any information as to the intended audience for this classified film? Or any information about who might have actually seen it? Ike?
What a great study of perhaps one of the best USAF and Government produced films to see daylight of that era, i posted it in my very elementary adhd blog fallout shelter NYC . I personally loved the film but the extent you took it to Alex was perhaps one of the best educational delights I have come across in a long time kudos to you.and thanks for letting me know a restored version of the "power of decision" exists in plan on watching it this time on my 56 inch TV! Thanks again!
I also plan on checking out your newest book as soon as I can. Thanks for the great dissection of the movies strike plan.
Liam Gibson
Falloutshelternyc@gmail.com
I've read accounts of hearts being cut out of multiple thousands of captives on top of the great pyramid at Tenochtitlan (now called Mexico City). At that time, this project made perfect sense to those who planned the event, arranged the logistics well in advance, assigned the required numbers of personnel and gave the orders. Those leaders only did what was required for their great nation to survive & prosper, of course.
Can anyone else see some resemblances?
https://youtu.be/tVYSUHtB-nI?si=UTOVmvmRk1B6cmcq
Well in that case, the other thing is was considered a HONOR to be sacrifed to make sure the gods were happy in some cases.
-whooosh-
Thank you for the post, the information is very interesting, and I appreciate all your work. You say that “the table is pretty consistent with them being surface-to-surface missiles of the sort that were just going online in the late 1950s, like the AGM-28 Hound Dog”. However the AGM-28 was only ever an air launched cruise missile, and was not in service until after the film came out.
The only ground-launched cruise missile that the Air Force had in service at the time was the MGM-1 Matador, but in 1958 it was only operational from units in West Germany, Taiwan, and Korea. There are a series of thin yellow lines coming from England that could be an obscuration of the launching site in Germany, and other ones missed, but the other image of the man in the lift by the wall shows more GMS sites that don’t seem to be on the map. It is only a hypothetical war plan, as you say, and doesn’t represent full capacity.
The thick yellow lines have to be something else, as the matador would not have had the range to be launched from the mainland United States, as those seem to be. Either those yellow lines don't represent missiles, or maybe the Air Force was planning for Navajo launch sites which did not become operational?
I watched the film on YouTube a few days ago and found it extremely naive for a top secret, in house, production. I do believe Moron and Zaragoza ABs (I’m in Spain so they were my main interest appear in some shots although only Morocco is mentioned South of France. Also, note that several cruise missiles which weren’t fielded of were obsolete by 1958 appear prominently besides the bombers, including interesting footage about the then revolutionary B-58. The fact they discussed “recovery bases” for the bombers felt very naive while I found the sheer time it would take to begin the strikes shockingly long, although ballistic missiles are mentioned and shown. The continental air defense also appears an afterthought, although the large AD force deployed in the Continental US and Canada could have greatly damaged any attempt by the relatively small Soviet strategic bomber fleet.
I'd be surprised if Kubrick didn't somehow see a copy of this film. Beyond the obvious "Big Board" reference, some of the choice of stock footage such as the in-air refueling almost feel like parody at this point.
I would be curious to see an environmental, economic and sociopolitical assessment of this "war". With that many nuclear weapons being detonated more or less simultaneously, what would a reasonable state of the world 1, 10 and 25 years hence be like? Despite the "well, we sure showed the russkies" bravado at the end of the film, I can't see how modern civilization could possibly survive and recover.
There was plenty of unclassified SAC propaganda out there, so I'm not sure he'd have needed to see this film.
I like Power of Decision because you can really feel the war's massive scale. Everything from the information-dense maps, timing charts and target tallies all the way down to the individual bomber crews' post-strike debriefings and simulated radar images. It really hammers home what crazy amount of planning and detail goes into conducting a world war, even a nuclear one fought by thousands of people rather than millions.
They did a great job of restoring the film. The one thing that has always puzzled me about it, though... I don't think the words "SAC" or "Strategic Air Command" or even "SAC Command Post" are said in the film. It's always "strike command."..
"they do not seem to be counting tactical or naval weapons (which makes sense, as they would not be under SAC’s authority)"
Not under SAC's authority, nor in 1958 coordinated with SAC's war planning. That wouldn't happen until the implementation of the SIOP in 1961.
Also interesting that the narrator states "when the button has been pushed"... When pushbutton nuclear warfare as we think of it wasn't a thing yet. I wonder where the phrase comes from, and when it was first used in reference to nuclear war.
And curiously, he states that there are no winners in a nuclear war...
Could do a blow-by-blow, but won't. Just going to watch the rest and note that my war would have been very different from what they depict here. But then, the worm (or more accurately the guppy) doesn't see what the higher ups see.
The idea of the so-called "push-button warfare" waged by nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles was actually widely discussed in press as early as February 1946: https://books.google.com/books?id=KaTBm-hcVgsC&pg=PA38&q=push-button%20war
Moreover, Pulitzer laureate Hanson Baldwin wrote about that less specifically in the Life magazine wrote about that already on 20th August 1945: https://books.google.com/books?id=hkgEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA17&q=push-button (it's a really good article BTW, check it out!)
I can't identify the actor who serves as the narrator, but I'm fairly confident the actor playing the officer giving the report on the outcome of the strike (visible in the photo you have showing the "Preliminary Strike Report") is Earl Rowe, probably best remembered today for his performance as Lt. Dave in the 1958 movie "The Blob." I tried to find out if he ever did any work for MPO Productions but didn't have any luck.
There's a recent article about early British planning (real - from National Archive material) at: https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com/2026/02/early-cold-war-british-nuclear.html