Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Under the direct orders of Stalin,

Igor Kurchatov, a brilliant physicist,

known as "The Beard,"

let the Soviet A-bomb team.

They were determined to end the atomic monopoly

America had held since the war.

On the 29th of August 1949,

they succeeded.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: The shock wave approached

and knocked on the roof of the bunker --

one, two --

as if a genie, freed by us from the bottle,

patted us and thanked us

for releasing him from his long captivity.

BRANAGH: The Nuclear Arms race had begun.

D ♪

America readies itself for a nuclear attack.

NARRATOR: Times Square is its normal busy self

in the last seconds before a daylight

Atomic Bomb drill.

[air raid siren]

The sirerfs wail sends New York's inhabitants

to shelter.

All buses, taxis, and autos discharge their passengers

who are guided by wardens to shelters.

Movement is rapid but orderly.

Housewives draw shades and turn off gas

before proceeding to shelter zones

in their own buildings.

New York's subways provide

most of the public shelters.

Times Square is deserted

two minutes after the alert.

BRANAGH: The speed with which the Soviets had produced ah atomic bomb

astonished America.

I think what surprised us

was that considering the devastation

which had taken place in the Soviet Union

as a result of World War ll,

we didn't think they would be able to amass

the necessary infrastructure to develop the bomb,

but they certainly did

and they clearly were in our knickers, so to speak.

More and more we learned

how well they had infiltrated

the whole Manhattan Project.

BRANAGH: Some scientists working on America's first A-bomb,

the Manhattan Project,

believed that America should not have

a monopoly on nuclear weapons.

Klaus Fuchs,

a German-born, British citizen, was one.

AGNEW: People used him as a baby-sitter,

he was a very polite, very quiet individual.

No idea at all that he had this dual personality

or this dual endeavor.

BRANAGH: In January 1950,

Fuchs was arrested in London

and charged with passing atomic bomb designs

to the Soviet Union.

He was sentenced to 14 years for espionage.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: KGB agents believe that they brought over

all the drawings,

and the scientists simply copied the information

they brought back.

Scientists say the intelligence data

was very important.

The engineers were less enthusiastic.

They said, "So what if we had the information?"

How to make it, how to use it --

that was not clear.

BRANAGH: The United States looked to its scientists

to regain the lead.

At the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratories,

they planned the Hydrogen bomb.

We thought at the time of atomic bombs

as being limited in yield

to approximately the yield that had been used

in the war in Japan.

Whereas we thought of hydrogen bombs as being

absolutely unlimited in what the yield could be

and more specifically, we thought of the hydrogen bomb

as being a thousand times as big as atomic bombs,

just as atomic bombs had been

a thousand times bigger than the chemical bombs

used in World War ll.

BRANAGH: This enormous destructive power

shocked Robert Oppenheimer --

former leader of the Manhattan Project.

He and several of his colleagues argued

that such weapons put the whole world at risk.

If there is another world war,

this civilization may go under.

We need to ask ourselves whether we're doing

everything we can to avert that.

BRANAGH: America feared that if it didn't build an H-bomb,

the Russians would.

President Truman gave the go-ahead.

The Pacific atoll of Eniwetok was chosen

to be the site of the world's first

thermonuclear explosion.

By 1952,

Operation Ivy was ready.

It required a huge refrigeration system,

weighed over 82 tons

and was 20 feet high.

NARRATOR: In less than a minute you will see

the most powerful explosion ever witnessed by human eyes.

The blast will come out of the horizon

just about there,

and this is the significance of the moment.

This is the first full-scale test

of a hydrogen device.

If the reaction goes, we're in the thermonuclear era.

For the sake of all of us,

and for the sake of our country,

I know that you join me in wishing this expedition well.

MAN ON PA: It is now 30 seconds to zero time.

Put on goggles, or turn away.

Do not remove goggles or face burst

until 10 seconds after the first light.

Minus 10 seconds,

nine, eight

seven, six,

five, four,

three, two, one,

t zero.

BRANAGH: On November 1, 1952,

the world's first hydrogen bomb exploded

with a force equivalent

to over 10 million tons of TNT...

1,000 times the power of the bomb

dropped on Hiroshima.

AGNEW: You don't know what heat is

until you've seen the heat from a 10-megaton hydrogen bomb.

It doesn't stop,

it just gets hotter and hotter

and you start to really worry

even though you're 20-some miles away.

And of course, the whole island disappeared, too,

which was subsequently very impressive,

and the whole lagoon was just sort of a milky white.

And then we were asked to go collect samples,

so we got into a little motor boat with buckets

and went charging into the crater

scooping up the radioactive material

and taking it back for the chemists to analyze

so we could determine the yield.

But we were young, and it was a lot of fun.

BRANAGH: While America was developing the hydrogen bomb,

a conventional war had broken out in Asia.

Korea is a small country thousands of miles away.

But what is happening there

is important to every American.

The fact that communist forces have invaded Korea

is a warning that there may be similar acts of aggression

in other parts of the world.

BRANAGH: Congress approved a 40-billion-dollar increase

in the defense budget.

Truman, reluctant to use nuclear weapons again in Asia,

fought the communists in Korea with conventional weapons.

In 1952,

General Dwight D. Eisenhower,

the former Supreme Allied Commander,

campaigned to succeed Truman.

Ike was determined not to get caught

in any more conventional wars.

Better, he thought, to threaten the use

of America's growing nuclear arsenal

to deter its enemies.

Besides, you got more bang for your buck.

Moscow was warned that any further aggression

could involve massive retaliation.

By 1954, Russia was changing.

Stalin was dead,

and a struggle for power was taking place

between Nikita Khrushchev and Georgi Malehkov.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Malenkov said we have to warn our people

and all of humanity

that nuclear war threatens everyone

with annihilation.

It has to be avoided at all costs.

But Khrushchev saw this as ah attempt

to disarm and weaken the Soviet people.

BRANAGH: Later that year, the Soviet leadership witnessed

a demonstration of their nuclear power.

A ZO-kiloton atomic bomb was dropped

in the middle of a military exercise

in Totskoye in the Urals.

As the bomb exploded,

troops were sent in to storm the radiated area.

The Red Army was getting ready for nuclear war.

[speaking Russian ]

I was a member of the assessment team

for that exercise.

I remember very well how Marshal Bulganin,

the Minister of Defense,

stated that

"Nuclear weapons were not as frightening

as we had been warned by the imperialists."

BRANAGH: American tests in the Pacific continued.

In 1954, "shrimp" was expected to explode

with a force of about 5 megatons.

But the calculations were wrong.

Winds spread radioactive fallout

much further than expected.

We had hot been prepared to have such a high yield,

so the fallout area was much larger,

and unfortunately there was a Japanese fishing vessel,

I think called the Lucky Dragon,

where some of this fallout came down on them

and they had no information as to what this was

and they were a long ways away.

And before any information got to them

or they were detected,

some of the people did suffer some radiation effects.

BRANAGH: The fishermen had been over 80 miles away

when they were caught in a cloud of radioactive dust.

"Once again the Japanese have been poisoned

by ashes of death,"

reported one Tokyo newspaper.

All 23 crewmen fell ill.

One died.

AGNEW: I thought it was unfortunate

that human beings had been affected,

but people get hurt in all sorts of things

all the time.

I don't see why the public reaction

was quite so strong,

although the media has a tremendous effect

on public reaction.

BRANAGH: But it wasn't just the media.

A former Los Alamos scientist was worried, too.

MAN: I came to the conclusion that the bomb was

a very dirty bomb.

And then came a statement

from the Atomic Energy Commission

in the United States, to say,

"Don't worry about this... the fallout.

It's not more than you get from a chest X-ray."

Now I happened to know how much you get on a chest X-ray,

and I became very much alarmed.

BRANAGH: Several of the world's leading scientists

shared this concern.

With British philosopher Bertrand Russell,

they put their names to a manifesto.

There lies before us if we choose,

continual progress in happiness, knowledge

and wisdom.

Shall we instead choose death

because we cannot forget our quarrels?

We appeal as human beings to human beings.

Remember your humanity and forget the rest.

If you can do so, the way lies open

to a new paradise.

If you cannot, there lies before you

the risk of universal death.

In 1955, Russia dropped the world's first

airborne H-bomb.

I“ There was a turtle by the name of Bert I“

I“ and Bert the Turtle was very alert I“

I“ when danger threatened him he never got hurt I“

I“ He knew just what to do I“

I“ Duck and cover... I“

MAN: Now you and I don't have shells to crawl into

like Bert the Turtle,

so we have to cover up in our own way.

First you duck, and then you cover.

And very tightly you cover the back of your neck.

WOMAN: We would get under our desks and stay there

until we were told to come out

or, in some cases, in some of the classrooms

we had coat-rooms off to the side of each classroom

and we'd walk through and we'd get our coat

and we'd go out into the hallways

and we would literally duck down

facing against the wall.

NARRATOR: Remember what to do, friends.

Now tell me right out loud.

What are you supposed to do when you see the flash?

CHILDREN: Duck and cover!

In that way we thought we were protecting ourselves

from the bombs and from any damage

that would be done to us.

We felt totally secure and protected.

Bomb shelters, you know,

building bomb shelters in the back yard

it was certainly something you saw a lot in magazines

and this connotation that this was happening

somewhere in suburbia USA.

I do remember thinking of places in our homes

where these enemy people, these Russians,

would never ever find us

and we would again be, of course, very safe forever.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: In the 1950s,

it didn't even cross our minds

that the Americans were frightened

of a Soviet invasion.

We thought they knew we only had peaceful aims --

that all we wanted was to live in peace.

We wanted to rebuild our country.

We had our five-year plans.

Nowhere was it written that we wanted to invade anybody.

We thought that we had something to be frightened of

because they were capitalists

and that was something terrible for us.

We believed that they sucked the blood of the workers.

It didn't even cross our minds

that the Americans were scared of us.

BRANAGH: In the Summer of 1955,

the major powers convened in Geneva.

The Russian delegation was led

by Marshal Bulgahih and Nikita Khrushchev.

Eisenhower's most striking proposal was "Open Skies."

Ike claimed his plan would ease mutual suspicion

but it would also prize open the secrecy

of the Soviet Military Machine.

Open Skies involved both the freedom

to overfly each other and observe...

photograph and observe what was happening,

and second, an exchange of blueprints,

as Eisenhower termed it,

of the military programs on both sides.

We broke up for tea shortly after that

and as we were standing there,

Khrushchev came walking up to Eisenhower,

or sidling up in his way of walking,

and said, "Nyet, nyet, nyet.

You're simply trying to look into our bedrooms."

And as we were riding back,

Eisenhower said, "Now we know who's in charge

of the Soviet delegation."

BRANAGH: Later that year at the Moscow Air Show,

the Soviets allowed the West to see their new jet bombers,

code named "Bison."

Significantly,

overhead flew 10 long-range TU-95s,

capable of delivering a nuclear bomb

all the way to America.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: For the Americans,

seeing 10 planes capable of reaching the United States

was a shock.

At that time,

in the absence of ballistic missiles,

they supposed that the Soviet Union didn't have

any means of delivery to America.

BRANAGH: In response to fears of a bomber gap,

Ike doubled the rate of B-52 production.

America needed to find out how much of a gap

there really was.

In California, the wraps were coming off

a secret photographic reconnaissance plane.

It was designed to fly at 70,000 feet,

out of range of fighter planes

and anti-aircraft missiles.

The U2.

Controlled by the CIA,

these long flights across Soviet territory

posed obvious risks.

But the information they might bring would be vital.

Ike took the gamble.

One of the flights I was on,

I came across the Engels...

so-called Engels airfield,

and much to my surprise and joy

it was loaded with Bison bombers.

I knew right then that I had found

that there was a bomber gap,

that this had to be the most important picture

ever taken by a reconnaissance pilot.

I kind of expected Congressional medals of honor

when I landed.

However, it turned out what I'd taken a picture of

was not just a portion

of the entire Russian Air Force bomber fleet,

but in fact I'd taken a picture

of the entire Russian bomber fleet,

and there really was no bomber gap.

They were all on that airfield at the same time.

Khrushchev, around that period,

came to the conclusion

that missiles were the weapons of the future

and that warships were getting obsolete,

bombers were getting obsolete.

That we should concentrate everything on missiles,

and as he said somewhere that,

"We are on the point

of producing missiles like sausages."

BRANAGH: Engineers from all over the Soviet Union

had been arriving in the harsh Kazakhstan desert

to build the top-secret rocket base of Baikonur.

On the 15th of May 1957,

they began testing the world's first

intercontinental Ballistic Missile,

an ICBM.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: We were kept in such strict secrecy

that we couldn't mention the word "missile"

even between ourselves.

It was called "the mechanism," "the product."

We called it "our dear one."

That romanticism -- it helped us to live,

to keep going-

BRANAGH: Building missiles was just one step --

the next would surprise the world.

On October 4, 1957,

Russia launched the world's first space satellite.

They called it Sputnik,

"Traveling Companion to the Earth."

Americans took for granted that theirs was

the richest and most technically advanced nation

in the world.

With Sputnik now orbiting the Earth,

all that changed.

Russia had won the opening event of the space race.

Everywhere eyes and ears turned to the sky.

I did have a World War ll surplus piece of equipment

out in our garage

that had been out there for some time unused.

It was too heavy to bring into the house.

So I powered that thing up

and tuned one of the channels

to just above 20 megahertz in frequency

and there faintly in the very distant background,

among all the noise and other things,

I could hear this little chirping sound,

more like a cricket chirping than it was a beep,

if you will.

[chirping]

To me, it was the confirmation of the fact

that the Russians had indeed put a satellite into orbit

and sitting there listening to that signal

and watching the booster go overhead

you couldn't help but get goose bumps

thinking about that thing.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: Sputnik came as a shock overseas.

The American military and others realized

that the period when they were out of reach had ended.

A new era had begun when instead of a sputnik,

a nuclear weapon could not merely circle the earth,

but land where it was ordered to.

It had given our people quite a jolt,

almost of panic proportions to think

that the Soviets could do that

and that meant they could

hit the United States with missiles.

Well, Eisenhower had been thinking about that for years

and this was no news to him.

Our satellite program has never been conducted

as a race with other nations.

Rather it has been carefully scheduled

as part of the scientific work

of the International Geophysical Year.

I consider our country's satellite program

to be well-designed and properly scheduled

to achieve the scientific purposes

for which it was initiated.

BRANAGH: Eisenhower's critics charged that his lethargy

had given away an advantage.

This government needs to start telling the truth

to the American people.

Quit kidding ourselves, and quit trying to fool

our friends and our neighbors.

And by that I mean let's find out

just where we stand in this race

and this armament picture,

and let's find out just what we're going to do about it.

Let's quit acting as if nothing happened

because something has happened,

and it has embarrassed us throughout the world.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: The world's mass media was choking with excitement

that man had now entered into space.

We would liked to have had some rest...

but one must give credit to Khrushchev.

He realized that space victories could be

of greater importance in politics

than the threat of a club

with a nuclear bomb on its end.

BRANAGH: Within a month, Russia was ready with Sputnik ll.

This time it carried a passenger,

Laika the dog.

American public opinion was split

between fear of Soviet missiles

and worries about the safety of the dog they called Curly.

WOMAN: We can only pray

in this time of aioneness and suffering for Curly,

that God will be merciful and speed the end.

This voiceless cry of mercy,

as this satellite spans the earth,

should be long remembered as the symbol

of the torture the animal world must go through.

And I don't mean to be facetious at all,

but something to be remembered is that

there is a female up there circling Mother earth.

BRANAGH: To catch up with the Russians,

America pushed its ovvn satellite project forward.

GOODPASTER: The army and the air force were very eager

to put up a satellite.

Eisenhower was dubious

about their proposals

and decided to call on the Navy

to produce a new satellite, called the Vanguard,

to carry this out

for peaceful civilian purposes only.

NARRATOR: And so at the sunrise hour of the launching day

the US scientists realize

the world is watching and waiting.

Success or failure will bring equal headlines.

That is one price of greatness.

And the Americans who swept this one out at Cape Canaveral,

know their fledgling is on the spot.

After rising but a few feet,

the three-stage, 72-foot rocket loses its thrust.

The remarkable slow motion films tell the rest of the story.

BRANAGH: it was a national humiliation.

The world's press had a field day.

Something had to be done in a hurry

to restore confidence in American technology.

To the rescue came a former German Rocket Scientist,

Werner von Braun.

His team had been working on a military missile

known as the Red stone.

Hurriedly the Explorer satellite was fitted to it.

It worked.

The race in space was between capitalism and communism --

a competition the West feared Russia was winning.

Russia was bursting with pride,

and celebrated its new, scientific heroes.

America, determined to catch up,

turned to youth.

Too few students had been taking

science and engineering.

Too many had followed softer courses.

The National Defense Education Act was passed.

As a result, my ex-husband became an engineer,

my brother became an engineer.

Most of the people that I knew in my small environment

went to become engineers.

After that, after they did that,

they went into other things but they were --

I mean we were all sort of conditioned to think

we should definitely--

This is what we need to do.

In 1959, Vice-president Richard Nixon opened

the American National Exhibition in Moscow.

He tried to impress Khrushchev with America's advances

in color television.

There are some instances where you may be ahead of us.

For example in the development

of the thrust of your rockets

for the investigation of outer space.

There may be some instances,

for example, color television, where we're ahead of you.

But in order for both of us --

Wait a minute.

Wait 'til you see the pictures.

BRANAGH: Khrushchev toured the United States,

the first Communist leader to be invited.

In Hollywood, the stars turned out to entertain him.

In the streets,

people gave him a frostier welcome.

The last few days of the visit

he spent with Eisenhower at Camp David.

Both said they were ready

to slow down the arms race.

It was difficult for Eisenhower to argue for restraint.

The American people were convinced that the missile gap

favored Russia.

Ike was questioning

how much of a gap there really was.

U2 spy planes had been searching for missiles.

Few had been found.

We needed the information the U2 was bringing back

because the Russians were so secretive,

the largest country in the world

with no tourists, no nothing.

I mean, we needed some special means for finding out.

BRANAGH: Pilot Gary Powers was selected for one

of the longest and most dangerous spy missions

ever flown.

He would take off from Pakistan

and fly north right across Russia.

His route would take him over new and improved

Soviet anti-aircraft defenses.

As soon as the U2 entered Soviet territory,

Russian radar tracked its progress.

MiG fighters were launched but couldn't climb high enough.

The order was given

to fire new S75 missiles.

[speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: One missile was enough to shoot down the Powers plane.

What we discovered first of all

were the remains of the plane

and here they are behind me --

the fuselage, wings and fuel tanks.

BRANAGH: Eisenhower was told the plane was missing,

and that a public statement might be needed.

I reminded him that we had

a cover story that we would use,

that the plane was

a high altitude weather plane

and it must have been off course and so on.

And so that was put out.

It is entirely possible

that having a failure in the oxygen equipment

which would result in the pilot losing consciousness,

the plane continued on automatic pilot

for a considerable distance,

and accidentally violated Soviet air space.

[speaking Russian]

INTERPRETER: And the main piece of evidence so to speak --

Powers himself and his equipment.

He had with him a poisoned pen

and a silenced pistol.

Khrushchev sprang the trap

and having us in it,

said we not only have the plane,

we have the pilot.

And it wasn't a plane that was off course --

it was on course.

It was not a high altitude weather plane,

it was a spy plane and we know all of that

and demanded an apology from the United States.

It appears that endeavoring to obtain information

now concealed behind the Iron Curtain,

a flight over Soviet territory was probably undertaken

by an unarmed civilian U2 plane.

Khrushchev gathered us around him and he said,

"Look we are going to take a very tough position

because otherwise our public

simply would not understand.

We'll have to make a statement

saying that the President should apologize,

should punish those responsible for those flights,

and should say that they will not

be repeated any longer."

BRANAGH: Two weeks after the shoot down,

at the long awaited Paris Summit,

Khrushchev, furious that Eisenhower wouldn't apologize,

stormed out.

The summit collapsed.

In Moscow, Power's trial for spying

was a major media event.

The world saw America caught in the act.

I ask the court to weigh all the evidence...

and take into consideration not only the fact

that I committed the crime...

but also the circumstances which led me to do so.

BRANAGH: Powers got 10 years imprisonment.

Khrushchev feared the U2 flights

had exposed his claims of missile superiority

as bluff.

At the secret Baikonur Cosmodrome,

engineers were testing a new ICBM.

In charge was Marshal Nedelin.

[ Kraskina speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: There was a rush to create a new missile.

Orders are orders.

Everybody worked on orders --

particularly as Nedelin kept a close eye on this work.

He stayed there for a whole month

watching the work.

He just sat on a fold-up chair in front of the rocket

and kept hurrying people, quicker, quicker.

As a control panel was being fitted,

the engine ignited.

[ Kraskina speaking Russian ]

People were licked by a tongue of flame.

People fell like burning torches

from the top of the rocket.

Those close to the rocket died in no time at all.

There was virtually nothing left.

BRANAGH: 189 people died.

When people from our department went to help,

all they could find of Marshal Nedelin

was his Marshal's star.

BRANAGH: in America, the missile program

was at last in top gear.

Eisenhower had approved

an additional $12 billion for defense.

Atlas, Thor, Minuteman and Polaris missiles

were all successfully tested.

1961.

The bands played for a new president.

Throughout his election campaign,

John F. Kennedy attacked the Republicans

on their weak stance on communism,

and in particular, for the missile gap

he claimed Eisenhower had let develop.

Kennedy promised that his defense experts

would sort out the problem.

I hardly knew the difference

between a nuclear weapon and a conventional weapon.

But my introduction and indoctrination was swift

because a major element of the election campaign

that President Kennedy had just won

was the charge by the Democrats, including President Kennedy,

that Eisenhower had left a missile gap,

that the Soviets had been permitted

by inaction on the part of the US

to build up a superior nuclear missile force.

So, clearly my first responsibility

as Secretary of Defense was to determine

the degree of the gap

and initiate action to close it

and it took us about three weeks

to determine -- yes, there was a gap.

But the gap was in our favor.

BRANAGH: Although behind in the missile race,

Russia still had a card to play --

Yuri Gagarin.

[speaking Russian ]

From about 5:00 in the morning I kept thinking --

"Now they're waking him up.

Now he's getting dressed, being fed.

Now he's getting on the bus

on his way to the launch pad."

BRANAGH: Gagarin had been chosen to be the first man in space.

Behind him sat his backup man, Gherman Titov.

[speaking Russian ]

For us it was ordinary work.

Well, not quite ordinary

because we had to fly rockets and sputniks.

But that's what we were prepared for.

[ Kraskina speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: We could see the launch very well.

At first our "dear one" started rocking very slightly,

then whoosh off it went.

Up into the sky.

It was incredibly beautiful, particularly for us

who'd given so much of themselves to the project.

Gagarin circled the earth.

The flight had lasted 108 minutes.

He arrived back to a hero's welcome.

[ Mishina speaking Russian ]

There were tears of joy.

People kissed strangers in the streets.

And Gagarin, he was everybody's love.

He and his smile.

I still keep his photograph.

BRANAGH: His achievement delighted every Russian,

and the world.