Filming Atomic Tests

William Broad of the New York Times reports on the cameramen behind the iconic images of mushroom clouds and nuclear fireballs in his recent article, "The Bomb Chroniclers."

"They risked their lives to capture on film hundreds of blinding flashes, rising fireballs and mushroom clouds.  The blast from one detonation hurled a man and his camera into a ditch. When he got up, a second wave knocked him down again.

Their existence and the nature of their work has emerged from the shadows only since the federal government began a concerted effort to declassify their films about a dozen years ago. In all, the atomic moviemakers fashioned 6,500 secret films, according to federal officials.

The visual records the atomic cameramen produced were intended to help scientists and policy-makers understand the size of nuclear tests and the effects of nuclear weapons.  Today, they exist as snapshots of the history and horror of the first decades of the atomic age.

See more atomic footage in the Times' interactive feature "Capturing the Atom Bomb on Film."

Ploughshares grantee Robert S. Norris, of the Natural Resources Defense Council was quoted by the Times' article, saying that the atomic images are "seared into people's imaginations" and that they bear witness to the bombs' "extraordinary and terrifying power."

The U.S. government began declassifying some atomic films in 1997, but stopped in 2001. Today, the Department of Energy says it has released some 100 movies from the military's vast archives of footage.

Two new documentaries, “Countdown to Zero” and “Nuclear Tipping Point,” feature archival images of the blasts. Both argue that the threat of atomic terrorism is on the rise and call for the strengthening of nuclear safeguards and, ultimately, the elimination of global arsenals.

George Yoshitake, a former atomic cameraman, told Broad that the release and restoration of the atomic footage is healthy for improving public understanding of the nuclear threat.  Broad writes:

“It’s a good thing to show the horror,” Yoshitake said.

And he wondered — now that the cold war is over — why advanced nations still retain more than 20,000 of the deadliest of all weapons.

“Do we need all these bombs?” Mr. Yoshitake asked. “It’s scary.”