Surviving Cameramen Recall Nuclear Test ShootsDer Spiegel: By 1963, the United States had detonated more than 200 nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. Cameramen and photographers working for a secret special unit recorded the acts of destruction. Some of their sensational images have now been declassified, and the last remaining eyewitnesses are now sharing their experiences...
Between 1947 and 1969, the material was edited to make more than 6,500 motion pictures in a secret film studio in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles... The studio on Wonderland Avenue was called the Lookout Mountain Air Force Station...
At the height of the Cold War, the superpowers embarked on a spectacular race to develop nuclear weapons. It was accompanied by an unparalleled propaganda war that involved large numbers of tests... The goal, from the very beginning, was to create impressive images to convince politicians to approve ever-growing military budgets. But the public never saw most of the images...
Most of these images are still under lock and key today. Only military physicists are permitted to analyze the images for the purpose of improving the designs of bombs. The US government is still hesitant to release the photos and films completely. But it is critical, says [Peter] Kuran, that the material be processed and digitized, 'before it turns to dust.'
He has already assembled five documentaries from the film and photographic footage, which he distributes through his website. A sixth film, about the neutron bomb, is in the works. More images here.
[Post title quote from the Hindu Bhagavad Gita was recalled by J. Robert Oppenheimer upon the detonation of the first atomic bomb at White Sands, New Mexico, July 16, 1945.]
