Fingers on the button: American atomic policy in mainstream film, radio, and television, 1945--1960

In seven chapters, this dissertation describes how a Cold War atomic consensus developed during the Truman years, grew stronger under President Eisenhower, and gradually fragmented in the late Eisenhower and Kennedy/Johnson eras. A case study of the ways in which important national issues are discussed in a capitalist, democratic society, "Fingers on the Button" involves several important aspects of modern American history: the government-media relationship, the shaping and/or effect of public opinion, growing U.S. dependence upon science and technology (whether entertainment media or advanced weaponry), the individual or group's place and duties within the state, mid-century gender roles and stereotypes, public memory, and the changing nature of the entertainment industry. Combining rare audiovisual sources with production records, the work also relies heavily upon declassified documents from the Atomic Energy Commission, Department of Defense, and National Security Council.From 1945 to 1947, U.S. citizens used the mass media to learn about nuclear energy as various groups debated its meaning for mankind, who should oversee this new power at home, and the question of international atomic control. Few could have predicted it at the time, but the country would not see or hear such a free discussion of nuclear issues in the mass media again until the mid-1950s. Once federal atomic policy was set and the Cold War began, the combination of an emerging national security state, civil liberties under siege, conformity at its height, and often risk-averse executives running the networks and studios meant that film and broadcasting's appetite for new nuclear material proved mighty thin. Thus, the field was largely left to government-sanctioned or---sponsored projects, even as evidence about the dangers of the arms race, radiation, and testing fallout mounted. The years 1956 to 1960 represented an initial high point of nuclear dissent, one in which the seemingly obsolete and less dramatic print media served as a greater stimulus to public debate about nuclear issues. Stanley Kramer's movie On the Beach (1959), however, marked a turning point in audiovisual approaches toward the Bomb, beginning a more critical cycle in first film and then television that would continue through 1965.