Newly Released Sandia Labs Film Presents Story of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Safety Effort

Los Alamos Scientist Once Advised a U.S. Sentry to Shoot at and Disable Nukes on West German Aircraft if There Was a Danger of Unauthorized Use

Concern About Nuclear Accidents Persisted After The Cold War

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 498

Posted -December 23, 2014

Edited by William Burr

For more information contact:
202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

Washington, DC, December 23, 2014 -- A recently released Sandia Labs film contains fascinating glimpses into the U.S. government's efforts to maintain nuclear weapons safety over the years, including a late 1960 episode in which a senior Los Alamos Laboratory staffer advised a U.S. soldier in West Germany to take shots with his gun at nuclear bombs on German fighter-bombers if he ever became concerned about the possibility of their misguided or accidental use.

This startling recollection appears in Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control and Survivability, a documentary film completed in 2010 and recently released under the Freedom of Information Act, which the National Security Archive is presenting today in its entirety for the first time.

Produced and directed by Sandia staffer Dan Curry, Always/Never melds historical motion picture footage, still photos, interviews, movie excerpts, computer animation, and even some well-timed clips from Stanley Kubrick's classic Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.


Check out today's posting at the National Security Archive's Nuclear Vault - http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb498/

Find us on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/NSArchive

Unredacted, the Archive blog - http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/