All language subtitles for Downwind.2023.1080p.BluRay.x264.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]

The lethal aspect of this story

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

is one that people
don't want to talk about,

They-- they ju-- they just
do not want to talk about.

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

[eerie wind blowing]

[keyboard clacking]

[insects chirping]

[insects buzz]

-[street din]
-[dog barks]

-[bell tolls]
-[crickets chirp]

[announcer] Put on your goggles.

Observers without goggles

must face away from the blast.

H minus ten seconds.

Nine, eight...

seven, Six,

five, four, three,

two, one,

zero!

[explosion rumbles]

[crackling]

[indistinct chatter on radio]

[woman] [indistinct] 46.

-[man on radio] 710-4.
-[man on radio] [indistinct]

[eerie synth music plays]

[Claudia Peterson] When
the declassified information

came out,

when they were finding an area,

they chose to test that
because...

they felt like
they already owned the land.

They didn't,
it was Shoshone land.

They weren't gonna have to pay
for it.

They were told to do it
back East, would be better,

'cause it would go
over the ocean,

it wouldn't contaminate
the people downwind.

But they decided it was cheaper

to be in Nevada,

and it was a low-use segment

of the population
they would be exposing.

Downwind.

[orchestral music plays]

[electronic music plays]

[somber orchestral music plays]

[film reel crackling]

A short time ago,

an American airplane
dropped one bomb

on Hiroshima

and destroyed its usefulness
to the enemy.

That bomb has more power

than 20,000 tons of TNT.

The Japanese began the war
from the air at Pearl Harbor.

They have been repaid manyfold.

And the end is not yet.

With this bomb,
we have now added

a new and revolutionary increase

in destruction,

to supplement the growing power

of our armed forces.

In their present form,

these bombs
are now in production.

And even more powerful bombs
are in development.

It is an atomic bomb.

It is a harnessing

of the basic power
of the universe.

The force from which the sun
draws his power

has been loosed against those

who've brought war
to the Far East.

[narrator]
It is tempting to believe

the buck stopped there.

However,
the awe-striking horrors

of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

though arguably
may have ended one war,

they started another.

The Cold War.

[solemn orchestral music plays]

[military reel narrator]
This is the valley

where the giant mushrooms grow.

More atomic bombs
have been exploded

on these 200 square miles
of desert

than on any other spot
on the globe.

[narrator]
On January 27th, 1951,

the United States air-dropped
the first nuclear device

-on the Nevada test site.
-[explosion booms]

It was codenamed "Able."

Apparently, it was determined

that the detonation
of this one kiloton device,

and the 927 tests
conducted thereafter...

would be perfectly safe
on American soil.

[ominous music plays]

My name is lan Zabarte,

I am Principal Man of the
Western Bands

of the Shoshone Nation
of Indians.

I'm also secretary

of the Native Community
Action Council.

Party with standing

in the Atomic Safety
Licensing Board

of the proposed

Yucca Mountain High-Level
Nuclear Waste Repository,

docket 63-001.

My family, personally, um...

my grandfather, my uncle,

uh, other first cousins...

have died of cancer
and today are still dying

of various forms of cancer,

fro-- and-- and other illnesses

known to be plausible
from exposure to radiation.

My grandfather, um,

he had an immune deficiency,

and his skin became hard
and fell off.

That is a type of illness

that is potentially related
to exposure to radiation,

and ultimately he died
from a heart attack

a month after his skin fell off,

but that produced stress
on his body,

which, I believe,
uh, led to his heart attack.

A lot of our activities
were outside.

And, uh, my uncles and aunts

and, uh, other family members
played in the fallout.

I was luckily--
lucky enough not to be exposed,

as far as I am aware.

That's...

-[eerie music plays]
-[Geiger counter crackles]

[Darlene Graham]
When we were little kids,

livin' on the reservation
in Duckwater, Nevada,

we used to hear
this great big boom,

and then we'd run out,

and we could see this cloud
comin' up.

They call it a mushroom.

We-- we would see that come up,
and we didn't know what it was.

[announcer] Three, two, one,

-zero.
-[explosion rumbles]

Over time, uh, it was later on

that when we were told, uh,

that they were doing
the testing there, and, uh,

there was radiation
spreading out across the--

Yeah,
Nevada and across the States,

and we found out that, uh,

it caused cancer and leukemia.

The cancer
was my youngest brother.

We had noticed
that when he was growing up,

he was having sore throats
all the time,

and the doctor was giving him
antibiotics.

And I remember,

we would see the--

The dust come up,

like a, you-- single comb,

and then it spread out
like a mushroom.

That's why they call it
a mushroom.

Once we've seen the--
the mushroom,

we went back in the house.

My brother, Philip Graham,

later on, was diagnosed
with cancer of the throat.

Even if he went to the doctor's
in Phoenix, Las Vegas,

they did not diagnose him
with cancer at that time.

No one ever warned us
about the testing

and what it would cause.

Our ancestors used to live...

wi-- uh, off the land.

And we still do, at times.

And that was being taken away,

and because of-- we can't even
go on to the test site.

If we do, we get arrested.

And it's destroying
our medicine,

it's destroying our animals,

destroying our plants.

It's destroying everything.

We know it's the cancer
from the radiation.

'Cause it's called downwind.

We're downwinders.

"Cause that's where
the radiation go,

down towards us.

Wherever we're livin'.

And it's like a, um...

cross-- all across
the United States,

from the test site
it goes like this

all the way
across the United States

and not only affects people
in Duckwater.

All the areas.

[eerie music plays]

[explosion booms]

[narrator]
The path of radioactive fallout

from each blast

depended on predicted wind

and weather patterns.

[Patrick Wayne] My father
was under contract for,

and made two pictures
for Howard Hughes and RKO.

Jet Pilot and The Conqueror.

If my dad had to make a choice,
he never would have--

He never would have played
Genghis Khan,

because this is like--
I mean, I don't know.

I do remember that,
uh, you know,

we're down here in St. George,

it was towards
the end of summer, I think.

We had no idea
that the testing was going on.

That was a big hush-hush secret.

But what we did know,
was at that time,

uranium was,
like, the big thing.

Uranium mining was a big thing,

everybody was gonna make
a fortune,

um, on this uranium mining.

-Everybody had Geiger counters.
-[Geiger counter clicking]

Well, they turned
these Geiger counters,

it didn't matter where you were,

I mean, these things were goin'
[imitates Geiger counter].

We thought, you know,
we're gonna discover uranium,

it's right here,
we're gonna all be,

you know, kajillionaires.

It turned out that it was
something much more sinister,

-as we-- we know now.
-[explosion booms]

Uh, this, uh, you know,
the fallout from the--

From the testing up north
was drifting down

to, um, to this area.

Wha-- what?-- what's the results
of all this stuff?

Well...

I mean, uh, when you look
at the cast and crew

on the film The Conquerors,
it's, uh,

just a whacked-out
number of people,

a percentage of people,
who passed away,

died from cancer.

Uh, and it's just so much higher

than the typical demographic

that, uh, you know,
by-- skewed by so many.

You know, if it's 60%,
it maybe should be 14%.

I mean, uh, one of the reasons
could have been

that they were exposed
to this stuff on, uh,

on The Conqueror.

Um, RKO Studios, I don't know
what they call it now,

in, um, in Los Angeles, um,

they had taken
a bunch of the soil

back to the studio, uh,

for interiors, uh,
that they shot at their studio.

And there was still
a big pile of this red dirt

on the back lot
at, uh, the RKO lot.

And we went back there in the--
I guess this was--

I think it was in the--

Still, the late '90s,
somethin' like that.

And we went over
with a Geiger counter,

and this thing was still,
like, radioactive.

I mean, it has a half-year--

Half-life of 10,000 years
or something.

It's not going anywhere.

So, that was
a pretty good indication

of what they were going through,
and living with, and eating.

Certainly, you know,
it gets in the food,

it gets in the water,
gets in the food chain,

it gets in the--

The feed that the cattle
were chewing, and bu-- yeah,

so, I mean, it's pervasive--
pervasive stuff.

[horses neighing]

-[men shouting indistinctly]
-[epic music plays]

[Mark Sennet]
I was on assignment

in St. George, Utah

for People magazine.

We were doing a story

on this woman
called Irma Thomas.

And Irma was kind of
the activist,

you know, in St. George,

because she was so alarmed

and trying to get
St. George alarmed

about the tremendous
leukemia rate.

And she turned to me,
and she said,

"You know, they've made
about 40 movies out here,

in Snow Canyon, and, uh,

you know, John Wayne made a--

This movie called
The Conqueror."

[Temuijin] You do well, Kumlek.

For while I have fingers
to grasp a sword

and eyes to see,

your treacherous head
is not safe on your shoulders.

Nor your daughter in her bed.

[epic music fades]

I immediately
picked up the phone,

and I called Michael in LA.

And I said, "Michael, please...

tell me this story about--

About your father
doing this movie, The Conqueror,

because there is so much
r-- radiation up here

from all the atomic blasts
that were above ground,

um, probably affected, you know,

uh, the work on the set."

Michael and I had to decide,

how could we crack this story?

You know,
because this is so important,

because you had 220 people

that left Los Angeles.

And-- and we counted,
on my calculations

and my partner,
Karen Jackovich,

out of 220 people,
if our estimates are correct,

110 people died of cancer.

It just seems to me
quite a coincidence that--

That a whole group of people,

uh, passed away.

And by the way, yeah,

there were people
that smoked on this set.

People smoked then.
That's what everybody did.

I don't think
the people on the crew,

I don't know
what the numbers are,

but I don't know
if they all happened to die

from lung cancer,
I don't think so.

My father ended up
dying from stomach cancer...

some 15 years
after he had lung cancer.

[Mark] As the headlines
are coming in,

"Did America Kill John Wayne?",

um, we felt,

at the end of this whole purpose
of putting this piece together,

was to shine a light on--

On the nuclear problem.

110 people died of cancer.

From below the line,
you know, grips, electric,

you know, to the main stars.

And-- and the way

that they all died
was different,

but they all seemed
to contract cancer

within the first ten
to 15 years.

[eerie music plays]

[narrator]
Radiation permeates everything.

It gets there, it stays there.

Wind, earth and water.

The radiation
is in the water,

it is, uh,
going to be transported.

The estimates
are between 200 foot per year

and 200,000 foot per year
travel time.

If that's the case,
then it's already off site,

and it's heading towards Beatty,
and, uh,

it'll get
into the Amargosa River,

and it'll be transported
even faster

towards our community.

That's why we need
a safe place for my people.

I'm descended from Chief Kawich.

Kawich Valley, Kawich Peak,
Kawich Mountain.

And this is the headwaters

of the Amargosa River.

Goes down through Beatty,

comes all the way down
to Shoshone and Tecopa,

where we're at, to China Ranch.

And then it makes a turn
down into Death Valley...

to our community,
at Furnace Creek.

So, we have the radiation

from weapons testing,
underground,

at Paiute Mesa, into the river.

The potential for Yucca Mountain

to release radiation
into the river.

But that water's
the most important thing

in the desert.

[light music plays]

♪ [Shoshone lyrics] ♪

♪ [Shoshone lyrics] ♪

♪ [Shoshone lyrics] ♪

♪ [Shoshone lyrics] ♪

♪ [Shoshone lyrics] ♪

♪ [Shoshone lyrics] ♪

I feel
that it is disgustingly shameful

that the scientists
and engineers

come into my country,

come into my people's land,

my family's land,

they collect my family's things.

The security there shoot

at thousands-of-year-old
petroglyphs

and destroy my family's things,

and they wanna tell me
all about it.

The-- the anthropologists,
these researchers,

they don't know
what they're trying to protect.

Engineers and scientists,
they wanna do science.

They wanna build things.

They're not trying
to protect my interests,

They're not trying
to follow the law.

They're not trying
to follow the law.

They're there in secret,
and they do what they want.

It's disgustingly shameful.

So, our water
flows under the road here.

There's very important life
here.

At night,
you can hear the frogs.

Hear 'em?

[frogs croaking]

So, these frogs are important.

They're, um, indicators
of environmental quality.

And so is the little--
the little worm.

These are very,
uh, special animals,

and our people took the time,
you know,

to understand
and commune with these things

and use them
out of respect and reverence.

We know
what we're trying to protect.

We're trying to protect
this water

and all the life
that comes from it.

And honestly, that's all of us.

We are water. I am water.

And we need other people
to understand that.

Where are they--
where are they gonna get

their water from in the future?

How are they going to
protect themselves

without clean water?

We're running into that
right now.

Flint, Michigan.

You know, f-- is--
is a good example.

You have to have pure water

otherwise, uh--
uh, you're not going to survive.

[ominous music plays]

[Claudia] Growing up in,
um, Cedar City was fabulous.

I had an idyllic childhood.

We lived on a little--
it was a little farm.

My mother was an RN,

and my dad worked
for the State Road,

and we had a big--

My mother had
a great big garden,

and we had some farm animals,

and I spent all my days outside,
playing.

I do remember coming with,
uh, Geiger counters.

I remember lighting one up,
one time,

and asking the question,
why would I light--

Why did I light up?

I was excited, I thought
it was pretty exciting

that I lit up
the Geiger counter.

And the guy told me

it was 'cause I'd had
a dental X-ray.

[solemn music plays]

My sister's class,

they passed out big pills.

And I later learned

that it was done randomly,

and that was
potassium iodine pills.

But they were passing them out

after a test,

instead of before,

and it was supposed to inhibit
the, uh,

absorption of the--
the radiation.

[Geiger counter clicking]

[narrator] In January 1955,

the United States
Atomic Energy Commission

released a report

that assured the public
that, quote,

"Radiation is nothing new.

Since the beginning of time,

mankind has been bombarded
by radiation

from outer space

and from the ground
beneath him."

[film reel narrator]
Radium turned out to be

a mysterious source of energy.

But this remarkable element
would go on radiating

like an endlessly flowing
spring.

This was against
all laws of science

known at that time.

How could this tiny mass
contain so much energy?

[show narrator]
Radiation from any source

can attack the thyroid,
the skin,

the lungs, the spleen,

the liver, the kidneys,

the bone, the muscle,

the reproductive organs.

Its effects: cancers,
genetic mutations.

[ominous orchestral music plays]

[Mary Dickson]
People are still getting sick.

Their cancers are coming back.

It's not like
you just have cancer,

and it goes away.

You-- no, you're dealing with it
the rest of your life,

and it's not just
the physical, either.

It's-- it--
it's a huge emotional problem,

like, every new lump you feel.

Every time you get sick.

Every ache, every pain,
you think,

"Oh, my God, it's come back."

And just how it affects
your family

and the people who love you,
um...

it's so, so hard
to live with that.

And it's-- you know,
the more work I did on this,

the more people come to me
with their stories.

I hear these stories
that just kill me.

I was, um,
on my way to work one day,

and I get a call.

And the woman
is telling me that--

That she lost three children
to leukemia as babies,

during atmospheric testing,

and now her surviving
adult children have cancer.

I have wondered,
all these years,

why more people don't know.

I mean, there are even people
in my own state

and in southern Utah
who don't really know much.

I don't think
it ever was in history books.

They never learned it.
I mean, how do you learn it?

And-- and there have been
newspaper articles, but...

how-- how do you learn it?

Unless you're taught it.
And it's not taught.

It's just simply not part
of our recorded history.

You know, my sister
and I were only 13 months apart,

and I think she'd say,
"Keep going,"

and sometimes, like,
I invoke all of them,

these people I've lost.

It's like, "Preston,
Michelle, Anne, just help me.

Help me get through this

because it's hard to carry
that baton."

It's like,
sometimes I just need to say...

"Okay, I need help.
I've gotta have help doing this.

I can't do it all."

[solemn piano music plays]

[announcer] If you were driving
from Los Angeles

to Salt Lake City,
on US Highway 91,

you would pass
through St. George, Utah.

As this thriving community
went about its business,

youngsters
on their way to school,

housewives starting
on the chores of the day.

[news anchor]
Ladies and gentlemen,

we interrupt this program
to bring you important news.

Word has just been received

from
the Atomic Energy Commission

that due to a change
in wind direction,

the residue from this morning's
atomic detonation

is drifting
in the direction of St. George.

It is suggested
that everyone remain indoors

for one hour
or until further notice.

There is no danger.

[ominous music plays]

[Claudia] My life was great.

I went to college
and met my husband in college.

I had three beautiful children.

When our youngest daughter
was three...

even all these years later,

it hurts to even talk about it.

She was diagnosed
with neuroblastoma.

I took her to, like,
four or five doctors here,

and they just kept saying,
"Nothing's wrong with her,

she's just constipated.”

But I had-- I drove her
to Primary Children's

in the middle of the night
and said,

"Something's wrong
with my child,

and nobody's listening."

A-- and they said, "Well,
we'll check her out and see."

And she had a tumor

the size of an orange

in her abdomen.

And it was Stage V.
Bone and bone marrow.

A hematologist came in and said,

"Well, she's got a 5% chance
she'll live two years."

And I said, "Okay!

We can--
we can do that, we'll--"

And her hematologist
had been to the test site...

and protested the test site.

Her-- 'cause I asked
if it could be fallout-related,

what I passed on to her,

and her oncologist said,
"You could never prove it."

I said,
"I don't need to prove it.

I know it is."

[solemn music plays]

Then she had
a nine-hour surgery.

She came through that,

and they were still doing
chemotherapy,

but they had to just
keep cuttin' it back and back,

'cause she couldn't tolerate it,

and finally,
they took her off of it,

and she was doing fabulous.

She started school,

and her teacher called me,
like...

the second day and said,
"She's too tired to walk home."

And it was just down the hill.

I said, "I'll come get her."

And I went and got her,
and she had a bloody nose,

and I'm going,
"What's going on?"

And she-- "I don't know,
I'm just really tired, Mom."

And this just wasn't her.

I had taken my sister,

drug my sister to Salt Lake

when she was
nine months pregnant.

She's kept sa yin'
she's fine, she's fine.

I said, "You're not fine.
Something is wrong."

Got her into an oncologist.

She had brain, lung, liver.

It was everywhere,

and she was
nine months pregnant.

The day Bethany was diagnosed
with the...

leukemia,
I drove home with Bethany,

I said,
"Well, I've got to go home,

my sister's not doing well."

I got home,
about two in the morning,

the hospital called and said,

"Your sister's thrown a clot
to her lung, or some--"

I crawled on the bed
with my sister,

and I-- she's on a vent,
and I said,

"You've gotta come get Bethany
when it's time for her to go

because I can't let her go.

I can't let her go
without somebody."

So-- and I know
she heard me, but...

we took my sister off
life support

the next morning, and...

did her funeral, and then...

we went back to Salt Lake,
and...

we were there for a month,
and Bethany died a month later.

[solemn orchestral music plays]

♪

[narrator] On October 1st, 1997,

then-senator Tom Harkin,
from Iowa,

addressed
a congressional hearing

on radioactive fallout

and asked, quote,
"Why did the government,

when they had
all the information

about hot spots and fallout,

why did they not warn
the people of this country

about the dangers inherent
in radioactive fallout?"

Unquote.

[Geiger counter clicking]

♪

[Brian Moench]
There is no question that, uh,

the United States government...

uh, scheduled and manipulated

the nuclear testing era
in such a way

as to not expose

the people
in Southern California any more

than absolutely necessary,
but...

uh, would exchange
their exposure

for exposure of people
in Southern Utah.

Now, I suppose you-- if--
if you are convinced

that we're gonna expose
the population to this,

and it's an absolute imperative

that it makes some sense
to expose

a fewer number of people.

But you can't convince anybody
in the state of Utah

that we weren't viewed,
as a state,

as more expendable
than the people in California.

I don't know
if that was part

of the conscious deliberations,

on the part of people
who made that decision...

but, um...

if-- if you're gonna say, "Well,

let's expose 10,000 people

and not expose 100,000 people,”

well, maybe, that makes sense.

But obviously, the 10,000 people
that you're going to expose...

are never going to view that
as anything other than

their lives
were made expendable.

[eerie music plays]

[film reel narrator] We
in the military biomedical group

begin the task of readying
our test animals.

These are the standard animals
we work with daily

in our laboratories.

Knowing and working with them,
we find that in many ways,

they are affected
very much like humans.

-[announcer] One, zero!
-[explosion rumbles]

[film reel narrator] Early
in the Plumbbob Operation,

135 pigs, in aluminum containers

for protection against blast
and thermal,

were exposed
to the Franklin shot

to determine the effects
of combined neutron

and gamma radiation
and straight gamma.

The mortality rates,
nearly 100%,

can be applied to man.

Outside the precursor,
those animals in the open,

which escaped
total missile injury,

survived temporarily,

until the massive radiation
they received

took its fatal toll.

Flying glass fragments

did not significantly influence
overall mortality.

[narrator] Downwinders
were, and remain, expendable.

Unfortunately for the humans

who lived downwind
from the Nevada test site,

they were no more aware
of being lab rats

than the rats were.

[ominous music plays]

[Darwin Morgan] The world
was in a different

political situation back then,

with the Cold War
that was going on.

So, I--
whatever the subject is,

it's very easy

to sit and armchair quarterback
the view from today,

to how we think

they should have done it
back then.

O

They were faced
with the situation

that they were in at that day
with the knowledge

and the instruments
and the capabilities

that they had at that time.

So, yes, it's easy,

very easy to look back
and criticize

the decisions that were made,

the public safety.

Would we have done it
that way today?

No.

Would we have been able to
have done it at all,

in today's climate?

Probably not.

But again,
it was a different time,

different political situation.

[film reel narrator]
640 square miles

of desert and mountains.

65 miles northwest
from Las Vegas,

set
in some of the loneliest acres

the world has ever seen.

These men are here
for a vital purpose.

Since we have
no atomic monopoly,

we must continue
to increase our knowledge

of atomic weapons

to guarantee
maximum military atomic spring.

But naturally,
the folks in St. George,

as they look upon
their silent city,

wonder why weapons are tested
inside the United States,

instead of the far Pacific area.

The reason
that they chose this site

goes all the way back
to the atmospheric testing

in the Pacific Ocean.

Um, the scientists
were getting concerned

about the safety of going out
to the Paci-- Pacific.

Um, the security alone

was starting to begin--
become horrendous,

because they were having
all of these boats

of "fishing trawlers"

that were coming out
and spying on what was going on,

trying to learn what it was

that the United States
was doing.

But safety
was also a primary issue.

So the President authorized
a top-secret program,

Project Nutmeg,

to look at and find,

on the continental
United States,

a location where they could do

the lower yield
atmospheric tests.

So they looked here,
at the Nevada Proving Grounds,

which was
the initial name of it,

where they carved away a piece

of the Nevada Bombing
and Gunnery Range,

as it was called back then.

They looked at a Camp Lejeune,

what is now Camp Lejeune
in North Carolina.

Dugway Proving Ground
and White Sands Missile Range.

But they chose here,

uh, very remote location
at the time.

You gotta remember,
the population center

was much smaller than it is now,

40,000 people, 45,000 people.

Very remote,
very hard to get to,

a very enclosed valley
that they could control,

security.

And so they picked
this location.

The President signed
the paperwork

on December 18th, 1950.

And 45 calendar days later,

they dropped the first bomb
on the United States.

-[announcer] Two!
-[explosion rumbles]

♪

[film reel narrator]
The answer is,

we need both testing areas.

In the vast, isolated reaches
of the Mid-Pacific,

we test weapons
of tremendous strength.

Only smaller bombs are tested
inside the United States.

These smaller devices,

just as important
to America's weapons strength

as the larger ones,

could not be tested so quickly

if they had to be taken
to the Pacific Proving Ground,

about 5,000 miles
from our western coast.

An operation like this
takes time.

Months and months of time.

While atomic progress waits.

[Keith Rogers]
Testing underground continued

until, I think it was
September 23rd, 1992.

There were others
that were lined up to go off.

Ice Cap was ready and, uh,

and then after the--
that last test, uh,

we suspended nuclear testing
altogether.

♪

Edward Teller was,
you talk about regret, he--

He didn't like to be known
as the Father of Hydrogen Bomb.

He'd like to be known
as the physicist

who helped stop the war,

and he saw things that way,
uh, you know.

When I asked him,
where we were as far as being,

you know, progressing
as to whatever level,

he stopped the interview
one time,

"cause, you know,
Teller used to--

He always talked
in "If... then..."

He had those big,
bushy eyebrows, you know.

And he'd go, "If... then..."
you know?

And-- and you would get
this whole--

He would analyze it for you
and give you the answer,

you know,
from the mind of a physicist.

And all of a sudden,

he just got in the middle
of his, "If... then..."

And he stopped.

And he goes, "I don't want to go
any further in the interview."

And I don't know
what it was, but it was like...

we all looked around
and, you know,

I got a few quotes from Teller
and got out of there.

[film reel narrator] Some of
the tiny, radioactive particles

settle back to Earth,
as the wind disperses the cloud.

These particles
are called "fallout.”

The bulk of the particles
soon fall out,

and the cloud disappears.

An invisible remnant
of radioactive material

is lifted high, wide and far
by the winds,

eventually settling to Earth.

But radioactive fallout,

beyond several miles
from the test site,

has not been known
to be serious.

It is not constituted
an appreciable danger

to persons, animals, crops,
property, or industry.

[Keith] But this was the land--

Was the homeland
of the Western Shoshone,

and the Western Shoshones...

didn't want nuclear testing
on their land.

And what happened was,
the-- the government,

for the need
of national security,

essentially...

restricted their access
to this land.

But their-- their heritage
was still there.

So, |I-- In--
in the early 1990s, |--

I looked into this.

And I, uh,
I got a hold of lan Zabarte,

and he said, "Well,
you need to talk to my--

My great-uncle.

Teddy Shaw.

So, we got a photographer,
and we drove up there,

and I ask him...

about nuclear testing

and how he felt about it.

And his stare

got as cold as the--

The snow on the windowsill
outside that little frame house

he was living in.

And he looked at me,
and he said,

"It made the land sick."

And, you know, he's right.

It did.

And, uh, you know,

it has affected those people.

[solemn piano music plays]

[air raid siren blares]

[radio crackling]

[narrator] Over the 41 years
of testing in Nevada,

100 atomic bombs
were detonated above ground,

from airplanes, towers, cannons

and even balloons.

828 bombs
were conducted underground,

including "Boxcar,"

a 1.3 megaton blast

with an equivalent yield

of 65 Hiroshima bombs.

[ominous orchestral music plays]

When they were shooting tests
back then,

the atmospheric tests,

they were looking
for the cloud formation

to go in a particular or--
direction.

Back then,
the population centers

were not as they are now,

so there was very,
very low population

to the northeast of the site.

That's where
they tended to make sure

that the clouds would go
in those directions.

So EPA would go out
into the communities

and let them know
that on these days

we're gonna have a test.

They may not give
the specific time,

and then there would be
the EPA monitors out

in the community.

And if there was a prompt
massive venting,

then the EPA was ready to start
doing the evacuations

in those communities.

But they literally knew
where every sheepherder was,

where every wood cutter was.

If there was hunting going on,

they knew
where every hunter was.

So they knew
where the population was,

where they could get them out
if they needed to.

Each test had a name.

And the names of the tests
had to be something

that was not gonna
offend anybody,

non-religious, things like that.

And then the laboratories
would submit those to DOE,

the DOE'd submit those

to
the National Security Council,

it got approved, came back,

and so you'd see these nicknames
on tests

that ranged from everything
from, uh, horses, vegetables,

New Mexico counties,
Texas towns.

[lan] Out of the 928 tests,
here at the Nevada test site,

24 jointly
with the United Kingdom,

they have a list of...

of names, and we have
Zuni, Yuma, Erie, Seminole,

Flathead, Blackfoot,
Kickapoo, Osage, Inca, Dakota,

Mohawk, Apache,
Navajo, Tiwa, Huron.

They named
their weapons tests after,

uh-- uh, Indian tribes,
and that shows a lack of--

Of respect and dignity.

And we began
our investigations

on the adverse
health consequences

that my people were suffering,

looking at the period
of weapons testing

here at the Nevada test site,
'51 through '63.

But it's important--

Those were the above-ground
weapons tests,

and it's important
to understand that

even after that,

underground weapons testing

released radioactive fallout
globally,

because every test,
uh-- uh, vents.

[Darwin] If the weather
was going to carry the cloud

above a certain
radioactive limit--

Back then it was called
170 millirems--

They didn't do the test.

If it was going to stay within
that range of 170 millirems,

if they had
a prompt massive venting,

and the 170 millirem limit

was gonna be
inside a certain area,

then they would go ahead
and do the test.

♪

[narrator]
Through nuclear testing,

the population
of the United States

was exposed
to nearly three times

the total radiation dose
of the Chernobyl disaster.

♪

Somehow, fallout has,

uh, found its way
into the environment, globally.

And, um,
the perfect example

is right here
at the Nevada test site where,

on the southwestern edge,

you have this mountain
called Yucca Mountain,

and it straddles
the southwest boundary

of the Nevada test site.

And it's this--
this long volcanic rock ridge

that-- that
in Western Shoshone lore

is a snake.

And this was where
the Department of Energy

wanted to try to see
if it was suitable

for a repository
to store nuclear waste.

The highest, deadliest
nuclear waste in the world

from-- from commercial
nuclear reactors.

And the spent fuel rods

would be entombed
in this mountain.

And it turns out,
Yucca Mountain's

really not a good place
to put nuclear waste,

because they found out,

through worldwide,
global fallout...

that-- that nuclear remnants

from worldwide testing...

had gone from the top
of Yucca Mountain

down to the exploratory
tunnel level,

about 1,000 feet
below the top of the mountain,

in less than--
well, roughly 50 years--

50, 60 years.

So, the point is...

fallout was so widespread

that-- that the scientists
could track

the various nuclear bombs
that they were detonating

by the signatures
of their isotopes.

And that's how we know
how far it traveled,

from specific tests.

[narrator] So what does
the American government do

when it can't solve
an actual problem?

It buys its way out.

♪

[Kevin Kamps]
RECA is short

for the Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act,

and it's a federal law
to compensate

segments of the population

who have suffered
radioactive exposure.

Unfortunately,
its scope is way too limited,

and it's not just cancer.

It's other diseases,
it's genetic damage,

it's birth defects.

The amount of money
being offered

to the survivors,
or their-- their survivors,

the people who didn't survive,
is way too small.

I mean, $50,000 doesn't buy much
in the way of chemotherapy,

or other
state-of-the-art medical care,

which is required
to deal with the cancers

and other maladies that result
from radioactive exposures,

radioactive fallout exposures,
and in fact,

that's another
problem with RECA,

is it only recognizes
a certain number of cancers.

But the United States government
almost never admits guilt,

and so they express it
in different ways,

and they do it
kicking and screaming.

I mean,
it took many decades,

from the opening
of the test site in 1951,

before RECA was even passed.

And like I said,
there was a lot of people

who've been exposed
to radioactive fallout

in certain states,
including from the test site,

that have never been recognized
under the RECA statute,

so it's a great uphill battle,
and, uh...

it is an admission of guilt
on a certain level.

I'm shocked that
the government admitted to it,

because the liability's gonna--
could be enormous.

Uh...

there is no amount of money

that-- that would really
replace, or...

someone in--
that suffers from this,

or even dies from it,
but this is ridiculous.

$50,000 is-- is--

It's insulting.

Some people
are always askin' me,

"Okay, what do we do next?
What do we do?"

And I say,
"Well, first of all,

we work to compensate
those downwinders

who are still struggling
to pay bills,

and who
are still getting sick."

So there is

the Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act,

that was always
incredibly limited,

that finally got passed
in 1990.

It's never gone far enough,

it just does a little circle
around southern Utah

and northern Arizona,
and southeast Nevada.

And that's why
I think people still think

it only affected that area,

"cause that's the only area
that got compensated.

[Mark Sennet] I think it's
something that's so important

for-- for all the survivors,

and they deserve $50,000,

but that's not enough.

That doesn't even cover the--

The four or five other people
that are in their family,

that contracted some sort of
cancer from the nuclear blast.

So, the certain types of cancer
that are radiation-related,

that RECA does pay out for,
there's still, though,

no definitive way to say that
it was caused by the radiation,

but there is that assumption
that it's there.

So, it's a hot topic.

It-- it is a debate
that goes on today,

and will go on
for many years to come.

I can't be compensated.

None of those
54 neighbors can--

And their families
can be compensated

because we lived beyond the--
that little boundary they drew,

as though a lead shield
stopped it mid-state.

It doesn't stop it from going
into other counties and states.

♪

We have a few politicians now,
in the state of Utah,

that are representing us
in Congress,

that have made public statements
in the last few years,

that it's not only okay,
but desirable

for us to resume
nuclear testing.

Testing nuclear bombs

in the Nevada
nuclear testing area.

I can't think of anything
that disqualifies a person more

for public service than to--

Than to make
a statement like that.

Knowing what that has done
to public health

here in this state,
and to other downwind states,

but the idea
that we could dismiss all that,

that we could say,
the amount of--

Of human suffering and death
that we have inflicted

upon our own country,
that we're going to resume that,

under some sort of
auspices of national security,

is just
absolutely unconscionable.

And I don't think
there's any idea

that disqualifies
a person more

from being
a member of Congress

than the idea
that we can resume that.

[Kevin] Downwinders are people
who live downwind,

downstream, up the food chain,
down the generations

from these radioactive
exposures,

as for nuclear weapons testing
fallout.

The United States government
literally said,

in an internal document
that eventually became public,

that cowboys, Indians,
Mormons,

the people
who live in Nevada and Utah,

are a low-use segment
of the population.

That's a quote.

"A low-use segment
of the population,”

which means sub-human.

We don't really care about them,
they're not that important.

If they get hurt, big deal.

We've got some business
to conduct,

that is, to develop
a nuclear weapons arsenal,

so that we can be
a global superpower.

And in fact,
it gets even worse than that.

Not just a low-use segment
of the population,

but in a document
called Project 4.1, again,

US Atomic Energy Commission,

there were statements made
in writing that po--

Certain populations,

like the Western Shoshone
in Nevada,

the Marshall Islanders
in the Pacific Ocean,

"are more like us than mice,"

therefore any data
that we gather

from their radiological
exposures,

will really teach us a lot,

because these people,

even though they're a low-use
segment of the population,

"are more like us than mice."

So these are, in a sense,

these are genocidal,
um, concepts.

These were experiments.

They were being
experimented upon

like guinea pigs.

♪

[narrator] The Radiation
Exposure Compensation Act

is underfunded,

and is guided seemingly
by the notion that radiation

contains itself neatly,
within three states' borders.

[Brian] When people
are exposed to radiation,

uh, the thing
that's most intuitive,

uh, is genetic damage.

And genetic damage
is what we call the break in--

Breaking of covalent bonds
that hold DNA together.

When that happens,
there, uh,

there is a whole cascade
of diseases that can follow.

What is easiest
for the public to understand,

and is most familiar with,
is cancer.

But it isn't just limited
to cancer.

The functioning,
and proper functioning of genes,

and the-- the expression
of genes,

is critical to every single
healthy organ system function

that keeps
a human being alive.

It's critical
to the function of the heart,

the cardiovascular system,
to the lungs,

to the endocrine system,
to the Gl tract.

Your genes are responsible
for your health.

So, if you're exposed
to anything

that causes genetic damage,

or even changes
the expression of genes,

such that we don't see the--
the breakage of covalent bonds,

but we see genes performing
in ways that they shouldn't,

they're either turned on
when they shouldn't be,

or they're turned off
when they shouldn't be,

that affects virtually
every kind of potential disease

a person can have.

Not to mention
the psychological burden

of knowing that
you have cancer.

Um, I've had cancer twice.

And I remember, uh,
the weekend

when I looked at
a computer screen...

that told me I had cancer.

I'll tell you, there's...

is no feeling
in the world like that.

O

-[explosion booming]
-[wind whooshing]

How many tests
do you have to do,

to find out that they work,

and that stuff goes up
in the air,

a-- and I've had people,

especially students,
when I speak to class,

they say, "Well,
why did they do so many tests?"

It's like, "You know,
it's a really good question."

Because what did they find out
on the 928th test

that they didn't know
on the 12th

or tenth or 20th or 30th?

Um, and-- and to me,
I always said,

"Well, it's boys with toys."

You've got
this incredibly strong,

I would say,
perilously dangerous

military-industrial complex,

and it's really hard
to stop its-- its momentum.

It's really hard.

[narrator] The Atomic Energy
Commission's report added,

quote, "Radiation
is not new in our lives.

In this atomic age,
we are living

on a more familiar basis
with it.

It is important
that we try to understand it,

accept it, and use it.

It is also important that
we respect its powers,

so that we will be guided
by knowledge,

and not be blinded
by fear of the unknown."

Unquote.

O

[Brian]
The United States government,

uh, has, through
the Atomic Energy Commission,

created some real, uh,
media products

that were pure propaganda.

And that film
that they produced,

I think it was in 1957,
was one of those.

Now a lot of people might say,

"Well,
we didn't know all the harm

that nuclear radiation does
to people back in 1957,"

but actually, that's not true.

The scientist who works--

Who worked on the Manhattan
Project knew

before they ever dropped
the bombs on Japan in 1945,

that nuclear radiation
could be highly toxic,

could shorten people's lifes--

lifespans, and be
a significant cause of cancer.

We knew that back then.

Twelve years later,
for the United States government

to disseminate information

that blatantly dismissed
all of that,

and send a message
to the public,

"Oh, there's no reason
to be concerned here.

This is all safe.

But we want you to go inside

when this radiation cloud
comes over you,

and we're... [laughs]

...we're gonna tell children
to-- to hide

underneath their desks
as an exercise

in defending yourself
from nuclear war,"

as if that would have
done anything.

But somehow, this is all safe.

[film reel narrator]
But radioactive fallout

beyond several miles
from the test site

has not been known
to be serious.

It is not constituted
an appreciable danger

to persons, animals,
crops, property, or industry.

It was absurd at the time.
It was dishonest at the time.

It was propaganda
even back then.

In retrospect,
we can certainly identify it

even more so as propaganda,

but we knew it
back then as well.

[film reel narrator]
We must be ready

for a new danger,
the atomic bomb.

First, you have to know
what happens

when an atomic bomb explodes.

You'll know when it comes.

We hope it never comes,
but we must get ready.

[explosion booming]

[Lewis Black]
You know what they would do?

They would come to my elementary
school, with-- with films.

To show me
how to protect myself

from a nuclear fuck holocaust.

[audience laughter]

They would show
this giant nuclear fuckin' bomb,

just blowing
the shit out of everything.

Goats
and monkeys flying everywhere.

[audience laughter]

The windows of
the elementary school blown out,

the teacher banged up
against the fuckin' blackboard.

[laughter, applause]

But...

there were the children...

[audience laughter]

...hiding safely
under their desks.

[cheers, applause]

O

Yeah, I've always found it
fascinating,

you know, that
you would create something

that would destroy the world.

I mean,
there's a really solid idea,

it's really solid,
what we can get by.

We can put some money into that.

And then you let that--
you-- you know,

that genie out of the bottle.

It's the same thing
we're dealin' with--

With climate, and stuff.

They're lookin' right at it,
it is staring 'em in the face,

and they're denying it.

They're lookin' right at
the nucle--

Nuclear weapons, you know?

We're still kinda, you know,
and then--

And then they let that, uh,
idiot Putin say,

"You know, I'm gonna--
I may do this."

What are you, nuts?

That's the person
you want to get rid of,

SO you go get somebody
with a blowdart and...

[blows] ...just behind his ear,
and he's done.

But then, people say,
"Well, you know,

the rest of the country would,
you know,

get really ins-- there'd be
another jackass who'd show up,

so what do you--
what do you do?"

Every two weeks,
when I was nine,

my elementary school
would have an air raid drill.

I guess to remind me,
I can die at any minute!

[audience laughter]

So I go hide under my desk,

put my hands over my head,
and look at my penis,

and say, "Goodbye, old fella."

[audience laughter]

And we'd just become friends.

[audience laughter]

And I'm sittin' there, thinking,

"The adults in the community
have said that

I could protect myself,
from a fire fuck ball...

[audience laughter]

...by hiding under wood.

[audience laughter]

I'm hiding under kindling!

Maybe I can get some sticks,
so I can burn faster!"

[audience laughter]

And I thought, "Wow.

If this was a real attack,
when the all-clear has sounded,

I could get up and go out
to the playground, and melt!"

[laughter, applause]

I mean, first up, I'll be hon--
It was funny.

This is a funny idea, um...

the accident of it was--
was that it defined my comedy,

in a way, by...

you know, pointing me to--
with my problems with authority,

so that's part of
what my act was about,

and so it-- and it was
really the first time

where I-- and it's--
I say it, I think,

in-- in the-- in the-- in it,

but, you know,
that was when I kinda went,

"Okay, the--
the adults I was dealing with

weren't being, you know,
I was in--

I wasn't gonna start,
I wasn't gonna trust

the-- the-- you know,
what they said."

"Cause it wasn't
the government telling me,

it was the teacher
standing in front of me,

and get it going in case
of a nuclear attack, but...

you-- get under your desk,
and-- and, you know,

it wou-- you wanted to do that,

you wanted to-- us to do that.

You don't show us anything,

you don't show us 12,000 nuclear
tests, you don't show us,

either when I'm at home
watchin' TV with my parents,

and they'd show
the bombs blowin' up.

You don't show it in school,
you know?

"Your friend the atom,"

that-- that thing
that they, you know.

Like,
I guess it was a Disney thing,

that, you know--

And then they show
the mushroom cloud.

You know, you watch this thing,

or you watch the guy standing
there with those glasses,

-and the...
-[explosion booming]

...shit flying over 'em,
and you're goin',

"Really?
So this is really gonna work?

This is your idea
of getting under the table?"

Like, this-- I mean, you're
literally under there like this,

and you-- and, you know.

You know, at the age of seven,
eight, nine, you're not stupid.

[film reel narrator]
Be sure and remember what

Bert the turtle just did,
friends, because every one of us

must remember to do
the same thing.

That's what this film
is all about.

"Duck and cover."”

[film reel narrator 2]
This is an official

civil defense film,
produced in cooperation

with the Federal Civil
Defense Administration,

and in consultation
with the Safety Commission

of the National
Education Association...

[sirens wailing]

[Lewis] I got 13 problems

before I'm gonna worry
about nukes, maybe 50.

Maybe 100.
In this-- in New York City.

I mean, where--
what, you want me to, bu--

Worry about nukes?

You kiddin' me?

Ah, you know,
I'm a-- chances are--

Are good that we're fucked.

[laughs] Um, that's--
that's usually the way it works.

♪

[Claudia]
What scares me the most

about becoming an activist is...

that what if
I hadn't become one?

Um, and I was a just a drone.
[chuckles]

And I was headed that way.

When I was first started,
being an activist about this,

I-- I had gone through
tremendous loss in my family.

And my father got sick,
with a brain tumor,

and his doctors said
it was probably from downwind.

My sister
was diagnosed with melanoma.

I had to say, "Please
don't call me an activist."

I was afraid for people to know
what I was doing.

My boss would say,

"Are you going down
to the test site to protest

with the GD hippies?"

And I would say,
"Yes. What are you doing?"

I'm not sure, um,
if they are still testing.

I know that years ago,

they were doing
underground testing,

and we were able to stop that
by our protest.

And we used to, uh,
do our spiritual walk run for--

At least
I know I did it for 11 years,

from, uh, it's 250 miles,
we did 50 miles a-- a day.

Five-- five days
to get to the test site

to protest against,
uh, what was going on

and to shut, uh...

the test site down.

We have an alliance
with the United States,

by treaty,
to preserve the existence

of both our peoples.

Your people, my people.
Together, our peoples.

And that's the term
of diplomatic engagement,

our peoples!

[interviewer]

I'm both.

I stand on the Consti--

I am a patriot and an activist.

I don't sit on my butt.

♪

[lan] These fuckers violate
the treaty

with their weapons of war,

these ARs, AKs,
and weapons of mass destruction,

violate every Indian
peace treaty on this continent.

You signed them,
and we shouldn't be faced

with weapons of war,
in a civil society.

We signed this
for equal protection,

not for abuse by one party.

And that's what
we're faced with.

Weapons of war.

It's not about my backyard.
It's about my rights

and my obligations
and responsibilities

to protect all Americans.

And you have the same
responsibility

under the United States
Constitution to protect

my people and your own,

and you need to step up
as an American and do that.

And that's what makes me mad,

that other Americans think

they can just forget
what has happened.

I'm not gonna let them.

We're gonna
have our next meeting

third Saturday in April, okay?

So if you--

[Pauline] Third Saturday.
Yeah, right.

[lan] If you read in there, we--

A year ago, or two years ago,

we said
it's gonna be every quarter.

[Pauline] Okay.

[lan] So we'll see you then,
and--

-Yeah.
-[lan] Thank you.

[Keith] Where do you draw
the line between deterrence,

and-- and
the need for-- for peace,

and the need
to stop nuclear testing?

Well...

nuclear bombs have been tested.

We have those deterrent systems
in place.

We need to continue
to maintain those

so-- so that we can live safely,

without the fear that some
other nation's going to come

and try and blow us off the map.

But by the same token,
it was-- it was the--

The anti-nuclear movement
that brought a lot of awareness

to-- to the issues,

the issues of the health effects
of nuclear bombs,

the issues of, do we need
to test nuclear bombs,

is this a good idea?

Well, as long as there's
nuclear bombs in the world,

you're gonna have to
have a deterrent system

that works, and you have to--

You have to be able
to rely on it,

because that's what
keeps the peace

from a nuclear holocaust
from erupting.

[Darwin]
We were able to win the Cold War

with what we did at the site.

It contributed greatly
to the winning of the Cold War.

You saw that Russia wasn't able
to match what we were doing,

and so when
it all came to the end,

what we did
at the Nevada test site

helped win the Cold War,

helped assure the security
of the United States,

of the people
of the United States.

And so, nuclear testing
contributed to that.

[explosion booming]

I'm an activist, obviously,

but sometimes that has
a negative connotation,

because I'm also a patriot.

We own that flag, too.

We own that flag, too.
And you know what?

That government,
they work for us.

They work for us.
They need to listen to us.

It's still my country.

This government,
it's our government.

When they talk about "them,"
it's not them, it's us.

They work for us,
they need to listen to us.

They need to watch out for us,

they need to not harm us,
they need to protect us.

There's such a conflict in me
because I felt like

I was being un--
I wasn't being patriotic,

I wasn't being religious,
I wasn't following-- you know.

But I felt more spiritual

sitting in the desert
across from the test site

than I ever did
sitting at church.

[interviewer]
Are you an activist,

are you a patriot?

Uh, I'm a-- I'm an oath keeper.

I keep the oaths.

Uh, I-- I'm an oat keeper.

I drink Oatly.

Um, no, I'm a, uh...

I-- I wouldn't call myself--
I was an activist.

Uh, when I was a kid,
and I did it for a long time.

I consider my--
whatever activism I have, is...

uh, that I shoot my mouth off.

Um...

and that I try to--
uh, um, no, I--

What--
what I think has happened,

i-- is that, uh...

if we wanna get
anything accomplished,

and I hate to say this...

um, but-- and-- and it's--
it's because I'm older,

you want a government to work,
it has to work in the middle.

It doesn't work on either side.

And at times, uh,
what we're gonna--

What we will get is the--

You know,
the-- the right came along

and did its thing,
and now the left will--

For every action, there's
an equal and opposite reaction,

SO we--
so the left did some stuff,

if the-- if the election
goes a certain way,

the left may do more stuff.

Um, but in the end,
if you really want a country

that's together,
it has to be from the middle.

♪

[kids shouting playfully]

[announcer] The China Syndrome.

It's about people.
People who lie...

and people faced with the agony
of telling the truth.

It will start with a tremor
in a nuclear power plant.

Where it will end
will depend on three people.

[alarm blaring]

-[man] No!
-[machines beeping]

-[man] No!
-[machines beeping]

[announcer] The China Syndrome.

[worker] No, wait!

[announcer] Today,
only a handful of people know

-what it really means.
-[indistinct shouting]

[high-pitched humming]

I became active, um,
because of this script

that came over my desk,

unsolicited, early in my career,
called The China Syndrome.

Which was written by
a guy named Mike Gray,

uh,
who's a documentary filmmaker.

And I saw it as a, uh,
a great horror movie.

Then, as I began
the whole process of-- of,

uh, of-- of-- of working
on this picture,

and realized that
we needed to get some re--

Real legitimacy and credibility,

we hired two retired quality
assurance experts from GE.

And they had had
a loss of faith,

and they basically
go on to the other side,

and so we used them to give us
sort of the sequence of events

for our final meltdown.

And so we made this movie,

and, uh, we dealt with
a fair amount of criticism.

Particularly from Jane's,
uh, part of-- point of view,

where she was at.

And then 13 days
after the movie came out,

we had the Harrisburg
Three Mile Island, uh, incident.

And all of a sudden,
I, like everybody,

was watching the news,
and there was our...

our movie-- our movie,

uh,
public relations spokesperson,

on a split screen,
with Three Mile Island's person,

and-- and one began to see
these unbelievable sort of s--

Uh, similarities.

[reporter]
The accident occurred here,

at the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant,

a dozen miles
south of Harrisburg.

At about four o'clock
this morning,

two water pumps that help cool
Reactor Number Two shut down.

Officials say some
50-60,000 gallons

of radioactive water escaped
into the reactor building.

Steam escaped
into the atmosphere,

and radiation was detected
as far as a mile away.

So this was an epiphany,
uh, for me.

It was like somebody
was trying to--

To-- to tell me something.

Uh, because we were under...

such pressure,
and as it was turning out,

this thing was,
uh, more accurate

than we had ever known.

So,
that was sort of the beginning

of my pursuit into this.

And then, um, uh,
a few years later,

Chernobyl happened.

Uh, and we watched
that unfold and unveil.

And a couple of years
after that,

I was just-- I was feeling...

I don't know, nostalgic,

but trying to trace
my family roots, you know.

And my father, um,
came from Belarus.

Uh, from the country of Belarus,
he was born here,

but my grandfather
was from there.

And as we tried to trace

where my father came
from in Belarus,

we discovered that Chernobyl,
which,

because of
all the current events

that are going on
with Ukraine right now,

we understand
that's on the border,

just about, with Belarus.

That after that, uh, tragedy,
Belarus took most of the fall,

because they were
downwind of Ukraine.

And lo and behold,
I couldn't find

my father's village anymore
because it was downwind.

It was in that area of Belarus,

what was lost,
it had been-- been vacated.

♪

I love my country, and, uh,

I'm s-- so proud about it,
in SO many ways.

It doesn't mean
things can't be better.

You still try to make things,
improve things,

and-- and the quality of--
of what they are.

You don't stand fast.

Patriotism, again,
is not one-- one thing,

it's a-- a--
it's a moving object.

Um, because
the country's moving.

I-- I wanted to thank very much,

uh, Mr. Douglas for, uh,
his great contribution

as a Messenger of Peace.

And I think
it's a great inspiration

for all of us, uh,
to talk out of the box.

And to make
this world that he's,

uh, looking for, and we're all
looking for, come a lot closer.

So it's a—-
it's a big task for all of you.

[Michael Douglas] It, um,
being the most patriotic,

in terms of whatever,
uh, I can do to fight--

To eliminate nuclear weapons,

and the secrecy,

the secrecy that's been in--
involved

for something
that is so poisonous,

has such a long lifespan.

Um, and how we have been-- uh,
how we have been lied to,

by both our government, and--
and-- and corporate America.

It's my privilege...

to have this opportunity
to recognize

the important role of scholars
in addressing an issue

that has plagued the
international community

for far too long.

Growing up in the Cold War,
I was routinely reminded

of the threat
of nuclear weapons,

either when I was hiding
under my wooden desk...

uh, looking out
for the bright light

that might fall.

Fallout shelters,
duck for cover drills,

it was part
of our-- our daily lives.

But the threat posed
by nuclear weapons

is no less important today
than it was during my childhood.

[explosion rumbling]

We may have
fewer nuclear weapons,

but these weapons,
and their delivery systems,

are more powerful
and more sophisticated

than ever before.

I really cannot forgive, um,
our leaders,

our politicians,
for not addressing this,

this has been a-- a terrible pox
on-- on-- on humanity.

This has--
it has created the worst fear

on our planet,
that ever-- ever existed.

Uh, in terms
of the possible contamination.

Uh, not to mention the weaponry.

Um, and we're seeing it,
as we speak, right now.

Uh, we-- we-- we-- we-- we watch
this sort of drift at--

Drift away
because of climate issues

sort of took over.

Climate became--
it was more important,

although there's-- there is--
they're interrelated.

But now we're--
we're looking at a--

At a Russian leader who's...

again, speaking about
nuclear weapons.

The one thing I'd hoped for
in my lifetime

was to rid this planet,
or to have some part of--

To rid this planet
of nuclear weapons.

It looks like
it's not gonna happen.

[plane whooshing]

[narrator] The United States
is the only nation on Earth

to use atomic weaponry
in wartime.

More than 200,000 people died

from the bombs dropped
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

♪

The greatest marvel is not
the size of the enterprise,

its secrecy, or its cost,

but the achievement
of scientific brains

in making it work.

We have spent
more than two billion dollars

on the greatest scientific
gamble in history,

and we have won.

[static crackling]

♪

[narrator]
Despite a moratorium on testing,

the United States continues
to develop

its nuclear weapons program
in earnest.

The Nevada test site
remains operational,

and resumption
of nuclear testing

is under debate.

The United States Constitution

made this great nation
what it is today,

and we've lived here for 10,000
years

before the Common Era.

We're trying to share
our knowledge

of how to live with the land.

We are part of the land,

I am water, you are water.

We need to protect the water.
We need to protect the land.

We are sharing
our knowledge with you.

10,000 years
before the Common Era.

That's what we have to give.

I'm working with downwinders
in other states,

and I'll tell you,

that little group
of downwinders,

we've become, like,
this community

and-- because
it's a real sense of solidarity.

We've all lived the same thing,
you know?

And it's our shared experience
that kinda unites us.

I would just want to leave
the message

to e-- everyone
that we're all downwinders.

Everyone is a downwinder.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪