After the Day After: a discussion following a screening of "The Day After"

"The Day After" is a U.S. post-apocalyptic film that first aired on November 20, 1983, on the ABC television network. A record-setting 100 million people watched it in the U.S. - and 200 million on Russian TV during its initial broadcast.

The film postulates a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact countries over Germany that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The action focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, and of several family farms near nuclear missile silos.

Then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan watched the film more than a month before its screening on Columbus Day, October 10, 1983. He wrote in his diary that the film was "very effective and left me greatly depressed," and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a "nuclear war." Maybe this film can still change hearts and minds!

We watched the film. Then we had the presentations and a question-and-answer period that are contained in this video -- with our experts, Vicki Elson of NuclearBan.US and Dr. Gordon Edwards of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.