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A chance for a propaganda coup? The Reagan administration and The Day After (1983)

In November 1983, in a period of revived nuclear fears and immediately before the deployment of Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, ABC aired The Day After, a film depicting the aftermath of a nuclear attack on the United States. The broadcast attracted around 100 million viewers, making it the most-watched television film in the history of the medium, and the nuclear freeze movement heavily exploited the movie as a propaganda instrument. Based primarily on a multitude of government documents, which are processed for the first time, this article attempts to show how the Reagan administration, in cooperation with conservative private organizations, reacted to The Day After with a comprehensive and well-coordinated propaganda campaign to take over the movie to promote its own nuclear policies, particularly the concept of a strong deterrence and arms control. Thereby, this article provides a case study both of Reagan administration propaganda and of the propagandistic significance of cinema and fictional films with their potential to reach a huge audience.