The next year (1947 – “The Year of Division”), a new cloud forms headlining the “global struggle between East and West.” In other words, Soviet Russia versus the United States. The natives of the island sing “You Are My Sunshine” as the bomb is dropped, and an unbelievable cloud appears over the island. Operation: Crossroads begins with the “Bikini” Test, July of 1946. “PEACE! It’s Wonderful!” This is the post-war boom of America the prosperity and the marching majorettes, returning soldiers, and dancing in the streets. The delicate sensibilities of pre-Eisenhower nuclear families that had no truck with unimaginable violence were too tender to witness the actual effects of the primary blasts, let alone the ash-ridden winters and radiation poisoning. We see the singed earth resting beneath stacks of bleached bones and graphic depictions of horrifying injuries sustained by the survivors. The information is edited to remove the consequences of the attacks, but “The Atomic Cafe” pulls no punches. Truman appears in newsreels announcing the destruction of two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which effectively end the war on the Asian continent. The “Trinity” Test yields an image of great beauty, often repeated, but as beauty can be a drug with effects that diminish over time, the first mushroom cloud, the report of the first bomb detonation arouses the scientific community, and the first parties of people involved are labeled “mad-men” and “lunatics” it’s eerie and strange how those voices were silenced over the ensuing years. New Mexico, normally a parched, barren section of little Earth sand and dust, before and after, shows no real effects until you throw in the half-constructed homes and livestock. It was an unexciting, routine mission until they saw the damage. “We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies.”
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