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 starter activity

.  starter activity. Watch this famous US public information film about the perils of a nuclear attack on America. What does it tell us about the way the government responded to the threat of nuclear war in the 1950s and 60s? Extension. How would this film differ today?. Extension task

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 starter activity

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  1. starter activity Watch this famous US public information film about the perils of a nuclear attack on America. What does it tell us about the way the government responded to the threat of nuclear war in the 1950s and 60s? Extension. How would this film differ today?

  2. Extension task Read Raymond Briggs’ story or watch the film adaptation of ‘When the wind blows’ and note down what it tells us about the state of readiness of the UK for an all-out nuclear war.

  3. Why did an arms race develop?  Aims To identify the causes of the arms race To compile a timeline of the development of nuclear weapons

  4.  Your task • Read p.99-101 of Phillips and list the reasons why an arms race developed between the super powers.

  5. Causes of arms race • Growth of international tensions – keeping ahead in the technology race helped safeguard the interests of the nation • National pride – way of measuring the achievements of East or West • Political insecurities of leaders – e.g. Eisenhower & Kennedy increased defence spending in reaction to public demands • Insurance policy– use of nuclear weapons was so unimaginable war could be avoided • Military-industrial complex – arms race provided jobs • New technology – hydrogen, lithium, ICBM etc.

  6.  Role play • Divide the class in two. Appoint someone to be the US president. One half of the class has to argue a case for continuing the arms race. The other half must explain why the arms race is so futile and needlessly expensive. The US president will decide who wins the argument on the basis of the evidence put forward.

  7.  Your task • Read p.102-104 carefully. Close your books. See if you can sequence the events on the cards chronologically. • On a sheet of flip chart paper draw a line from across the centre and label it 1945-1965. On the line in a red pen chart the achievements of the Soviets and the US in blue. Plot major achievements higher above the line. Who appears to have won the arms race?

  8. “I am become death – the destroyer of worlds” (Robert Oppenheimer)

  9. Eniwetok, 1st hydrogen bomb, 1952

  10. Secret image of testing of lithium bomb, Semipalatinsk

  11. B52 Stratofortess bomber

  12. TU20 ‘Bear’

  13. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935)

  14. Sputnik 

  15. Laika, 1957

  16. Yuri Gagarin, 1961 

  17. Polaris, 1960

  18. This house believes that nuclear weapons made war less likely during the Cold War?

  19.  Extension • Read and supplement your timeline with notes from Isaacs, p. 161-83. • Explore the IWM website ‘What lies beneath’ and note down the reactions of the British government and civilians to the arms race as well as the threat of nuclear war.

  20.  Plenary • Key stages in the arms race? • Who won the arms race? • Discuss the following idea: “By the beginning of 1962 the arms race had made nuclear war unlikely” 

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