The War Game

The War Game
Directed by	Peter Watkins
Written by	Peter Watkins
Starring	Michael Aspel Peter Graham
Distributed by	BBC
Release date	1 November 1965
Running time	48 min.
Country	UK
Language	English

The War Game is a 1965 television drama, filmed in a documentary style, that depicts a nuclear war. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play anthology series, it caused dismay within the BBC and in government, and was withdrawn before the provisional screening date of Thursday 7 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."

Despite this decision, it was publicly screened and shown abroad, winning the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1966.

The film was eventually broadcast on 31 July 1985 on the BBC, during the week before the fortieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the day before a repeat screening of Threads.

Filmed in black-and-white with a running time of just under 50 minutes, The War Game depicts the prelude to and the immediate weeks of the aftermath to a Soviet nuclear attack against Britain. the narrator says that Britain's current nuclear deterrent policy threatens a would be aggressor with devastation from Vulcan and Victor nuclear bomber of the British V- bomber force. A Chinese invasion of South Vietnam starts the war; tensions escalate when the United States authorises tactical nuclear warfare against the Chinese. Although Soviet and East German forces threaten to invade West Berlin if the US does not withdraw that decision, the US does not acquiesce to communist demands and the invasion takes place; two US Army divisions attempt to fight their way into Berlin to counter this, but the Russian and East German forces overwhelm them in conventional battle. In order to turn the tide, President Johnson authorises the NATO commanders to use their tactical nuclear weapons, and they soon do so. An escalating nuclear war results, during which larger Russian strategic IRBMs are launched at Britain. The film remarks that many Soviet missiles were, at the time, believed to be liquid-fueled and stored above ground, making them vulnerable to attack and bombings, and hypotheses that in any nuclear crisis, the USSR would be obliged to fire all of them as early as possible in order to avoid their destruction by counter-attack, hence the rapid progression from tactical to strategic nuclear exchange.

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