Public views declassified nuclear weapons films

Angie Wagner

Wednesday, June 10, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - About 150 people eager to know what nuclear weapons secrets the government has kept from the public for decades gathered in a small theater Wednesday to watch film footage of atomic weapons tests.

"These are pieces of history the public hasn't seen before," said Patricia Bodin, a classification officer for the Department of Energy.

During World War II, the Air Force recruited photographers to work at Lookout Mountain Laboratory in Hollywood, Calif., which was created specifically to record the weapons tests.

Now some 6,500 films have been declassified, prompting the DOE to hold Wednesday's film festival at the Clark County Library. The DOE estimates it will take five to seven years to transfer the remaining deteriorating films to videotape to make sure the information is not lost.

The nation's nuclear weapons were tested at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for 41 years until a test moratorium was initiated on Sept. 23, 1992.

Some of the cameramen who photographed nuclear weapons tests from 1945 until 1963 are featured in Peter Kuran's short film "Atomic Filmmakers."

"One of them talked about how he was asked to fly over a bomb to try to get an interesting shot," said Kuran, a producer and director.

The film shows men in goggles and hooded jackets talking about the intense flash of heat they felt during a weapons test. The men were only allowed to get within four miles of the test area.

One photographer in the film tells about not getting his goggles on fast enough and when the bomb exploded, he could see the bones in his hand.

"They were excellent filmmakers," said Byron Ristvet, program manager for the Department of Defense's Nuclear Information Analysis Center in Albuquerque, N.M. "It was fun. They'll tell you it was the greatest job they ever had."

For 38 years, Robert Meibaum, 68, of Las Vegas did photography for EG&G Inc., a major contractor to the test site. He spent Wednesday afternoon looking at some of the pictures displayed and remembering the early tests.

"It all kind of ties together. I'm just curious," he said.