I remember being particularly terrified after watching The Day After, which was a fictional account of nuclear war that aired 35 years ago in the US on 20 November 1983. The two-hour film follows several characters in and around Kansas City as they lived through a large-scale nuclear attack on the US.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has special report by contributing editor Dawn Stover about the impact of The Day After on American politicians and the public. Many people commented that they had nightmares after watching the terrifying scenes of destruction (I certainly did) and it is claimed by some that the film played a role in encouraging US politicians to pursue nuclear arms treaties with the Soviet Union.

Stover’s article is called “Rising nuclear tensions: echoes of 1983” and includes a clip of the attack sequence in The Day After, which shocked viewers across the US with how fast it could have happened.

The Bulletin has also published a separate interview with the veteran American TV journalist Ted Koppel, who moderated a panel discussion that was broadcast after the film. Panellists included Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, Carl Sagan and Elie Wiesel and you can watch it above.

Relations between the US and the Soviets had been particularly chilly in 1983, when Ronald Reagan was in his third year as president. According to Stover, just two weeks before The Day After was broadcast the Soviets had suspected that a NATO military exercise was in fact a ruse in preparation for war. At about the same time, the US began to deploy Pershing II missiles to West Germany – nuclear weapons intended for use in a battlefield.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is famous for its countdown clock to Armageddon and when The Day After appeared in 1983, the clock was set at four minutes to midnight. Today, it is at two minutes to midnight.