In 1969 NATO banned a controversial Tyne Tees documentary filmed inside a nuclear command bunker in Oslo, Norway. Now released, this Tyne Tees Television documentary goes behind the scenes speaking for the first time with many of those who were involved in the programmes production to find out why it could not be aired. The programme includes clips from the film ‘Day in the Life of a General’ and discusses the possible reasons why it was banned. In a darkened room with sunlight streaming...

In 1969 NATO banned a controversial Tyne Tees documentary filmed inside a nuclear command bunker in Oslo, Norway. Now released, this Tyne Tees Television documentary goes behind the scenes speaking for the first time with many of those who were involved in the programmes production to find out why it could not be aired. The programme includes clips from the film ‘Day in the Life of a General’ and discusses the possible reasons why it was banned. In a darkened room with sunlight streaming through a slatted window a large wooden crate known as ‘The Coffin’ sits on the floor covered in cobwebs. A hand brushes away dust to reveal a packing label that reads ‘On Her Britannic Majesty’s Service’ followed by a screwdriver begins to unscrew the top. Inside a collection of film and audio cans from a Tyne Tees Television documentary shot inside a nuclear command centre which has been locked away in a Ministry of Defence vault classified as being above ‘Top Secret’. Film from the crate is loaded onto a Steenbeck film editing machine, the title of the programme written along the leader ‘Day in the Life of a General’. 16mm film begins to roll through the Steenbeck and following the countdown footage from the programme begin appearing on the viewing screen. Title: CENSORED Title: War Games Over David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ archive film and still images from the Apollo 11 moon landing changes to show still image of a Russian spy ship of the Norwegian coast. Archive of both Soviet and NATO aircraft and firepower from the late 1960s including rockets or missiles being fired into the sky. A handwritten sign on a door reads ‘No Entry. Briefing in Progress’ changes to General Sir Walter Walker, Commander in Chief of NATO’s Allied Forces in northern Europe, sitting with other naval and army officers listening to a briefing. The film changes to him flying in a military helicopter listening to another officer speaks with him. The helicopter comes into land and General Walker gets out and shakes hands with soldiers on the ground. Sitting in an editing room at Tyne Tees Television Malcolm Campbell, the producer of the NATO film explains that General Walker believed that there was not just military confrontation between east and west but also an ‘information battle’ and it was essential that the British people should know what was being done in their name. He believed that if the public did know the real threat that the Russians posed they would give total backing to the armed forces. General Walker steps out of ‘Check Point’ tent and is saluted by the soldiers outside. He walks over and gets into his waiting car. In voice-over narrator Caroline Beck explains that Walker feared the ‘enemy within’ who were playing down the dangers of Russia and a television dispatch from the NATO frontline would tell a different story. Malcolm Campbell says he was given an offer he couldn’t refuse to do the first British television film inside General Walker’s underground secret headquarters near Oslo in Norway, the closest NATO base to the Russian border. John Hobbs, Reporter on the NATO film continues the story by saying the deal was simple, General Walker would vet the film and if there was anything wrong the Tyne Tees crew would take it out. If he said anything political then it was for the producers to decide if it would stay in or not. At dawn or dusk a NATO exercise called ‘Green Express’ with a rubber dingy comes onto a beach with the soldiers onboard getting out and making ready to move off. In a bunker an American officer points at a map providing details on the exercise as part of a sensitive military briefing. In Germany NATO fighter break low flying laws to fly low over a military airfield. The entrance to the secret underground NATO command bunker and the camera walking along its long dark tunnel inside. Malcolm Campbell describes his amazement at first seeing the subterranean world of the bunker 2000ft under solid rock at the base of a mountain. As John Hobbs comments on this being a whole new world slowed down footage of officers and army personnel at work in the command centre inside the bunker. John concludes by saying that he believed the footage would have an impact on people, he explains why. Archive of a Soviet nuclear weapons test with the rocket being fired and detonating into a massive mushroom cloud. In the Tyne Tees Television studio, a recreation of General Walker office inside the bunker, at the far end of the room beside British, American and NATO flags an actor playing General Walker sits at a conference table writing a letter. John Hobbs talks about the problems making the film both for them as well as General Walker as there was quite a lot of opposition to it, he provides more details with additional footage of General Walker speaking with other officers under his command. In an editing room an editor cuts together the programme putting together their own version of General Walker military message. Malcolm Campbell talks about the editing process and getting a ‘darn good story’, at that point they had no idea they would be any snags having followed the rules set out by General Walker. On the Steenbeck the edited programme begins to play changes to the programme itself and clips from ‘Day in the Life of a General’ beginning with General Walker providing an introduction explaining the reasons for the film to be made followed by a clip of an early exploration if the bunker and a look inside its communications centre. Malcolm Campbell explains that at this time the public were totally ignorant of what takes place in bunkers like these, if they had seen it would have been a shock to know how ready, willing, and prepared NATO was to hit back if we were attacked. Another clip in which John Hobbs interviews an American General about what he would do if a Soviet aircraft entered his airspace. The film continues to run through the Steenbeck with the programme telling chilling truths and un-truths about NATO’s preparation for war. Another clip from the programme about exercise ‘Green Express’ and the existence of a second bunker which Malcolm Campbell states was a red-herring. Back on the Steenbeck the programme continues to play with General Walker being openly critical of his superiors and politicians. Sitting at home John Hobbs watches the film on his television, he reflects that if it was shown it would have shocked people that someone like General Walker exists and was waiting for Armageddon. Over slowed down footage of General Walker walking through the bunker John Hobbs states that this was the exact message he wanted to convey and was exactly the message some people wanted to stop. Title: War Games A clip from the John Lennon music video ‘Give Peace a Chance’ changes to clip from Peter Watkin’s docu-drama ‘The War Game’ which was deemed to shocking by the BBC and was banned. Slowed down archive of the East German border in Berlin with an East German solider looking across the border through binoculars followed by clip of a visit to the city by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963. Robert McNamara, US Defence Secretary 1961-68 explains how the 1967 war between Israel and Egypt was the first time a hotline between NATO and the Soviets was used and how the conflict brough the world close to Armageddon. On the recreated desk of General Walker two red ink stamps that read ‘TOP SECRET’ and ‘FOR UK EYES ONLY’, next to it a diary or notebook for General Walker. The actor playing General Walker speaks on a telephone, nearby a tape recorder secreting recording the conversation. A folder stamped in red ‘TOP SECRET’ changes to archive of the Soviet May Day parade from 1969 which didn’t feature any military might, from the roof of Lenin’s tomb members of the Politburo clapping. Archive of Warsaw Pact troops during winter training, possibly for an invasion of western Europe the norther flank of which was commanded by General Walker. Professor Paul Rogers, a Cold War expert, explains that NATO had several thousand different kinds of battlefield nuclear weapons, he provides details. A clip from ‘Day in the Life of a General’ in which the American General seen earlier continues to speak with John Hobbs provides information on the aircraft available. John Hobbs talks about this interview with the General and how he pushed him to admit that if things do go badly the response would be to ‘nuke’ the Soviets. A slowed down sequence with General Walker sitting in a briefing room with other officers returns to Malcolm Campbell who talks about the first showing of the finished programme to General Walker who was delighted. He explains that when the film was shown to the general’s staff that they first had an idea that there would be a trouble, he provides details. The actor playing General Walker walks about the set of his office, on the conference table a top-secret folder relating to the film written by the American Commanding Officer General A.J. Goodpaster outlining four serious security breaches in the film. Another letter written by General Andrew Goodpaster stating two further possible breaches. Back in the editing room the film being rewound on a winding bench, super imposed over it archive of Manlio Brosio then General Secretary at NATO. Malcolm Campbell recounts his meeting with Manlio Brosio who hated the film and was critical of what he saw as a portrayal of NATO as a sabre-rattling-monster. Back in the editing room the editor uses a China pencil to mark a section of the film running on the Steenbeck. He then uses the splicer to cut a sequences out, the bits of film falling into a pile on the floor. Malcolm Campbell talks the edits that were requested by NATO that would have ruined the film and reduced the run time to just six minutes. A montage sequence featuring newspaper headlines intercut with those of the 16mm film being rewound on a winding bench and archive of individuals related to Tyne Tee’s fight back to get the film being shown. Again, Malcolm Campbell provides details of his meetings with those featured including NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander General Andrew Goodpaster and Labour’s Defence Secretary Dennis Healey. Lord Healey himself remembers seeing the film and being surprised that they had been allowed to film it but wished them luck in getting it shown. Back on the set of General Walker’s office he opens his safe and taking out the folder relating to the film and reads it at his desk. As the ‘Day in the Life of a General’ runs again on the Steenbeck, Caroline Beck outlines the six objections that stopped British viewers seeing the NATO taken from confidential NATO documents from 1969. Three of the objects related to the location or existence of General Walker’s bunker. Over clips from the programme of General Walker driving to said bunker Malcolm Campbell explaining in voice-over that the road featured wasn’t the real road and was miles away from the bunker itself. It is also revealed that the location of the bunker at Kolsas was already known about and featured in several NATO publications. Back with the film still playing on the Steenbeck this time showing air-defence status board which was the fourth security concern. However, as Malcolm Campbell explains these status board while realistic were not the originals as they had been swapped over before filming began. Archive of General Andrew Goodpaster stepping off an airplane and being greeted by General Walker. Another clip from ‘Day in the Life of a General’ featuring the communication centre which was objected to as it shows coding and decoding taking place. Malcolm Campbell explains that while the machines featured were sending out coded messages, the message themselves were nothing more than ‘The Cow Jumped Over the Moon’ repeated. In a Tyne Tees Television editing room Professor Rogers sits making notes while watching the interview of General Walker. He is looking over the footage to see if it contained any classified secrets and try and work out why NATO wanted to gag the general so much. Professor Rogers believes it was not what was in the film that was the issue, rather what General Rogers was saying and the political significance of it at that time. With the interview with General Walker playing on the Steenbeck, who believed that military men not politicians should be steering NATO. Archive of Denis Healey then Labour’s Defence Secretary in the Far East visiting troops. General Walker was concerned as Healey had cut defence spending. Lord Healey explains that it wasn’t General Walkers’ words that got the film banned rather the pictures. Archive of a protest march in Norway for the country to leave NATO and from the programme General Walker arriving at a military base. Lord Healey describes General Walker as being ‘cack-handed’ for not informing the Norwegian government that this film was being made. He now regrets appointing General Walker to the post as he was the most politically insensitive man he had ever met. Slowed down archive of General Andrew Goodpaster arriving for a NATO meeting alongside Manlio Brosio changes to a clip of General Walkers interview which hints at a top-secret strategy for fighting and containing a nuclear war in Europe. Entitled Flexible Response or its code name MC143 the policy had been conceived by Goodpaster and Brosio. Soviet archive of missiles being fired from a submarine and footage from ‘Day in the Life of a General’ of an exercise where soldiers in a bunker respond to a nuclear attack. Professor Rogers explains that NATO believed this policy of using a small number of battlefield nuclear weapons to deter Communist troops would prevent a general nuclear war with the Soviet Union. However, General Walker believed this was impossible to achieve. Archive of NATO delegates arriving for a meeting where diplomats, including Denis Healey, were to debate who controlled NATO’s nuclear arsenal, the meeting of which would have been held just a few days after the transmission of ‘Day in the Life of a General’. Denis Healey believed that General Walker’s comments were both provocative and out of line with the NATO alliance, he didn’t believe Walker had any idea about nuclear weapons. On the set of Walker’s office his coat hanging on a hook and a sign above a wall clock reading ‘People must know the truth if they are to support a cause’. The actor playing General Walker sits at the conference table, his face in his hands. Over a final clip from ‘Day in the Life of a General’ showing General Walker arriving at and walking through the bunker the final comments from John Hobbs and Malcolm Campbell. On the Steenbeck the interview with General Walker, as well as the programme, comes to an end and the Steenbeck is switched off. Credit: Narrator Caroline Beck Camera Dave Dixon Sound Paul Graham Lighting Electrician Alan Robinson Production Assistant Carole McKenzie Graphics Alan Davidson Film Librarian Gillian Robinson Design Tim Trout Property Buyer Carol Payne Dubbing Mixer John Cook VT Editor Edmund Quigley Film Editor David Middleton Director Tony Kysh Producer Malcolm Wright End credit: A Tyne Tees Television production for ITV. © MCMXCIII