BBC Four: Most people associate Star Wars and missile defence with Reagan. I was surprised to see Eisenhower talking about similar things in the 1950s. I hadn't realised it had such a long history.
Leslie Woodhead: Until I started working on the film I had no idea this had been going on for 50 years. That was a surprise for me too - just how profound this yearning to build a roof over America actually was and is. What we try to do in the programme is to connect with some very deep-seated American ideas about security.
BBC Four: There's some great archive in the film and one of the things its shows is how similar the media in the 1950s is to now. It's not too dissimilar from watching Fox News.
LW: It's absolutely true. It's got the same kind of quality exactly and some of the themes they are playing out are almost identical. It's extraordinary.
BBC Four: Do have a particular favourite piece of archive from the film?
LW: I love the piece we use right on the beginning of the perfect 1950s family with mother in her chintzy dress in the kitchen and the two kids running out the door to the nuclear fall-out shelter. What about you?
BBC Four: The clip from the 1940s Ronald Reagan film with the laser gun is incredible.
LW: That's a pretty thrilling piece. There's no doubt that what Reagan did, either consciously or semi-consciously, was to replay themes, even rhetorical flourishes, from old movies he'd either seen or been in. It's one of the reasons he communicated so strongly with his audience. He shared their culture in the profoundest way.
BBC Four: You interview Edward Teller, the "Real Dr Strangelove", in the film. What was it like meeting him?
LW: I met him at his house on the Stanford campus in Southern California. I thought that he had either died or was profoundly asleep. He was slumped in his chair clad in cowboy boots and this astounding American flag tie. He's an absolutely unreformed anti-Communist and believer in the progress science makes possible. He says even the baleful impacts of science are better than no science because they'll lead eventually to a more civilised society.
BBC Four: Is the Dr Strangelove association something he's ever talked about?
LW: I don't know the answer to that. I certainly didn't have reason and I'm not sure I could have screwed up my face to ask him how he feels about it. I'm sure he'd probably claim it with pleasure. One of the things with Teller which is hard to resist is that he's very mischievous and actually very funny. The old bugger's a monster but he's a very smart guy. To find yourself talking to someone who was there at the Manhattan Project and the invention of the bomb is an amazing prospect. There's no question that he had a very important role to play in moulding Reagan's enthusiasm for Star Wars.
BBC Four: What was your sense of the man in the street's opinion of Star Wars?
LW: Most people think that they already have a missile defence and have had for many years. They're almost in disbelief when you say they haven't. The pervasive axis of evil atmosphere that Bush has stoked up makes people think that if we can have it, let's have it. It's only when you go into it a bit more deeply that you see it will actually make you less safe because, aside from the fact that the technology doesn't work at the moment, it's very destabilising. If the other side even vaguely thinks you may be able to do it they've got to do something to have counter measures. That's the big worry among the liberal think tanks - that this is absolutely trashing the treaties and the architecture that has kept the world safe for half a century.
BBC Four: The music in the film has obvious religious overtones and Billy Graham features quite prominently in the film. How do you think missile defence is tied to religion?
LW: That's one of the themes I'm most interested in. For Bush I think the religious connection is that the idea of America which he and many of his citizens have is a semi-religious one. There is a feeling that this is a divinely ordained society, a shining "city on a hill" as Reagan liked to say, which has been selected by God to bring the light of democracy to the rest of the world. For some of those people the idea of a roof over America and the missile shield connects frontally with keeping the great society safe so it can go about its divinely appointed purpose. Of course there are 200 million Americans who think it's absolutely bloody insane but there are probably 30 million who take it very seriously indeed and right now they are in the ascendancy.
BBC Four: Finally, what was it like going to Cheyenne Mountain, the command centre in Colorado?
LW: It's an extraordinary place. It really does remind you of every daft James Bond thing you've ever seen in your life. It's funny because it's very Cold War so a lot of the technology and the big doors and even the computers remind you more of Doctor Who than they do of the 21st century. But it's a gee-whiz place. You go into this amazing cavern and all the buildings inside are suspended on springs so they could sustain a direct nuclear shock. And on those big screens they can instantly spot any plume of a missile launch on the other side of the planet. The big problem that Reagan found out is that they can't currently do anything about it. I'm not in any way a scientist but I was wholly persuaded by the sceptics that right now it really doesn't work and can't work, for the reason Professor Postol points out in the film. What we're looking at is something that at best is a work in progress and probably more symbolically significant than scientific or militarily. As we said, it's more of a theology than a technology.
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