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== Reception == On its original broadcast, on Sunday, November 20, 1983, [[John Cullum]] warned viewers before the film was premiered that the film would contain graphic and disturbing scenes and encouraged parents who had young children watching to watch together and discuss the issues of nuclear warfare.<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbgejAu2y4Q 11/20/1983 The Day After Intro and Disclaimer ABC - via YouTube]</ref> ABC and local TV affiliates opened [[Toll-free telephone number|1-800 hotlines]] with counselors standing by. There were no commercial breaks after the nuclear attack scenes. ABC then aired a live debate on ''Viewpoint'', ABC's occasional discussion program hosted by ''[[Nightline (US news program)|Nightline]]''{{'}}s [[Ted Koppel]], featuring the scientist [[Carl Sagan]], former Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]], [[Elie Wiesel]], former Secretary of Defense [[Robert McNamara]], General [[Brent Scowcroft]], and the commentator [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] Sagan argued against [[nuclear proliferation]], but Buckley promoted the concept of [[nuclear deterrence]]. Sagan described the [[nuclear arms race|arms race]] in the following terms: "Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches, the other seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger."<ref name="Allyn2012">{{cite book|last=Allyn|first=Bruce|title=The Edge of Armageddon: Lessons from the Brink|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hAafpVIQVQQC&pg=PT10|date=19 September 2012|publisher=RosettaBooks|isbn=978-0-7953-3073-5|page=10}}{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The film and its subject matter were prominently featured in the news media both before and after the broadcast, including on such covers as ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'',<ref>[https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19831205,00.html Time]</ref> ''Newsweek'',<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.backissues.com/issue/Newsweek-November-21-1983 |title=Backissues.com |access-date=June 28, 2020 |archive-date=June 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200629191148/https://www.backissues.com/issue/Newsweek-November-21-1983 |url-status=dead }}</ref> ''[[U.S. News & World Report]],''<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.backissues.com/issue/US-News-and-World-Report-November-28-1983 |title=Backissues.com |access-date=June 28, 2020 |archive-date=June 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200628102710/https://www.backissues.com/issue/US-News-and-World-Report-November-28-1983 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and ''[[TV Guide]].''<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.backissues.com/issue/TV-Guide-November-19-1983 |title=Backissues.com |access-date=June 28, 2020 |archive-date=June 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200629232224/https://www.backissues.com/issue/TV-Guide-November-19-1983 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Critics tended to claim the film was sensationalizing nuclear war or that it was too tame.<ref name="MofTV-DayAfter">{{cite web|url=https://museum.tv/archives/etv/D/htmlD/dayafterth/dayafter.htm|title=The Day After|publisher=The Museum of Broadcast Communications|last=Emmanuel|first=Susan|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116131652/http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/D/htmlD/dayafterth/dayafter.htm|archive-date=January 16, 2013|df=mdy-all}}</ref> The special effects and realistic portrayal of nuclear war received praise. The film received 12 [[Emmy Awards|Emmy]] nominations and won two Emmy awards. It was rated "way above average" in ''[[Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide]]'' until all reviews for films exclusive to television were removed from the publication.<ref>{{cite book|title=Leonard Maltin's TV Movies And Video Guide 1987 edition|publisher=Signet|last=Maltin|first=Leonard|page=218}}</ref> In the United States, 38.5 million households, or an estimated 100 million people, watched ''The Day After'' on its first broadcast, a record audience for a made-for-TV movie.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Stuever|first=Hank|date=12 May 2016|title=Yes, 'The Day After' really was the profound TV moment 'The Americans' makes it out to be|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] β Blogs|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/05/11/yes-the-day-after-really-was-the-profound-tv-moment-the-americans-makes-it-out-to-be/|access-date=21 May 2019}}</ref> [[Producers Sales Organization]] released the film theatrically around the world, in the [[Eastern Bloc]], [[China]], [[North Korea]] and [[Cuba]] (this international version contained six minutes of footage not in the telecast edition). Since commercials are not sold in those markets, Producers Sales Organization failed to gain revenue to the tune of an undisclosed sum.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} Years later, the international version was released to tape by [[Embassy Home Entertainment]]. The actor and former Nixon adviser [[Ben Stein]], critical of the movie's message that the strategy of [[mutual assured destruction]] would lead to a war, wrote in the Los Angeles ''[[Los Angeles Herald-Examiner|Herald-Examiner]]'' what life might be like in an America under Soviet occupation. Stein's idea was eventually dramatized in the miniseries ''[[Amerika (TV miniseries)|Amerika]]'', also broadcast by ABC.<ref>The New York Times: [https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/15/arts/tv-view-amerkia-slogging-through-a-muddle.html "TV VIEW; 'AMERKIA' (sic) β SLOGGING THROUGH A MUDDLE"] By [[John J. O'Connor (journalist)|John J. O'Connor]]. Published February 15, 1987</ref> The ''[[New York Post]]'' accused Meyer of being a traitor, writing, "Why is Nicholas Meyer doing [[Yuri Andropov]]'s work for him?"<ref name="Empire">''[[Empire (magazine)|Empire]]'', "How Ronald Reagan Learned To Start Worrying And Stop Loving The Bomb", November 2010, pp 134β140</ref> [[Phyllis Schlafly]] declared that "This film was made by people who want to disarm the country, and who are willing to make a $7 million contribution to that cause".<ref name="Empire" /> [[Richard Grenier (newspaper columnist)|Richard Grenier]] in the ''[[National Review]]'' accused ''The Day After'' of promoting "unpatriotic" and pro-Soviet attitudes.<ref>Grenier, Richard. "The Brandon Stoddard Horror Show." National Review (1983): 1552β1554.</ref> Much press comment focused on the unanswered question in the film of who started the war.<ref name="Empire" /> The television critic [[Matt Zoller Seitz]], in his 2016 book co-written with [[Alan Sepinwall]], ''[[TV (The Book)]]'', named ''The Day After'' as the fourth-greatest American TV movie of all time: "Very possibly the bleakest TV-movie ever broadcast, ''The Day After'' is an explicitly antiwar statement dedicated entirely to showing audiences what would happen if nuclear weapons were used on civilian populations in the United States."<ref>{{cite book|author1=Sepinwall, Alan|author2=Seitz, Matt Zoller|author-link1=Alan Sepinwall|author-link2=Matt Zoller Seitz|title=TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time|date=September 2016|publisher=[[Hachette Book Group#Publishing groups and imprints|Grand Central Publishing]]|location=New York, NY|isbn=9781455588190|page=372|edition=1st}}</ref> === Effects on policymakers === [[File:Official Portrait of President Reagan 1981.jpg|thumb|220px|After seeing the film, [[Ronald Reagan]] wrote that the film had been very effective and left him depressed.]] US President [[Ronald Reagan]] watched the film more than a month before its screening on [[Columbus Day]], October 10, 1983.<ref name="Bulletin">{{Cite web|url=https://thebulletin.org/facing-nuclear-reality-35-years-after-the-day-after/|title=Facing nuclear reality, 35 years after The Day After|last=Stover|first=Dawn|website=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists|date=December 13, 2018 |language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-10}}</ref> He wrote in his diary that the film was "very effective and left me greatly depressed"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/white-house-diaries/diary-entry-10101983/|title=Diary Entry - 10/10/1983 {{!}} The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute|website=www.reaganfoundation.org|access-date=2019-09-10}}</ref><ref name=Empire/> and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a "nuclear war".<ref>Reagan, ''[[An American Life]]'', 585</ref> The film was also screened for the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]]. A government advisor who attended the screening, a friend of Meyer, told him: "If you wanted to draw blood, you did it. Those guys sat there like they were turned to stone."<ref name="Empire" /> In 1987, Reagan and [[Soviet Premier]] [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] signed the [[Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]], which resulted in the banning and reducing of their nuclear arsenal. In Reagan's memoirs, he drew a direct line from the film to the signing.<ref name=Empire/> Reagan supposedly later sent Meyer a [[Electrical telegraph|telegram]] after the summit: "Don't think your movie didn't have any part of this, because it did."<ref name="fallout"/> During an interview in 2010, Meyer said that the telegram was a myth and that the sentiment stemmed from a friend's letter to Meyer. He suggested the story had origins in editing notes received from the [[White House]] during the production, which "may have been a joke, but it wouldn't surprise me, him being an old Hollywood guy."<ref name=Empire/> There is also an [[apocryphal]] story which claims that, after seeing the film, Ronald Reagan said: "That will not happen on my watch."{{citation needed|date=September 2024}} The film also had impact outside the United States. In 1987, during the era of Gorbachev's ''[[glasnost]]'' and ''[[perestroika]]'' reforms, the film was shown on [[Soviet television]]. Four years earlier, Georgia Representative [[Elliott Levitas]] and 91 co-sponsors introduced a resolution in the [[U.S. House of Representatives]] "[expressing] the sense of the [[United States Congress|Congress]] that the [[American Broadcasting Company]], the [[United States Department of State|Department of State]], and the [[U.S. Information Agency]] should work to have the television movie ''The Day After'' aired to the Soviet public."<ref name=Thomas>"thomas.loc.gov, 98th Congress (1983β1984), H.CON.RES.229"</ref>
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