Following the development of atomic weapons during World War II, and the subsequent advancement to nuclear weapons, both the United States and the former Soviet Union began establishing an armory of thermonuclear weapons, with both nations (and a number of other nuclear powers across the globe) adding new weapons as technology continued to advance over the years. However, there are a number of important questions which are rarely asked about the atomic and nuclear arsenals around the world -- what happens to the older stockpiled warheads? Who keeps track of them? Who maintains them? And how safe and stable are the older weapons that are in storage? Stockpile is a documentary that briefly looks at the birth of atomic warfare in both America and the former Soviet Union before moving on to its main topic -- "stockpile stewardship" at America's nuclear weapon's lab in Los Alamos, NM, as well as at Arzamas-16, its Russian counterpart (a location that has been kept so secret that the city has never appeared on a map until recently). Director Stephen Trombley explores the dangers of maintaining and breaking down obsolete weapons, and investigates the troubling fact that much of Arzamas-16's stockpile simply disappeared following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Stockpile was produced in part by the American educational television outlet The Discovery Channel, though it made the rounds of the film festival circuit before it was aired in October of 2001.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
