ABC caved into UltraRightwing pressure

ABC and Nicholas Meyer had created THE DAY AFTER, a brilliant depiction of the tragedy and reality of a nuclear attack.
This was in direct opposition to the militaristic drumbeat of the Reagan administration, chickenhawks who had never served in uniform but now thought it was a great idea to launch at an atatck on the USSR, led by a President who was having difficulty telling movies and reality apart.
THE DAY AFTER opened a lot of eyes and staretd a real dialogue on the dangerous direction the Reaganites wanted to go.
Which pissed off the Far Rightwing, so they started a smear camapaign against the movie, Meyer, and ABC.
They demanded ABC create and air a movie in which a massive military program successfully defends the US from a Russian nuclear attack.
That turned out to be too science fictiony for anyone, so ABC compromised with a big budget remake of the McCarthy era propaganda film Jack Webb created for the Pentagon, RED NIGHTMARE.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050261/combined
Both films are sadly amusing in their cartoonish paranoia but at least RED NIGHTMARE is over fairly quick.