Major characters The storyline of
Amerika primarily follows three political leaders: •
Devin Milford (played by Kris Kristofferson): a maverick politician before the Soviet occupation who ran for president in 1988 (in the novel, 1992), after the Soviet takeover began. Milford was placed in a prison camp for daring to speak the truth about the Soviet conquest; at the beginning of the miniseries, Devin is declared "rehabilitated" and released back into society into the custody of his father, who lives in the Nebraska county run by Peter Bradford. •
Colonel Andrei Denisov of the
KGB (played by Sam Neill): the Soviet administrator for the American Central Administrative Area. He is romantically involved with actress Kimberly Ballard (played by Mariel Hemingway). Andrei's superior and mentor is General Petya Samanov (played by
Armin Mueller-Stahl), the Soviet military leader who has been in charge of Soviet occupation of the United States for the past ten years. •
Peter Bradford (played by Robert Urich): a county administrator in
Nebraska who cooperates with the Soviets to create a better life for his community. He attracts the attention of the Soviet leadership because, while cooperative, he is independent and respected by his constituents. At the series' climax, the Soviets carve a new country called "Heartland" out of the
Midwest, with Bradford as its "governor-general". Major female characters, in addition to Ballard, include Peter Bradford's wife, Amanda (played by
Cindy Pickett), Devin Milford's ex-wife, Marion (played by
Wendy Hughes), and most notably, Devin's sister Alethea (played by
Christine Lahti), who at the outset is prostituting herself to the local occupation leader. "Alethea is the center", noted Donald Wrye. "She is a metaphor for America – not just phonically – and it is she who discovers her moral core through(out) the course of the series." Lara Flynn Boyle played Bradford's teenage daughter, Jackie. The human drama of these characters intersects with the political intrigue of the Soviet plans for the breakup of the United States. Bradford, the pragmatist, clashes with Milford, the idealist; Bradford's wife is Milford's ex-girlfriend, who finds she still has feelings for Milford upon his release from the prison camp; Denisov appoints Milford's ex-wife, a powerful magistrate (and General Samanov's mistress), to serve as Bradford's deputy and assistant in Heartland; and Kimberly's renewed sense of U.S. pride ultimately affects her relationship with Denisov.
Backstory Towards the end of the 1980s, as the
decline of the Soviet Union puts it in danger of losing the Cold War, the Soviet leadership makes a desperate gamble to rearrange the global
balance of power. Four large
thermonuclear weapons are detonated in the
ionosphere over the United States. The resulting
electromagnetic pulse (or EMP) destroys the nation's communications and computer systems, cripples the U.S. electrical grid, and affects any equipment that relies on computer technology, such as most late-model automobiles. With its ICBMs inoperative—and the
National Command Authority unable to contact U.S. military forces abroad or their foreign
allies in western Europe to launch a counterattack—the U.S. is forced to accept Soviet terms for surrender: unilateral disarmament, the end of the dollar as a
reserve currency, and integration into the Soviet military/economic bloc. The United States quickly falls under Soviet military occupation under the command of Russian General Petya Samanov, with the
President and
Congress becoming mere figureheads for their Soviet overseers. Communications between the administrative areas have been cut off, and the damage to the electrical grid caused by the EMP attack has never been fully repaired. The above events are implied in the miniseries, although never directly explained. The description is taken from the novelization of the miniseries,
Amerika: The Triumph of the American Spirit by
Brauna E. Pouns and Donald Wrye (Pocket Books, 1987), based on Wrye's screenplay.
Geopolitical situation In 1997, a decade after its defeat, the contiguous United States is occupied by a
United Nations peacekeeping force, the United Nations Special Service Unit (UNSSU), composed primarily of
Eastern Bloc forces. The UNSSU garrison in Milford is under a command of an officer from
East Germany, Major Helmut Gurtman (played by
Reiner Schöne). UNSSU troops periodically engage in destructive combined arms training exercises which are deliberately intimidating to the local population. Those Americans who engage in dissent are stripped of their privileges and sent to exile camps, where they are anathema to the Soviets and their fellow citizens. Association and communication with the exiles is forbidden, although some risk their own remaining freedoms by offering humanitarian aid.
Production quotas have been imposed, and foodstuffs rationed, with the surplus being shipped to the Soviet Union. Against this background, Bradford ascends to the leadership as governor-general of Heartland. He acts the part of a collaborator, hoping to reform the Soviet occupation from within with ideals of the old United States. Milford is released from the prison camp, hoping to be reunited with his children and fight to end the occupation and restore the United States. Denisov hopes to "salvage as much as possible" of the old U.S., while realizing that the U.S. essentially must cease to exist as a nation in order to appease the Soviet Union's leadership.
Climax and resolution The Soviet leaders of the occupation are faced with the dual problem of keeping the U.S. pacified and convincing the
Politburo that their fears of a revitalized U.S. are unfounded because the country can no longer pose a threat. The Politburo is not convinced, and considers exploding nuclear weapons on the American capital of
Washington, D.C. and also over several unnamed U.S. cities as a warning to the subjugated Americans and to the world. Samanov and Andrei Denisov, both of whom want Soviet control of the United States to be relatively humane, are horrified by this idea. At great personal risk, Petya Samanov convinces the Soviet leadership in the Kremlin in Moscow to accept an agreeable compromise plan. The United States will be divided into "
satellite states" such as Heartland; the Politburo accepts the plan on the condition that the members of both the
United States House of Representatives and the
United States Senate will be
summarily executed. This avoids the possibility of a trial taking place in Washington similar to the
Nuremberg trials that took place decades earlier at the end of
World War II, long before the Soviet occupation of the former United States. Such a trial will proceed either by a court of law or by a Soviet military tribunal being appointed by the Central Committee in Moscow making a strenuous journey to travel to the former U.S. capital city to preside over such a trial. This is mostly due to their fears that Congress has been galvanizing the American people to rise against their Soviet overlords. Under strict instructions to Samanov by Moscow, the planned operation will only be carried out if the
United States Congress refuses to agree to dissolve the nation's government and relinquishes it’s federal authority and power to the new independent and regional countries in North America. Then afterwards without any resistance or any actions of rebellion they would gladly disperse, and return home in peace. If they comply, the lives of both chambers of Congress will be spared. After the vice president, the speaker of the House of Representatives and both members of the House and Senate of Congress gather in the House of Representatives chamber, Samanov arrives at the
United States Capitol Building with his senior Soviet ranking officers, Soviet military aides, and members of his military staff, along with members of the
KGB who secretly surround and enter the building. He then addresses the assembled Congress and asks them to disband their legislative body in a peaceful and orderly manner, dissolve the United States government, and relinquish their power and authority to the Soviet-occupied administrative areas; the members angrily refuse to do so with and through united resistance. After seeing their true colors and a sign of potential rebellion, Samanov becomes angry and agitated by their refusal and he abruptly walks and storms out of the House of Representatives chamber. Shortly afterwards, the House of Representatives chamber's doors are locked and bolted, with no way of escape for the legislators, his men from the KGB begin firing into the entire crowd of legislators within the gallery. All members of both chambers of Congress are killed in the attack, along with the speaker of the House of Representatives, the vice president, and presumably the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. Fearing the symbolic artwork in the rotunda will inspire future Americans to rise up and take up arms in the future against the Soviet occupation of the former United States, Samanov's men are also instructed by him and his superiors in Moscow to destroy the paintings, the sculptures, and other works of art of American history and culture in the rotunda of the Capitol Building. They do so by dumping sulphuric acid, gasoline, and inflammable liquid substances all over it. The whole inside of the rotunda is set ablaze, with the whole building being engulfed by the fire and the ceiling and top of the rotunda destroyed by the Soviet-made explosives. After the act is carried out, Samanov surveys the damage and all of the dead bodies of all the members of Congress. He then sits in the House of Representatives chamber that was spared by the fire and commits suicide. Hours later, all that is left of the Capitol Building is ash and charred ruins. What happened to the
President of the United States, all of the nine justices of the
Supreme Court of the United States, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the others in the presidential line of succession remains unknown. In the final episode of the miniseries, Heartland has seceded from the United States, with other regions to follow within the next few weeks. Instead, Heartland soldiers and local militia attack the local UNSSU compound. There is talk of a "Second American Revolution" that could undermine the Soviet Union's plans to break up the United States and end the Soviet occupation of America itself. The miniseries ends on a downbeat note, Devin Milford is shown about to make a nationwide speech telling Americans to revolt against the Soviet occupation; however, Milford is shot to death. It is unclear if he managed to make a nationwide broadcast calling on Americans to resist the breakup of the United States, but based on the ending, it appears that the United States of America will cease to exist forever as a nation and will be broken up into several independent countries within
North America, at least for now. With the suspicion from Denisov himself of the hope of a Second American Revolutionary War that could restore American independence and drive the Soviets along with their military, air, and naval forces from the shores of the former United States of America in the future, it now lies in the hands of a 14-year-old boy, Devin Milford's eldest son William Milford, when one day he comes of age.
The Divided States of America In this fictional timeline, the U.S. Congress divided the United States into multiple Soviet occupied "administrative areas" in 1988, one year after the communist takeover. These areas are intended to become polities modeled on the
Soviet republics, joined in a new
North American Union. A map shown on screen reveals these administrative areas to be: • California Special District: California, Nevada • Western Semi-Autonomous: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming • Northwest: Oregon, Washington • Southwest: Arizona, New Mexico • North Central: Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. • Central: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska (this is Peter Bradford's administrative area, and the territory which eventually becomes Heartland, with Omaha, Nebraska, as its capital) • South Central: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas • Southern: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi • Mid-Atlantic: Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia • Appalachia: Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia • Ameritech: Indiana, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (presumably named after the
phone company that serviced these areas) • Northeastern: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont In addition to these areas,
Washington, D.C. comprises its own National Administrative District,
South Florida is described by a character as the "Space Zone", and there is a passing reference to three "International Cities", one of which is
San Francisco.
Michigan is separated into two administrative regions, with the
Lower Peninsula belonging to Ameritech, and the
Upper Peninsula belonging to the North Central region.
Alaska is described as never having been pacified, requiring continued engagement by Soviet troops, and there are pockets of armed resistance in the
Rocky Mountains and in
West Virginia. There is no mention of what has happened to
Hawaii, or to U.S. territories such as
Puerto Rico,
Guam, and
American Samoa (even though Puerto Rico and the
U.S. Virgin Islands may have presumably been taken over by the "Greater
Cuba", led by
Fidel Castro). The
Rust Belt (presumably "Ameritech") faces its own special problems. Most of its advanced factory equipment was removed at the start of the occupation and taken to the Soviet Union. The region suffers 50% unemployment as a result, and its residents are not permitted to leave, except to volunteer for factory work in the Soviet Union, from which no one has yet returned. Travel and communications between the various zones is heavily restricted, part of the "
divide and conquer" plan of the Soviet occupation.
Communist occupation elsewhere Both the novel and miniseries imply that the Soviet Union has conquered other countries after the U.S. coup (it can be surmised, for example, that the EMP which disabled U.S. technology also would have crippled
Canada and
Mexico, a minor character says that he and his wife fled East Germany for the United States and remarked that "the promised land [had] become worse than what [they] left", and Denisov says at one point that "we control most of the world"). In this new world,
Fidel Castro heads what is now called "Greater
Cuba", embracing most of the
Caribbean and
Latin America, and
Taiwan has been
absorbed into China.
North Korea has conquered
South Korea and Korea is
united under communist rule. A politician named "Mbele" heads the "Socialist Republic of Southern Africa" which also includes
South Africa, "Barghout" is the leader of "Iraqistan" which includes present-day
Israel and all of the
Arab world in both the Middle East and North Africa.
Eastern Europe is in a state of unrest, echoing the turmoil in the former United States. The Soviet leader mentions being stationed in England before being posted in America, implying that Western Europe is also under Soviet control, much like America.
National symbols The flag of the occupation is the pale blue
United Nations flag, with crossed
U.S. and
Soviet flags superimposed on the sides. The U.S. flag is shown without its stars, and this flag is displayed during the "Lincoln Week" ceremonies. The standard U.S. flag is outlawed, although one scene shows a group of war veterans marching with the old U.S. flag upside down, this being a
distress signal. The U.S.
national anthem, "
The Star-Spangled Banner", also is outlawed, but this does not stop a group of citizens from singing it (haltingly at first) after the "Lincoln Week" parade.
Abraham Lincoln is included with
Karl Marx and
Vladimir Lenin in propaganda. One of the signature scenes in the film is a twenty-minute, dialogue-free depiction of the celebration of "Lincoln Week" (a holiday replacing the
Fourth of July), with both Lincoln and Lenin displayed on red banners that were most likely intended to be striking and startling to television audiences of the time. A new
pledge of allegiance is given by "rehabilitated" political prisoners upon release from the U.S.
gulags. While the prisoners are told that they are free to refuse to make this pledge, the circumstances under which it is administered suggest otherwise. The pledge states: == Critical reception ==