Those of us who have sat at the controls of a V-bomber, ready to carry a British nuclear bomb to targets behind the Iron Curtain, had little insight at the time into the complexity and ingenuity that had made our independent deterrent possible. Lorna Arnold has brought together in this volume, the technical, political and practical problems which faced the architects of Britain's nuclear weapons' programme. When US co-operation ceased in 1946, the post war British Government might have decided to concentrate its meagre resources on the welfare state reforms. That both the Attlee and Churchill governments pressed on with first the atomic and then the thermonuclear weapon developments demonstrated the political importance attached to nuclear weapons and great power status at that time.
This book tells the human story behind those decisions, and what that meant in terms of turning policy into a working device. The generous co-operation from Australia harps back to an age when the dangers from atmospheric nuclear tests were less well understood. The Aboriginals also paid a particular price to their way of life. Nevertheless, it is a story of scientific achievement and organisational mastery. Arranging complex tests on the other side of the world, which involved thousands of people and new engineering and physics, was all done without e-mail, satellite communications or desk computers. Britain and Australia co-operated in an astonishingly successful project. The development of the thermonuclear H-Bomb was done in much shorter timescale than the USA or the Soviet Union had managed.
This history appears at an important time in the continuing story of nuclear weapons. In the UK, discussion has started about the future of the British deterrent, which is now much smaller in number than during the Cold War. It is also less independent than the early days. There is less attachment to the arguments of the 1940s about world power status, but concerns remain about the continuing need for a deterrent against possible threats from emerging nuclear powers. Those states such as Iran, North Korea and others, which perhaps aspire to nuclear weapon status face many of the hurdles which are detailed in these pages. Before commentators or politicians talk glibly about the easy development of nuclear weapons, they would do well to read this book.
The determination of politicians, scientists, military and officials in the immediate post war years made it possible for Britain to have an independent nuclear deterrent. I have no doubt that it contributed to the strategic uncertainty, which kept a nuclear war at bay through the Cold War. This book is a fitting tribute to them.
Air Marshal the Lord Garden KCB