[PEN-L:29990] Britain's H bomb confidence trick

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

As Britain, and in particular Tony Blair, struggles with how to support a
US attack on Iraq, it was revealing to hear a quiet Radio 4 programme on
Thursday about how Britain's H bomb was a confidence trick to keep in the
league of big powers.

When I joined the programme, they were describing how Britain had tested
an H bomb device and how Macmillan, the prime minister, decided there had
to be a massive public test for political reasons. There was some
momentum for a nuclear test ban treaty, which would have locked Britain
permanently out of big power status in terms of further developments.
Also even more importantly, the US had passed the McMahon act restricting
the exchange of nuclear information to any other country. 

This was a very serious challenge to the UK, and whaterver the cold war
rhetoric, Britain's skirmishing with the US was (and remains) far more
important than anything else for its imperial status.

Therefore in June 1957 there was a massive nuclear explosion witnessed by
the world's press from a safe and convenient distance on a island in the
Pacific. The British researchers had advised that because of the
unpredictability of the H bomb prototype, they could not be sure of how
spectacuar it would look. The explosion that was organised was  in
fact essentially a massive atomic explosion, wasting vaste amounts of
uranium for public relations. 

Subsequently it was reported that the Royal Air Force was being armed
with UK hydrogen bombs, but in fact the weapons loaded were atomic bombs,
because Britain had not mastered how to proceed from a protype to
systematic production. The researchers at Aldermaston were not told
this.

Newspaper reporters were asked not to write speculative stories
questioning whether Britain actually had operational H bombs. There was a
sort of conspiracy of the establishment, although the Labour Party asked
a few questions in parliament about why if Britain had H bombs was it
necessary to continue testing them, which Macmillan urbanely brushed
off.

But the Americans were sufficiently impressed. The McMahon act was lifted
and the US swapped nuclear information with the UK, including the designs
of their H bomb prototypes.

When Britain did manage to manufacture H bombs on a production scale, the
design was not in fact the British design but the US design!

So Britain never in fact had its own independent nuclear
deterrent, at least at H bomb level, although this was crucial to its
claims to big power status.

It is typical that this story has surfaced in a quiet radio programme
that was almost reminiscent and nostalgic, loaded with typical British
understatement. The word 'lie' was never directly used, rather
explanations of how the authorities were economical with the truth, and
assiduous with the false impression they were trying to create. There was
no inside information about how the British outwitted US security, which
presumably remains on the top secret list of classified papers not
available for public inspection. 

The only current controversy the programme suggested, was that some
people have suggested that the expanatory text around the historical H
bomb material in the small museum at Aldermaston should be a little more
accurate.

No doubt they will get round to it one day.

Meanwhile the active controversy in Britain is whether this military
dependent can give the Bush administration cover for a unilateral attack
on Iraq. PArt of the background pressure will be about secret deals and
understandings about whether Britain will continue to have any privileged
exchanges with the US on a security level. 

Chris Burford 

London