British nuclear culture : official and unofficial narratives in the long 20th century

British nuclear culture : official and unofficial narratives in the long 20th century / Jonathan Hogg. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. This map gives an impression of the scale and history of the British nuclear state over time. The map does not indicate the scientific centres of nuclear research (such as the Cavendish laboratory) and only indicates selected miltary and civil defence infrastructure to give a sense of the geographical spread of the nuclear state. The vast majority of these sites were, and remain, inaccessible to the public. Many of them changed uses over the Cold War period, and dates that have been provided indicate the first time the site was used as part of the nuclear state. For a full appreciation of the vastness of the British nuclear state, see Wayne D. Cocroft and Roger J. C. Thomas, Cold War: Building for Nuclear Confrontation, 1946-1989 (Swindon: English Heritage, 2003), especially page 210 for a fuller map of the RGHQs. The website Subterranea Britannica contains a comprehensive list of nuclear bunkers, monitoring posts and storage facilities. Another excellent source of information can be found at the Drakelow Tunnels website: http://www. drakelow-tunnels.co.uk/rsg9.php FOREWORD FOREWORD xi ## MAP 1 The British nuclear state: a snapshot. ## FOREWORD xii earth, fell silently, exploded low over the conurbation and in the blink of an eye released enough white-hot energy to tear life apart, incinerating untold numbers of people and creating a city of deadly firestorms, while simultaneously emitting enough radioactivity to kill and mutate living organisms for hours, months and years to come. This toxic violence was repeated over the city of Nagasaki, three days later on 9 August 1945. Two dirty, metallic, blunt and brutal weapons destroyed cities, communities, families, women, children, men and animals and polluted the skies, water and earth. These modern weapons of war were the product of decades of some of the most sophisticated and advanced scientific thinking in the history of humanity, by those who upheld the rational tradition in scientific thought. With the most brilliant scientific theories applied to military ends, American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, in the years following 1945 decided to call repeatedly upon a quote from Hindu scripture, 'I am become death, the destroyer of worlds', in order to articulate the scientific and spiritual watershed he had overseen in the interests of national security. Now a well-worn cliché in literature on the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer's insistent quote, delivered teary eyed towards the end of his life in a television interview, can be read as solemn reminiscence, a grandiose statement of his own personal role and responsibilities, and a surreal, even irrational, statement on scientific responsibility, ethics and morality. 1 In the dust of the New Mexico desert seconds before the Trinity atomic explosion in July 1945, Manhattan Project scientists did not know if the first experimental atomic explosion would ignite the earth's atmosphere. At the heart of the twentieth century, in the mushroom cloud of bureaucratic and mechanized total war, the atomic bomb and the Nazi holocaust swirled in the world's conscience, signifiers of the gruesome extremes of modernity, political thought and human agency. As Andrew Rotter has argued, the atomic bomb is the world's bomb. 2 It has inflicted both instant and slow violence on the world. In 1947, a year and a half after the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, English writer J. B. Priestley offered a brief introduction to an 'atomic' focused issue of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) magazine The Listener: It does not matter a rap what your work or your interest or your hobbies or your outlook may be, whether you are looking for sheep in the Grampians, rehearsing Dvor ˇák's 'cello concerto in Kensington, getting your trousseau together in Truro, making notes for a sermon in East Anglia, running a golf club in West Kent or a repertory theatre in East Lancashire, you cannot by any amount of wriggling, squirming or running put yourself outside the sphere of these talks. It simply cannot be done. We are now living in the atomic age. 3 Priestley was articulating a new existential reality for British citizens: everyone was involved in the atomic age. Like it or not, this was a problem for everyone. By identifying the individual, local and, by Priestley's logic, global nature of the freshly created atomic era, he implicitly argued for the importance of individual responsibility in responding to the world's bomb. He called for courage to be shown in the face of uncomfortable new truths, and even urged a nascent form of activism when he went on to state that to be 'indifferent' to the talks published in The Listener 'is to pretend you are indifferent to the fire the grate, the heat in your oven, to transport and production and the whole economic future of this and all other countries'. 4 Personal indifference carried with it a certain danger, because it abnegated responsibility for an issue of uniquely global, national and personal importance. Ideas of this kind would become increasingly common in public discourse and, as this book will explore, historians can retrieve these sentiments through analysis of a range of narratives. Throughout the 1950s, after the British government carried out successful atomic and thermonuclear bomb tests, increasing numbers of intellectuals like Priestley would actively try to persuade people to become anti-nuclear, in an attempt to democratize the nuclear dilemma. 5 At the same time, pro-deterrence civil defence initiatives would try to convince people that to ignore nuclear issues equalled an irresponsible act towards themselves, their families, their local community and their country. Particular moments of diplomatic crisis at the height of the Cold War, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, meant that even individuals who refused to admit to nuclear anxiety would have experienced some realization of nuclear danger. For some, thinking the unthinkable became an everyday habit of mind, for some it became a steady, silent presence in dreams and nightmares, sometimes articulated in the waking hours, but mainly pushed aside so that life could continue as normal. So, in a way that he could not have foreseen in 1947, Priestley was right. In the years following 1945, indifference to nuclear issues became increasingly impossible. how cities 'enable and constrain different constellations of power and knowledge'. 52 Again in the American context, work by David Monteyne suggested ways in which the Foucauldian concept of 'biopower'governmental processes whereby bodies are subjugated and populations controlled -can be applied to thinking about the logic of nuclear civil defence. Monteyne argues that 'cold war civil defence was a discursive formation and spatial practice particularly well suited to representing the goals and powers of the welfare state', partly because it based its 'power on an underlying reference to the established institutions of the disciplinary society'. 53 Designing and building Cold War infrastructure was part of an unquestioned faith in systems of government and thinking deemed necessary to preserve peace. Recent work has examined the physical infrastructure of the British nuclear state, suggesting new ways to conceptualize the spatial aspects of the Cold War. 54 In separate articles, Sophie Forgan and Christoph Laucht have examined the different ways in which nuclear science has been exhibited in the twentieth century, highlighting the contested nature of nuclear knowledge. 55 The Freedom of Information Act (2005) led to the emergence of new official source materials and the re-evaluation of old historical debates. Research on civil defence by Matthew Grant in After the Bomb and Peter Hennessy's work on the 'secret state' are good examples of this. 56 Studies on civil defence have become increasingly developed in the historiography. 57 The expansion of digital archiving has offered new research avenues, with Adrian Bingham and Christoph Laucht offering work based on digitally archived newspapers and magazines. 58 Many more studies of media discourse in the nuclear age remain to be written. Research on design in the nuclear age, while useful, still leaves many questions unanswered on the extent to which the nuclear age influenced aspects of cultural expression in general terms. 59 The standard 'official' narrative of the atomic age can be disrupted by analysing the significance of fictional, journalistic and anti-nuclear narratives. It was arguably Tony Shaw's research on British Cold War cinema that did more than most to turn the cultural lens onto the British Cold War, and his major work was published in 2001. 60 Shaw's work uncovered the secret debates around the production of film in the Cold War. He argued that cultural production was an extremely contested and politicized process in this era. There has been a steady increase in the field of popular culture, with a special issue of Journal of British Cinema and Television given to nuclearthemed TV and film in 2013, and a special issue of Cold War History dedicated to radio broadcasting in the Cold War era. 61 An upcoming edited collection by Matthew Grant and Benjamin Ziemann promises to deepen the debate over the relevance of Cold War culture further still. 62 Within the 2012 BJHS special issue on British nuclear culture, authors offered various new ways to consider the subject of nuclear culture. Dan Cordle explored the complexities of nuclear culture in the 1980s, The Advent Of The Atomic Bomb, The Social And Cultural Impact Of Nuclear Science, And The History Of The British Nuclear State After 1945 Is A Complex And Contested Story. British Nuclear Culture Is An Important Survey That Offers A New Interpretation Of The Nuclear Century By Tracing The Tensions Between 'official' And 'unofficial' Nuclear Narratives In British Culture. In This Book, Jonathan Hogg Argues That Nuclear Culture Was A Pervasive And Persistent Aspect Of British Life, Particularly In The Years Following 1945. This Idea Is Illustrated Through Detailed Analysis Of Various Primary Source Materials, Such As Newspaper Articles, Government Files, Fictional Texts, Film, Music And Oral Testimonies. The Book Introduces Unfamiliar Sources To Students Of Nuclear And Cold War History, And Offers In-depth And Critical Reflections On The Expanding Historiography In This Area Of Research. Chronologically Arranged, British Nuclear Culture Reflects Upon, And Returns To, A Number Of Key Themes Throughout, Including Nuclear Anxiety, Government Policy, Civil Defence, 'nukespeak' And Nuclear Subjectivity, Individual Experience, Protest And Resistance, And The Influence Of The British Nuclear State On Everyday Life. The Book Contains Illustrations, Individual Case Studies, A Select Bibliography, A Timeline, And A List Of Helpful Online Resources For Students Of Nuclear History. -- British Nuclear Culture: 1898-1945 -- Early Responses To The Bomb: 1945-1950 -- Maturing Responses To The Nuclear Age: 1950-1963 -- Radicalized And Realist Nuclear Culture: 1963-1975 -- 'abused Technology': Extreme Realism, 1975-1989 -- Rendered Invisible: The Persistence Of Nuclear Culture, 1990-2015 -- Conclusions: The Nuclear Century, 1898-2015. Jonathan Hogg. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 207-220) And Index. "The advent of the atomic bomb, the social and cultural impact of nuclear science, and the history of the British nuclear state after 1945 is a complex and contested story. British Nuclear Culture is an important survey that offers a new interpretation of the nuclear century by tracing the tensions between 'official' and 'unofficial' nuclear narratives in British culture. In this book, Jonathan Hogg argues that nuclear culture was a pervasive and persistent aspect of British life, particularly in the years following 1945. This idea is illustrated through detailed analysis of various primary source materials, such as newspaper articles, government files, fictional texts, film, music and oral testimonies. The book introduces unfamiliar sources to students of nuclear and cold war history, and offers in-depth and critical reflections on the expanding historiography in this area of research. Chronologically arranged, British Nuclear Culture reflects upon, and returns to, a number of key themes throughout, including nuclear anxiety, government policy, civil defence, 'nukespeak' and nuclear subjectivity, individual experience, protest and resistance, and the influence of the British nuclear state on everyday life. The book contains illustrations, individual case studies, a select bibliography, a timeline, and a list of helpful online resources for students of nuclear history."--Bloomsbury Publishing. The advent of the atomic bomb, the social and cultural impact of nuclear science, and the history of the British nuclear state after 1945 is a complex and contested story. British Nuclear Culture is an important survey that offers a new interpretation of the nuclear century by tracing the tensions between 'official' and 'unofficial' nuclear narratives in British culture. In this book, Jonathan Hogg argues that nuclear culture was a pervasive and persistent aspect of British life, particularly in the years following 1945. This idea is illustrated through detailed analysis of various primary source materials, such as newspaper articles, government files, fictional texts, film, music and oral testimonies. The book introduces unfamiliar sources to students of nuclear and cold war history, and offers in-depth and critical reflections on the expanding historiography in this area of research. Chronologically arranged, British Nuclear Culture reflects upon, and returns to, a number of key themes throughout, including nuclear anxiety, government policy, civil defence, 'nukespeak' and nuclear subjectivity, individual experience, protest and resistance, and the influence of the British nuclear state on everyday life. The book contains illustrations, individual case studies, a select bibliography, a timeline, and a list of helpful online resources for students of nuclear history. -- Provided by publisher British nuclear culture' is an important survey that traces the tensions between the more familiar official narratives and the under-researched, unofficial narratives that emerged especially strongly in the late 1950s. Hogg argues that nuclear culture was a pervasive and persistent aspect of British life, particularly post 1945; an idea that is illustrated through the detailed analysis of various primary source materials, such as newspaper articles, government files, fictional texts, films, art, music and oral testimonies. Many of these sources have never been published before and so the book offers original research and introduces many unfamiliar sources to students in the field. Chronologically arranged, the book reflects upon, and returns to, a number of key themes throughout, including nuclear fear; government policy, rhetoric and 'nukespeak'; individual experience in the nuclear age; and the relationship between nuclear science and democracy. There are also individual case studies, a detailed timeline, a further reading list and an extensive bibliography included Cover Contents List of Illustrations Foreword Acknowledgements 1 Introduction 2 British Nuclear Culture, 1898–1945 3 Early Responses to the Bomb, 1945–1950 4 Maturing Responses to the Nuclear Age, 1950–1958 5 Radicalized and Realist Nuclear Culture, 1959–1975 6 ‘Abused technology’: Extreme Realism, 1975–1989 7 Rendered Invisible: The Persistence of Nuclear Culture, 1990–2015 8 Conclusions: The Nuclear Century, 1898–2015 Notes Bibliography Appendix: Timeline Index