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SCIENTISTS, THE PUBLIC, THE STATE, AND THE DEBATE OVER THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMAN HEALTH EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR TESTING IN BRITAIN, 1950–1958*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2015

CHRISTOPH LAUCHT
CHRISTOPH LAUCHT*
Affiliation:
Swansea University
*
Department of History and Classics, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, sa2 8pp[email protected]
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Abstract

This article uses the debate over environmental and human health effects of nuclear testing to shed light on the ambivalent relationship between scientists, the public, and the state in Britain during the crucial, but often overlooked, period leading up to the first cycle of anti-nuclear weapons mass protests. In this, it examines how members of Britain's main organization of nuclear scientists – the Atomic Scientists’ Association (ASA) – used their expertise in their engagement with both the public and the state to assess these effects of fallout from nuclear testing. What made the ASA stand out from other groups of the atomic scientists’ movement was its ambivalent relationship with the government. This was, by and large, the result of several ASA members’ occupational backgrounds in government employment and the association's self-imposed adherence to an ambiguous principle of scientific ‘objectivity’ in political matters. The ASA's role in the debate over fallout thus exemplifies a basic dilemma that many scientists in Britain and other Western liberal democracies faced between their roles as ‘objective’ and ‘unpolitical’ scientific experts, on the one hand, and socially responsible scientists, on the other, illustrating the ambivalent position of experts and uses of their knowledge.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 221 - 251
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to thank Jan-Henrik Meyer, Astrid Mignon-Kirchhof, and the participants of the Berlin-Brandenburg Colloquium on Environmental History at Humboldt University, Berlin, for their comments on an early version of this paper, as well as Emma Cavell, Martin Johnes, Adam Mosley, and the article's anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts.

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99 Cockcroft to Plowden, 16 Apr. 1957, TNA, AB 27/6.

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101 Cockcroft to Massey, 2 May 1957, TNA, AB 27/6; ‘Bone and bone cancer’, p. 8.

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103 Rotblat to Lloyd, 1 May 1957; H. Hainworth, note, 7 May 1957, both in TNA, FO 371/129241.

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105 G. Brown, minute, 2 Apr. 1957, TNA, FO 371/129241.

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107 Laskey to Langridge and Permanent Under-Secretary's Department, 5 May 1957; H. Hainworth, note, 7 May 1957. This even included drafting both a precautionary parliamentary question and answer: J. C. Cloake, note, 9 May 1957; ‘Draft parliamentary question’ and ‘Draft answer’, attached to H. Hainworth, note, 9 May 1957, all in TNA, FO 371/129241.

108 A. E. Davidson, note, 8 May 1957, TNA, FO 371/129241.

109 Lloyd to Rotblat, 13 May 1957, TNA, FO 371/129241.

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124 Jill Liddington, The road to Greenham Common: feminism and anti-militarism in Britain since 1820 (Syracuse, NY, 1991), pp. 187–8; Taylor, Against the bomb, pp. 5–18, 115, 122.

125 Gallup, ed., Gallup international public opinion polls, i, pp. 363, 411–12, 449–50, 453–4, 476, 479, 483.

126 Parliamentary debates (Commons), vol. 569, 3 May 1957, cols. 598–608.

127 Oliver, Kennedy, Macmillan, and the nuclear test-ban debate, pp. 6–7.

128 Arnold, Britain and the H-bomb, pp. 115–19, 131–50; Walker, British nuclear weapons, pp. 91–107.

129 Parliamentary debates (Commons) vol. 568, 17 Apr. 1957, cols. 1922–3; Parliamentary debates (Commons) vol. 570, 13 May 1957, cols. 31–2.

130 Parliamentary debates (Commons), vol. 568, 17 Apr. 1957, cols. 1907–8, 1920–2.

131 ‘Did H-dust land here?’, Daily Mirror, 9 May 1957, p. 1; ‘Nuclear tests’; Parliamentary debates (Commons) vol. 569, 7 May 1957, cols. 799–803. See also Western Mail, Strontium 90 in Wales: a series of articles reprinted from the Western Mail (Cardiff, [c. 1958]).

132 Richard Taylor, ‘The Labour party and CND: 1957 to 1984’, in Richard Taylor and Nigel Young, eds., Campaigns for peace: British peace movements in the twentieth century (Manchester, 1987), pp. 100–30, at pp. 101–16.

133 Taylor, Against the bomb, pp. 28–9.

134 ‘46 grim lessons of nuclear war’, Times, 27 May 1958, p. 11.

135 The Mayor and Merthyr Trades Council, ‘An appeal to sanity’, n.d. [c. 1958], Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University, Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom, South Wales Coalfield Collection, SC 54.

136 Divine, Blowing on the wind, pp. 200–1; Gallup, ed., Gallup international public opinion polls, i, p. 463.

137 Divine, Blowing on the wind, pp. 200–1.

138 Oliver, Kennedy, Macmillan, and the nuclear test-ban debate, p. 7.

139 ‘“Lone declaration to suspend bomb tests of little value”’, Times, 2 May 1958, p. 5; ‘Premier rejects suspension’, Manchester Guardian, 2 May 1958, p. 1.

140 Arnold, Windscale 1957, pp. xxi, 42–59.

141 Jones, ‘Mushroom-shaped cloud’, p. 19.

142 ‘“Death dust” scare at A-plant’, Daily Mirror, 12 Oct. 1957, p. 1; ‘“A-milk”’, Daily Mirror, 15 Oct. 1957, p. 3; ‘Uneasiness at Calder Hall’, Times, 17 Oct. 1957, p. 2; ‘Fall-out at Windscale’, Economist, 19 Oct. 1957, pp. 1, 239–41; Chamberlain, A. C. and Dunster, H. J., ‘Deposition of radioactivity in north-west England from the accident at Windscale’, Nature, 182 (1958), pp. 629–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stewart, N. G. and Crooks, R. N., ‘Long-range travel of the radioactive cloud from the accident at Windscale’, Nature, 182 (1958), pp. 627–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Maycock, G. and Vennart, J., ‘Iodine-131 in human thyroids following the Windscale reactor accident’, Nature, 183 (1958), p. 1545CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘After Windscale’, New Scientist, 24 Oct. 1957, p. 7.

143 Ronald Bedford, ‘The atomic cloud over Britain’, Daily Mirror, 11 Mar. 1958, p. 9.

144 Arnold, Windscale 1957, p. xxi.

145 Ibid., pp. 78–9; Brian Cathcart, ‘Penney, William George, Baron Penney (1909–1991)’, ODNB.

146 Cmnd 302, Accident at Windscale no. 1 pile on 10th October, 1957: presented to parliament by the prime minister by command of Her Majesty, November 1957 (London, 1957), p. 20.

147 Harold P. Himsworth, ‘Annex III: Medical Research Council, report by the Committee on the Health and Safety Aspects’, in ibid., p. 18.

148 John Hare, memorandum for prime minister, 12 Sept. 1958; John Hare, memorandum for prime minister, 24 Oct. 1958; John Hare, memorandum for prime minister, 14 Nov. 1958, all in TNA, PREM 11/2540.

149 Maguire, Richard, ‘Scientific dissent amid the United Kingdom government's nuclear weapons programme’, History Workshop Journal, 63 (2007), pp. 113–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

150 Masco, Joseph, ‘Bad weather: on planetary crisis’, Social Studies of Science, 40 (2010), pp. 7–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 9.

151 See, for example, William Greig, ‘Death dust has doubled’, Daily Mirror, 28 Apr. 1959, p. 1; Ronald Bedford, ‘The death rate and atom-dust by a doctor’, Daily Mirror, 23 Oct. 1959, pp. 16–17; ‘More strontium 90 in children’, Times, 22 Mar. 1960, p. 9; Ronald Bedford, ‘More A-dust…fall-out tests on babies’, Daily Mirror, 22 Mar. 1960, p. 3; ‘Strontium 90 in milk increased’, Times, 4 Apr. 1960, p. 3; ‘Radiation review premature’, Times, 19 Oct. 1961, p. 12; ‘Bomb caution by Medical Research Council’, Times, 25 Oct. 1961, p. 6; ‘Milk plan to counteract Soviet bomb fall-out’, Times, 25 Oct. 1961, p. 10; Ronald Bedford, ‘Fall-out’, Daily Mirror, 25 Oct. 1961, p. 8; ‘Lower iodine 131 level in milk’, Times, 9 Nov. 1961, p. 14; ‘Milk safe, even for young’, Times, 24 Nov. 1961, p. 5. On the test see Adamsky, Victor and Smirnov, Yuri, ‘Moscow's biggest bomb: the 50-megaton test of October 1961’, Cold War International History Project Bulletin, 4 (1994), pp. 3, 19–21Google Scholar.

152 Marjorie Proops, ‘Marjorie Proops says fall out, girls’, Daily Mirror, 17 Jan. 1962, pp. 10–11, at p. 10.

153 Laucht, Elemental Germans, p. 171; Rabinowitch, Eugene, ‘Pugwash’, BAS, 13 (1957), pp. 243–8Google Scholar, at pp. 243–4.

154 Moore, Nuclear illusion, pp. 36–40, 150–5.

155 UNSCEAR, ‘Report of the UNSCEAR’, pp. 1, 41, 98–123, 228; S. H. Evans, ‘U.N. reports on radiation hazards’, 8 July 1958, TNA, PREM 11/2553; Sandys to De Zulueta, 28 May 1958, TNA, PREM 11/2553; Higuchi, ‘Radioactive fallout’, pp. 282–324.

156 Charles Hill, ‘From the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, lord president of the council’, 11 June 1958; Plowden to Bishop, 18 June 1958; Office of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, ‘Note of a meeting at the Old Treasury on Thursday 24th July to discuss publicity arrangements on publication of the United Nations report on radiation hazards’, 28 July 1958; Quintin McGarel Hogg [Vicount Hailsham], memorandum for prime minister, re: ‘U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation’, 6 Aug. 1958; Office of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, ‘Confidential until 5 p.m. (British summer time) 10th August, 1958: report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Note of a press conference at the Board of Trade 4.0 p.m. 6th August’, 7 Aug. 1958, all in TNA, PREM 11/2553.

157 Michaels to Bishop, 8 July 1958, TNA, PREM 11/2553.

158 N. F. C. to Simpson, 4 July 1958, TNA, PREM 11/2553.

159 Edmund Colquhoun Pery to Quintin McGarel Hogg, Aug. 1958, in MRC, Cmnd 508, Statement on the report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation: presented to parliament by the lord president of the council by command of Her Majesty, August 1958 (London, 1958), p. 3, TNA, PREM 11/2553.

160 Harold P. Himsworth et al., ‘The report of the Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation to the Thirteenth General Assembly of the United Nations: a report to the Medical Research Council by their Committee on the Hazards to Man of Nuclear and Allied Radiations’, in MRC, Cmnd 508, pp. 4, 6, 13.

161 This also found expression in the recognition of new international standards in radiation dose levels and measuring techniques in Cmnd 1225, MRC, The hazards to man of nuclear and allied radiations: a second report to the Medical Research Council, presented to parliament by the lord president of the council and minister for science by command of Her Majesty, December 1960 (London, 1960).

162 Simpson to Shedden, 13 Aug. 1958, TNA, PREM 11/2553.

163 ‘Draft press release on the report of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation’, n.d., attached to letter, Simpson to Shedden, 5 Aug. 1958, TNA, PREM 11/2553.

164 Oliver, Kennedy, Macmillan, and the nuclear test-ban debate, p. 8.

165 ‘Treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water, August 5, 1963’, repr. in Robert C. Williams and Philip L. Cantelon, eds., The American atom: a documentary history of nuclear policies from the discovery of fission to the present 1939–1984 (Philadelphia, PA, 1984), pp. 202–5, at p. 202.

166 Masco, Joseph, ‘“Survival is your business”: engineering ruins and affect in nuclear America’, Cultural Anthropology, 23 (2008), pp. 361–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 378.

167 Lawrence S. Wittner, ‘The nuclear threat ignored: how and why the campaign against the bomb disintegrated in the late 1960s’, in Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert, and Detlef Junker, eds., 1968: the world transformed (Cambridge and Washington, DC, 1998), pp. 439–58.