UK, US Post-war

with Russia, a global pandemic and a reckless scramble for nuclear energy: the
echoes of 1957 are alarming – we would do well to heed them. On 10 October 1957, Harold Macmillan sent a
letter to President Dwight Eisenhower. The question he asked his US counterpart
was: “What are we going to do about these Russians?” The launch of the Sputnik
satellite six days earlier had carried with it the threat that Soviet military
technology would eclipse that of the west. The prime minister was hoping to
boost British nuclear capabilities, and was desperate for US cooperation. On
that same day, however, the UK’s most advanced nuclear project went up in
flames – putting the knowledge and bravery of its best scientists to the test,
and threatening England’s peaceful countryside with a radiological disaster. Atoms
and Ashes: From Bikini Atoll to Fukushima by Serhii Plokhy is published by Allen
Lane (£25).



 



Guardian 14th
May 2022



https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/14/poisoned-legacy-why-the-future-of-power-cant-be-nuclear