Churchill's Bomb: How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race

402 Pages·2013·3.06 MB·English

by  Graham Farmelo

Advance Praise for Churchill’s Bomb
“This is a fascinating book. Graham Farmelo offers a fresh and thoroughly
researched history of the development of atomic weapons in his insightful and
engaging account of Winston Churchill’s failure to forge a partnership of equal
exchange between Great Britain and the United States in the development of the
bomb. Farmelo offers vivid vignettes of political and scientific personalities,
with special attention to the widely disliked Oxford physicist Frederick
Lindemann, who became Churchill’s science and technology guru in the 1920s.”
—Mary Jo Nye, Professor of History Emerita, Oregon State University, and author of Michael
Polanyi and His Generation
“An excellent book. Graham Farmelo draws on many sources to show how
Churchill, his scientific adviser Frederick Lindemann, and a host of other
scientists and politicians developed the atomic bomb. Churchill’s Bomb brings
these characters back to life with anecdotes, quotations, and personal sketches.
But Farmelo’s book does more than unfold the hopes, doubts, and fears
engendered by the bomb: it illuminates the relationship between big science and
modern democracy.”
—James W. Muller, University of Alaska, Anchorage
“What a brilliant and compelling book! Graham Farmelo sensitively and
eloquently deconstructs the twists and turns of Winston Churchill’s involvement
with nuclear weapons over nearly half a century, setting this unfamiliar tale in
the context of the turbulent times. At its heart are the ambiguities of the World
War II relationship between a scientifically innovative but economically
weakened Britain and the inexhaustibly energetic USA with unlimited
resources.”
—Sir Michael Berry, University of Bristol
“A nicely detailed and balanced record of the British ambivalence toward
building an atom bomb in favor of the American effort. . . . A tremendously
useful soup-to-nuts study of how Britain and the U.S. embraced a frightening
atomic age.”
—Kirkus Reviews
CHURCHILL’S BOMB
CHURCHILL’S
BOMB
How the United States Overtook
Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race
GRAHAM FARMELO
BASIC BOOKS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group New York
Copyright © 2013 by Graham Farmelo
First published in the United States in 2013 by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Published in Great Britain in 2013 by Faber and Faber Ltd.
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or call [phone], ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-0-465-06989-7 (e-book)
LCCN: 2013940827
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR LINDSEY JONES, F.S.
In the next fifty years mankind will make greater progress in mastering and
applying natural forces than in the last million years or more. And the first
question we must ask ourselves is: ‘Are we fit for it? Are we worthy of all these
exalted responsibilities? Can we bear this tremendous strain?’
—WINSTON CHURCHILL, 14 November 1937
Scientists on the whole are a very docile lot. Apart from their own particular job
they do just what they are told and are content to sit down and be very minor
entities.
—MARK OLIPHANT, 20 April 1940
Devil: ‘In the arts of life Man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes
Nature herself . . . his heart is in his weapons. This marvellous force of Life of
which you boast is a force of Death: Man measures his strength by his
destructiveness.’
—GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Man and Superman, 1903
Contents
PROLOGUE
FEBRUARY 1955: Churchill, his nuclear scientists and the Bomb
1 TOWARDS THE NUCLEAR AGE
1894–1925: Wells and his liberating ‘atomic bombs’
1924–1932: Churchill glimpses a nuclear future
1932: Rutherford: nuclear sceptic
March 1933 To December 1934: The Prof advises ‘a scientist who missed his vocation’
September 1933 To February 1935: Szilárd’s nuclear epiphany
February 1934 To October 1938: Churchill fears war – and that nuclear energy will soon be
harnessed
November 1938 To September 1939: Bohr thinks the Bomb is ‘inconceivable’
2 WORLD WAR II
August To December 1939: Churchill – nuclear weapons will not be ready for the war
September 1939 To February 1940: Chadwick doubts that the Bomb is viable
October 1939 To July 1940: FDR receives a nuclear warning
March To June 1940: Frisch and Peierls discover how to make the Bomb
May and June 1940: Churchill has more pressing problems
June To September 1940: Thomson and his MAUD committee debate policy on the Bomb
August 1940 To August 1941: In his finest hour, Churchill begs America for help
July and August 1941: Chadwick believes Britain should build its own Bomb
August To October 1941: Lindemann backs a British Bomb
August 1941 To January 1942: Oliphant bustles in America
November 1941 To July 1942: Churchill talks about the Bomb with FDR
January 1942 To January 1943: Akers attempts a merger
October 1942 To July 1943: Bush aims for an American monopoly
January To September 1943: Churchill’s nuclear deal with FDR
September 1943 To May 1944: Bohr takes a political initiative
April To September 1944: The Bulldog meets the Great Dane
February 1944 To July 1945: Chadwick witnesses the first nuclear explosion
1 July To 5 August 1945: Churchill says yes to dropping the Bomb
3 CHURCHILL AS LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
August 1945 To January 1949: Blackett: nuclear heretic
August 1945 To August 1949: Churchill the Cold Warrior
February and March 1950: Peierls and ‘the spy of the century’
February 1950 To Spring 1951: Churchill softens his line on the Bomb
August 1945 To October 1951: Penney delivers the British Bomb
4 CHURCHILL’S SECOND PREMIERSHIP
October 1951 To December 1952: Churchill – Britain’s first nuclear Premier
1953: Hinton engineers nuclear power
March 1953 To February 1954: Churchill the nuclear missionary
March To December 1954: Cockcroft becomes a confidant of the Prime Minister
April 1954 To April 1955: Churchill’s nuclear swansong
EPILOGUES
1954 Onwards: 1: Churchill’s nuclear scientists
6 April 1955 Onwards: 2: Churchill and his Prof
Acknowledgements
References
Notes
Index