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Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-62

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Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-62 Power Politics: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-62 by MARTIN THEAKER A Thesis Submitted to the University of Birmingham for the Degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Modern History School of History and Cultures College of Arts and Law University of Birmingham July 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis concerns the role of atomic power in the development of British national identity and international relations between the end of the Second World War and the early nineteen-sixties. It deals with the changing nature of interaction with the United States, Europe and Commonwealth through the focus of new science as well as the impact of civil atomic power on British society and political decision-making structures. A new space for Britain in the context of Cold-War relations is identified in the field of atomic science, as Britain‟s development of independent nuclear weapons and subsequently civil electrical engineering ran counter to the otherwise prevalent trend of declining great power status. The thesis concludes that the atomic energy program in Britain was an important component in the definition of a new post-war identity, with increased scientific input into government policy ultimately resulting in Britain developing a potential for commercial uses which was a key factor in prompting American intervention in the European atomic arena during the nineteen- fifties. It also contends that the politics of European integration around the Treaty of Rome were substantially informed by British attitudes towards her atomic power legacy. For Kurt Matheja and Gervase Theaker Acknowledgements First and foremost I wish to thank my two supervisors, Sabine Lee and Corey Ross at the University of Birmingham for all of their hard work, ideas and inspiration. Many thanks also to Jonathan Helmreich of Allegheny College and John Krige of the Georgia Institute of Technology for proof-reading chapters at various stages and making invaluable suggestions. I am also very grateful to the University of Birmingham for supporting this work, initially through the Edna Pearson Scholarship and subsequently through the Postgraduate Research Support Fund. For archival support I am grateful to the National Archives of the United Kingdom in Kew Gardens, The University of Birmingham Special Collections and the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. I also wish to thank Whitehaven Record Office and Local Studies Library, Cumbria, who kindly gave permission to reproduce material for one of the figures in this study. Last but not least, my personal thanks to my friends Anna Robin and Sheena Robinson for assisting my research whilst in London. Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: FROM HIROSHIMA TO THE MODUS VIVENDI ................................................... 7 CHAPTER TWO: BRITAIN; COAL, OIL AND NEW SCIENCE ...................................................... 18 CHAPTER THREE: „ATOMS FOR PEACE‟; RECONCILIATION AND DEVELOPMENT ........... 34 CHAPTER FOUR: EUROPE ................................................................................................................ 51 CHAPTER FIVE: SOCIETY ................................................................................................................. 65 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................... 73 LIST OF REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................... 80 Table of Figures FIGURE I: PREDICTED SOURCES OF URANIUM, 1948-52 ......................................................................................... 15 FIGURE II: UK COAL STATISTICS ........................................................................................................................... 27 FIGURE III: BRITISH SOURCES OF OIL, 1938-65 ..................................................................................................... 28 FIGURE IV: AUSTRALIAN URANIUM PRODUCTION, 1954-1971 .............................................................................. 36 FIGURE V: GLOBAL URANIUM PRODUCTION, 1945-70 ........................................................................................... 37 FIGURE VI: UKAEA RESEARCH, 1962 .................................................................................................................. 46 FIGURE VII: 'CUMBERLAND FACES THE FUTURE', LOCAL DEVELOPMENT BROCHURE, 1957 ................................. 67 List of Abbreviations AGR – Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor ALAS – Association of Los Alamos Scientists BMC – British Motor Corporation CEA - Central Electricity Authority CEGB - Central Electricity Generating Board CDA – Combined Development Agency CDT - Combined Development Trust CND – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament CPC – Combined Policy Committee CSA – Chief Scientific Advisor EFTA – European Free Trade Association ENEA – European Nuclear Energy Association EURATOM - European Atomic Energy Community GATT – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency MoD – Ministry of Defence (UK) OECD - Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OEEC - Organisation for European Economic Co-operation PIPPA - Pressurised Pile for Producing Power and Plutonium UKAEA – United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority UNAEC - United Nations Atomic Energy Commission USAEC – United States Atomic Energy Commission „The discovery of this atomic energy science has placed us several laps ahead of the present phase of international political development, and unless we can catch up politically to the point we have reached in science, and thus command the power which at present threatens us, we are all going to be blown to smithereens!‟ - Anthony Eden, House of Commons, 22nd November 1945 INTRODUCTION Described as „the work of men of genius‟ by the eminent scientist John Cockcroft, but „a great and dangerous adventure‟ by President Truman, few issues during the twentieth century proved as controversial as the exploitation of nuclear fission1. In post-war Britain, the advent of a new technological era raised fundamental questions about the British attitude to science and its international implications while global relationships within the energy environment shifted rapidly as new military and domestic atomic issues forced their way into existing frameworks. It is the purpose of this analysis to detail the internal and external impact of atomic technology on British diplomacy and society, beginning with the scientists who developed the original knowledge and were thereafter invaluable to the post-war nuclear programme. Enough has already been written to contextualise a weighty study; Margaret Gowing‟s Independence and Deterrence (1974) and R.F. Pocock‟s Nuclear Power: Its Development in the United Kingdom (1977) both launched the initial commentary on Britain‟s first-generation atomic plants. Gowing‟s analysis (often considered the field-grounding text) utilised the focus of individuals operating the first British nuclear experiments to divide nuclear power development into policy-making and policy-enactment phases, producing depth widely absent in the field2. However, the relatively brief period covered (from 1945-52) left gaps beyond the first nuclear planning phases. This space was partly filled by Pocock, who, in contrast to Gowing‟s highly-detailed account, charted the wider history of atomic power but still sought to break the Magnox era into two distinct periods: the „years of military priority‟ from 1945- 1953 and the era of commercial generation thereafter3. Where others had dismissed civil 1 John Cockcroft, „Future of Atomic Energy‟, The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 82, No. 3 (Mar., 1956), p. 136 and „The Atomic Era‟, The Manchester Guardian, 16th April, 1946 2 Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy, 1945-1952, Vol. I., (London, 1974) 3 R.F. Pocock, Nuclear Power: Its Development in the United Kingdom, (London, 1977), p. 19 1 power as a by-product of bomb-making, Pocock decreased the emphasis on military plutonium requirements, offering instead that nuclear power was a necessary response to global energy crises and increasingly costly coal4. The temporal divisions provided by these works agree that atomic history crossed a military phase before becoming a predominantly commercial concern roughly halfway in the period of study. This offers a reasonable framework to begin this analysis, as these shifting priorities can be tracked before the role of independent civil applications are investigated. Indeed, much existing scholarship surrounding the West‟s nuclear past has too often ignored the none-martial aspects of fission technology; this assessment will therefore follow the evolution of British policy through the early atomic age,
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