It amazes me how much progress India made in the first dozen postwar years toward nuclear capability, from a base that was essentially zero. The top atomic scientist, Homi Bhabha, was a key reason, and part of his success was his longstanding connections with scientists in the advanced nuclear nations. I always knew he was friendly with John Cockcroft, head of Britain’s Harwell, but I hadn’t realized how close they were until I took a look at as much of their official correspondence as I could amass from British archives. A good example is this letter from John to Homi at the start of 1957:
My dear Homi,
Cockcroft, John. 1957. Cockcroft to Bhabha, Jan. 8, 1957. AB 6/1250. National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom.
Many thanks for your telegram of congratulation on the O.M. [Order of Merit] I have certainly joined an elevated company!
I have been sorry not to have been able to accept your invitation to your inauguration ceremony but will be with you in spirit and would like to come out on another occasion – the start up of N.R.X. India? Or the opening of the new Tata Institute.
We have been successful in starting publication of controlled T.N. [thermonuclear] work here and in the U.S. So we might get a good session in Geneva 1958. U.N.O. have not yet been able to fix the date for the Advisory Committee owing to the Secretary-General’s preoccupation with Suez. I hope we shall now start to recover from that disastrous episode
It’s hard to imagine a warmer missive: the self-mocking acceptance of praise for an award … the “in spirit” phrase … “my dear Homi.” But I was especially taken with the final sentence, in which Cockcroft criticizes his own government (in regard to the Suez Crisis a couple of months earlier) to his friend.
