Yesterday, buried in book editing while on the road, I acknowledged what I’ve been avoiding: I need to absorb and document Australia’s current nuclear debate. You might view this statement as trivial and unprofessional, and, truth be told, I’m ashamed to admit it. Here’s the essence. The leader of the
The Soviet Union’s Sputnik rocket, launched in late 1957, impacted mightily on both the Cold War arms race and the efforts to bring in nuclear power. It suddenly and unexpectedly announced to the world that the East, regarded as technologically backward, might well be leading the space race. I love
On August 7, 1957, Christopher Hinton, the leader of the engineering half of the British nuclear power push, wrote to a civil servant: Frankly, I can not see that collaboration with the Australians on H.T.G.C. makes sense. I gather from Stewart that the Australians are saying that because of the
After World War II, defeated nation Germany held high hopes for plentiful use of the new means of generating electricity, namely nuclear reactors. There were myriad reasons for this, with political and psychological reasons ranking highly. Not until 1955 was West Germany granted independence of occupation and not until 1960
In September 1957, Leonard Owen, the new head of the Risley organization that built reactors, enrichment plants, etc., was chairing a meeting of his executive, when he spoke of an upcoming tour of Britain’s nuclear facilities by America’s powerful Joint Committee for Atomic Energy (JCAE), a small group of elected
Geeky is as geeky does. On August 28, 1957, three days before Christopher Hinton left the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority after thirteen years during which he fueled his nation’s atomic bombs and launched its nuclear energy master plan, he wrote to the Superintendent of the Chester City Constabulary about
In the summer of 1957, Amsterdam’s officials and the local Chamber of Commerce put on an exhibit at Schiphol Airport. It was called “Het Atoom,” the atom. As Dutch historian Dick van Lente discovered, the exhibition talked up the new technology. And Panorama magazine (one I know nothing about) featured
Toward the end of 1957, the new British prime minister, Harold Macmillan (less than a year in the job after his predecessor Anthony Eden was ignominiously outed followed the Suez Crisis fiasco) met President Eisenhower in Washington (that’s them front and left below) and hammered out an agreement that he
Something of a sideshow to the U.S. technical and political nuclear drama in the 1950s was a personality clash between two of the commissioners on the Atomic Energy Commision, the regulator and promoter of nuclear energy. The faceoff was between chairman Lewis Strauss (you’ll know him from Robert Downey Jr.’s
In early 1957, just before he left the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Association for the electricity sector, Christopher Hinton traveled to the Savoy Hotel in London and gave a rather lengthy speech (some eight pages) at the annual luncheon of the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association. Not so