Reading a book at the moment called Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War. It's basically based on Home Office documents from the 50s and 60s which have recently been made public, and charts the UK's stance in the event of nuclear conflict.
It's pretty scary stuff, and makes you wonder how we didn't come closer to blowing the shit out of each other, especially given the number of "geese on the radar" false alarms.
It's also rather quaint, the stiff-upper-lip British view of survival after the bombs had rained down.
Some interesting "post-war" scenarios from the Home Office in the 1950s: "We foresee the possibility of new threats developing affecting both our overseas activities and our home base.
"Subversive organisations are likely to survive and the general chaos of the post-attack struggle could provide a better opportunity for them to succeed."
And in the run-up to a war, the consequences of anti-military action feeling among the populace:
"Anti war action might spread and involve considerable numbers of normally stable and law-abiding people...
"If only say five per cent of our working population became actively anti-war minded, this would present very serious security problems."
On the post-war breakdown of society and power reverting to regional civil defence organisations, Peter Hennessy, the author, says depressingly: "...the degradation of the UK into twelve shrivelled, irradiated little fiefdoms filled with wretched and desperate survivors theoretically governed by men in bunkers and probably ruled, in reality, by armed soldiers and policemen with ultimate powers over life and death is too ghastly to contemplate."
Quite. |
