[ applause ] good morning. Can you hear me all right . Clear as a bell, i hope. Well, its lovely to be here for another conference. Each one i come to seems to be even better than the last. Now we have kevin, kevin ruane, here, who has written this very, very good book, churchill and the bomb. So i one of my grandfathers best quotations, and there are so many to choose from is this one. The farther backward we can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. We think, most of us, that history is past. Done and dusted. Over with. Just a memory. But history has a way of coming back to bite us. As Ronald Reagan said, here we go again. I remember when the cold war was over, but then it wasnt. I remember farther back when people were scared of the abomb and then, worse, of the hbomb. And now, today, the specter of nuclear war has once again reared its ugly head. Kevin ruane is professor of modern history at Canterbury ChristChurch University in United Kingdom. He has written quite a few books, one on vietnam, and one is coming out very shortly on anthony eden. That will be a very interesting one because, for me, because he had such a long history with grandpapa. He is going he is working on now something that i am really, really longing to get my hands on, but its not in physical form yet. Its a book on graham green, and its going to be called graham green in love and war. So there is a lot to be said. I think that its going to show how fact and fiction is hard to separate. And we get a bit of that today here. Nobody thought that was funny. Okay. [ laughter ] anyway, kevins book churchill and the bomb, in war and cold war is timely today. It covers, amongst other things, the close relationship with lord charwell. I knew him slightly, like i was a fly on the wall because he was often at chartwall. He wasnt he didnt relate well i mean, he didnt relate much to the children or the children didnt relate much to him. We had a much more fun time with monty, field Marshal Montgomery who would play croquette and took an interest in people. It was important for grand papa because he could bat ideas back and forth with him on science. It wasnt in the house of commons, he could just find out try to work out his own ideas and what he felt and understood. So it was a very important person. Thats one of the things i have been interested in in this book. So now i give you the wonderful kevin ruane who will tell us some things about his book. [ applause ] thank you, edwina. That was is this mike okay . Thank you, edwina. Very generous introduction. Its great to be back again. So thank you to Michael Bishop and the ics, the family, for giving me this platform two years in a row. Its an honor. Ill begin by saying a little bit about how i came to write this book, how i came to churchill and the bomb. Its a big man, big subject. Churchill, the nuclear statesman. It really began about five years ago when i was asked to do work by the churchill archive. Thats to say, the online, digital repository of all virtually all of churchills papers which you heard about from lawrence amongst others already in the conference. I am told close to a million individual images. So letters as a homesick border to his mother all the way through world war i, world war ii, the cold war and so on. The archive is a joint venture between Churchill College or the archiv Archive Center and bloomsbury publishes. Its a jewel in the crown of the digital age. Though it is subscription only for universities and other what i call grownup organizations, thanks to the spectacular generosity of Lawrence Geller it is, as has been pointed out already, at this conference, its absolutely free to school kids in the usa, uk and other places around the world. Lawrence deserves, i think, a round of applause for that, frankly. [ applause ] there are not many fantastic things around that are totally free these days, it seems, but this is, if you are school kids, one of them. Anyway, i was asked to do a web essay on churchill and Nuclear Weapons to illustrate the aladdins cave of riches that is this online archive. In doing the original research, i came across a churchill that i only dimly knew existed. This was a churchill of fantastic scientific imagination and scientific vision, a churchill who, as a teenager, was devouring science fiction. Particularly the work of h. G. Wells. Before i give the quote, i am no gary oldman. I think the oscar is safe, i hope, after that magnificent performance but churchills speech pattern was so idiosyncratic, i must try a churchillian rumble. The time machine he said was one of the books i would like to take with me to purgatory. And in 1931 he went on to say that he had read all of h. G. Wellss output with such closeness that i can take an examination in them. Beyond this, i discovered a churchill of striking scientific vision, who in the interwar years regularly published on scientific themes. In mass circulation newspapers like news of the world and others. From this interwar churchill science writing two things emerge. Firstly, he recognized that scientific and Technological Progress would be ongoing. It would be revolutionary and probably a force for good. It was a new enlightenment and was going to bring betterment to the masses. He saw the positive side. At the same time he also worried that mankind might not be mature enough to deal with the gifts that science was about to bestow and that science might actually have its dark side. One of those potentially dark gifts, or doubleedged sword gifts, was something called Nuclear Energy. The 20s and 30s see modern Nuclear Physics come of age, with newspapers carrying loads of stories about the potentialities if the power of nature could be harnessed. Potentialities of a constructive kind. Chief electricity. If you could get at the thing called Atomic Energy. Also newspapers carrying stories about the potential of something else, maybe, maybe, atomic weapons. I would like to give you a couple examples of the things that churchill was writing in the interwar period. He is inspired by h. G. Wells and as edwina said he is mentored by the professor of experimental philosophy at oxford university, physics to you and i. Churchill got to know the prof in the early 1920s and its a very close friendship but also scientific mentoring relationship. This piece, 1924. Ominously entitled shall we commit suicide. In this article, churchill writes as follows. He suggests that the poison gas of the First World War might be the first chapter of a terrible book of destructive science. Then there are explosives. As science turned its last page on them. Might not a bomb, no bigger than an orange, be found in time to possess a secret power, to destroy a whole block of buildings, nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons and blast a township at a stroke. 1924. What about this from december 1931. It appeared in the bumper christmas edition of strand magazine a wellknown piece called 50 years hence. He says, Nuclear Energy is incompraably greater than the energy we use today. The coal a man can get in a day can easily do 500 times as much work as the man himself. Nuclear energy is at least one million times more powerful still. There is no question among scientists that this gigantic source of energy exists. What is lacking is the match to set the bonfire alight. The scientists are looking for this, the match. You know, within a year, thats 1932, two cambridge scientists, an englishman and irishman split the atom. At liverpool university, another english scientist James Chadwick showed the neutron can penetrate the power chambers of the atom. The nucleus of the atom where most of its mass and most of its energy and power resides. 1932. The match has been found. 1933. January. Adolf hitler becomes chancellor of germany. Six years on. January 1939. Two german scientists in berlin otto hahn and Fritz Strassman prove in their laboratory experimentally that something called Nuclear Fission is realizable. In other words, the Nuclear Chain reaction using the heavy element uranium. They did it on a Tiny Laboratory scale, but all around the world, 1939, as europe slips closer to the abyss, all around the world physicists corroborate their findings, and it is agreed that, if this could be done. Nuclear fission on a large enough scale you would have the most tremendous power source. Cheap electricity for everybody. But by the same token, Nuclear Fission could also make for a superlative weapon of mass destruction. What a year to discover that, 1939. I would like to share with you one more piece of interwar churchill pop science, i suppose you would call it. Mass effects on modern life. It was written in 1925 but received a much bigger audience when it appeared in this very famous collection of thoughts and adventures in the early 30s. In it, churchill gave us the following prediction. He said that it might be that the military leader of some future world agony could extinguish london or paris, tokyo or San Francisco by pressing a button. Or by putting his initials neatly at the bottom of a piece of paper. 1925. On the 2nd of july 1945 as war time Prime Minister he put his initia initials and gave his approval to a request from the u. S. Government that he agree with them to use the atomic bomb against japan. In so doing churchill didnt just eerily live out his own premonition he ensured the bombs that would ultimately hit hiroshima and nagasaki bore a british as well as an american seal of approval. More on that later. Let me go back to todays theme. In expanding that small web essay into a booklength treatment, i discovered the nuclear churchill. The nuclear statesman. Churchills career as a nuclear statesman splits into three chronological phases. And if i may, i would like to run through those now. The first phase. Its the wartime phase, the first phase is what i call the atomic bomb maker phase. Let me take you back in time to 1941. More precisely to the 30th of august, 1941. Churchill is, what, 15 months into his wartime premiership. His country in a desperate struggle for survival. On that day his love of science fiction, his love of the appliance of science to warfare. His belief in innovation and technology, all come together along with the urgent promptings of the man in the bowler hat. Lindemann. His nuclear mentor. They all come together on that day to produce churchills approval for a topsecret british effort to develop an atomic bomb. Its codenamed tubalos. The great spur is the thought, the dread thought that nazi scientists could put one of these things in hitlers hands. This was a race that simply had to be won. December 1941, of course, the United States enters the war. By late 1942 this pioneering british atomic project becomes subsumed in the juggernaut, the leviathan, the monster that is the u. S. Manhattan project. From that point on, the United States drives the atomic bomb project, but the british are still there, as junior partners, maybe, but they are atomic bomb project but the parish are still there. As junior partners, maybe, but they are still there. Until we come to 1945. Out in the wilds of new mexico the world enters the nuclear age. A plutonium device is tested to spectacular effect july 1945. The test is code famed trinity. By then, of course, hitler is dead, the third reich is a smoldering ruin and the war in europe is over. It turns out the race, although won by the allies, turned out the nazi Atomic Program was nowhere near as advanced as one time feared. But nonetheless, out in the distant reaches of the pacific, in asia, the war with japan grinds on and on and on. And so come full circle. On the 2nd of july, 1945, Winston Churchill, as i already said, gave a British Green light to a request from the u. S. Government to the use of the bomb against japan. He gave that approval in keeping with the Mutual Consent clause of a secret atomic agreement he signed with president franklin d. Roosevelt in quebec in august 1943, the Mutual Consent clause. Just over three weeks later, the 2nd of july, Winston Churchill isnt Prime Minister anymore. He lost the general election. Not too long after that, of course, we have the atomic end game. On the 6th of august, 1945, little boy, the codename for the uranium bomb is dropped on hiroshima. Its an air blast. Its not dropped literally on. On the 9th of august, 1945, fat man, the codename for the plutonium bomb is used against nagasaki. I think the results of the bombing, the impact of these two weapons of mass destruction is so wellknown i really dont need to underscore it. For churchill, the most important thing, although hes leader of the opposition, hin 1945 japan surrenders. Cause and effect, bomb drops, surrender comes within five days of the atomic bombing. Eight years later, 1953, 54, final volume of his history of the war churchill maintains two things. First, the decision to use the bomb in 1945 was a joint decision between himself and from the truman, a joint decision. The second thing he maintains, and im going to quote him again, the decision to use the bomb was never even an issue. His thinking went like this. In war bombs get used. The allies were at war with japan in the summer of 1945. The atomic bombs were weapons of war. Ipso facto you used those weapons. Moral qualms, ethical qualms were for churchill a luxury for others to indulge in. Not one he saw himself tossed in task in 1940 with country, civilization. Bombmaker, phase one. The second phase of churchills nuclear career runs roughly mid 1945 to 1950. Its maybe slightly more controversial. Its what i call the would be atomic warrior phase. Let me begin this one with v day, victory in europe 1945. When churchill looked at the map of europe, as he must have done, and we know he did, he did not like what he saw. Stalins army in Eastern Europe, balkans, baltic state, half of germany. No sign stalin was going to abide by earlier wartime agreements to allow freedom, democracy, free elections and so forth to flourish. No sign. For churchill this was a staggeringly distressing and upsetting outcome to the war in europe. Having fought the war in a sense to save the continent from the tyranny of the right, naziism, fascism, was the ter any of the less, communism to prevail. Eastern europe, what about western europe. Democracies needed to get their act together. You know, its here that this thing called the atomic bomb began to enter churchills mind. Churchill first learned of the successful test of the bomb 16th of july 1945 trinity when he was attending the final big three conference of the war. Potsdam. The diary, chief of the imperfectly imperial general, the reaction into the first atomic test. Church hill said we now have something in our hands which would redress the balance with the russians. Writes in his diary, churchill pushing his chin out and scowling. Now we could say to stalin, if you insist on doing this or that, well, we can just plblot t moscow, stalin grad, kiev, and now where are the russians . Three days after that diary entry, thats the 23rd of july, 26th of July Churchill isnt Prime Minister or so. A fortnight later the atomic bombs are visited upon japan. My point is churchill did not have time to factor this new atomic power into his russia policy, his soviet policy. Weve got a good idea of his thinking. For example, on the 7th of august, thats the day after hiroshima, he had launch. Churchill of the opinion with the manufacturer of this bomb in their hands, america can dominate the world for the next five years. If he continued in office, hes of the opinion that he could have persuaded the American Government to use this power to restrain the russians. Churchill starts talking about a showdown. Thats the word he uses. He uses it repeatedly, showdown. A nuclearthemed showdown. What he means is diplomatic headtohead with stalin, in which stalin is told in so many words, pull the army out of Eastern Europe, wartime agreements, or else, dot dot dot. A nuclear infused showdown. For the next five years, until early 1950 really, this was churchills repeatedly, if privately expressed view, to all who listen particularly successive u. S. Ambassadors to london. Politicians in opposition are much freer we all know to express themselves than those who are actually in power. But you know, even allowing for that, even allowing for churchills showmanship, the consistency over five years, the individual medl ve vehemenence. The clock runs against me. He met his old friend canadian Prime Minister and kings diary told us what churchill wanted to do was tell stalin directly, quote, the nations who fought the last war of freedom have had enough of this war of nerves and intimidation. If you do not agree to pull out of poland and Eastern Europe here and now within so many days, we will attack moscow and your other cities and destroy them with atomic bombs from the air. We will not allow tyranny to continue. In the end, of course, the atomic menaces that churchill had in line, this punishment for the kremlin for not abiding by democratic principles in Eastern Europe was never in churchills gift to deliver. It was in a sense harry trumans, it was in americas gift. The United States in the late 1940s never got remotely close to using its atomic monopoly in the kind of threatening diplomatic manner churchill evidently desired. The final phase of churchills nuclear career begins in early 1950. I say begins. Its the beginning of a transformation and its