7/8 Churchill's Bomb, by Graham Farmelo
Image: English Electric Canberra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Electric_Canberra) bomber (English Electric Canberra TT18, UK) Churchill's Bomb, by Graham Farmelo (https://www.amazon.com/Graham-Farmelo/e/B001HMKBAO/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1) https://www.amazon.com/Churchills-Bomb-Graham-Farmelo/dp/0571249795/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Churchill's Bomb—from the author of the Costa award-winning biography The Strangest Man—reveals a new aspect of Winston Churchill's life, so far completely neglected by historians: his relations with his nuclear scientists, and his management of Britain's policy on atomic weapons. Churchill was the only prominent politician to foresee the nuclear age and he played a leading role in the development of the Bomb during World War II. He became the first British Prime Minister with access to these weapons, and left office following desperate attempts during the Cold War to end the arms race. Graham Farmelo traces the beginnings of Churchill's association with nuclear weapons to his unlikely friendship with H. G. Wells, who coined the term 'atomic bombs'. In the 1930s, when Ernest Rutherford and his brilliant followers, such as Chadwick and Cockcroft, gave Britain the lead in nuclear research, Churchill wrote several widely read newspaper articles on the huge implications of their work. In 1940, British physicists first showed that the Bomb was a practical possibility. But Churchill, closely advised by his favourite scientist, the controversial Frederick Lindemann, allowed leadership to pass to the US, where the Manhattan Project made the Bomb a terrible reality. British physicists played only a minor role in this vast enterprise, while Churchill ignored warnings from the scientist Niels Bohr that the Anglo-American policy would lead to a post-war arms race. After the war, the Americans reneged on personal agreements between Roosevelt and Churchill to share research. Clement Attlee, in a fateful decision, ordered the building of a British Bomb to maintain the country's place among the great powers. Churchill inherited it and ended his political career obsessed with the threat of thermonuclear war. Churchill's Bomb is an original and controversial book, full of political and scientific personalities and intrigues, which reveals a little-known side of Britain's great war-leader. . Permissions: | Photographer | Mike Freer - Touchdown-aviation | Location | Newquay - Cornwall / St. Mawgan (NQY / EGHQ / EGDG), UK - England | Aircraft type | English Electric Canberra TT18 | Operator | UK - Air Force | Registration (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Aircraft_by_registration) | WJ715 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WJ715_(aircraft)) | Type | Photograph | Date | 28 July 1981 | Source | • Gallery page http://www.airliners.net/photo/UK---Air/English-Electric-Canberra/2276146/L • Photo http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/6/4/1/2276146.jpg Licensing This file comes from the Mike Freer collection (http://www.touchdown-aviation.com/) and is copyrighted. Note: This permission only extends to photos taken by Mike Freer at this link (http://www.airliners.net/search?user=14976&sortBy=dateAccepted&sortOrder=desc&perPage=36&display=card) , in addition to files which may be provided via email. It does not include any other content from airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/) which has not been provided by Mike Freer, nor does it include any content from touchdown-aviation.com (http://www.touchdown-aviation.com/) . Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:GNU_Free_Documentation_License) , Version 1.2 only as published by the Free Software Foundation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Free_Software_Foundation) ; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:GNU_Free_Documentation_License,_version_1.2) . | | | This work is free (https://freedomdefined.org/Definition) and may be used by anyone for any purpose. If you wish to use this content (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia) , you do not need to request permission as long as you follow any licensing requirements mentioned on this page. Wikimedia Foundation has received an e-mail confirming that the copyright holder has approved publication under the terms mentioned on this page. This correspondence has been reviewed by an OTRS member (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:OTRS/Users) and stored in our permission archive (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS) . The correspondence is available to trusted volunteers as ticket #2011091810006389 (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketNumber=2011091810006389) .