The Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College London is holding a nuclear history conference online in July 2020. Academics, veterans of Britain’s nuclear programmes and other researchers from around the world will come together for informal discussions of nuclear history.
Robin Woolven and Ollie Barton will talk about two fascinating and contrasting episodes in British cold war history: the Christmas Island nuclear tests of the 1950s and the Euromissiles crisis of the 1980s.
Robin is an RAF veteran who served on Christmas Island, and his talk will focus on the Grapple-X test of November 1957, combining personal recollections with the results of later research.
Ollie is a PhD student at the London School of Economics, where he is working on the Thatcher government’s implementation of NATO’s 1979 “dual-track” decision to deploy cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe while pursuing parallel arms control in theatre nuclear forces. He will talk about the deployment of cruise missiles to Greenham Common.
Photo caption: Construction work for the nuclear tests at Christmas Island (photo: IWM/crown copyright expired).
