Item NUCLEAR AGE 10/11 - Interview with former civil servant Sir Richard Powell, [1989]

Typescript transcript of interview with Sir Richard (Royle) Powell, Deputy Secretary and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, 1950-1959, and Permanent Secretary, Board of Trade, 1960-1968, relating to the impact of the US Atomic Energy Act (the MacMahon Act), ending nuclear co-operation between the USA and the UK, 1946; the development of the British atomic bomb, 1946-1952; the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Lisbon Conference, Portugal, 1952; the detonation of the first British nuclear weapon, Operation HURRICANE, Trimouille Island, Monte Bello Islands, Western Australia, Oct 1952; detonation of the first US hydrogen bomb, Operation IVY, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, Nov 1952; the reality of the perceived Soviet threat to western Europe, [1955-1965]; the detonation of the first British thermonuclear weapon, Operation GRAPPLE, Malden Island, Line Islands, Pacific Ocean, May 1957; the launch of the Soviet Sputnik I and Sputnik II Earth orbiting satellites, Oct and Nov 1957; the Defence White Paper, 1957; the appointment of Gen Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle as President of France, 1958; the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), 1958-1963; the Nassau Agreement between US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Prime Minister Rt Hon (Maurice) Harold Macmillan, on the adoption by the UK of the US Lockheed UGM-27 Polaris A1 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) as the UK independent nuclear deterrent, Nassau, New Providence Islands, the Bahamas, Caribbean, Dec 1962.