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War and Peace in the Nuclear Age (1986-10-27)
About this film
Sir Richard Powell was permanent secretary at the British Ministry of Defense from 1956 to 1959. In the interview he conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: "The Education of Robert McNamara," Powell recalls British officials' shock that, although their scientists had originated work on the atom bomb, the McMahon Act of 1946 barred British access to U.S. nuclear information. He asserts that Britain's own bomb project flowed easily from its self-image as a world power and from its fear that the United States might again become isolationist. Only after the 1948 Berlin blockade, Powell explains, did European defense become a more prominent national issue. Subsequently, Britain's chiefs of staff produced a paper on global strategy, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed, and a protracted debate took place over the rearmament of Germany and whether a European mutual-defense community could be established under supernational command. As Powell recalls, relatively little concern was paid to the massive deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on German soil. Powell describes the background and contents of and the reaction to the landmark 1957 white paper "Defense: Outl…
Directors & creators
WGBH
Subjects
public broadcasting, AAPB, Richard Powell, Robert McNamara, British Ministry of Defense, McMahon Act of 1946, Berlin blockade, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, Defense: Outline of Future Policy, nuclear weapons, cold war, nuclear proliferation, rearmament of Germany, British defense policy
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