‘No protection against the H-bomb’: press and popular reactions to the Coventry civil defence controversy, 1954

Abstract

This article examines British popular and media reactions to America's Bravo test shot in April 1954 and Coventry City Council's subsequent decision to abandon civil defence. The article finds that three key motifs emerged which relate to Britain's broader sense of national identity in the 1950s. First, the controversy formed part of a cultural battle for national identity between a conservative and potentially militaristic culture, and one which was more progressive and opposed war and nuclear armaments. Second, opponents labelled the councillors as Moscow stooges and this revealed underlying anti-communism. Third, reactions engaged with a secular strain of Cold War apocalypticism.

Notes

¹ Janet Morgan (ed.) The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (London: Jonathan Cape, 1981) 303.

²Daily Herald, 25 March 1954, 1.

³ On worldwide media coverage see [Brisbane] Courier-Mail, 8 April 1954, 4; Los Angeles Times 8 April 1954, 8.

⁴Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 418, 16 Aug 1945, 78–81.

⁵ John Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy 1954–65, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 34–7.

⁶ Ibid., 85–6.

⁷ Matthew Grant, After The Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain 1945–68, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 43–5.

⁸ Kate Hudson, CND: Now More Than Ever (London, Vision: 2005), 38.

⁹ Richard Taylor, Against the Bomb: The British Peace Movement 1958–65, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 6; Dianne Kirby, “Responses Within the Anglican Church to Nuclear Weapons 1945–1961”, Journal of Church and State, 37 (1995): 614.

¹⁰ Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (London: Penguin, 2004), 50–2.

¹¹ Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940–2000 (London: Macmillan, 2002) 15–6; Bennedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 2006); Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin, 1991), 71–8.

¹² Jeff Hughes, “What is British Nuclear Culture?”, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45 (2012): 495–518; Jonathan Hogg, “‘The Family that Feared Tomorrow’: British Nuclear Culture and Individual Experience in the Late 1950s”, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45 (2012): 535–549; Jodi Burkett, “Re-defining British morality: “Britishness” and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 1958–68”, Twentieth Century British History, 21 (2010): 184–205; Cristoph Laucht, Elemental Germans: Klaus Fuchs, Rudolf Peirerls and the Making of British Nuclear Culture 1939–59 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012).

¹³ Hugh Berrington, “British Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons”, in Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons, ed. Catherine Marsh and Colin Fraser (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989) 22; Gerard De Groot, The Bomb: A Life (London: Harvard University Press, 2004), 232.

¹⁴ David Kynaston, Family Britain 1951–57 (London: Bloomsbury, 2009), 471–2; Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had it So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to The Beatles (London: Abacus, 2005), 259.

¹⁵ Mathew Grant, “Civil Defence and the Nuclear Deterrent 1954–1968: Strategic Imperative and Political Expediency”, in The British Way in Cold Warfare: Intelligence Diplomacy and the Bomb 1945–75 (London: Continuum, 2009), 53.

¹⁶ W. Scott Lucas, “Beyond Freedom, Beyond Control: Approaches to Culture and the State-Private Network in the Cold War”, in The Cultural Cold War In Western Europe 1945–60, ed. Giles Scott-Smith and Hans Krabbendam (London: Frank Cass, 2003), 40–57.

¹⁷ Grant, After the Bomb, 4, 30–2.

¹⁸ Brian Harrison, Seeking A Role: The United Kingdom 1951–1970 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 98.

¹⁹ See Daily Mail 7 April 1954, 1.

²⁰Manchester Guardian, 17 March 1954, 1; Daily Express, 17 March 1954, 1; Daily Mail, 17 March 1954, 3; Daily Mail 23 March 1954, 1; Manchester Guardian 24 March 1954, 6.

²¹ George Orwell, “You and the Atomic Bomb”, Tribune, 19 Oct. 1945; John Hersey, Hiroshima (London: Penguin, 1946).

²²Daily Express, 30 March 1954, 4; 31 March 1954, 4; 1 April 1954, 4.

²³Daily Express, 31 March 1954, 4.

²⁴Daily Mirror, 2 April 1954, 16.

²⁵ Adrian Bingham, “‘The Monster’? The British Popular Press and Nuclear Culture 1945-early 1960s”, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45 (2012): 617–618.

²⁶Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 526, 5 Apr 1954, 36–43.

²⁷ Morgan, Crossman 305–7.

²⁸Parliamentary Debates (Commons) 525, 30 March 1954, 1840–1842; Daily Express, 31 March 1954, 1.

²⁹Manchester Guardian, 17 April 1954, 4.

³⁰ Weight, Patriots, 223.

³¹ John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids (London: Michael Joseph, 1951); John & Ray Boulting (dirs.), Seven Days to Noon (Charter Film: 1951)

³²Daily Mail, 26 March 1954, 1.

³³Daily Mail, 31 March 1954, 4.

³⁴Daily Mail, 2 April 1954, 1.

³⁵Daily Mail, 25 March 1954, 4.

³⁶Daily Mail, 29 March 1954, 4.

³⁷News Chronicle, 1 April 1954, 4.

³⁸Panorama, BBC Broadcast, 13 April 1954; “Man's Peril”, BBC Home Service, 23 Dec 1954. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, “A Statement on Nuclear Weapons”, 9 July 1955.

³⁹ Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad's Army (Manchester, Manchester University Press: 1997), 4, 15, 16.

⁴⁰ Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 259.

⁴¹ George H. Gallup, ed., The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937–75, Volume One 1937–1965 (New York: Random House, 1975), 320.

⁴² Berrington, “British Public Opinion”, 28–34.

⁴³Daily Mirror, 3 April 1954, 2.

⁴⁴Daily Herald, 13 April 1954, 4.

⁴⁵ Bingham, “The Monster”, 623.

⁴⁶ Hogg, “The Family that Feared Tomorrow”, 547–8.

⁴⁷ Nick Tiratsoo, Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics: Coventry 1945–60 (London: Routledge, 1990) 92.

⁴⁸ Matthew Grant, After The Bomb, 33–4.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 74.

⁵⁰Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 April 1954, 1.

⁵¹ Grant, After The Bomb, 44–64.

⁵² Angus Calder, The Myth of The Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1991), 249–50.

⁵³Daily Mail, 8 April 1954, 1.

⁵⁴Daily Mail 8 April 1954, 5.

⁵⁵ Grant, After The Bomb 77.

⁵⁶ The National Archives (TNA) CAB 128/27,C (54) 229 “Civil Defence” 15 April 1954.

⁵⁷News Chronicle, 10 April 1954, 4.

⁵⁸ TNA/CAB 129/72, C (54) 389 “Fall Out.” MOD, 9 Dec. 1954, cited in Geoff Hughes, “The Strath Report: Britain Confronts The H-Bomb, 1954–1955”, History and Technology, 19 (2003): 262.

⁵⁹News Chronicle, 8 April 1954, 2.

⁶⁰ Matthew Grant, “‘Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure’: Citizenship, Participation, and Cultural Change in Cold War Recruitment Propaganda 1949–54”, Twentieth Century British History, 22 (2011): 52–78.

⁶¹Daily Mirror, 8 April 1954, 2, 4.

⁶² Bingham, “The Monster”, 614–616.

⁶³Daily Herald, 8 April 1954, 4.

⁶⁴ Weight, Patriots, 57.

⁶⁵Daily Herald, 29 May 1954, 4.

⁶⁶ Modern Record Centre, University of Warwick (MRC), MSS.24/3/1/4, Arthur Edmonds to Mayor of Coventry, 7 April 1954.

⁶⁷ MRC MSS.24/3/1/13, John Becker, Bernie and Guy Yates to Sydney Stringer, 8 April 1954.

⁶⁸ “European Prize”, Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, 14 Oct 1955, Doc 420.

⁶⁹ MRC MSS.24/3/1/14, Anon. to the Town Mayor of Coventry, 8 April 1954.

⁷⁰Coventry Evening Telegraph, 5 April 1954, 5.

⁷¹ Jeanne Kaczka-Valliere & Andrew Rigby, “Coventry – Memorializing Peace and Reconciliation”, Peace and Change, 33 (2008), 585.

⁷² Kirby, “Church and Nuclear Weapons”; Lawrence Wittner, The Struggle Against the Bomb: Volume Two, Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954–1970 (Stanford, Stanford University Press: 1997), 15.

⁷³ MRC MSS.24/3/1/16, Rev. J.J. Ambrose to the Chairman, Coventry City Council, 8 April 1954.

⁷⁴ For example, MRC MSS.24/3/1/71, Florence Howarth, Bury Fellowship of Reconciliation to Stringer, 14 April 1954; MSS.24/3/1/6, Rev. Donald W. Pipe to Stringer, 5 April 1954; MSS.24/3/1/95, E. L. Jenkinson, Southend Group, Peace Pledge Union to Stringer 6 May 1954,

⁷⁵ Lawrence Wittner, One World or None: The Struggle Against the Bomb, vol. 1 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993) 86, 327–8.

⁷⁶Peace News, 28 May 1954, 4.

⁷⁷Peace News 23 April 1954, 1.

⁷⁸Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 April 1954, 1.

⁷⁹Coventry Evening Telegraph, 7 April 1954, 1.

⁸⁰Coventry Evening Telegraph, 7 April 1954, 10.

⁸¹ Peter Mandler, The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (London: Yale University Press, 2006), 196–204.

⁸²Coventry Evening Telegraph, 8 April 1954, 12.

⁸³Coventry Evening Telegraph, 8 April 1954, 12.

⁸⁴ Nick Tiratsoo, Coventry 1945–60, 93.

⁸⁵Coventry Evening Telegraph, 10 April 1954, 8.

⁸⁶ John Betjeman “Coming Home”, BBC Home Service, 25 Feb. 1943.

⁸⁷ MRC MSS.24/3/1/23, W.A. Scott to Lord Mayor Cresswell, 9 April 1954.

⁸⁸The Battle of Britain, dir. Frank Capra, (Office of War Information, 1943); Calder, Blitz, 244–250.

⁸⁹ Weight, Patriots, 196–7.

⁹⁰ MRC MSS.24/3/1/94, M. Baynham, Coventry British Soviet Friendship Society, to Stringer, 15 April 1954.

⁹¹ Grant, “Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure”, 65.

⁹² Gallup, Opinion Polls, 324.

⁹³Coventry Evening Telegraph, 28 May 1954, 1.

⁹⁴ See MRC MSS.24/3/1/113 Ursula M. Massey to Stringer 31 May 1954; MSS.24/3/1/165/1–2 Coventry Trades Council to Stringer 4 June 1954; MSS.24/3/1/114 Wallasey Fighters for Peace and Proletarianism to Stringer, undated.

⁹⁵ MRC MSS.24/3/1/116 A.J. Keen to Stringer, 31 May 1954.

⁹⁶News Chronicle, 31 May 1954, 4.

⁹⁷Daily Herald, 9 June 1954, 4; 10 June 1954, 4; 11 June 1954, 4.

⁹⁸Daily Herald, 14 June 1954, 4.

⁹⁹ Grant, “Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure”, 63.

¹⁰⁰Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 529, 5 July 1954, 1832–1865.

¹⁰¹Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 528, 3 June 1954, 1457–62.

¹⁰² “Civil Defence and The H-Bomb”, Peace News, 11 June 1954.

¹⁰³Peace News, 7 May 1954, 1.

¹⁰⁴Daily Mirror, 1 June 1954, 4.

¹⁰⁵ Bingham, “The Monster”, 623.

¹⁰⁶ See Daily Mirror, 2 March 1954, 14; Daily Express 16 March 1954, 7; Grant, “Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure”.

¹⁰⁷ Tiratsoo, Coventry 1945–60, 48.

¹⁰⁸Coventry Evening Telegraph, 31 May 1954, 6.

¹⁰⁹Daily Herald, 31 May 1954, 1.

¹¹⁰ Sonya O. Rose, Which People's War: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 20.

¹¹¹ Grant, “Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure”.

¹¹²Coventry Evening Telegraph, 1 June 1954, 5.

¹¹³ See Paul Winterton, Inquest on an Ally (London: Crescent Press, 1948); Tony Shaw “British Popular Press and the Early Cold War” History 83 (1998): 65–85.

¹¹⁴ Stephen King-Hall, The Communist Conspiracy (London: Constable, 1953), xii.

¹¹⁵Coventry Evening Telegraph, 3 June 1954, 2.

¹¹⁶News Chronicle, 31 May 1954, 1.

¹¹⁷ MRC MSS.24/3/2/17, Anon. to “Yellow Belly” Undated.

¹¹⁸Coventry Evening Telegraph, 27 Oct. 1954, 13.

¹¹⁹Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 529, 5 July 1954, 1858–1859; Kaczka-Valliere and Rigby, “Coventry”, 582–583.

¹²⁰ Tiratsoo, Coventry 1945–60, 93.

¹²¹ Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Journalists and the Public: Newsroom Culture, Letters to the Editor and Democracy (Cresskill: Hampton Press, 2007), 65.

¹²²Coventry Evening Telegraph, 3 June 1954, 12.

¹²³ Wahl-Jorgenson, Newsroom Culture, 47–48.

¹²⁴ MRC MSS.24/3/1/155 Mrs Sybil Mathews to the Chairman, Civil Defence Committee, Coventry, 1 June 1954.

¹²⁵ Gallup, Opinion Polls, 325.

¹²⁶ See TNA HO 322/136 “Civil Defence: City of Coventry” Order by the Home Secretary, 24 July 1954.

¹²⁷ TNA CAB 134/940 HDC (55) 3 “The Defence implications of Fall-Out from a Hydrogen Bomb. Report by a Group of Officials”, 8 March 1955.