Fissionline 63

FISSIONLINE June 2022

Issue 63

THERE IS A WAY OUT OF HELL, BORIS

I'D BIN UK MEDAL SAYS NUKE ICON

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FISSIONLINE Gong Gone Wrong Our front page picture shows the founder of Britain's nuclear test veterans' movement proudly displaying a medal presented to him by Australian servicemen. The honour was in recognition of the help he and other British nuclear veterans gave them in their successful fight for £20m compensation from the British Government.

Boris Johnson is now embroiled in an explosive new row over whether to award a medal to Britain's nuclear veterans. The beleagued PM is due to meet veteran's representatives on Wednesday (May 25) to discuss an award after previous applications were turned down. Veterans backed by the Labour Party want Boris to persuade Her Majesty (who is ultimately responsible for medallic awards) to change her mind. But many veterans, including Ken McGinley, are against accepting a medal, for reasons he explains opposite.

Docs in the Dock THE BANAL, backsides-covering machinations of the medical establishment in concealing the dreadful consequences of Britain's nuclear bomb test programme is chilling. As can be seen on pgs 4-7, when the full horror was exposed by the BBC in 1983, the medical profession and the nuclear industry closed ranks to thwart the ineviteable public fallout. Official papers show that doctors had compelling evidence that servicemen were dying of blood cancers almost certainly caused by the bomb tests. But they covered it up and raised no objections to a government-backed statistical study which, the papers show, they knew would be "a lemon" and prove nothing. That flawed study by the National Radiological Protection Board is now the cornerstone of the Government's defence against claims for compensation by Britain's nuclear veterans.

By Ken McGinley IN 1958 as a young soldier I witnessed five nuclear bomb tests on Christmas Island. I've now got stage four cancer of the lungs and kidney.

I'm dying.

But I don't blame those tests. How could I? I am 83 years old and have smoked all my life.

However, I do blame them for my not being able to father a child, and other health problems I have suffered since the tests.

And I also blame them for the early deaths from leukaemia, multiple myeloma and other illnesses so many of my compatriots died from.

There is no doubt in my mind that fallout caused these things, and I have been trying to prove this since May 1983 when I chaired the British Nuclear Tests Veterans' Association at its inaugural meeting in Birmingham.

Sitting alongside me was Professor Alice Stewart who first discovered the link between X-rays and foetal deformities in pregnant women, my vice chair Phil Munn, who sadly later died from leukeamia, and solicitor Mark Mildred.

The late journalist Sue Lloyd-Roberts, the first national reporter to take a real interest in the nuclear veterans, recorded the event for the BBC Nationwide programme.

Since then I have travelled the world to publicise the plight of the veterans and expose the UK government for its shameful record of lies, coverup and denial.

They have fought tooth and nail and spent untold millions of pounds in defending court actions, to prevent the truth of what happened at those bomb

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LABOUR'S PEURILE MEDAL CAMPAIGN IS NOT FOR ME tests from coming out.

The Government and its shadowy agents have maligned me, bugged my phone, infiltrated our association and threatened me in all manner of ways to shut me up.

But they have never succeeded. And as long as there is breath in my body I will continue to fight them until justice is done.

Does this make me a hero? Of course not. I never braved a hail of bullets, rescued a fallen comrade, stormed a fortress, or flew a Spitfire.

I did accept a medal from the Australian nuclear veterans back in the late 80s, but that was in recognition of my helping them obtain £20m compensation from the UK Government. I was proud to accept that because it came from my Aussie comrades.

As for accepting one from Boris and the UK Government, it's a big "no thanks" from me.

This is because it gives the government the opportunity to finally close the book on the nuclear veterans and consign us to the dustbin of history.

“You’ve got your medal, now go away,” would be the cry.

There will be some veterans who will be only too glad to do so, believing they have received the “recognition” they deserve.

Good luck to them, and if they get some satisfaction from a medal, I’m happy for them.

But it’s not me. I have always believed that nuclear veterans are unique and should be treated as a special case.

For, uniquely, we were deliberately exposed to radiation and as a result passed illnesses on to our children and grandchildren.

There is growing evidence of this truly dreadful Cold War genetic scourge, and the implications are so enormous that even discussing a medal seems puerile and unimportant

Yet the current campaign by Labour and its newspaper mouthpiece the Daily Mirror doesn’t even address this. It does not come with any demands for compensation or other financial benefits.

It does not come with demands for a full judicial enquiry into the bomb tests, as promised by Neil Kinnock, a previous Labour Leader, back in 1986.

A promise, incidentally, that was cynically reneged on by Tony Blair when Labour did come to power in 1987.

It does not come with demands that the descendants of nuclear veterans be properly medically examined and cared for, much like the Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb attacks of WW2.

Last, but not least, there is no demand that the Prime Minister stand up in Parliament and offer a full and heartfelt apology to the victims of this enduring and shameful episode in British history.

An award of a shiny bit of metal for the suffering of Britain’s nuclear veterans and their children would be an insult.

The current Labour and Mirror campaign is modelled on the long fight for justice by the victims of Hillsborough.

Can you imagine what would happen if the good people of Liverpool were offered a medal in compensation for the carnage that occurred on the terraces at Hillsborough?

I think there would be an explosion of anger louder than any nuclear bomb I have ever heard.

The current campaign is opportunistic and wrong.

It is based on spurious evidence, lies and a cynical desire to provide a quick-fix solution that would satisfy no-one...except of course those who wish to profit, politically or otherwise, from the abject suffering of our nuclear veterans.

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BOMBED AND CONNED Official papers show Britain's top doctors covered-up and colluded to hide the truth about blood cancers among servicemen who witnessed nuclear bomb tests.

By Alan Rimmer

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It was the spring of 1958 and there were disturbing reports emanating from Christmas Island about sicknesses among the 4,000-plus servicemen stationed there at the time. Relatives back in the UK were demanding information, while alarming stories began to appear in newspapers about fighting and even riots among the squaddies over appalling living conditions.

But what terrified the Top Brass and the politicians most was the steady trickle of reports about much more serious matters.

Like leukaemia. The very word was enough to instill panic in politicians and military commanders They knew the burgeoning CND movement would have a field day if word got out about excessive incidences of the disease. The subject had the power to halt Britain’s entire nuclear test programme...and that was something that could not be tolerated. So the government launched a cover-up.

A secret file was opened by the Medical Research Council to monitor reports of the deadly disease among servicemen. But as more and more cases were added to the list MRC members, comprising some of the most eminent doctors in the country, began to panic. Instructions were issued not to get involved.

The matter was so sensitive the file was closed after a few years and locked away for 50 years.

Fissionline which gained access to it

through a freedom of information request, discovered it was so toxic that a clumsy attempt had been made to obliterate the words ‘Christmas Island’ from the document, (see top of montage). The documents reveal how this prestigious body, set up supposedly to take care of the public health, set about ensuring the public was kept in the dark about blood cancer rates in people exposed to radiation on Christmas Island and other places.

The cover-up continued for more than 20 years until a landmark BBC Nationwide documentary exposed the sheer number of cancer cases among the servicemen who took part in the tests.

This signalled a second attempt by the authorities to hide the truth, more of which later.

But back to 1958 and the disturbing reports from Christmas Island. A memo, dated May 16, 1958 from Dr P.J. Chapman, the head of the MRC, refers to "case papers" of a young Royal Engineer who had developed acute lymphocytic leukaemia on return from duty on Christmas Island where H-bomb tests were being carried out. He revealed that both the War Office and the Ministry of Defence were involved in the case.

The soldier had apparently applied for a war pension but had been turned down. This was, according to Dr

Chapman, "from a political angle, somewhat precipitately."

He doesn't explain what he means by that, but the involvement of both the Ministry of Defence and the War office in the death of a single soldier is evidence just how rattled the Government was about this case.

The next case recorded by the MRC is even more intriguing. This record is handwritten and dated 7/X/58 and headed 'The late Lt Franklin RN.' "Efforts are being made to attribute the death of the above officer (from aplastic anaemia) to radiation received during his service (aboard HMS Warrior in 1957)..."

The note goes on to say that Lt Franklin's bones were being measured for Sr90 (Strontium 90), and that the "whole matter" was being discussed with Surgeon Commander Ellis."

Damningly the MRC then insists that they 'keep us out of this.' Later the same note says they should make it 'quite clear' they could 'not usefully contribute to the inquest.'

So, at least two cases of blood cancers in servicemen who witnessed bomb tests were being brushed under the carpet by the Government's own health watchdog, an extraordinary state of affairs that has never been explained. There were many more cases of blood cancers among nuclear servicemen as evidenced in Hansard and other publications, but lack of publicity meant many went unremarked. But servicemen weren't the only ones suffering from Britain's (Continued overleaf)

6 (Cont from pg 3) push for the bomb. Workers at nuclear power stations, particularly Sellafield where plutonium production to fuel Britain's atomic arsenal was working to capacity, started to contract blood cancers

and other illnesses which they blamed on radiation. The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which ran the power stations was clearly well up to speed about how to cope with claims and was willing to share tactics with the Medical Research Council.

A confidential letter dated Feb 14, 1962 from the UKAEA's health and safety branch to MRC Director Dr P.J. Chapman declares the authority had decided to settle a claim by one of its workers who suffered from leukaemia and cataracts, both asociated with radiation exposure.

The letter explains that an announcement was due to be made and that there would be "considerable" press interest and that this could lead to some journalists asking questions of the

MRC. The official adds helpfully: "I thought that I should let you know of this possibility (and) I shall be glad to discuss any aspects of the case with you."

This is a classic example of how the Establishment joins forces to present a united front in the face of controversial incidents. And Dr Phillips is duly grateful for the "heads-up". He wrote back: "It is very thoughtful of you to tell us...and we would of course very much appreciate it if you could let us have a copy of the briefing material..." The papers record that Mr Clarke was duly awarded £4,000 in compensation, even though the UKAEA did not accept laiability for his injuries.

With such cosy arrangements the Establishment managed to stave off many, many claims by servicemen and power station workers throughtout the 60s and 70s.

Even Prime Minister Harold Wilson couldn't break down the Establishment stranglehold when, in 1965, he acted on behalf of the widow of a

nuclear serviceman who died of leukaemia.

Private letters reveal that even though he was convinced there was "more to your husband's death" than stated, he was unable to take matters any further.

The damn finally burst in the Spring of 1983 and the broadcast of a BBC Nationwide programme about the bomb tests. The programme reported hundreds of cases of cancers among A-bomb test participants.

A study undertaken by Profesor Alice Stewart of Birmingham University concluded that rates of blood cancers among the servicemen was way above the national average. The resultant publicity brought many more servicemen forward to tell their stories. These included the pilots of the aircraft that flew through the mushroom clouds over Christmas Island, senior officers from the army ranges at Maralinga in Australia, and Royal Navy officers who were ordered to sail their ships through the fallout zones.

The evidence seemed overwhelming and the Govertnment was forced to act.

It ordered an inquiry.

Ripples of panic spread through the scientific and medical community triggering another cover-up as the enormity of the task became clear.

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Officials calculated that at least 15-20 per cent of the records could never be accounted for, making it extremely unlikely that the study would be successful.

One senior doctor with the MRC stated they shouldn't get involved because the "results were bound to be a lemon."

Another insisted they "should not get involved." Nevertheless a senior medic was sent to the meeting and his conclusions are set out in a paper written by the MRC Director Dr Diana Dunstan which revealed "serious misgivings" about the National Radiological Protection Board which was eventually asked to carry out the study.

She revealed that a Mr Murray Roberts, a medical officer from AWRE Aldermaston, where Britain's nuclear bombs were made,was reluctant to get involved because only 12,000 test participants (out of 22,000 known to be involved) could be traced.

This meant it would be "imposible to obtain a statistically significant result."

Dr Dunstan adds that there would be "a public outcry" when it was learned the NRPB had 'won' the contract because it was seen as an 'arm of government' and its scientific record was "poor." Dr Dunstan conclusion is damning: "This is a study with only a small chance of achieving a significant result."

With such forebodings it is no surprise to learn from the papers that the MRC soon distanced itself from all future involvement in the study.

Even when powerful new evidence about chromosome damage to nuclear veterans was presented, they chose to ignore it

Letters from specialist cancer doctors in Edinburgh had some surprising results from blood tests carried out on Christmas Island servicemen.

A letter from Professor John Evans concerns a number of GPs who had requested blood analysis of their patients.

Dr Evans writes: "We had thought it highly unlikely that we would find chromosome abnormalities, but it turns out that one of these patients in fact has quite a high

degree of chromosome damage present in his blood cells.

He adds: "I do not wish these letters to be passed to the physicians concerned...you will see that one patient has not an inconsiderable anount of chromosome damage present in his blood cells which would not be inconsistent with having received radiation exposure 20 or more years ago."

With such damning evidence in its possession it seems almost criminally negligent that the MRC chose to keep it secret. If this information had been released at the time the course of events might have been very different. The

pressure for a full medical and judicial enquiry wouild have beern unstoppable.

Instead the government was allowed to get away with a study by the NRPB, its bought and paid for nuclear lapdog, which everyone agreed was sertiously flawed.

Dr Keith Baverstock was a member the Medical Research Council’s Radiobiology Unit at Harwell and was present at the high-level Ministry of Defence meeting in 1983.

He said this week: "It was a very high-powered meeting with lots of important people, military men, things like that. It soon became clear that the NRPB were pushing very hard for the job.

I was always suspicious of the NRPB ...there was one member of the NRPB, a neighbour of mine in Wantage who used to wortk for the NRPB. When I went to work for the MRC I used to talk to her socially and she said “well you know the NRPB’s job is to convince people that radiation isn’t as bad for them as they think it is...” I said I can’t agree with you because I think radiation is quite dangerous. But that was the attitude. So I never trusted them."

Dr Bavistock, who led the Radiation Protection Programme at the World Health Organisation’s Office for Europe has no doubts there has been a cover-up of the whole testing programme.

He added: "For the military and the Government to suggest that you could be close to nuclear bomb tests and not be irradiated is just nonsense. It was clear to everyone at that meeting that the NRPB was not up to the job of investigting what happened, but it suited the Government's purpose to let them get on with it."

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Britain's forgotten army of Cold War warriors could pave Boris's road to redemption

By Alan Rimmer Boris Johnson has been in hell.

Publicly pilloried and flogged within an inch of his life over Partygate, he must have feel even the bomb blasted streets of Mariupole a preferable place to be. But if he survives the political storms that surround hikm, there could be a way out of hell. Boris should sieze an unlikely opportunity that has come his way in the form of Britain's nuclear veterans.

Tomorrow (May 25) he will be asked to grant some form of medallic recognition for the 22,000

servicemen who took part in the nuclear weapons tests programme of the 1950s and early sixties.

This will be regarded as a huge success by campaigners, even though most nuclear veterans, especially the sick and infirm, have never professed any particular desire for a medal.

What they have always been most

concerned about was procuring compensation and pensions so their loved ones could be taken care of after they died.

That aside, a medal is a medal and soldiers love a medal. The big question now is what sort of medal will it be? And what will it be for?

Nuclear veterans have never regarded themselves as “heroes” in the accepted sense.

They never took part in battles; great conflicts passed them by. They didn’t engage in hand to hand combat, or storm impregnable fortresses.

Instead they were dispatched to far off deserts and rugged Pacific atolls, where they fought a new enemy, an unseen enemy, an enemy they couldn’t fight or kill. This was an enemy more

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deadly than any soldier had ever encountered: Radiation.

By doing so they did their duty as bravely as any man or Jack who sailed with Nelson or flew against the Luftwaffe.

For their pains they were given a ringside seat to Armageddon..a glimpse of doom that few human beings on the planet have witnessed.

Ever since the deadly effects of radioactive fallout has scythed through their ranks like a plague causing early deaths, cancers and other terrible diseases.

Shamefully, successive British governments have turned a blind eye to their plight mainly because to acknowledge it would be like setting a time bomb under the whole nuclear industry, which Boris has recently pledged to upgrade.

But this nettle must be firmly grasped, and Boris just might be the man to do it.

The first step should be for him to stand up in Parliament and make a heartfelt apology to the servicemen for deliberately putting them in the path of the most destructive force ever devised by man.

He should then without delay put in place a system of

compensation, cash payments and pensions, to the handful of surviving veterans and their widows. Most have not long left to live.

But what would really set him on the road to redemption, would be to address the plight of the most inncocent victims of all: the

children and grandchildren of the nuclear servicemen.

Very real evidence exists that legions of them have suffered dreadful illnesses, leukaemias, spina bifida, bone cancers, skin diseases, blindness, deformity and early death.

Scientists will say it is impossible to prove that radiation wreaked this carnage. But the science tells us that radiation, even at very low levels, damages DNA. We have known this since the 1920s.

Experiments prove that these damaged genes can be passed on to the offspring with "deliterious" consequences.

Boris has got the power to do

what is necessary. And that is to set our marvellous scientists and medics to work, the sort of men and women he harnessed to create our world-beating vaccine program.

Task them to use their skills to find out the extent of the damage to the children of nuclear veterans.

Give those children the status of the Japanese Hibakusha, the survivors of Hisroshima and Nagasaki, who are looked after, given financial support and cared for by a society who understand they are victims of man's tinkering with the elemental forces that drive the universe.

Until the problem of Britain's nuclear veterans is resolved, Britain can never move forward with ambitious plans to unleash the power of the atom to solve the energy crisis. Opposition to new nuclear power stations will continue to grow unless the public is reassured that it is safe to do so.

And they will never have that until the desperate plight of Britain's nuclear veterans is addressed. If Boris can do that he will indeed put his stamp on history and prove to be the world statesman he yearns to be.

This is what would happen if Putin was Vlad enough to launch a one megaton H-bomb over London Suppose a mile above StPaul’s cathedral on a clear morning a single one megaton weapon explodes. Most of us live in cities. Would we survive? At the instant of detonation the temperature of a nuclear fireball is 20 million degrees, as hot as the centre of the sun.

This will cause a pulse of intense heat and light across large areas of central London. People and objects in central London burst into flames melt or char.

At St Pauls itself, directly under the fireball, ground zero, the heat is intense enough to liquefy the great bronze

cross. It vaporises the liquid metal as it runs down the dome. It melts the

are burning. In St James park the same burst is hot enough to ignite trees and scorch away grass. In shallower parts of the lake, the water boils leaving the lake bed dry and steaming.

The temperature is around 4,000 degrees. In precise terms the heat energy at this distance is 350 calories per square centimetre. That is enough to vapourise the road surface, melt parts of statues and set fire to everything combustible.

Around Battersea Power Station and Battersea Dogs home in South stained London the heat from glass windows and the fireball will ignite ignites objects inside the the upholstery and cathedral. Across rubber tyres of cars and Trafalgar Square the their petrol tanks, and National Gallery, at the melt the sheet metal of same instant paintings buses.

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In the first seconds of a nuclear explosion many vehicles will catch fire in streets exposed to the flash. In the same streets window frames and doors will char or burn.

This will happen as far as Camberwell. The heat rays like light travel in straight lines., Any ordinary street window will admit the heat waves into the house.

At a radius of about four miles they will pass through the glass and ignite anything flammable they touch.

Within a seven mile radius of the fireball human flesh will melt and burn, tissues will be charred to black carbon.

At four miles the temperature is around 1800 degrees. At Wimbledon Tyler grass will be scorched and wood would be charred.

Third degree burns would be caused to any humans exposed.

Injuries would require extensive skin grafts.

Further out still at Kew Gardens, over 8 and a half miles from St Pauls the initial burst of heat here will melt a raincoat. Severe secondary degree burns would occur together

with blistering of the skin.

Even at 11 miles out at Twickernham rugby ground the flash will permanently damage the eyesight of anyone looking directly at the fireball.

At Hampton Court Palace 12 and a half miles out tourists would feel effects like severe sunburn. All these effects happen in the first three seconds of the 1 megaton explosion.

At least 650,000 people would have suffered major burns from the fireball in these three seconds.

But worse is to follow.Three seconds after this a mile above the cathedral a blast wave erupts: it would be as if St Pauls were smashed by a giant million ton fist. At enormous pressures and with winds of up to 2,000 miles an hour the blast wave spreads outwards following the light wave as thunder follows lightning.

Within 20 seconds the destruction as far as Bayswater is virtually total.

Within this area many reinforced concrete buildings are levelled.

Factories and commercial buildings collapse. High rise tower blocks explode and fall smashed to smithereens.Water and gas mains are burst.Houses explode and collapse over an area of more than 50 square miles.

People exposed in the open would be carried by winds of more than 150 miles an hour and smashed against buildings and walls. The pressure wave would collapse lungs and rupture eardrums.

However the most widespread injuries are from flying glass As the pressure wave spreads out from St Pauls it shatters and bursts every window in the city from the M4 services at Heathrow to Hornchurch in Essex, an area of 500 square miles.

More than three quarters off a million people would be killed instantly and another one million and a quarter would be seriously injured. The immediate effects of even a single weapon are awesome. Russia has 6,257 nuclear warheads at its disposal.

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WINSTON CHURCHILL WANTED TO A-BOMB 30 RUSSIAN CITIES WINSTON Churchill always distrusted Russia and favoured dropping Abombs on the country as early as 1949.

A recently released 1951 document shows that he still wanted his war strategy to involve using nuclear strikes to bomb Russia and China into

submission, even though he was in Opposition at the time and Britain still hadn't developed its own A-Bomb.

According to the document he wanted to give give Russia an “ultimatum” and if they refused, he would threaten 20 to 30 cities with atom bombs.

He discussed plans to bomb “one of the targets, and if necessary, additional ones”. Churchill hoped that by the third attack the Kremlin would eventually meet their terms.

The astonishing plans came to light in a memorandum written by the New York Times general manager Julius Ochs.

In it, he describes a conversation the pair had during a drinkfuelled lunch at Churchill’s

home in Kent on Sunday, April 29, 1951.

Mrs Ochs, then 76, said he was given Pol Roger champagne in a glass “of unusual shape and size” which he said “held at least twice as much as those in front of the other places”.

He then said Churchill described the UK-US joint policy on Russia as being “weak, rather than aggressive”.

Mr Adler, a former US army officer, wrote: “Somewhat abruptly, he asked me the

official figure of our atom bomb stockpile and our estimate of Russia’s available supply.“I replied that happily I was not in the inner circles of the government and therefore was not burdened with that awesome secret.“He then startled us a second time by stating that if he were prime minister and could secure the agreement of our government, he would lay down certain conditions to Russia in the form of an ultimatum.

“Upon their refusal, the Kremlin should be informed that unless they reconsidered, we would

atom bomb one of 20 or 30 cities.

“Simultaneously we should warn them it was imperative that the civilian population of each city named be immediately evacuated.

“He believed they would again refuse to consider our terms.

Then we should bomb one of the targets, and if necessary, additional ones.

“Such panic would ensue (certainly by the third attack) not only among the Russian people but within the Kremlin, that our terms would be met.”

A shocked Mr Adler said he told Churchill he did not feel the American people would “ever consent to such a form of preventative war and would only use our atom bombs in retaliation”.

He also added that the UK and US had “many partners to consider who might be averse to such a policy”.

Richard Toye, head of history of the University of Exeter, found the note in papers belonging to the New York Times Company.

He said Churchill recommended a threat like this in 1949 when the Soviet Union did not have nuclear weapons. However, he added that it was a revelation he was still contemplating a similar threat two years later.

He told The Times: “One can question his judgment at this point.”

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HOW THE ATOMIC BOMB DID FOR THE BLONDE BOMBSHELL A new documentary,The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe, makes the sensational claim that the famous sex-bomb killed herself after boasting about her opposition to Abomb testing.

Focussing on recorded interviews with those who knew her, the Netflix production reveals Marylin discussed the morality of atomic testing .

An unnamed informant is quoted in an FBI document in March 1962 that duriung a trip to Mexico Marilyn spent time with friends, known American communists and left wingers.

They'd been kicked out of America. One of them Fred Vanderbilt Field spoke of a talk she'd had with Kennedy about politics. She mingled with communist American ex-pats, and FBI agents had been watching.

To the intelligence agencies

Marylin was the Kennedys celebrity plaything, a volatile creature running to her psychiatrist, chattering on the telephone to all and sundry. In their opinion she was absolutely the wrong woman to be on intimate terms with the president and his attorney general brother, Bobby.

The famous happy Birthday song at Madison Square Garden, had made Marylin very esxcited, and she said so on the tapes. This was just a month before she died on August 4, 1962. Two documents that make extraordinary reading included one dated July 13th 1962 from an unnamed informant. This quoted Marylin saying that just days earlier she had lunched with President Kennedy at Peter Lawford's house on Malibu beach.

They had, she said, discussed the morality of atomic testing and Marylin was described as "positively, completely and concisely leftist."

The other document said that

Marylin had spent time with Robert Kennedy at the home of Peter Lawford in Hollywood.

He had been in California, had seen her there and then headed to Nevada to witness a nuclear weapons test.

At that very time Cuba's Fidel Castro was making urgent appeals to the Soviet Union to ship ballistic missiles to Cuba, just dozens of miles from Florida.

Nuclear matters was the dominating international issue and for Marylin to be in touch with people who were regarded as communists, all of whom were talking to Fidel Castro's people, made the political risk extreme.

According to the documentary, this was very possibly the thing to which the Kennedys said "S***! She can make public that we have been discussing nuclear matters at this critical time. We've got to stop all this."

The Kennedys told her directly never to call them again. She was told not to talk to any of them anymore. They both said that's it, no more. John didn't contact her. That was left to Bob. Marylin's friends believe that is what killed her at the end of the day. She started mixing drink and drugs. She was really on a downward path that led to her death.

14

From the Bunker Ceri Gold Ceri McDade the Chair of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association wowed BBC audience earlier this month when she appeared with Naga Munchetty. Her calm demeanour and grasp of the facts as she fought the nuke vets corner was impressive and earned her a second billing with Naga on Radio Five. Unfortunately her appearance has brought the trolls that infest social media these days out in force. These keyboard onanists seem intent of bringing her down with all manner of snide remarks and comments. She must be doing something right.

Founding Trolls Question: How many people does it take to found the British Nuclear Tests Veterans' Association? The answer, according to letters and communications, is about two dozen.

Which is something of a puzzle to Ken McGinley, the REAL founder of the movement, who has actual documentary proof and photographs to back him up. Ken says: every now and then someone crawls out of the

woodwork claiming to have started the whole thing off. I've never heard of most of them, but if any of them have any evidence I'd be glad to see it. I'm not holding my breath, though.

Study was a stitch-up If the government in 1983 were really commited to carrying out an unimpeachable and independent study into the health effects of the bomb tests, its choice of the National Radiological Protection Board was weird in the extreme. Instead of putting the contract out to tender as was usually the case, it arbitrarily chose a body with close links to the nuclear industry whose findings could, the evidence suggested, do irreparable damage to that industry The NRPB was set up in 1970 to act as a watchdog on the nuclear industry. Most of its staff had worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, the body that oversees the development of atomic energy, and their offices were both based at Harwell.

The NRPB Director, John Dunster, worked for the Ministry of Supply nuclear plants at Harwell and Windscale and later held serious positions at the UKAEA. Could he and the rest of his staff really be relied upon to carry out an independent study into a problem that could close their industry overnight? Of course not. The whole exercise was a stitch-up from the start and has been unravelling ever since. Yet the Ministry of Defence and the Government continue to trot out the dodgy findings of this dodgy study to justify its refusal to compensate Britain's nuclear veterans.

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