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FISSIONLINE Fissionline 62

Fissionline 62

International Bulletin of Atomic Veterans

November 2021

The Spy Who Came Into The Bedroom How Knighted ex-spy secretly joined Britain’s Nuclear Test Veterans with a mission to destroy it fissionline@gmail.com

FISSIONLINE SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

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November 2021

Ex-SOE Agent went undercover to plot their downfall By Alan Rimmer

former senior British intelligence officer, explosives expert, Fellow of the Royal Society and government adviser, infiltrated the British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association posing as a scientist with a grudge, we can reveal. Sir Ernest Gordon Cox KBE, FRS, an exLieutenant Colonel in Winston Churchill’s WW2 private army of saboteurs and assassins, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), said he was a former assistant trials officer with the Atomic We a p o n s R e s e a r c h Establishment at Aldermaston, when he joined the organisation. He told BNTVA members he had been injured during an H-Bomb test off Malden Island in the Pacific in 1957 and had to be sent home early. He said he was annoyed because when he tried to get his medical files from his former employers he was told they had been destroyed. He made no mention of his colourful past, his links with the British government, much less the fact he was a close colleague and friend of Sir Victor Rothschild 3rd Baron Rothschild GBE, GM, FRS (pictured right) a high-ranking British intelligence officer in MI5 and adviser to Margaret Thatcher. During the war they had roughly comparable positions in SOE and MI5. In the last year of the war they worked together in counter-sabotage and “related matters”, and Cox had “enjoyed Rothschild’s hospitality in Paris.” Later he was asked to lead an advisory group on explosives for the Ministry of Supply, which later became the Ministry of Defence, concentrating on

the hazards of static electricity in the manufacture of explosives. How this elderly spy, he was 76 at the time, was pictured in New Scientist magazine in the Onslow Court Hotel, London, at the bedside of Anthony Guarisco, the leader of America’s nuclear veterans, alongside the chairman of Britain’s nuclear veterans is like a story from a John le Carre spy novel. It appears Sir Ernest, who resided in well-heeled Hampstead in North London with his wife who, like Sir Ernest formerly had a high-ranking job in the civil service, was enticed out of his comfortable retirement to join the BNTVA in the Summer of 1983. He set himself up in a onebedroom flat in Shrewsbury and joined his local branch of the BNTVA in Birmingham. He very quickly became a leading figure in the branch and came to the notice of McGinley and his colleagues on the national committee. Posing as plain Ernest Cox, he met with McGinley and several colleagues in London in March 1984 ahead of a meeting with MPs concerned about alarming rates of cancers in ex-servicemen who witnessed A-bomb tests in the 1950s. Cox said he was sent to the Pacific in 1957 as part of the AWRE team in charge of scientific instruments used to measure radiation and blast effects. After witnessing one explosion off Malden Island, he developed a skin condition causing him to be sent home early. The scientist told the veterans he wanted his medical records to see how doctors had diagnosed his skin condition, and was angry on being told his files had been destroyed. He now

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planned to make trouble by giving an interview to the New Scientist magazine. The veterans had enthusiastically welcomed Cox as an adviser to the 3000-strong group which was growing daily thanks to massive publicity generated by a BBC Nationwide programme. The BNTVA was attracting worldwide attention and International Greenpeace, the powerful American lobby group, had invited McGinley to London along with Anthony Guarisco, director of the American Alliance of Atomic Veterans to the meeting with the MPs. The plan was to follow this up with a 16 city, sixweek tour of the States ending with a press conference in the Senate. There they would meet up with Australian and Canadian atomic veterans to form an International Alliance of Atomic Veterans. Greenpeace would fund the tour. At the same time, McGinley was being supported by eminent scientists like Professor Alice Stewart

McGinley, Guarisco in London March 1984

from Birmingham University, who made her reputation warning of the dangers of X-rays in pregnant women, and radiation expert Dr Rosalie Bertell, President of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH). The night before the meeting with MPs, McGinley booked into the Onslow Court Hotel in Kensington along with three or four other nuclear veterans. As they sat down to dinner that night they were joined by the unobtrusive figure of

November 2021 Ernest Cox, who said he had come to lend his support to the campaign. McGinley, who had only ever spoken to Cox by phone, was surprised to see him, but welcomed him as a valuable member of the team because of his associations with the AWRE. Cox informed the gathering that he would be giving an interview to New Scientist magazine, which would be good publicity for the BNTVA. He sat slightly apart from the others, listening but saying very little. McGinley recalled: “Me and the lads ordered a meal from the set menu to save money. But Mr Cox ordered al a carte. I remember he had prawn cocktail to start, followed by something like salmon which we thought was a bit extravagant. But we said nothing because he was very well spoken and quite an old guy. I told him he would be able to claim his meal back on expenses.” To McGinley’s surprise, Cox said he would pay out of his own pocket and he also refused travel expenses. “He said he only lived across town and had come by tube, which surprised me a bit because he had given his address as Shrewsbury, 200 miles away.” recalled McGinley. One of the veterans, Mike Doyle, a former AWRE worker, told McGinley privately that he didn’t trust Cox. McGinley said: “Mike said he didn’t remember Cox being with AWRE and when he tried to talk to him about it, Cox just clammed up.” But nothing was said, and all seemed well the following day as the veteran’s group met Guarisco in his hotel room to discuss the days meetings. Guarisco was in bed after suffering a sudden heavy cold on arrival in Britain, but he declared himself fit enough to meet with MPs later that day. Cox sat quietly throughout, saying little but always listening intently. It was later in the day after the veterans had been to see MPs in Parliament that he showed his true colours.

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The veterans had moved on to a meeting with Greenpeace representatives as well as a delegation from the American Peace Corps led by Professor of Anthropology and activist Glenn Alcalay. By this time Cox had been joined by Christmas Island veteran Tom Armstrong, a former RAF Warrant Officer who was treasurer to the BNTVA and led the Birmingham branch. As the meeting discussed the forthcoming trip to America, Armstrong and Cox, who had been involved in an intense whispered discussion throughout, suddenly made noisy objections to the BNTVA and its links with Greenpeace. Cox was particularly scathing of McGinley who, he claimed, didn’t have what it took to chair the association and was allowing the BNTVA to be manipulated by left-wing groups. He was loudly backed by Armstrong who after the meeting broke up threatened McGinley outside as they left the meeting. Recalling the events McGinley, 82, said: “He virtually accused me of being a Communist spy and that I should go back to Scotland where I belonged. We ended up squaring up to each other, but luckily we were with our solicitor Mark Mildred and he cooled things down. But it wasn’t a very pleasant experience.” Cox and Armstrong soon departed with Armstrong still loudly protesting about McGinley’s involvement with Greenpeace. McGinley shrugged it off and agreed to the Greenpeace tour of America, which was a huge propaganda coup for both Greenpeace and the veterans. McGinley was pictured with powerful democrat senators including Senator Edward Kennedy, as well as Louis “Studs” Terkel, a famous US broadcaster and author. On his return however he discovered that Cox and Armstrong had been busy undermining both he and the association. They had held a series of meetings with MPs, civil servants and Ministry of

November 2021 Defence officials without telling McGinley or the BNTVA committee. Armstrong, backed by Cox, then made a bid to become chairman of the BNTVA. At a meeting in Brighton he took advantage of McGinley’s late arrival by calling for a vote to elect a new committee. McGinley, however, arrived just in time to grab the microphone and declare Armstrong out of order. The meeting went ahead as scheduled but later McGinley read them the riot act. The incident left a bitter taste, and both Armstrong and Cox said they were resigning in disgust at the way the association was being run. McGinley, however, insists he sacked them first Cox and Armstrong went on to form a rival group called the British Atomic Veterans Association

Ken McGinley at a rally in Chicago

(BAVA). Cox’s last act before leaving was to produce a scathing “progress report” on the BNTVA and in particular chairman Ken McGinley. “Have we made progress?” He wrote. “The quick answer to that is no, and there is only one person to blame, that is your chairman.” Cox continued that he had had complaints from “certain people” about McGinley’s attitude. “Only recently I was told by an official from a government department that he had been aggressive toward him and that he would gain nothing by being like that. “The Chairman has not had the experience of a chairmanship before, certainly not in the capacity of dealing with departments of the government.

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November 2021

We need a change quickly if we want to get sunk while about to set sail for Muraroa Atoll something sorted out very soon.” where France was testing nuclear bombs. Cox concluded: “Fringe organisations such as French secret service agents placed a bomb CND, Greenpeace, Nuclear Freeze, Peace aboard the vessel while it was moored in Aukland Movements, and the like should be kept H a r b o u r, N e w Z e a l a n d . A Po r t u g u e s e completely out of our fight. They have their own photographer was killed. aims, they must not be part of our plans or our The British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association, normal activities, it will only affect our progress. I may have been targeted by the British ask you to be sensible about what =you have read Government not only because of its left-wing and back my statement.” links, but because it was an organisation of exCox became chairman of the new organisation servicemen who had attracted to its ranks former and urged members to place their faith in a high-ranking officers from all three armed Government-backed study by the National services. Radiological Protection Board into death rates Ken McGinley, would have been given special among nuclear veterans-a study that eventually attention because he was the chairman, and exonerated the government. because he had proved to be a media natural with But Cox had disappeared long the ability to converse easily with before the results were made politicians across the spectrum. public in 1986. He resigned from McGinley, who witnessed five nuclear Greenpeace demo on Big Ben BAVA after only a couple of teats on Christmas Island in 1958, months in the chair and cut off all founded the BNTVA on 5 May, 1983, contact. after revealing to his local newspaper in Sir Ernest Gordon Cox KBE, FRS Glasgow that several of his former died in 1996, aged 90. service mates had died from cancers It’s clear his motive for joining the BNTVA was to after witnessing the bomb tests. disrupt it. What we don’t know is if his ‘mission’ The article was followed up by the BBC was given official sanction. But his actions are Nationwide programme and McGinley was almost certainly rooted in the zeitgeist of the early inundated with calls from ex-servicemen who 1980s which was a period of intense anti-nuclear believed they had suffered because of the bomb protests. Hardly a week went by without powerful tests. groups like Greenpeace and CND staging McGinley said: “I know we must have been seen headline-grabbing demonstrations outside as a considerable nuisance by the British nuclear power stations and American installations Government, Cox clearly set out to destroy us. I’d like the cruise missile base at Greenham like to know who put him up to it and who he was Common. reporting to. Greenpeace infuriated the Thatcher and Reagan “We had no idea who Cox really was; this was Governments by staging spectacular stunts 1983, long before computers and the internet. In outside prominent landmarks like the Senate and those days we took everyone at face value. Parliament. One stunt saw two activists scale Big “I am appalled at the lengths he went to try to Ben to unfurl a “A Stop the Testing” banner. destroy an association of old soldiers just because But Greenpeace eventually paid a heavy price. In they believed their illnesses were caused by their July 1985 their vessel the Rainbow warrior was participation in the nuclear bomb tests,”

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November 2021

After D-Day, Cox continued his James Bond lifestyle in Belgium where he joined Belgium Resistance Group ‘G' specialising in detailed interrogations about highly successful sabotage work during the enemy occupation. The upward trajectory of his life continued after the war with a brilliant academic career, becoming ccording to his official Royal Society a professor of physics and chemistry with a string biography, Ernest Gordon Cox was headhunted of honours from several universities, culminating by British spymasters in 1937 at Birmingham in a Fellowship of the Royal Society. University where he excelled in the little-known In 1957 Cox was appointed by Rothschild, with science of Chemical Crystallography, an obscure whom he had maintained a close relationship, to discipline with important applications for the the Government’s Agricultural Research Council control of explosives. (ARC), eventually rising to be Chief Executive of In February 1942, Cox was recruited to be Senior the Council in July 1960. At that time the ARC Officer in charge of the laboratories at the Interwas responsible to the Lord President, Lord S e r v i c e s R e s e a r ch B u r e a u ( I S R B ) , i n a Hailsham, as Minister for Science and requisitioned mansion called The Technology. Cox was knighted in 1964, Frythe in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, before officially retiring round about 1971. which had been given the code Cox is said to have regularly visited his old name Station IX. The ISRB was the Birmingham and Bristol University Cox and wife Jackie 1954 cover name for the Special Alumni, to give talks and lectures. But Operations Executive (SOE), the nowhere is there mention of his work with the secret service whose job it was to support and Atomic Weapons Research Establishment or that stimulate resistance in the occupied countries, he had attended nuclear bomb tests in 1957. and in Churchill’s colourful phrase “set Europe His private correspondence, however, some of alight.”. which has come into fissionline’s possession, Station IX developed explosives, technical indicate that he was heavily involved in the sabotage gizmos, and camouflage equipment for technical side of atomic bomb construction, and the resistance movements. One of Cox’s often worked with “hot” instruments recently innovations was the “Time-Pencil”, a small and returned from the nuclear bomb sites. Some of compact delayed-ignition device that could set off those papers show that Cox blamed the death of a detonator. several colleagues from cancers caused by He was also in charge of a super-secret section working with the instruments. researching bacterial and chemical weapons. “just Cox enjoyed his retirement in apparent affluence in case”, the enemy would fail to comply with with his second wife and fellow academic Jackie internationally agreed rules on war. Truter, in Hampstead in north London. Cox had In the summer of 1944 Cox went to France as two children. His daughter Patricia became under Technical Staff Officer, with the rank of Secretary of State for Education in the Scottish Lieutenant Colonel, in the 21st Army Group HQ. Office, while son Keith became like his father a He joined local underground resistance fighters Fellow of the Royal Society. to search out V-2 rocket sites, and took part in

Sir Ernest Cox, a Very English Spy

various sabotage activities.

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Fissionline Comment

n the smoke and mirrors world of the spy game we shall probably never know what motivated Sir Ernest Cox to join the BNTVA, or whether he was acting in an official capacity. But for years there have been claims about infiltration by the security services of left-wing groups, like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Some even believe they would stop at nothing, even murder, to thwart their activities Those who espoused such fears, like supporters of the murdered anti-nuclear campaigner Hilda Murrell, or the mysterious death of weapons expert Dr David Kelly, are usually dismissed as delusional. After reading our disturbing report on how Sir Ernest targeted the nuclear veterans, those same critics must now think again. Nuclear veterans are not terrorists plotting to bring mayhem to the streets, or some shadowy group of subversives out to destroy the fabric of life as we know it. They are old soldiers, patriotic ex-national servicemen, whose only “crime” was to embarrass the government by asking it face up to the consequences of its dirty nuclear past. Enshrined in Britain’s proud military history is the precept that in exchange for risking their lives for their country, British troops would be cared for and treated fairly and with dignity when their service is over. Britain’s nuclear veterans have not been accorded that privilege. There must be an inquiry into what the Government knew about this Establishment spy in the veterans’ camp and, more importantly, whether he was acting on behalf of the State. Until it does the bond of trust between the government and those that are prepared to die for their country will be forever broken.

November 2021

By the

Editor Welcome! We’ve survived covid and we are backand with a considerable bang! Our front page story about the mole in the nuclear veterans’ camp is a real eye-opener, requiring an urgent government response. This story is just one more example of how important Fissionline is. We go where others fear to tread to bring you the truth about what is really going on in the dark world of nuclear politics. While the world concentrates on climate change, we are here to remind you that the effects of man-made radiation are every bit as insidious. And of course, the consequences of a nuclear war would make even the worst nightmares of the most pessimistic climatologist pale into insignificance. Ours is a vitally important task and one that needs your help to carry on. If you have been affected by radiation, please get in touch. If you have information on nuclear events you have been involved in, let us know. Have you written an article or just want to get something off your chest? We’d like to read it. Lastly we need financial support to assist us in continuing our crusade. We are few and the people who would like to silence us are a wellfunded majority. Our front page story would not have been possible without our enormous archive of raw material collected over decades. This valuable resource urgently needs to be catalogued copied and stored. It takes time and money. If you can assist in any way please contact me direct: alan-rimmer@live.co.uk Sincerely Alan Rimmer Editor

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Has Sir Keir Starmer had the wool pulled over his eyes?

ir Keir Starmer’s slogan was “Look Me In The Eye, as he endorsed a campaign to get Britain’s nuclear veterans a medal in recognition of their services at the nuclear bomb sites. The Labour Leader is said to have banged the table as he insisted:“The country owes you a huge debt of honour.” He demanded an explanation as to why the veterans were last year refused a medal on the grounds there was no “risk or rigour” in the atomic trials, adding: “The terrible decision to not award a medal was politically wrong, and morally completely wrong. The Prime Minister must now meet you, hear what you have to say, and do what it takes. We will support you all the way.” But he has been warned he could be staring trouble in the face.. For the man leading the campaign Alan Owen, head of Labrats, a nuclear veterans pressure group, has been accused of “damaging” the veterans’ cause by publishing a fictional book about the A-bomb tests and trying to pass it off as fact. In a hard-hitting statement posted on-line, the British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association said: “We examined the book and deduced the author of the book to be Alan Owen and found it to be fictitious, misleading and damaging to the credibility of our heritage as a nuclear test community. Moreover, we believe Mr Owen exposed the BNTVA to potential litigation by

November 2021 persons identifiable in the book. We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to these individuals. We also apologise to our membership for Mr Owen’s hugely misleading statement to members of the 2018 All Tests’ Reunion regarding the provenance of the book, stating that it was a ‘game changer which could evidence our campaign against the UK Government.’ Please be assured that the BNTVA would only use the testimonies of actual nuclear test veterans to pursue its aims, and not a story that cannot be corroborated.” Alan Owen, pictured next to Starmer in a publicity shot for the Daily Mirror, published the book The X Y Z Files on Amazon. The blurb states: “This is the story of Sir James Gordon Josephson, OBE as he recalls his life as a civil servant monitoring the British nuclear tests of the 1950s and 1960s. His story is one which defies belief and one you must read. No longer can the secrets be

withheld from the servicemen and their families.” Owen, a former chairman of the BNTVA, later admitted that he was in fact the author of the book. In a statement he said: “A lot has been written recently about the X, Y and Z files on social media. The concept (for the book is not mine, the story of a Civil Servant who wants to tell his story, but cannot was told to me by a veteran, I do not know the origination of the original story. This was a private conversation between me and him.”

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November 2021

The BBC’s undersea drama HMS Vigil was shallow when compared to the real-life events surrounding HMS Resolution

he deeper you go, the darker it gets. When a sailor is found dead on submarine HMS

Vigil, DCI Silva uncovers a conspiracy. Tense drama from the producers of ... So runs the blurb introducing the BBC’s undersea drama supposedly based in the claustrophobic confines of one of Britain’s nuclear submarines. It is an unlikely tale, rightly panned by most critics for plumbing the depths of ludicrousness in its depiction of life spent aboard an underwater cigar tube bristling with weapons of mass destruction. The same producers who gave us Line of Duty would have been better advised to do a bit more in-depth research. If they had they may have stumbled across a reallife undersea drama aboard a British nuclear submarine that would have left viewers gasping for breath. This concerns the mysterious events that occurred aboard one of Britain’s first nuclear submarines, HMS Resolution, while on patrol in the Atlantic in 1971. For reasons never properly explained the vessel surfaced off an isolated stretch of coastline south

of Oban in North West Scotland to offload an undisclosed number of crew members. Although carried out under cover of darkness and in total secrecy, the unusual occurrence was noted

by locals and rumours soon spread that there had been a terrible catastrophe involving the ship’s nuclear reactor. Dozens of submariners had apparently suffered radiation burns. A note was made in the local police log. Soon questions were being asked of the Navy and the Ministry of Defence. Why were the men off-loaded? Had there been an accident? After stone-walling for several weeks the Navy finally admitted “problems” in the hull of Resolution had been found. A spokesman said: “Hairline cracks were found but these would have not affected the pressurised water-cooled reactor.” He added that the subs return from patrol off Oban had been a “routine procedure’ as part of a training exercise.

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Nothing was said about the crew members who had supposedly disembarked, or what might have become of them. But that was not the end of the story, far from it. Rumours about the consequences of the leak aboard the submarine swept the Faslane shipyard on the Clyde where Britain’s nuclear submarines are based. The rumours took a disturbing turn when stories surfaced about deformed children being born to fathers of Resolution crew members. Significantly the children were said to be born at about the same time. Things were brought to a head by an incident at a party in the married quarters where submarine crew socialised. One of the men from the starboard crew suddenly broke down and started crying. He said something had gone wrong with the the reactor and there had been a serious leak. Mrs Pa t Davis, who was married to Danny, another of the crew members recalled: “He just sat on the floor with a glass in his hand and wept because his wife had just given birth to the baby with a hare-lip.” Disturbingly Mrs Davis, who became pregnant soon after, gave birth to a son, Stephen, who was also born with a hair-lip, as well as being brain damaged. Then, in the two years after Stephen’s birth, other similarly deformed babies were born to Mrs Davis’s friends living on the naval base. All the father’s were part of the same starboard crew aboard HMS Resolution. Mrs Davis decided to find out about the other children. She discovered at least three other babies born at the base with hare-lips as well as one suffering-one spina bifida, one with hydrocephalus (water on the brain), and a little boy born with part of an arm missing.

November 2021 She now knew of four children born deformed out of a submarine group pf 148 men in two years. The national rate of for hare-lip and cleft palate is one in 1,000. Mrs Davis asked the Navy for an explanation but was told her claims were “inaccurate.” Her husband Danny, a Chief Petty Officer and the longest serving crew member aboard Resolution, wouldn’t back her up and denied there had been a radioactive leak. Soon after Mr and Mrs Davis were divorced and Mrs Davis moved South to Staines in Middlesex where, free of Navy restrictions, she tried to make contact with the other wives. She came up against a wall of silence. Suspecting a cover-up she gave an interview to Yorkshire Television which was investigating radiation dangers to workers at nuclear installations. She called for an inquiry into radiation leaks on nuclear submarines. Her story caused uproar and the Navy finally admitted that four 12 year old children of Resolution crew members had suffered from various handicaps including hare lips and cleft palates. But a spokesman said: “We consider that in a crew of 150 this is not that unusual.” He went on to say that families of three sailors still connected with Resolution’s home base of Faslane had been interviewed by naval doctors. He added: “The families interviewed do not attribute the handicaps in their children to be radiation linked.” In a sinister twist before her interview was broadcast, Mrs Davis began to receive threatening phone calls. One she received at midnight was from a male with a Scottish accent who told her if the programme went ahead she would be killed. Later several anonymous callers contacted her at work warning her that her whole family would be wiped out. Scarily the callers knew not only

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where her handicapped son was being schooled, but that of her other son, Mark, as well. Mrs Davis reported the calls to the police and the then Labour Defence spokesman Denzil Davies wrote on her behalf to George Younger Secretary of State for Defence demanding an investigation. Replying, Younger admitted: “It is known that during that time (1971-1973) there were four cases of children fathered by nuclear submarine crewmen being born with cleft palates and hair lips. However, there is no evidence to indicate that these four cases were anything other than a very sad coincidence.” But Mrs Davis was unconvinced and she started to put all her research together and announced her intention to write a book. Then late one night she answered a knock on the door of her two bedroom flat to be confronted by two masked men. They forced their way in and began ransacking the flat. “You’ve been a naughty girl,” they told her. “You’ve got something we want.” When Mrs Davis tried to scream one of the men clamped a gloved hand across her mouth and was told to ‘shut up’ or her family would suffer. “Every time I tried to speak I got clouted,” she said. “The man held me so tight you could see the lines of the gloves across my face for hours afterwards. After a few moments Mrs Davis was released and the intruders left as suddenly as they had arrived. The terrified woman rang the police who arrived soon after. They insisted she went to the hospital. When she returned she thought they had left empty handed because there appeared to be nothing missing, not even her purse. When she searched her flat the next morning she discovered that three hand-written chapters of her book, plus valuable lists of ex-directory telephone numbers, addresses and notes were gone.

November 2021 Chillingly, the word “Death” had been scrawled across the front of a book about Hilda Murrell, the anti-nuclear campaigner who was murdered in 1984. She reported the theft to the police, but with no clear leads there was nothing much they could do. “I just cannot believe these people can just get away with this,” said Mrs Davis. “All I’m trying to do is get justice for my child. I believe I have a right to know what really happened aboard HMS Resolution. There is no doubt in my mind there has been a cover-up.” In a statement to her solicitor Mrs Davis wrote: “I am extremely terrified; I have read carefully the stories of Hilda Murrell and other people who have received similar threats and it is obvious that people in official circles will do nothing to help such people. In the case of Hilda Murrell, this lady was also remonstrating or voicing her opinion about the inadequacies of the nuclear reactor at the Sizewell Plant in Suffolk. She also had contacts, via her nephew Lt. Commander Green, with the Royal Navy and reading the reports leading up to the death of this lady, it would appear that she experienced almost identical happenings as myself. I do not know where to turn, no one takes me seriously and there is the continuing problem of nuclear leaks from submarines. The Navy have knowledge of not just leaks from HMS Resolution, but other leaks, and the rate of deformed births is far too high to be a coincidence.” Mrs Davis, exhausted and dispirited, appears to have abandoned her book idea and has. Her parting shot was a sworn statement about her experiences which she lodge with a solicitor.

We’d like to hear from Mrs Davis and find out what became of her. Information to fissionline@gmail.com

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NUCLEAR MATTERS

November 2021 Virginia to drop off the data.With Diana acting as a lookout, Jonathan "placed an SD card concealed within half a peanut butter sandwich" at a determined location, the affidavit said.After the agent collected the card, they sent payment and received a decryption key to access the SD card. On it was restricted data "related to submarine nuclear reactors".Mr Toebbe then performed a second so-called dead drop - this time hidden inside a chewing gum packet - in August, with yet more secret data on it.FBI agents then arrested the couple, during a third dead drop.

Sub Plot Couple Charged A US navy nuclear engineer and his wife have been charged with trying to sell nuclear secrets to what they thought was a foreign state. Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana were arrested in West Virginia on Saturday, the Justice Department announced.They allegedly tried to sell nuclear submarine design data, hidden in a peanut butter sandwich, to someone they thought represented another country.In fact, it was an undercover FBI agent.According to the statement, Mr Toebbe and his partner - 42 and 45 respectively - have now been charged under the Atomic Energy Act.Mr Toebbe worked in the US Navy's nuclear propulsion programme and had national security clearance. His wife is a high school teacher.The Justice Department said that in April 2020 he sent a package to an unnamed foreign government containing restricted data and a message suggesting a covert relationship, so that they could buy more data from him.He then allegedly began writing to an individual by encrypted email. While he thought this person represented the foreign government, they were actually an FBI agent, the affidavit said.”After several months, the accused couple allegedly made a deal to share secret information in exchange for around $100,000 (£73,000) in cryptocurrency. In June this year, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe travelled to West

Climate Change Nuclear Fallout Alarm A rapidly warming Arctic could cause the spread of nuclear waste, undiscovered viruses and antibiotic resistant bacteria, a report has found.

It said potential radioactive waste from Cold War nuclear submarines and reactors and damage from mining could be released as the ice melts. The nine million square miles of Artic dates to about a million years old. Co-author Dr Arwyn Edwards from Aberystwyth University said much of the Arctic is still unknown. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Dr Edwards co-authored report with academics from universities in the United States and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Arctic houses a diverse range of chemical compounds whether through natural processes, accidents or deliberate storage. Thawing permafrost, or permanently frozen land, has widely been seen as a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions as massive stores of Arctic soil carbon are released to the

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atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, as well as causing abrupt change to the landscape. However, the research found the implications are more widespread and less understood with potential for the release of nuclear waste and radiation, unknown viruses and other chemicals of concern. Between 1955 and 1990, the Soviet Union conducted 130 nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and near surface ocean of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago off the coast of north-west Russia. The tests used 224 separate explosive devices, releasing about 265 megatons of nuclear energy and more than 100 decommissioned nuclear submarines were scuttled in the nearby Kara and Barents seas. Despite the Russian government launching a strategic clean-up plan, the review notes the area has tested highly for the radioactive substances caesium and plutonium, between undersea sediment, vegetation and ice sheets. The United States' Camp Century nuclearpowered under-ice research facility in Greenland also produced considerable nuclear and diesel waste. Decommissioned in 1967, waste was left in the accumulating ice, which faces a longer term threat from changes to the Greenland Ice Sheet. The 1968 Thule bomber crash in the same country also dispersed huge amounts of plutonium on the Greenland ice sheet.

Fusion Hope For Future The idea of fusion power has intrigued scientists for nearly 100 years, when they first

November 2021

discovered the process that powers the sun and stars. A fusion reaction, which occurs when atoms fuse together, could generate four times more energy than today's fission reactors, and about four million times more than burning coal, without producing any greenhouse gases. Additionally, the process does not generate long-term radioactive waste, fusion reactors cannot melt down, and fusion fuel (hydrogen) is readily available. Once scientists finally manage to create a sustained fusion reaction, it could be a huge game-changer for the energy industry.

Jellyfish Wobbles Nuclear Station You think that those darned jellyfish are just a holiday problem in the Med? It turns out they’ve been getting in and clogging up the water-cooling intake pipes at Scotland’s sole active nuclear power station at Torness, outside Dunbar, resulting in the reactor having to shut

down in an emergency procedure. A commercial drone company called RUAS has asked the Civil Aviation Authority for what’s called a Temporary Danger Area to be applied around the site so that its pilots can fly spotter drones out to sea to log the invaders and sea kelp in an early warning system, so that the station’s water intake can by reduced and expensive total closure averted. Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment

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November 2021

Death of A Hero

oy Sefton, who died earlier this year, was barely 16 years old when he set out to see the world, a young artist seeking adventure. He joined the Royal New Zealand Navy hoping to explore the romantic towns and bustling cities of the far east and paint the dazzling scenes of Orient. Instead he was sent to Christmas Island, a bare coral rock in the middle of the Pacific, where he was confronted by the sight of one of the most destructive forces on earth: Standing on the deck of a warship he witnessed a huge H-Bomb explosion the consequences of which ruined his health, shattered all his dreams and set him on a mission to prove that the H-bomb had ruined his health and that of thousands of others. He formed the New Zealand Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association, mainly comprised of some 500 sailors on two destroyers, RNZN Pukaki and Rotoiti many of whom like him had suffered unexplained health problems after participating in Operation Grapple, the British H-Bomb experiments of 1957-58. At first Roy and his association was closely aligned with the British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association which was also battling for compensation from the British Government. But when that organisation ran out of steam and was getting nowhere, he decided to go it alone.

It was tough, but In 2006 his campaign was given an unexpected boost when a new scientific technique established that exposure to radiation could leave a fingerprint in the DNA of the victim. He commissioned a study by Professor Al Rowland of Massey University to examine this novel concept. They raised the $250,000 needed to carry out the complicated and costly genetic tests on veterans who had sailed through the fallout zones. Professor Rowland admitted he was sceptical: “I had my doubts that we could find out anything about something that occurred 50 years ago. But the alternative was to do nothing and I felt that if we lived in a responsible society we at least should give it a try.” Professor Rowland had access to a new technique that had been used on Chernobyl victims and nuclear workers, but never before on nuclear veterans. Rowland started selecting 50 veterans of the nuclear bomb tests and 50 controls, matched perfectly for age, lifestyle and even drinking and smoking habits. It was a painstaking task that took many years. Rowland looked at translocations, the exchange of genetic material, between different chromosomes. Translocations show evidence of genetic damage and are therefore important indicators of cancers and other illnesses. Under strict scientific disciplines, blood was taken from 50 NZ nuclear

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veterans for comparison with 50 servicemen who had not been at the tests. The study identified crucial differences: the veterans had far more cancers and skin problems. And the level of translocations in veterans was three times higher than in the control group. The results were astonishing: signs of damage in the chromosomes, the structure that contains the DNA, in the nuclear veterans, was so marked that Professor Rowland had no hesitation in signifying that this was caused by radiation. When the results were published they couldn’t be faulted. The study was successfully peer reviewed by respected scientific journals. Rowland was unequivocal: this was proof that servicemen had been exposed to radiation from the Grapple bomb tests. The news was a huge fillip to the flagging fortunes of the British veterans, especially when even the MoD was forced to admit it couldn’t fault the procedures used by Rowland. The breakthrough was a remarkable testament to the tenacity of Roy Sefton who during the Grapple Tests as a sailor on Pukaki spent months patrolling the seas around Christmas Island. Because fresh water was so scarce, the crews often bathed in rainwater as they chased the rainstorms following the explosions. And they often ate locally-caught fish and produce from nearby islands. By the time he was 30 Roy could hardly walk and his joints ached that much there were times he couldn’t touch anything without feeling pain. But he soon discovered he wasn’t alone. At least six of his shipmates died in their 20s, from cancers associated with radiation poisoning. Professor Neil Pearce, a distinguished epidemiologist analysed the health records of the New Zealand veterans and found significant increases in death rates. He also discovered the men died from cancers typically associated with radiation. Rowland’s results were even more startling. They were higher than the Chernobyl victims, in fact

November 2021 they were the highest Rowland had ever seen. His damning conclusion: “Our view is that this was caused by radiation, because the frequency is so high and we have taken into account every other known confounding factor. We are left with only one option: this group was damaged because the men took part in Operation Grapple.” Thanks to the hard work and dedication of Roy Sefton nuclear nations, including, America, Russia, France and China now pay compensation to their nuclear veterans. Even the Manx government, the Tynwald, agreed to pay 12 veterans living on the island £8,000 each for the physical and mental anguish they had suffered through their participation in the bomb tests. It is a fitting tribute to Roy Sefton, a New Zealander who was a hero in every sense of the word, a man who single-handedly took on the British Government and made it confront the evils of its past. Hundreds of people gathered for Roy’s funeral service at Robert Cotton and Sons funeral home near his home in Palmerston North. His daughters, Anu Sefton and Tracey Sefton-Wiggins said the public would remember him for his art and his tireless efforts to get his fellow nuclear test veterans and their families the acknowledgement they deserved. Thirty of the roughly 100 surviving New Zealand veterans attended the funeral – with others live streaming the service from around the world. Roy Sefton QSM: 21 June 1938-5 January 2021. Nuclear Test Veterans. Chairman New Zealand Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association Died with his family at his side. Rest in Peace Roy You will be missed Alan Rimmer

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Malden:The Forgotten Island

hen people talk about Britain’s nuclear bomb tests they usually refer to Christmas Island, Maralinga and Monte Bello. Forgotten in this discourse is Malden Island, a tiny triangular-shaped island 400 miles south of Christmas Island, which was the site of the first three H-Bomb tests in 1957 It was regarded then, and still is today, as little more than a barren piece of rock in the m middle of the Pacific of little importance or value. Yet a new book The Voyage of the Blonde about the discovery of the island places it in an entirely new light. Written by John Malden, the great great grandson of the man for whom the island was named, sheds a light on the island’s rich cultural history and its Polynesian origins. This sumptuously prepared book, wellwritten and richly illustrated, provides a complete historical account of the island which was discovered on the 29th July, 1825, by Captain the Rt Hon Lord Byron (a cousin of the famous poet) of H.M.S. Blonde.

November 2021 In 1824 the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands had died while on a visit to England and Lord Byron had been commissioned to return their remains to Honolulu for burial. He was on his way home when he sighted Malden Island, which he named after his surveying officer Charles Robert Malden. For the first 30 years of occupation by the British, Malden was the richest and one of the most prosperous, exporting between 12,000 and 14,000 tons of guano annually. Since then, apart from transient traders, whalers and the occasional castaway, Malden has slumbered peacefully in the middle of the ocean, until it got a rude awakening when it was chosen as the target island for Grapple, Britain’s first thermonuclear bomb tests. HMS Messina landed the first Grapple parties on 3rd October, 1956 and spent some days establishing a stores dump and exploring the islands. A wrecked fishing trawler was found on the north coast and the remains of a small mining settlement abandoned in 1915 were evident. Light trucks on the disused mining railway could still be pushed easily along the rails. A little graveyard a few hundred yards from the settlement was found to be very well preserved and told of the harsh conditions of the nineteenth centre settlers. Task Force Grapple loaded a total of 1,200 tons of equipment and stores in preparation for the HBomb tests. The destroyer HMS Warrior was the flagship for the operation in which more than 1,000 men took part. The H-Bombs were exploded to a great fanfare of publicity. The Mirror columnist Cassandra called it a “dress rehearsal for the death of the world.” It later turned out that only one, codename Orange Herald, was in the megaton range and that was because it was boosted by uranium. The other two were relative ‘duds’ at about 250 kt each. Copies:of Mr Malden’s book: trymalden@outlook.com

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November 2021

Britain Feared W. German Atomic Bomb

ritain was worried about West Germany making an atomic bomb, 14 years after the war was over, declassified American documents reveal. Sir William Penney, the “father of Britain’s Bomb”,warned about the proliferation potential of the gas centrifuge system at a meeting in London with Atomic Energy Commission Chairman John McCone in late 1959. Both the US and Britain were interested in the centrifuge system as a source of lowenriched uranium for nuclear power reactors, but Penney also warned they posed a nuclear bomb proliferation threat. According to the Congressional William Penney. testimony Penney was worried at the time that West Germany could use the technology to make atomic bombs and revitalise fears about an enemy from a world war still in living memory. U p o n h i s r e t u r n t o t h e U S, M c C o n e commissioned a series of studies on the risks of the centrifuge system --- risks which are still prevalent today with fears that Afghanistan leaders might get their hands on the technology. He learned that Brazil’s National Research Council had already secretly sent a small group of chemists to occupied West Germany to learn about the workings of gas centrifuge technology for enriching uranium. The Brazilians wanted to buy centrifuges from a German firm but thanks to Penney’s warning, U.S.

authorities blocked the request, according to declassified documents published by the National Security Archive. The documents reveal it was thought it would take them many years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. But the State Department believed that Brazil’s access to gas centrifuge technology was “contrary to U.S. interests.” The Brazilian case is an early example of what became a broader U.S. policy of denial of gas centrifuge technology. According to another document, senior State Department adviser Charles Sullivan argued that “Should the gas centrifuge process be successfully developed on an John McCone unclassified basis it could be utilised in a number of countries either openly or secretly and in either event complicate the problem of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.” John McCone later launched an initiative to put the latest and future gas centrifuge R&D under secrecy and export controls by working with Western European allies who were also developing the technology. He sought an understanding on classification policy with the British, Germans, and Dutch. Unfortunately it was not enough to stop the infamous A. Q. Khan’s theft of the technology and its spread to Pakistan and later to Iran. North Korea also used stolen information for its nuclear bomb programme.

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November 2021

Our Shirl’ Finally Joins ‘er Eric in Heaven I

ntrepid campaigner for nuclear veterans Shirley Denson s a d l y passed away in April. She was 87 and n e v e r stopped loving her husband Eric who took his own life, tormented and broken, after being ordered to fly through the mushroom cloud of Britain’s biggest bomb. Shirley (she always called herself ‘Our Shirl’) was known as the ‘Boadicea’ of the nuclear veterans movement for the way she rampaged through the Ministry of Defence at every opportunity. She once stopped a defence minister in his tracks at a meeting by comparing the radiation death of her “sniffer pilot” husband to that of tragic weapons inspector Dr David Kelly. In a barnstorming intervention she raged: “You have been assiduously covering up what really happened at the bomb tests for more than 50 years. There is plenty of evidence of the deleterious effects of those tests on thousands of

young men, not least of which is the peerreviewed Rowland Study which proved that men stationed on ships 50 miles from ground zero were harmed by radiation. But you continue to turn a blind eye as you climb the greasy pole, as indeed have all your colleagues before you. “None of you appear to be in the job long enough to find out what is really going on. That is our misfortune and your shame. I hope you can live with yourselves. Don’t you dare have the cheek to tell me my husband had come to no harm by flying through the mushroom cloud,” As she left the meeting she was followed by the MoD’s top medical adviser Dr Anne Braidwood, who also got the edge of her tongue. Said Shirley: “She said there was no evidence that Eric was exposed. I was outraged and as we sized each other up I looked her straight in the eye and told her she was talking absolute nonsense. This woman was responsible for turning down hundreds of pension applications from nuclear veterans. She’s been compared to Rosa Klebs. (a villain in the James Bond movies famous for a poison-tipped stiletto in the toe of her shoe). That’s unkind, but I admit I did cast a nervous glance at her feet!” Goodbye Our Shirl’. You did ‘your Eric’ proud.

Fissionline is an independent news journal with no political ties or affiliations. We are here to expose the perfidy of governments and institutions who continue to lie and coverup the effects of man-made radiation on humans and the planet. Want to support us? If you do, or have something to say,

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November 2021