fissionline 77

FISSIONLINE Issue 77

The International Bulletin of Nuclear Veterans and Children

Dec 2025

BETRAYAL The explosive true history of Britain's nuclear veterans and how 'dark forces' from within and without tore them apart

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op TV journalist Sue LloydRoberts frantically hammered on Ken McGinley's car window shouting: 'Ken you must get to the meeting now. They are trying to take the association away from you..."

Intrepid reporter Sue (pictured) was covering a meeting of the newlyformed British Nuclear Tests Veterans' Association for BBC's flagship News at Ten when a group of disgruntled veterans attempted to oust McGinley. Sue's warning saved

the day and McGinley, who had been delayed by traffic, arrived in time to take control of the organisation he had founded a few months earlier.

But this was just a harbinger of things to come as McGinley found himself fighting not only 'dark forces' of the State but also enemies within his own ranks.

Part One of the compelling true story of how the UK's Cold War warriors tore themselves apart in the pursuit of justice starts on page 3.

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FISSIONLINE was outraged to see on Youtube a nuclear veteran pleading with the prime minister for a meeting."Pathetic" is the way I described it, believing it should be the government going cap in hand to the veterans rather than the other way round.

For that I have been criticised by some veterans. "What's fissionline ever done for the veterans?" was the cry. They rightly pointed out that they had achieved some progress to redress the injuries veterans undoubtedly endured by witnessing nuclear bomb tests. The original nuclear veterans association achieved some pensions and some legal rights; the charity following managed to grab £5million charity cash from the government's Aged Veterans Fund, while the latest incarnation of veterans' representatives have managed to get a medal for the veterans, money for social events, and funds to set up a museum. These are undoubted achievements and one in which all the various groups are justly proud. But in defence of fissionline, we have only campaigned for two things:

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1: An apology to servicemen injured by radiation, and 2: Proper compenation for the men and their descendents. ' 'Say sorry and pay up' was our mantra, and we stick by that now. We believe that if this simple demand had been adhered to from the beginning, justice would have been achieved by now. Instead we have had a fandango of incremental minor successes which the government will undoubtedly use to justify not paying compensation.

Fissionline was started in late 2012 by three people: BNTVA founder Ken

McGinley, Roy Sefton, chairman of the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans Association and Journalist and author, Alan Rimmer. We wanted to give a voice to nuclear veterans everywhere, a voice that was eerily absent in the mainstream media and even in the veterans own journals. We believed, and still do, that nuclear veterans were 'special' because of the special nature of the service they gave. Injuries to both themselves and their children were unique and required a unique response from the government. Over the years we have amassed a powerful archive of material that proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the UK government was at best criminally negligent in the way nuclear servicemen were exposed to unacceptible levels of radiation. In exposing this truth we have come up against all manner of obstacles not only from governments, but also from within the ranks of the veterans themselves, some of whom seemed determined to spend their time fighting among themselves.

The story of the nuclear veterans' fight for justice is a modern-day parable of high politics and low ideals. A shameful catalogue of secrecy, lies and coverups. But it is also an all-too human odyssey of backbiting, avarice, jealousy and naked ambition all fused together in an explosive psychological mix as devastating as the nuclear weapons the veterans were forced to witness.

I was there from the beginning and I hope my chronicle of those events will help in the understanding of what I believe to be the most important events in history.

Alan Rimmer Editor Fissionline

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BETRAYAL

By Alan Rimmer

PART ONE indswept and dishevelled, Ken McGinley rushed into the back room of a small hotel in Brighton just as the man who wanted to take over was calling for order. There were 59 people crammed into room, all talking at once, all with a story to tell.

There were widows brandishing photo albums, mothers holding tear-stained letters and angry fathers with sad mementoes of sons lost to cancer.

And then there were the veterans themselves. Men cut down in the prime of life. All with variations of the same story: mighty explosions, mushroom clouds, tropical lagoons, scorching deserts. And all talking of sicknesses in its grimmest forms.

All angry and excited and wanting their voices to be heard.

Into this frentic melee rushed McGinley after being warned by Sue Lloyd-Roberts a powerful TV journalist who had broken the story of the plight of Britain's Cold War warriors to a shocked nation.

It was Sue after meeting McGinley, who forced the government to confront the consequences of its sinister past. In a powerful documentary on BBC's Nationwide programme she told how many of the thousands of young servicemen, exposed to radiation during 1950s nuclear bomb tests in the Pacific and Australia, were now suffering from leukaemia and other cancers. Sue had grown to admire McGinley, a former Army Sapper who had witnessed five nuclear explosions on Christmas Island in

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1958. And she was shocked when a small but vociferous group of veterans, led by a former Army sergeant major named Tom Armstrong, attempted a coup.

Taking advantage of McGinlery's absence, Armstrong called for a new committee to be elected with himself as chairman, but was cut off as McGinley entered the room.

Armstrong, burly, bespectabled, with a shock of dark hair and a Charlie Chaplin moustache glowered at McGinley sullenly.

But McGinley, small and wiry, brushed him aside. The hubbub subsided as McGinley rose to his feet and called for order.

Armstrong stubbornly remained slouched beside him, his eyes boring into the back of McGinley's head as Sue Lloyd Roberts surrounded by a gaggle of veterans ordered the camera to be turned on.

Armstrong (left) with McGinley at Brighton and (below) Sue Lloyd Roberts talks with a veteran's widow

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The air was thick with tension as McGinley spoke, his thick Glasgow accent, sounding incongruous in the quintesentially English hotel with its net curtains and chintz furnishing.

However, he was a natural orator and the crowd fell silent. He told them about the work of Dr Alice Stewart, a renowned epidemiologist and scientist Tom Sorohan.

They had some very encouraging news about an early survey being conducted at Birmingham University into leukaemia cases among the veterans.

This had already shown that cases of the blood disease among the veterans was very much higher than the general population. And the numbers were growing daily as more and more veterans came forward.

There were bursts of applause at each statement, and murmurs of approval greeted each announcement. The only ones not applauding were Armstrong and his little cohort who sat in stubborn silence refusing to engage in the excitement.

Sue was puzzled. What was wrong with them? This was a question she managed to put to Armstrong during a break in proceedings; she didn’t really get an answer except some vague talk of ‘feelings.’ He didn’t 'feel as' though McGinley was up to the job.

His rank (he was just a national service private) seemed especially to grate with him. Armstrong appeared to think the association should be run by an officer.

Sue was not impressed, telling Armstrong that he should 'get behind' McGinley and support him in the fight, pointing out that lawyers, scientists MPs and even high-ranking officers in the armed forces found him engaging, likeable even.

Sue had been the first national reporter to recognise these qualities and thought the veterans led by McGinley was the best chance they would ever have of gaining recognition and justice.

Professor Alice Stewart from

Birmingham university was another fan.

She was a very well respected scientist and epidemiologist who gained international fame by exposing the dangers to unborn babies from X-rays received by their mothers.

The early results from her investigations into the nuclear veterans had rattled the Government who quickly ordered an epidemiological study into the health of the veterans. A defence spokesman said this would take two years and that everyone should calm down and wait for the results.

To loud applause, McGinley told his audience he was not prepared to wait five minutes. Action was needed. Now! The meeting broke up to wild applause and the resulting News at Ten bulletin fronted by Sue Lloyd-Roberts garnered widespread support for McGinley's growing organisation.

Prof Stewart and others could see the impact the BNTVA was having on both the government and the public.

And they were worried. Prof Stewart specifically warned McGinley that he should 'take care' because he and his organisation were upsetting a lot of 'very powerful people.'

Prof Alice Stewart and Tom Sorohan at work.

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And this wasn't a hollow warning. 1984 though Ronald Reagan might bow to was a time of considerable political pressure and decide not to install the turmoil with the burgeoning anti-nuclear missiles because of security implications. movement becoming an increasing It was a considerable embarrassment to embarrassment to the Thatcher Margaret Thatcher who valued her government. friendship with Reagan and AngloAmerican relations above all else.

The year started off with the brutal murder of prominent rose grower Hilda She held a special meeting at Chequers Murrell whose body was found in with senior advisers from the civil service woodland half a mile from her and the security services to deal with the home. At first it looked as though it problem of was a burglary gone wrong until it 'subversives' in the antiemerged she had been about to nuclear movement.

Thatcher called a expose alarming nuclear secrets, special meeting of The threat from CND, more of which later. said to be 'riddled' with security advisers Then there was the powerful communists, and women's peace camp movement alleged to be infiltrated that sprang up at Greenham by the KGB was top of Common near Newbury.This group, the agenda. But other composed entirely of women, tried to groups, almost certainly including blockade the Lakenheath US air base from Greenpeace and the BNTVA, would have installing cruise missiles on British soil. been discussed together with action plans (which have never been published) agreed CND and other peace groups got upon. involved and for a time it looked as At about the same time a rogue Mi5 spy master called Peter Wright published his book Spycather which although quickly banned in the UK, became a best seller abroad.

He revealed he had a close personal relationship with Sir William Cook, Chief scientific officer for the UK's Christmas Island H-bomb tests. He claimed Cook, as well as most of the other scientists on the project, were sceptical about the bomb tests, believing them to be a waste of time .

Add to this the miner's strike which led to widespread industrial unrest and confrontation with the government, the Brighton hotel bombing by the IRA attempting to assassinate Margaret Thatcher, and Greenham Common Women's peace camp a picture emerges of a country in political turmoil.

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In the midst of all this McGinley was Dalyell nominally a Labour MP, but invited by the powerful anti-nuclear fiercely independent, was known for his environmental group Greenpeace to take forensic debating skills and ferocious part in a 6-week whistle-top tour of attention to detail. He had infuriated the America.

Tories, and Margaret Thatcher, in particular for his relentless pursuit of the He would join peace groups from all truth concerning the Argentine cruiser over the world, including, France, New Beltrano sunk by a British submarine Zealand, Australia and Canada in a major during the 1982 Falklands war. move to lobby congress and senators.

The aim was to put pressure on Ronald Dalyell discovered that the Belgrano was Reagan to recognise and compensate sailing away from the British exclusion nuclear veterans, particularly American, zone when it was sunk with the loss of for injuries caused by nuclear testing. more than 300 lives. Thatcher was humiliated in a tense TV interview as she It was an invitation McGinley couldn’t attempted to defend the action. refuse, especially as Greenpeace were picking up the tab.

Adding to the explosive mix of Murdered by conspiracy theories and The trip turned out to be a 'Shadowy' accusations was the allegation huge personal success for Security that the HMS Conqueror, the McGinley whose easy Figures submarine that sank the manner and down-to-earth Belgrano, was carrying nuclear rhetoric won over tipped torpedoes. This wasn’t American audiences. People true, but the rumours like Loretta King, wife of persisted.

Martin Luther King, invited him along to speak at rallies Dalyell later conceded HMS while in congress the Conqueror only carried famous Kennedy family conventional weapons but invited him to their offices suggested that Thatcher for interviews. ordered the sinking to Hilda Murrell scupper peace talks being set Author and Radio broadcaster Studtz up by Peru, and to bolster her popularity Terkel and other celebrity commentators at home. also made a fuss of him; all in all it was a wildly successful tour… but back home it He then introduced the devastating was viewed differently. revelation by that Commander Robert Green an intelligence officer on board Some veterans objected to McGinley HMS Conqueror was in fact the nephew consorting with organisations like of Hilda Murrell, the murdered rose Greenpeace because of its leftist leanings, grower and anti-nuclear activist. and started openly pushing for him to be replaced.

Dalyell suggested that shadowy security figures had murdered Murrell while Things reached a head when not long searching for secret papers linked to the after his return, McGinley was invited to sinking of the Belgrano. None of this was meet some powerful politicians in ever proven but it all added to the Parliament. Chief of these was maverick feverish zeitgeist of nuclear paranoia that MP Tam Dalyell who had long been a existed at the time. thorn in the governments side.

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McGinley by this time had morphed into a full time peace activist and was only too pleased to go along with the aims of Greenpeace and its stance against nuclear testing.

On arrival in London, McGinley spent the morning helping Greenpeace activists set up a stunt calling for a worldwide ban on nuclear testing.

A huge net bearing Ban The Bomb slogans was subsequently draped across the Big Ben clock tower watched by McGinley from below. A couple of activists were arrested as they descended, but McGinley evaded sanction.

They later discussed a publicity stunt being planned for the following year which involved a trip to the south seas where the French were testing nuclear weapons on their flagship protest vessel the Rainbow Warrior. They said it would be good if Ken could join them to which he replied: "no chance…my wife won’t let me!"

It was just as well he didn’t as the Rainbow Warrior was subsequently blown

up by the French secret service when it docked in Auckland prior to setting off for the Mururoa atoll. A Portuguese photographer was killed.

Later that day McGinley met up with Tory MP Winston Churchill, grandson of the

famed war-time leader, who had arranged a meeting with a junior defence minister.

The meeting didn't go well. The minister dismissed McGinley's demand for compensation with the words: "Not while it is my job to take care of the public purse..."

McGinley declared that if that was the case the meeting was over and stood up to leave. Churchill was aghast: "It's protocol for the minister to call an end to the meeting," he said. McGinley shrugged and walked out, with the words: "Well I've just changed the protocol."

Later he met up with several colleagues who had trevelled to take part in planned discussions with MPs the following day.

To their surprise they were joined by a smartly-dressed man who introduced himself as Ernie Cox from the Birmingham branch of the BNTVA. He said he was from Shrewsbury and that he used to work for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE).

McGinley was impressed: members who worked for the government's bombmaking arm were valuable and he invited Cox to join them.

“Me and the lads ordered a meal from the set menu to save money," recalled McGinley.

"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.”

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as a delegation from the American Peace To McGinley’s surprise, Cox said he Corps led by Professor of Anthropology would pay out of his own pocket and he and activist Glenn Alcalay. also refused travel expenses. “He said he By this time Cox had been joined by none only lived across town and had come by other than his Tom Armstrong who tube, which surprised me a bit because he declared that as he had been elected had given his address as Shrewsbury, 60 chairman of the Birmingham branch of the miles away."

BNTVA he was entitled to attend the One of the veterans, Mike Doyle, a meeting. To avoid a scene, McGinley said former AWRE worker, told nothing despite the fact he had McGinley privately that he didn’t The Pair a foreboding that Armstrong and Cox were out to cause trust Cox because he didn’t Squared up trouble. remember Cox being there.

And so it proved. As the To each When he quizzed him about it meeting discussed the trip to Cox clammed up, refusing to be Other America, Armstrong and Cox, drawn on which department he who had been involved in an worked in. intense whispered discussion throughout, But nothing was said, and all seemed well suddenly made noisy objections about the the following day as the veteran’s group BNTVA and its links with Greenpeace. met with Anthony Guarisco, the powerful Cox was particularly scathing of McGinley leader of America's atomic veterans who, he claimed, 'didn’t have what it took' organisation who had flown in from the to chair the association and was allowing US especially to meet with McGinley and the BNTVA to be manipulated by lefthis group. wing groups.

The group, accompanied by Cox, met He was loudly backed by Armstrong who Guarisco in his hotel room to discuss the after the meeting broke up accused days meetings. Guarisco was in bed after McGinley of all but being a Communist suffering a sudden heavy cold on arrival in spy and that he should go back to Britain, but he declared himself fit enough Scotland where he belonged. to meet with MPs later that day.

The pair ended up squaring up to each Cox sat quietly throughout, saying little other, but luckily BNTVA solicitor Mark but always listening intently. It was later in Mildred cooled things down. But it wasn’t the day after the veterans had been to see a very pleasant experience.

MPs in Parliament that he showed his true Cox and Armstrong soon departed with colours.

Armstrong still loudly protesting about The veterans had moved on to a meeting McGinley’s involvement with Greenpeace. with Greenpeace representatives as well McGinley however soon found out that Cox and Armstrong had been busy undermining both he and the association for some time.

They had held a series of meetings with MPs, civil servants and Ministry of Defence officials without telling McGinley or the BNTVA committee.

McGinley read them the riot act in a blistering letter to the Birmingham branch. The branch backed McGinley and both Armstrong and Cox were forced out.

Cox (left) with McGinley and Guarisco

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But that wasn't the end of them. Cox and Armstrong went on to form a rival group called the British Atomic Veterans Association(BAVA). But in a last act of defiance Cox produced 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. We need a change quickly if we want to get something sorted out very soon.”

Cox concluded: “Fringe organisations such as CND, Greenpeace, Nuclear Freeze, Peace Movements, and the like should be kept completely out of our fight. They have their own aims, they must not be part of our plans or our normal activities, it will only affect our progress. I ask you to be sensible about what you have read and back my statement.”

Cox became chairman of the new organisation and urged members to place their faith in a Government-backed study by the National Radiological Protection Board into death rates among nuclear veterans...a study that eventually exonerated the government.

But Cox had disappeared long before the results were made public in 1986. He resigned from BAVA after only a couple of months in the chair and cut off all contact The British Nuclear Tests Veterans’ Association, may have been targeted by the British Government not only because of its left-wing links, but because it was an organisation of ex- servicemen who had attracted to its ranks former high-ranking

'There is Only one Person to Blame...'

officers from all three armed services.

Ken McGinley, would have been given special attention because he was the chairman, and because he had proved to be a media natural with the ability to converse easily with politicians across the spectrum.

In an interview McGinley said: “I know we must have been seen as a considerable nuisance by the British Government, Cox clearly set out to destroy us. I’d like to know who put him up to it and who he was reporting to. “We had no idea who Cox really was; this was 1983, long before computers and the internet. In those days we took everyone at face value. “I am appalled at the lengths he went to try to destroy an association of old soldiers just because they believed their illnesses were caused by their participation in the nuclear bomb tests,”

Next time...

How Robert Maxwell and the KGB waded into the fray, and How author Catherine Cookson's generosity led to bitter in-fighting and accusations of fraud and doubledealing

FISSIONLINE Coming Soon

KEN'S LEGACY A treasure trove of private papers, currently being evaluated by experts, could unlock many of the A-Bomb Test secrets 'they' didn't want you to know about

Fissionline is an independent newspaper with no official ties or affiliations.

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