In the 1950s, CSIRO biochemist, Hedley Marston, became embroiled in what Roger Cross describes as ‘the single most important crisis’ of his professional life. Research into fallout from the British atomic tests in Australia brought Marston into bitter conflict with the government appointed Safety Committee. It was a dispute that involved many of the major players in the Australian scientific community, and one that culminated in ‘perhaps the most unseemly episode in twentieth-century Australian science’. This is a fascinating story of ‘jealousy, hate and power’ that takes us behind the facade of scientific detachment and adds to our knowledge of the politics and personalities involved in Australia’s atomic adventures.

Hedley Marston, Chief of CSIR/O’s Division of Biochemistry and General Nutrition, was approached by British authorities in 1955 to assist in studying the effects of radiation on animals. After initial firings in 1952-3, the British atomic testing program was about to recommence in the Monte Bello Islands, and at the newly-established mainland test site known as Maralinga. Marston decided to examine the take up of radioactive fallout in grazing animals by measuring the concentration of radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands. His research indicated that fallout was being deposited over a much wider area than the physicists on the Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee (AWTSC) had publicly admitted. Either they were fools or charlatans and Marston became increasingly determined to bring them down.

Roger Cross provides a detailed account of Marston’s anger and frustration as he tried to force the AWTSC, led by Leslie Martin and Ernest Titterton, to admit their errors. Attempts at mediation by Fred White, CSIRO’s Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Oliphant, Marston’s close friend, failed. Rancour and recrimination escalated as Marston strove to publish his findings, only to meet obstruction and delay. Even when his work was finally made public, the controversy continued, as the AWTSC sought to have a rebuttal accepted for publication. An unpleasant battle over who would have the last word was finally brought to a halt by Oliphant. In the end, Marston’s revelations seem to have had little immediate impact, but as Cross demonstrates, public opinion was already on the turn, as opposition to atmospheric nuclear testing, both in Australia and overseas, mounted.

Marston imagined himself a champion of science, a defender of truth, but Cross reveals a much more complex figure. Marston was egotistical and belligerent, ready to take the credit for his colleagues’ research into coast disease, and prepared to bully anyone who stood in the way of his ambitions. His high-standing within the agricultural community, and his carefully cultivated circle of influential friends, gave him a sense of power that he clearly relished. He was no anxious whistleblower. As Cross shows, most clearly in Marston’s correspondence with Oliphant, his attacks on the AWTSC were driven as much by anger and revenge, as by a desire to protect the public and defend the standards of science.

Roger Cross has given us a picture of a flawed man, a would-be hero barely able to rise above his own pettiness and insecurities. Our understanding of Marston and his bitter crusade is greatly enriched by Cross’s efforts to examine the personality of the man and not just the persona of the scientist. Unfortunately, we don’t gain as much insight into his opponents. Titterton clearly had an ego to match Marston’s, but Les Martin seems a much more enigmatic figure. From Cross’s account and other sources, it appears that Martin was uncomfortable with the public role assigned him as first chairman of the AWTSC. What doubts and torments might Marston’s provocations have engendered? Oliphant, as always, is difficult to pin down. At times he tries to soothe Marston, but on other occasions he carelessly fuels his friend’s burning rage. Might he have done more to help? It is a measure of the book’s success that such questions emerge. There can be no easy answers once we try to explore the human dimensions of scientific controversy.

The book provides a good read, even though the complex chronology of events makes it difficult to keep track of who said what to whom and when. It makes excellent use of oral and archival sources and is thoroughly documented. Of course, you end up wishing for a full biography of Marston, but that hardly detracts from the current volume. If only other attempts at scientific biography showed the same willingness to deal with their subject’s flaws and complexities.

Was this the most unseemly episode in twentieth century Australian science? Who knows? So little has been written about the feuds and conflicts. So much lies hidden behind euphemisms such as ‘a difficult man’, or ‘a controversial figure’. Roger Cross hopes that his story will aid our understanding of ‘the tensions that lurk behind the bland face of “science rhetoric” here in Australia’. Here’s hoping that others will follow his lead.

It’s rare for a book relating to the history of Australian science to draw the attention of the national media. But Australia’s Bid for the Atomic Bomb made the front page with its claims that the origins of major institutions such as the Snowy Scheme and the ANU could be found in the government’s frustrated longing for nuclear weaponry. Wayne Reynolds’ ‘controversial’ book, it was reported, made use of ‘recently declassified documents’ to ‘debunk’ conventional assessments of Australian government policy in areas such as defence, foreign policy, education and science. Exciting stuff… I just wish I liked the book more.

Reynolds weaves an intricate tale of a small nation with big ambitions. Imagining that the bomb would strengthen Australia both militarily and industrially, governments of both persuasions set out upon a doomed quest for atomic enlightenment. Hopes of a major role in an atomic-powered revival of the British empire were thwarted by Britain’s desire to renew its partnership with the United States. Disappointed, exploited and ultimately betrayed, Australian policymakers were nonetheless reluctant to give up on their dream. Reynolds tracks Australia’s hopes through a detailed web of negotiations, reports, and policy manoeuvres. The influence of the bomb, he argues, was felt across a wide range of government activities, from increased support for higher education to military involvement in Vietnam. Australia’s bid for the atomic bomb did much to shape its postwar priorities.

Detailed archival research in Australia, South Africa, Canada, the USA, and the UK, has armed Reynolds with an impressive array of sources, which he uses to demonstrate Australia’s active and continuing interest in joining the atomic club. The ultimate failure of this quest, he suggests, has encouraged historians to overlook its significance. By starting with the bomb, and looking again at many postwar initiatives, this book offers an interesting perspective on the motivations of successive Australian governments, and the machinations of super-power politics. Anyone interested in topics such as Australian defence and foreign policy, Cold War spy scares, and the organisation of science for defence, might profitably peruse its pages.

But Reynolds wants to do more than merely draw attention to a previously ignored strand of Australia’s postwar history. The bomb’s influence was decisive, he argues. ‘Behind the great reconstruction schemes of the Curtin-Chifley Labor government, and later the conservative Menzies government’, the book begins, ‘lay the nuclear deterrent weapons program’: ‘Many of the great national projects, such as the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the Woomera Rocket Range and the Australian National University, were in large measure based on the assumption that Australia would one day be a nuclear weapons state’ (p. 1). While book’s focus on the bomb provides most of its strength, originality and narrative drive, Reynold’s expansive claims demonstrate that there are dangers in relying on such a narrow framework.

The ‘origins’ of the Snowy Scheme, Reynolds argues, lay not in the desire for electricity or irrigation. Such features merely ‘describe what the scheme became’ (p. 54). Instead he stresses its role in defence planning, and as a possible location for nuclear power plants. No doubt such possibilities were canvassed, but how do you balance them against the range of alternative influences? Reynolds doesn’t try. His history apparently begins in 1945, and so the Snowy’s expression of long-standing nation building ideals is ignored, as is the growing desire to promote industrialisation, and the fondly-held dream of bringing life to Australia’s arid lands. All these are peripheral, the bomb is central.

Moreover, despite a brief nod towards ‘the problem of the states’, Reynolds ignores the constitutional hurdles that faced the Commonwealth in pushing ahead with the Snowy scheme. Water and power were under the control of the states, so emphasising the defence aspects of the project offered a means of bolstering Commonwealth authority. Reynolds does little to help us understand the balance between the rhetoric and the reality.

The ANU is similarly cast as a product of the government’s bomb-consciousness. Reynold’s highlights the involvement of Mark Oliphant and Ernest Titterton in the development of the bomb, and provides evidence of Oliphant’s continuing interest in the military significance of nuclear physics. But Oliphant was a complex and contradictory character, and missing from Reynold’s account are Oliphant’s moral anguish over the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his frequent statements in favour of nuclear disarmament, his involvement in the Pugwash Movement, and his decision to have nothing more to do with the development of the bomb. The influence of the bomb it seems, it to reduce everything to black and white.

Underlying such assessments, however, is a more fundamental problem. The book fails to address the relationship between the destructive power of the bomb and the promise of cheap and abundant energy, foreseen in the industrial application of atomic energy. Reynolds assumes that interest was primarily focused on the bomb, as ‘power reactors were seen to be a distant possibility at the end of the war’. It all rather depends on your definition of ‘distant’. Certainly there is much to indicate, in both published and unpublished sources, that Australian governments were excited by the prospects for industrial development offered by the atomic age. The payoffs might not have been immediate, but they were assumed to be inevitable. Australia’s desire for atomic information, and all the machinations that ensued, cannot simply be explained as a ‘bid for the bomb’.

Of course, government interest may have swayed between the peaceful and the military applications of the atom, and it would be interesting to chart such changes across the postwar period. But this book only gives us the bomb’s side of the story. Emphasis would also have differed across government agencies, and it seems significant that Reynold’s research has focused on defence and foreign policy records. Greater use of CSIRO and AAEC material might have balanced the picture.

Apparently, the original manuscript of the book ran to nearly a quarter of a million words, so perhaps much contextual material has been lost in the trimming. It’s also fair to recognise that works which dare to offer ‘new perspectives’ can often overstate their case in the struggle to be heard amidst the babble of academic orthodoxy. If Reynolds had simply moderated his claims, it would be a better, though less provocative, book. I must admit, too, that I would have found the book considerably less annoying if Reynolds wasn’t so keen to portray himself as the raider of the lost archives.

When I saw press reports describing the book’s use of ‘recently declassified’ files, I assumed the publisher’s publicity machine had been at work. But Reynolds apparent struggle to wrest the truth from secretive government bureaucracies provides a continuing theme throughout the book. Records are hardly worth a mention unless they are ‘declassified’. The procedures of access clearance and the thirty-year rule are made to seem mysterious and arbitrary, while missing files and supposed silences are merely grist to the mill of this determined secrets hunter. One bizarre example relates to David Rivett’s attempts to negotiate the placement of Australian scientists at the Chalk River nuclear facility in Canada. ‘Rivett’s biographer is silent about the attempts to send CSIR scientists to work at Chalk River’, Reynolds notes, ‘but Canadian records reveal that he entered into an involved correspondence with his counterparts in Ottawa at the beginning of 1946′. Are we meant to assume that there is something significant, sinister even, in this supposed ‘silence’. Rohan Rivett’s biography of his father is far from being a detailed account of his scientific career, why would we even expect this particular episode to be included? And why ‘Canadian records’? I’m pretty sure Reynolds could have saved himself an international airfare if he had looked in CSIRO archives.

Why does any of this matter? Maybe it doesn’t. Perhaps other readers will enjoy the added sense of drama. But it bothers me because much of the cultural power of the atomic bomb resides in this thing ‘the secret’. If we merely play to its mysterious allure, we risk reinforcing the barriers it has helped erect around knowledge and authority. The greatest failing of this book, I believe, is that instead of trying to unravel the power and fascination of the bomb, it has fallen victim to it. Just as Hiroshima brought fancies of a future dominated by the atom, so Reynolds finds the bomb behind every door, hiding at the back of every cupboard. Just as the atomic secret divided the postwar world, so Reynolds deploys his mastery of ‘secret’ files to carry his argument and deny alternatives.

ATOMIC TESTING was undertaken in Australia between 1952 and 1963 as Britain sought to develop its own nuclear weapons. The Australian government readily supplied test sites and logistical support, mistakenly believing that greater access to nuclear technology would result.

Twelve full-scale nuclear devices were exploded in Australia at three sites, the Monte Bello Islands (1952, 1956), Emu Field (1953) and Maralinga (1956-8), with radioactively-dirty ‘minor’ trials continuing at Maralinga until 1963.

Opposition to the testing program grew throughout the 1950s with increased awareness of the dangers of radioactive fallout. This was heightened in the 1970s when the French began atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Lingering concern over health effects led eventually to the establishment of a Royal Commission into the British tests in 1984. The Commission examined safety precautions, and the ‘black mist’ that had reportedly engulfed aboriginal communities. It also questioned the role of Australian scientific observers, particularly the physicist Ernest Titterton.

The Royal Commission recommended easier access to compensation for serviceman and civilians, and that the test sites should be cleaned up at British cost, and returned to their aboriginal owners. After a long political and legal struggle, the clean-up proceeded and the land was returned to its owners, but some parts will never be safe for long-term occupation.

Robert Milliken’s No Conceivable Injury (1986) provides a readable account of the tests and aftermath, while Lorna Arnold’s official history of the tests, A Very Special Relationship (1987), plays down their health effects.

Then there was a great flash that reached the far horizon. Even Dr Penney, who had witnessed the first historic cataclysm in the desert at Almagordo and later seen a bomb burst over Japan, described the scene as ‘terrifying’ as he turned around to find the frigate Plym had vanished and to see a great greyish-black cloud shooting up thousands of feet into the air and ever-growing in size.

In the Monte Bello Islands off the coast of Western Australia on 3 October 1952, Dr William Penney watched as an atomic device for which he was largely responsible vaporised a test ship and sent thousands of tonnes of water erupting into the air. His programme had been successful; Britain was now a fully-fledged nuclear power.

Australia, meanwhile, had proved to be a convenient nuclear testing site; but the Monte Bello’s radioactive scars were not Australia’s first association with the atomic bomb, nor were they to be the last. Between 1952 and 1957 there were 12 full-scale nuclear weapons tests on Australian soil. The first, at Monte Bello, was followed by two at Emu Field in South Australia in 1953. A further two devices were exploded at Monte Bello in 1956 before testing was transferred to a permanent site in South Australia, the now infamous Maralinga.

The tests were primarily British undertakings, with Australia providing little more than logistic support. However, there were three Australian scientists who were present at each of the tests — E.W. Titterton, L.H. Martin and W.A.S. Butement. These men had no formally defined role in the first three tests, but in 1955, with the establishment of the Maralinga proving ground, they were incorporated into a Safety Committee, the task of which was to monitor future tests so as to ensure the safety of Australian people and property.

A full evaluation of the Safety Committee’s functioning is a task for the future. What must be grasped before such an evaluation can be meaningfully made is the political context of Australian involvement in the atomic tests. Why did Britain develop an atomic bomb? Why did Australia agree to its testing? The motivations underlying such decisions were part of a complex, global network of political desires and ambitions that determined the nature of Australian involvement in the British atomic tests. This paper is an attempt to show how the ‘informal’ involvement of Titterton, Martin and Butement in the early trials at Monte Bello and Emu Field was shaped by international politics. The ‘how’ and ‘why’ of this situation obviously raises some important questions about the role of the Safety Committee in the later tests and, indeed, about Australia’s place in world politics, then and now.

The atomic bomb was developed during the Second World War through the collaborative efforts of Allied scientists. The’ Manhattan Project’, as the developmental program was code-named, was largely dependent upon American resources and personnel, but a number of British scientists played a significant part in ensuring its completion. However, this successful partnership did not survive long in the post-war world, for the Americans soon sought to restrict the disclosure of information on atomic energy. This policy was given legal form in 1946 with the passing of the McMahon Act, which specifically prohibited the sort of mutually beneficial interchange on atomic matters that the British had hoped to cultivate. Not surprisingly, British scientists and politicians felt somewhat betrayed. McMahon, it is said, likened the situation to a stable boy seeking a share in the stable on account of all his hard work. Such an attitude hardly did justice to Britain’s (or France’s or Canada’s) role in early atomic energy research.

Britain’s status as a loyal ally was not in doubt, but the Americans were somewhat circumspect in their trust of British security arrangements. Their fears were reinforced as details of Britain’s spy scandals were periodically revealed. Gordon Dean, one-time chairman of the American Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC), wrote some years after the passing of the Act that

until British security methods are tightened, at least to the point where a Bruno Pontecorvo cannot merrily wing his way from Harwell to Russia without some kind of restriction we cannot afford to be full partners.

The passing of the McMahon Act represents the most precarious moment in the history of UK/US atomic relations. In the years that followed, there were many discussions and negotiations, and at times, some interchange of information did occur. Nevertheless, at all times the Americans maintained a firm hold over their potentially lucrative atomic technology, only dispensing scientific morsels according to their benevolent whims. Britain had no option but to bow to the American demands in the hope that compliance might have its rewards in the long run.

The McMahon Act did not wholly condemn Britain to the non-atomic wilderness, however, for by 1946, the British had already taken substantial steps towards the development of their own, independent atomic programme. At Harwell, a research station, albeit ‘in embryonic form’, already existed, and planning had begun for the necessary industrial complexes.

There seems to have been a certain amount of pride involved in the British decision to pursue their own programme. After all, much of the pioneering work in the field had been carried out in Britain. It seemed to some to be not so much a case of instituting an atomic energy programme as of allowing the continued unfolding of the brilliant work of Britain’s atomic scientists; to have ignored or restricted this work would have seemed somehow ‘unnatural ‘. However, whilst it may have appeared that ‘sheer momentum alone would have been enough to keep the programme going’, the generous funding and high priority accorded the project can hardly be said to have been due to its scientific challenges. The programme existed and continued to exist because of its practical aims. Atomic energy had attractive industrial possibilities, but more important still was the application which had given the science its war-time impetus – the Bomb.

In 1944, the British Tube Alloys Technical Committee recommended a course of action ‘which would shorten as much as possible the time required to produce in the United Kingdom after the war a militarily significant number of bombs, say ten’. Indeed, there was a notable consistency of thought on the necessity of Britain possessing an atomic bomb, the Chiefs of Staff being particularly insistent. Such opinions were not confined to the military or scientific mind. In November 1945, Winston Churchill stated in Parliament: ‘This I take is already agreed, we should make atomic bombs.’ There is no doubt that one of the firm objectives of British post-war atomic development was to provide the nation with an atomic weapons capability. This is evidenced by a top-secret memorandum distributed to Commonwealth Prime Ministers in 1946, which indicated that fissile materials would be produced in the United Kingdom ‘for military applications’. Similarly, one of the men who supervised the construction of the industrial facilities to service the programme has commented: ‘the remit given to the new organisation was the production of plutonium for military purposes.’

Many reasons were and are given as to why Britain needed the Bomb. Generally, they fall into three sometimes indistinct categories: military, political and nationalistic. On the military level, it was believed that Britain’s, indeed the Commonwealth’ s, security depended upon possession of the Bomb. In the early post-war years, a weakened Britain stood alone, facing the ‘threat’ of Communist expansion. Before the NATO agreement was formulated, there was no assurance that the United States would act to protect British interests if another conflict arose. Hence, it was argued, Britain required atomic weapons of its own, targeted on centres crucial to its own defence. Soon the likely consequences of extensive atomic conflict became evident, changing military strategy and the justification of atomic hardware. The Bomb was now too horrible to be used, but rather it was necessary as a deterrent to prevent deployment by the enemy – an argument we know all too well. The Bomb was also recognised as being chillingly economic. In the financially difficult post-war years, where a full-scale military force was difficult to maintain, the cost-effective A-bomb was an attractive proposition to British military planners.

Politically, the Bomb held many promises; with a handful in its arsenal, Britain became a credible participant in world affairs once more. The Bomb meant influence – particularly, the British hoped, in Washington where, it was feared, ‘isolationism’ might again paralyse American foreign policy. It was also thought that if Britain could sufficiently impress the United States authorities with its own atomic achievements, a steadier interchange of atomic information might be forthcoming.

The Bomb had a nationalistic appeal as well. Britain’s role as world leader had been usurped by the United States, yet its people still regarded their homeland as one of the ‘great powers’. The atomic bomb would reaffirm their membership of this elite and provide a new object of national pride. The British Empire could bask anew in the never-setting sun of atomic glory.

Such factors as these are seen reflected in statements surrounding the first British atomic test in 1952. Several months before the test, the United Kingdom High Commissioner wrote to an Australian official:

the test will have a considerable effect on the American attitude towards atomic co-operation with the United Kingdom and indeed on Anglo-American relationships in general.

The implications of Britain’s atomic bomb were also recognised by the media. As the American journal Newsweek reported after the explosion:

The British people reacted with a macabre surge of national pride. The tabloid London Daily Mirror exulted: ‘This bang has changed the world’. More seriously, Britain’s atomic test was regarded as a new deterrent to Communist attack and as a new incentive to restoring wartime atomic partnership among the U.S., Britain and Canada.

British correspondents were understandably less cynical. Under the title ‘A Bomb of One’s Own’, one wrote:

Britain this teeming womb of distinguished engineers and scientists can be frankly proud of the sheer technical and intellectual achievements displayed in the Monte Bello explosion.

Another suggested:

This A-bomb explosion will do far more than satisfy British national pride. It will give Britain:
– A stronger voice in Western military strategy. British prestige will go up in the U.S. as well as Western Europe.
– A certain amount of protection against possible Russian intimidation. There’s a good chance also, that it will lead to a renewal of close Anglo-American atomic co-operation.

It is to be noted that a major hope in the encouragement of an independent British atomic programme was the potential revitalisation of Anglo-American co-operation. Thus even in pursuing their own developments, the British had to be ever-mindful of the constraints of transatlantic appeasement. American attitudes were always an important consideration.

Shortly after the war, it seemed that a collaborative atomic project might be initiated within the British Commonwealth. Such countries as Australia and New Zealand hoped that, in return for personnel and resources, they might be made privy to atomic technology. However, the prospect of atomic proliferation, even within the Commonwealth, was viewed with horror by the Americans and thus the project was suppressed. The possibility of co-operation with the United States simply could not be endangered, even if this meant that broader Commonwealth interests had to be sacrificed.

Britain’s relations with her dominions were further circumscribed by a tripartite agreement formulated by Britain, the United States and Canada in 1948. Termed the Modus Vivendi, this document attempted to re-establish some limited grounds for atomic collaboration. Notably, Annex Two of the Modus Vivendi delineated possible ‘Areas of Cooperation between Members of the British Commonwealth’. Needless to say, the co-operation envisaged was of a very restricted nature, confined to such areas as health and safety, the discovery and processing of ores, the use of isotopes and the design of research reactors. But even these concessions were conditional:

Co-operation within the above classified fields will be subject to an understanding between governments to adopt common standards in holding information secure. Transmission would also be subject to the principle of current usability.

Thus atomic energy policy within the British Commonwealth was always dependent upon the more crucial relationship with the United States that Britain so assiduously sought to maintain and extend.

The decision to proceed with the British atomic bomb project was made officially in January 1947. However, by this time arrangements were well under way. The necessary plutonium was already on order, and in the Armaments Research Division of the Department of Supply, an Atomic Weapons Section was being organised around Dr William Penney, the Chief Superintendent of Armament Research. The project, code-named ‘High Explosives Research’, generally proceeded on schedule, and in 1950 it was realised that arrangements had to be made to test the first bomb, since it would be ready within two years.

At this time, atomic energy relations between the United States and Britain had reached a very low ebb with the arrest of the high-ranking British physicist, Klaus Fuchs, for espionage. The British hoped, however, that despite a virtual cessation of atomic negotiations, arrangements might still be made for the use of an American atomic test site, since such sites were a military concern and thus thought to be outside the provisions of the McMahon Act. An official request was made to the American Chiefs of Staff, but their reply was delayed.

Awaiting the outcome of the American deliberations, Penney investigated the feasibility of a test site in Canada. Meanwhile the British Chiefs of Staff suggested another possible site, the Monte Bello Islands, off the coast of Western Australia. Encouraged to pursue this Australian option, the British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, contacted his Australian counterpart, Robert Menzies, in September 1950. Attlee sought agreement, in principle, to the testing of an atomic device on Australian territory. If this were granted, he also hoped that a preliminary survey of the Monte Bellos might be arranged. Within three days, both proposals had been approved, the Australians offering every assistance. The survey, completed in December, was encouraging, and Penney urged that the site be chosen, commenting: ‘In fact we know of no other site in which this trial can take place on the planned date.’

The Americans had finally replied to the British request in October 1950, curtly refusing access to their atomic test facilities. However, the British remained hopeful; even as they were arranging a formal agreement with the Australians in early 1951, another approach was being made to the United States. Preparations for the test at Monte Bello were well under way when, in September, the Americans ventured to suggest a joint testing programme. The offer was attractive, but in December 1951, the re-e1ected Churchill decided to proceed with the Monte Bello test. Menzies, who had been tolerantly awaiting the outcome of these deliberations, was informed of the decision by the UK High Commissioner; the letter noted the British government’s ‘warm appreciation’ of the American offer, but went on:

the fact remains that under their proposed conditions the Americans could, if they so choose, at any time declare certain items to be restricted data and decline to share them with the United Kingdom.

The past record of Anglo-American atomic relations could hardly inspire British faith in the success of a joint testing programme. It seemed wiser to avoid placing their programme in American hands until a more satisfactory basis for atomic collaboration had been established. Furthermore, it was declared that such co-operation would be more likely ‘if we show that we are not entirely dependent upon them now’.

The British proposal to test an atomic device at the Monte Bello Islands in October 1952 was formally approved by the Australian government in May 1951; or at least, by certain members of the government – Menzies did not even consider it necessary to inform his Cabinet of the’ Operation Hurricane’ arrangements until the matter was a virtual fait accompli. However, even when the details were officially announced, Australia’s participation in the test gained widespread support. One Opposition senator stated that he did not object to the Monte Bello test because ‘This country needs all the sources of strength that are available to it’.

To bolster such support, the Australian authorities continually sought to ensure that the cooperative aspects of the test were highlighted. The official joint announcement of the atomic test, made on 18 February 1952, stated, in part:

In close co-operation with the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia the test will take place at a site in Australia.

The words ‘in close co-operation’ had been substituted for ‘by arrangement’ in the original draft at Australian instigation. Similarly, the Australians insisted that the sentence ‘The Australian Government and fighting services are also closely cooperating’ be added to the announcement of the site and organisational details of the test, made on 15 May. This addition was sought ‘to give emphasis to the part played by the Australian Government and Armed Services in the operation’. The Australians viewed the arrangements for the declaration of the test’s success with the same concern. It was thought that the release of just a short communique, as had been proposed,

would not do justice to what Australia has done in regard to the test and it would be expected that the press would look to the Government for some information on this.

Consequently the relevant authorities composed a supplementary statement detailing the Australian effort that, with British approval, was released to the press along with the communique.

It seems likely that the Australian government sought to emphasise its contribution to the Monte Bello test in order that it might share in the glory of Britain’s atomic success. Publicity arrangements were formulated with a concern ‘to extract the greatest prestige benefit’, encouraging media outlets such as the Sydney Morning Herald to proclaim: ‘Australia may well be proud to be associated with Britain in [such] a great enterprise’. Such a desire for prestige may have been one of the factors that prompted the Australians to agree to the British tests; further reasons are suggested by the defence and foreign relations policies of Menzies’ avowedly anti-Communist government.

On 20 September 1950, Menzies broadcast his first ‘Defence Call to the Nation’, in which he proclaimed:

Do you think that this Communist enemy would hesitate to overrun Western civilisation if the United States did not have the atomic bomb? Don’t let’s pretend about the bomb. It’s real. It is today keeping the world out of a tragic world-wide war. Horrible as it is (and I saw Hiroshima a few weeks ago), it is today not an instrument of war but of peace.

Menzies was exhorting Australians to support his plans for defence preparedness – preparedness for a third world war that would inevitably involve the use of atomic weapons. However, he did not expand Australia’s defence forces, nor seek to arm Australia with atomic bombs. Rather, he believed that Australia’s safety could best be maintained by cultivating ‘great and powerful friends’. The Minister for External Affairs, Percy Spender, described the aims of Australian foreign policy as being

essentially the preservation of peace and of our way of life. Inseparable from these aims is the closest possible cooperation within the British Commonwealth and with the United States of America and other nations friendly to the Commonwealth. Our purpose must be to determine in what ways we can co-operate in achieving our objectives.

Australia’s ties with the Commonwealth were particularly important – historically and emotionally, if not strategically. To Menzies, the Commonwealth was ‘an unquenchable sense of common destiny and common duty and common instinct ‘. But it was also ‘an instrument of our security and prosperity’ which involved ‘obligations as well as rights’:

The continuance of the world influence and the effectiveness of the British Commonwealth will continue to depend upon the readiness of every member to contribute to that Commonwealth’s welfare as a whole and to share with it in the great task of forwarding the welfare of mankind.

It was certainly thought that the atomic bomb would bolster Britain’s sagging ‘world influence and effectiveness’. Menzies may thus have felt that it was within Australia’s Commonwealth duties to allow the tests.

Equally, the Bomb was an important factor in the defence, not only of the Commonwealth, but of the Western World. The Communists would initiate a world war, said Menzies, ‘if they feel that in such a war the probabilities of success are heavily in their favour’. Australia, then, in contributing to the development of Britain’s atomic bomb, was aiding the development of the ‘free world’s’ deterrent power. Australia’s involvement in such a venture would also undoubtedly ensure the military beneficence of its ‘friends’ and hence the security of the country and its people. Howard Beale, Menzies’ Minister for Supply during the tests, summed up Australia’s position in his autobiography:

With some reason Britain felt that she had no option but to build up a retaliatory nuclear power of her own, which would also be a supplement to American deterrent power. As to Australia, it would, in this situation, have been against our own interest, and brutally ungenerous as well, to have refused the assistance requested.

Of course, the Australian authorities may have also foreseen other benefits in hosting the tests. After the war, attempts were made to formulate international controls over atomic energy. The United Nations hosted disarmament discussions, at which Australia was represented by the Minister for External Affairs, Herbert Evatt. Evatt was advised on technical matters by Mark Oliphant and George Briggs, Chief of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) Division of Physics. However, an official statement of Australia’s involvement in these activities indicates that the government was interested in the possibilities as well as the problems of this new power source:

the Australian Government is conscious both of the need for removing the danger of destruction which is threatened by the atomic bomb, and also of developing to the full great responsibilities which this discovery holds for the benefit of mankind. This second aspect is particularly important for Australia, whose development of new sources of power may show the way to great material progress and removal of substantial disabilities.

Clearly the atomic age held many promises for Australia.

Recognition that Australia should initiate atomic energy research dated back to 1941 when Mark Oliphant, who was himself playing an important role in atomic developments, raised the subject with Australia’s representative in Washington, R.G. Casey. Oliphant warned that the processes and techniques were being rapidly patented, so that

it may be desirable for Australia to do some work, when possible, on the energy machine, so that if and when she wished to exploit it, she will have something with which to bargain.

On a war-time visit to Australia, Oliphant again sought to encourage initiatives in this field. He particularly urged that extensive uranium prospecting be undertaken.

After the war, the Australian authorities began to show an active interest in such matters. CSIR’s Executive Officer, Fred White, wrote to Briggs in Washington: ‘I suppose you appreciate that we are extremely keen to get into this atomic energy work.’ Subsequently, an Atomic Energy Research Advisory Committee to CSIR was formed. Its members included Leslie Martin, the newly appointed professor of physics at the University of Melbourne, who was attempting to expand the study of nuclear physics within his department. At the same time, CSIR was negotiating to send some of its workers to Britain to gain experience at the developing research establishment at Harwell.

In response to Australian requests for information, British officials arranged for Oliphant to discuss ‘aspects of atomic energy development’ with relevant Australian authorities. Oliphant informed Cabinet members of Britain’s progress in atomic research and also held discussions with scientific bodies which, according to White, were ‘very stimulating and informative’.

In 1947, an atomic physics section was created within CSIR. Several officers were transferred to Harwell, while another group was established at the University of Melbourne to undertake

fundamental research into nuclear energy generally with the object of training sufficient men to develop an atomic or nuclear energy stockpile.

This group was under the direction of Les Martin who, in August 1947, visited England on behalf of CSIR to study recent developments in nuclear physics.

The following year, Oliphant returned to Australia and discussed the possibility of constructing an atomic pile somewhere in the Australian desert. As a result of these talks, the Defence Department’s New Weapons and Equipment Development Committee recommended that:

It be accepted as a general principle of policy that it is desirable that Australia take part in the development of atomic energy from the viewpoint of Defence, apart from the advantage to National Development.

In 1949, Oliphant, who had decided to take up a position at the newly established Australian National University (ANU), was appointed chairman of the Industrial Atomic Energy Policy Committee, one of the members of which was Les Martin. This committee was to advise the government on the future of Australian atomic research and development. In the same year, substantial deposits of uranium were discovered at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory. Later, further discoveries were made at Radium Hill in South Australia.

The realisation that Australia possessed rich uranium reserves prompted the country’s leaders to consider much more seriously the prospect of atomic power generation. The South Australian government was particularly enthusiastic, and the Premier commented in 1952:

If I were asked to predict the location of the first atomic pile in the Southern Hemisphere I would name without hesitation the shores of the Spencer Gulf.

Finally, in March 1953, the Atomic Energy Bill was introduced into Parliament and passed without opposition. The resulting Act established the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, which was to be responsible for overseeing all future operations involving nuclear energy.

All of Australia’s plans for the development of its atomic resources were founded on the assumption that Britain would supply the necessary classified information. When Fred White wrote to George Briggs of the Australian ‘keenness’ to be involved in atomic research work, he added:

We hope to do so in collaboration with Great Britain and Canada. It is quite obvious we cannot start up an expensive developmental project here and the best arrangement would be to help Britain in the hope that we would receive a suitable return later.

Oliphant’s plan for constructing an atomic pile in Australia was envisaged as being part of a ‘joint United Kingdom! Australian programme of Atomic Development’ designed ‘to meet its [Australia’s] own and British Commonwealth requirements’. Similarly, in his role as chairman of the Industrial Atomic Energy Policy Committee, Oliphant sought an agreement between the two countries for joint development of atomic energy. Evatt and Menzies had, at different times, also requested information from the mother country.

However, the assistance envisaged was never likely to be forthcoming because of Britain’s curious, restrictive relationship with the United States. In the hope of re-establishing an interchange on atomic matters, Britain was anxious to abide by the American policy of non-proliferation of atomic information. Australia’s aspirations were particularly ill-fated as the Americans maintained an especial distrust of security measures ‘downunder’. Oliphant was told on one occasion that ‘no Australian, from the Prime Minister down can be trusted not to be careless or worse’. Moreover, Britain’s ability to accede to Australian requests was severely circumscribed by the conditions of the Modus Vivendi.

This enforced alienation of a Commonwealth partner became increasingly uncomfortable as Britain’s dependence on Australia for atomic testing grounds increased. Indeed, it may be that a recognition of this situation was one of the factors behind the Australian decision to host the tests. The Australians might have hoped that co-operation in the staging of the tests would result in a change of attitude – an indebted Britain might not refuse Australian requests so readily. Even if no such major shift in policy were to occur, the Australians might at least have hoped that suitably qualified representatives involved in the tests would gain some knowledge that would be applicable to their own research.

Certainly there were precedents for such mutually beneficial arrangements. The Long Range Weapons Establishment had been founded in 1946 as a joint operation between Australia and Britain. Australian input was considerable for a project largely designed to enrich Britain’s arsenals; nevertheless Beale, the Minister in charge of the operation after 1949, believed the many millions to be well spent when one considered

the technical and other knowledge learned from these experiments, the professional association of our scientists with their British counterparts, and. ..the close working together scientists, technicians, military men, public servants and politicians.

This partnership, said Beale, led to another which was ‘just as valuable’ – the atomic weapons tests.

In a similar way, Britain required skilled staff to aid the development of the atomic research establishment at Harwell. Australia was happy to supply these, hoping that the knowledge and experience they would gain would be useful in any comparable Australian project. The Australian authorities also hoped that their uranium reserves might provide some grounds for the provision of information or processed materials. Given such precedents, the Australian government may well have thought that atomic research and development in Australia would benefit from the tests.

Despite this, though, the government did not insist on any explicit guidelines for Australian technical and scientific participation. Some meteorological and radiochemical facilities were provided, but as Phillip McBride, the Minister for Defence, explained to Parliament:

The executive control of the project rests entirely with the United Kingdom authorities, and the policy on matters such as those relating to the presence at the test of observers, whether they be officials or representatives of the press, is entirely for the United Kingdom Authorities to determine.

There were in fact three Australian representatives at the first Monte Bello or ‘Hurricane’ test. They were Ernest Titterton, professor of nuclear physics at ANU, Leslie Martin, professor of physics at the University of Melbourne, and Alan Butement, Chief Scientist of the Australian Department of Supply. The actual extent and nature of their participation in the test is difficult to determine since their attendance was not covered by any formal agreement. The Australian Ionizing Radiation Advisory Council, in its report on the British nuclear tests, suggests that they may have made some contribution to deciding when to fire the device. But other evidence indicates that, at the Hurricane test, Titterton, Martin and Butement were simply observers, assigned nominal tasks just to facilitate the ‘accommodation position’. Certainly Beale seems to have had this impression when he wrote to Menzies in November 1953 concerning the establishment of a permanent testing ground:

I am sure you would also wish that any arrangements which were made would ensure that Australian scientists were active participants in the preparation for the tests and in the carrying out of them, and were not present merely as observers as hitherto.

Likewise, no formal agreement was made about the participation of Australian scientists in the Totem I and II tests conducted at Emu Field. The British had first sought agreement from Menzies about the possibility of a mainland test while he was visiting the United Kingdom in late 1952. Menzies felt that his Government would ‘certainly agree’ to the proposal and cabled the Minister for Defence for confirmation. This was sent within three days. In fact the test site had been chosen some months earlier while the British team was in Australia for the Hurricane test. Preparation of the site was a lengthy project in difficult conditions, undertaken by Australian service personnel. But despite some problems, all went according to plan, and two major atomic devices were exploded at Emu Field, on 15 and 27 October 1953.

Martin and Butement had both helped in the selection of this site, and it seemed that Australian scientists would play a much more significant role in these tests. Duncan Sandys, the UK Minister of Supply, announced that Australian scientists had ‘accepted responsibility for certain important tasks in connection with the observation and measurement of results’. However, besides some meteorological aid, Australia’s sole scientific ‘participants’ were Titterton and an assistant, who made some measurements of neutron flux at various distances from the blast. Martin and Butement were again simply observers.

Significantly, though, the British Aide-Memoire outlining proposals for the mainland tests suggested that Professors Martin and Titterton might ‘go through the calculations’ with Penney, so as to be sure of the safety of the arrangements. Indeed, technical data were provided, enabling the Australian scientists to make ‘their own independent evaluation of the hazards’.

However, while they acted in this advisory capacity, neither Titterton nor Martin seemed to have any formal authority or responsibility at the tests themselves. It was planned that Martin would attend the first explosion as one member of a party of officials, including Butement, who would ‘fly from Woomera to the site on the morning of the test and return to Woomera the next day’. Even when at the site they would ‘not have contact with senior members of the test organisation’.

Despite this lack of actual authority, it was stressed publicly that the Australian scientists would play an important role in advising the Government ‘as to the adequacy of. ..safeguards ‘. With some fears being expressed as to the safety of mainland testing, the authorities were able to make statements focussing on the involvement of Titterton, Martin and Butement as a means of public reassurance. In this regard it was noted of Titterton’s and Martin’s assessment of hazards that:

the Australian authorities will need to be armed with this evaluation before there is any possibility of an announcement or a leak about the tests.

Clearly there were no doubts as to the verdict of this assessment, nor of its value in public relations.

The three Australian scientists were thus given a public and political rather than a scientific role. One wonders, then, what criteria were used in the selection of Titterton, Martin and Butement as observers for the Monte Bello and Emu tests. While their scientific skills and training would have been important, they may not have been the only factors involved; after all, such skills were scarcely, if at all, utilised. The British, of course, had brought out their own highly specialised team; Australian involvement was no necessity as far as the technical operations were concerned. Other factors determining the extent and nature of Australian participation can be seen in an examination of the backgrounds of these three scientists.

Ernest Titterton played a significant role in the development of the atomic bomb. Indeed, by the time of the Monte Bello test, his association with the device stretched back more than ten years. It began in 1941 at the University of Birmingham when, as a 25-year-old research officer, he was asked to use his skills in electronics to assist the research being undertaken by Otto Frisch. A British committee had initiated research into the possibilities of atomic energy and, under its auspices, Frisch was investigating aspects of nuclear fission. The apparatus that Titterton developed enabled Frisch to gain a further understanding of the parameters of Bomb design.

Frisch and Titterton continued their research, initially at Liverpool and then, in 1943, at Los Alamos as part of the Manhattan Project. They were the first British team members to arrive at the top secret American establishment, and Titterton was the last to depart. Working with Frisch, he had developed the technology of measuring extremely small intervals of time. This expertise well qualified him for work with the fast electronics involved in the firing of a nuclear core. At the very first test of an atomic device, held at Almagordo, New Mexico, in 1945, Titterton was a senior member of the Timing Group. His responsibilities included the provision of time signals marking off the milliseconds prior to the explosion, and the sending of the signal to activate the detonators. Thus Titterton’s electronics fired the world’s first atomic ‘bomb’.

Titterton’s role in the development of the new weapon continued after the war when, by virtue of his ‘irreplaceability’, he was able to avoid the restrictions of the McMahon Act and remain at Los Alamos. As advisor on instrumentation and a principal assistant to the scientist in charge, Titterton made an important contribution to the Bikini atomic weapons tests in 1946. Finally, though, in 1947, he left the United States to take up a research position at Harwell. Here he was able to pursue more fundamental research, although his connections with the Bomb were not wholly severed. Penney’s attempts to lure him into ‘High Explosives Research’ failed, but he and other Los Alamos veterans contributed valuable advice to the British atomic bomb project.

In late 1950, Titterton accepted the invitation of Mark Oliphant and arrived in Australia to establish his own research team in nuclear physics at ANU. In less than two years he was standing in the shadow of the mushroom cloud once more.

Titterton’s involvement in the Hurricane trial seems to have been initiated by a personal request from Penney. This request was relayed through the UK High Commissioner and sought Titterton’s services ‘to help in the field work of telemetry in connection with the atomic test’. Allen Brown, Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, duly sought permission for such activity from the Vice-Chancellor of ANU, commenting:

I understand that Dr Titterton will be furnished with certain data which will be of interest and use to the Australian Authorities in relation to the weapon effects from the point of view of civil defence.
The United Kingdom Government has recalled that Dr Titterton is an outstanding expert on atomic explosions having been concerned with the first two bombs and having taken part in the first United States Tests at Eniwetok.

Titterton’s involvement thus seemed desirable both from British and Australian perspectives.

Ernest Titterton had seen the atomic bomb all the way through from an horrific idea to an horrific reality. He was somewhat of an ‘expert’ and it may have been that the British request was motivated by a desire to benefit from his knowledge. However, as already mentioned, Titterton did little more than observe the test; his intervention was minimal. Why then was he invited?

The invitation from Penney appeared to some to be part of a ‘private arrangement’. Perhaps it was an act of courtesy between scientific colleagues; but even if such were its origins, it clearly had other benefits. Titterton was a knowledgeable and articulate man who had a thorough understanding of atomic weapons. Although only a fairly recent arrival from Britain, he had been accepted as a senior Australian academic and scientist. In addition, he had worked on one of the world’s most highly secret projects and thus his reliability seemed assured. These factors, combined with the relationship he had developed with Allen Brown of the Prime Minister’s Department, made him an ideal representative. From an Australian point of view he was an ‘outstanding expert’ who would certainly add to the prestige accumulated by Australia’s involvement in the British venture. He would also be able to gather ‘data of interest and use to the Australian Authorities’. The British, on the other hand, would have been pleased to receive such a well respected scientist who already had such intimate ties to the project itself. Undoubtedly they realised that Titterton would provide a valuable avenue of educated liaison with the Australian government.

Les Martin was something of a contrast to Titterton. An X-ray physicist by training, Martin had spent the whole of his academic career, apart from a brief stint at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, in Australia. His contribution to the war effort had been in radar rather than nuclear physics. His importance lay not so much in his scientific experience, however, as in his connections with the Defence Department and his role in Australia’s plans for atomic energy development.

Martin’s contributions to atomic research in Australia have already been mentioned. Briefly, he sought to encourage nuclear physics within his own department at the University of Melbourne; he acted in an advisory capacity for the CSIR; he oversaw atomic physics research groups from the CSIR and the Department of Supply; and he was a member of the government’s Industrial Atomic Energy Policy Committee. While Martin himself may not have broken new ground in nuclear physics, clearly he provided an important organisational focus around which aspects of atomic energy could be developed. He gathered information from his connections in Australia and overseas and channelled it into appropriate Australian undertakings, providing some of the impetus for the Australian atomic project.

Martin was also an important figure in the administration of Australian defence science. In 1948, he was appointed Defence Scientific Adviser and chairman of the Defence Research and Development Policy Committee. This part-time appointment followed upon his two years of service on the Defence Scientific Advisory Committee, and included provision for his co-option by the Defence Committee and the Council of Defence when necessary. Martin, being a physicist, and having previously chaired the Atomic Developments Sub-Committee, was offered the position ‘in view of the great importance of developments in atomic warfare’. Clearly the authorities agreed that Martin would be well qualified to direct atomic energy research policy.

In his administrative and consultative capacities for the Defence Department, Martin was involved in some of the Australian planning for the Hurricane trial. When the authorities at Harwell sought laboratory facilities for radiochemical analyses associated with the test, Martin’s advice was sought. He arranged for facilities to be made available by the University of Melbourne. Similarly, Martin was consulted when the services of two junior scientists were requested for the test.

In mid-1952, Martin visited the United Kingdom ‘on matters of defence research policy’. He took the opportunity to have discussions with Penney and Cockroft, during which the matter of a mainland test site was raised. As a result of this meeting, Penney planned to visit one suggested location near Woomera while he was in Australia for the Hurricane test. He wrote to Martin in August, outlining his intentions and expressing the hope that he would meet him at Woomera. However, official arrangements did not move so swiftly nor so smoothly.

Martin had yet to receive an invitation from the British authorities to attend the Hurricane test when, on 22 August 1952, the Chief of the Naval Staff wrote to the Secretary of the Defence Department voicing his concern over the lack of official Australian scientific representation. The matter was referred to the Defence Committee which recommended that the UK government should be requested ‘to invite the Defence Scientific Adviser to be present in order that he might be fully acquainted with details of the tests’.

The British cannot have been wholly ignorant of these sentiments, for at about the same time they, too, were considering Martin’s involvement. On 1 September, Martin was approached informally by a British official. Later that same day, a formal request for his participation arrived at the Prime Minister’s Department from the office of the UK High Commissioner. This letter explained that Penney was going to investigate the suitability of a site near Woomera for mainland atomic tests, and sought the assistance of an Australian scientist with the relevant health safety studies. It suggested that ‘the best man would be Professor Martin of Melbourne University and Scientific Advisor to the Australian Department of Defence’. The letter continued:

The United Kingdom authorities would like to invite Professor Martin to join the Health Physics team at Monte Bello where he would be given full details of all weapon effects and the lay-out of the site. He would not be given any access to the weapon itself nor to the results of the measurements of the weapon’s functioning.

In recognition of Australian concerns it was noted that the arrangement ‘would give Australia additional participation in the Monte Bello trial’, and would enable Martin to offer ‘expert advice’ to the Australian government on the feasibility of the Woomera area for atomic tests.

Certainly these considerations promised important benefits from an Australian point of view. A.D. McKnight, the Assistant Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Department, commented in a memo to the Prime Minister:

participation by Martin in both the Woomera inspection and the Monte Bello tests, may put further information in his possession which will assist him in advising the Government later on.

However, the Australian authorities were concerned by the limits that the British had sought to impose upon Martin’s role. The Defence Committee considered that ‘such limited participation’ was not acceptable because of:

(i) the considerable Australian contribution in resources to the Monte Bello tests and their close proximity to Australia;
(ii) the important program of Defence Research and Development being undertaken by Australia in conjunction with the United Kingdom; and
(iii) the need for the Defence Scientific Advisor to acquire the fullest information to assist him in advising, from the Australian viewpoint, on the technical feasibility of the use of the Woomera region for future tests.

These Australian reservations caused the British some embarrassment, and they hastened to explain that they had expected Martin would be more closely interested in the weapon effects than actual details of the bomb’s performance. It was stressed that he would be given full details of the former, but added that:

The accommodation position, however, necessitates that all persons attending the test should be allotted definite tasks, and the health physics team was suggested as being related to the field in which Professor Martin is interested. This suggestion was not intended to limit in any way the undertaking that Professor Martin would be given full access to the information mentioned above.

The Australian authorities agreed that they were not interested in the weapon itself and so Martin’s involvement was finally confirmed.

Clearly, it was important to the Australians that Martin participate in the Monte Bello test. He was, after all, the highest-ranking scientist in the Defence Department, so his presence added some lustre to Australia’s role in the undertaking. Equally, his non-involvement would have damaged the image of ‘close co-operation’ that the Australian government was keen to convey.

Martin was also responsible for the formulation of defence research policy – an appointment made with due regard to the possible development of atomic energy. Similarly, he played an important part in Australia’s plans for atomic research. Obviously Martin’s association with the test could do nothing but enhance his ability to perform these roles. The British, on the other hand, obviously recognised that a well-informed government representative would be an invaluable means of liaison in future negotiations concerning the testing of atomic devices on the Australian mainland.

Alan Butement had a considerably lower profile than the other Australian representatives, due undoubtedly to the fact that he, unlike the academics Titterton and Martin, was a professional civil servant. Butement began work for the British War Office in 1928, remaining at the Woolwich out-station for 10 years and holding various ranks up to Senior Scientific Officer. He was then transferred to the Ministry of Supply’s Radar Research and Development Establishment, playing a significant part in the project’s success. In 1940, he was promoted to Principal Scientific Officer and Assistant Director of Scientific Research at the Ministry of Supply headquarters. Here he invented, among other devices, the radio proximity fuze which was used to devastating effect in the latter years of the war .

Butement arrived in Australia in 1947 as the Deputy Chief Scientific Officer of the party sent from Britain to establish the Woomera Rocket Range. He remained as Chief Superintendent of the Long Range Weapons Establishment until, in 1949, he was appointed Chief Scientist of the Australian Department of Supply, ‘in executive charge of Defence Scientific Research’.

Details of the proposed atomic test were made known to Butement in late 1950, as a consequence of his responsibilities for the administration of the Long Range Weapons Establishment. It had been hoped to disguise the activity in the Monte Bello Islands by encouraging a cover story that suggested that an extension of the Rocket Range was being surveyed. Butement, however, was reluctant to assist these plans unless he was informed of the real purpose of the undertakings. With the knowledge he had gained of the desert areas surrounding Woomera, Butement’s involvement was to prove particularly valuable when the British began to investigate the possibility of mainland atomic tests. Butement, on one of his regular visits to the United Kingdom, had been a party to Martin’s discussions on this matter with Penney and Cockroft. Later, he had accompanied Penney on his reconnaissance of a likely site in the Woomera prohibited area. A suitable setting for an atomic explosion was found there amidst the natural beauty of the South Australian desert. The site became known as Emu Field.

Butement’s attendance at the Monte Bello test was markedly uncontroversial. In September 1952, the UK High Commissioner informed the Prime Minister’s Department that:

In the course of his visit to Australia, Sir John Cockroft was asked by the Secretary for Supply whether it would be possible for Mr Butement to attend the weapon test. I have now been informed that the United Kingdom authorities for their part are quite agreeable to Mr Butement’s attendance.

The British reaction was hardly surprising. After all, Butement had been a high-ranking British civil servant until his recent secondment by the Australian government. Furthermore, it was clear that Butement and his department would playa vital role in any negotiations concerning mainland test sites. Thus it was important for Butement to gain experience of atomic weapons tests, from both British and Australian points of view. Equally, the Australians would have expected the participation of Butement, a senior Australian scientific official, to further consolidate the status of their effort.

It is notable that all three Australian scientific representatives at the Hurricane test had previously been involved in top secret projects relating to defence. One might assume, therefore, that each had an ideological commitment to this type of undertaking – an obvious but important point. Similarly, all three had connections with Australian government departments, making them official rather than independent scientific observers. However, a significant contrast emerges when one considers the arrangements concerning the attendance of each at Monte Bello. The invitations of Titterton and Butement were unproblematic, but Martin was the subject of protracted negotiations, torrid correspondence and apparent misunderstandings. The British sought to delineate the conditions of Martin’s attendance much more explicitly than for either of his fellow observers, and this seemed somehow at odds with Australian intentions. Indeed, it seems that the arrangements for Australian representation at the test resulted from a subtle counterplay of British and Australian interests.

The most influential factor in the determination of British atomic policy was the hope of re-establishing co-operation with the United States. Given the American distrust of Australian security, this hope was clearly threatened by the presence of Australians at the British atomic tests. Thus it was in Britain’s interests to limit severely the participation of Australian scientists. However, at the same time, Britain was dependent on Australian goodwill for the use of test sites. The exploitation of Australia’s vast spaces would hardly have been palatable to Australian authorities without at least a pretence of collaboration, and so the British were forced to concede some scientific representation. This representation also had the advantage of facilitating negotiations for further tests, particularly on the Australian mainland.

The Australians felt obligated by Commonwealth loyalties and defence strategy to allow the British atomic tests. Nevertheless, they envisaged particular benefits in terms of prestige and in the provision of atomic information. These hopes were obviously linked with a perceived need for Australian involvement in the tests, though tempered by a limited understanding of Britain’s relationships with the United States.

Thus Australian representation at the tests hinged on a mutually agreeable balance of these conflicting interests. Consequently, the suitability of the representatives depended as much on their background as their scientific training. Titterton and Butement were more readily acceptable than Martin because they had such close ties with this and other British and Allied defence projects. Martin’s credentials, on the other hand, were largely based on the development of Australian defence science, including atomic energy research. This made him a crucial observer to the Australians, and an uncomfortable necessity to the British, who sought to protect their own interests by imposing limits on his involvement. It is interesting to note that more than a year after the Monte Bello test, Martin had still not received the ‘full details of weapon effects’ that had been repeatedly promised.

An important criterion in the selection of Australian scientific representatives for the Hurricane test was their political suitability. Furthermore, in attending the test, these scientists were fulfilling a political role. Rather than contributing their scientific skills, they contributed their presence, their connections and their backgrounds to the reinforcement of a facade of scientific collaboration. This is more than adequately demonstrated by the non-involvement of the highly qualified but ideologically suspect Mark Oliphant.

Oliphant was probably Australia’s leading authority on atomic energy. During the war he had played an important part in the development of the atomic bomb, being one of the senior members of the British mission to the Manhattan Project. On completion of this work in America, Oliphant helped to establish the British atomic research centre at Harwell. In the years that followed, he continually advocated atomic development in his homeland, Australia. By the time of the first British atomic test, Oliphant had settled into his new position as director of the Research School of Physical Sciences at ANU. He was not invited to the test, nor was his invitation sought by the Australian authorities.

Oliphant’s absence from Monte Bello did not go unnoticed and Menzies was asked in Parliament for an explanation. His reply stated, in part:

The Monte Bello atomic test was a United Kingdom operation to which the Australian Government gave every assistance it could. ..Apart from service personnel, only scientists working directly on the test were present.

Menzies obviously had in mind a fairly liberal understanding of the phrase ‘working directly’. His answer made no attempt, however, to explain why Oliphant’s possible participation had been overlooked. Menzies did not want to admit that Oliphant was considered a security risk.

Whilst showing respect for the intentions of security measures, Oliphant often found the restrictions they placed on his scientific work frustrating and ridiculous. This attitude had brought him into conflict a number of times with the Manhattan Project’s security officers. The Americans took a dim view of this unco-operativeness. In 1951, he was refused a visa to attend a physics conference in Chicago, being smeared as a ‘fellow traveller’. Oliphant’s disturbing reputation reached Australia, where moves were made to keep him out of sensitive areas.

Thus Oliphant was not invited to the Monte Bello test because security problems made him politically unsuitable. The British authorities believed that his involvement in the test would raise ‘the possibility of unfortunate repercussions in Washington’, threatening the Anglo-American co-operation that they hoped to re-establish.

The lack of formal agreement on the extent and nature of Australian scientific participation in the test had certain advantages for Australia as well as for Britain. The Australian authorities were able to negotiate for considerable representation without having to insist on explicit guidelines that the British may have found difficult to accept. The Australians were conscious that, if they sought to drive too hard a bargain, the option of American test sites remained. Similarly, the vagaries of the situation enabled the Australians to avoid such issues as Oliphant’s non-involvement by misrepresenting the Australian presence at the tests. Shortly before the Totem trials, Menzies received a letter from the Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney suggesting that their new physics professor, Harry Messel, should be invited to observe the test. Menzies’ reply was almost a word-for-word copy of his statement on Oliphant. Thus he avoided the sensitive issues of political suitability.

When the Maralinga atomic testing range was established in 1955, it was agreed between the British and Australian authorities that tests would only be carried out with the consent of the Australian government. To fulfil this requirement, the ‘Maralinga Safety Committee’, later renamed the’ Atomic Weapons Test Safety Committee’, was formed. Its members included Martin, Titterton and Butement, with Martin being appointed chairman. This committee’s responsibilities were:

(a) to examine information and other data supplied by the United Kingdom Government relating to atomic weapons tests. ..for the purpose of determining whether the safety measures proposed to be taken in relation to such tests were adequate…
(b) to advise the Prime Minister. ..of the conclusions arrived at by the Committee as a result of such examination and in particular as to whether and if so what additional, alternative or more extensive safety measures are considered necessary or desirable.

In short, the committee was to ensure that the tests were ‘safe’. However, by the time the committee was constituted, three atomic bombs had already been exploded in Australia. One wonders what measures had been taken to ensure their ‘safety’. At the first Monte Bello test, it was reported:

It was known that the blast would be staged this week if weather conditions allowed. Scientists apparently wanted to be sure the atomic cloud would not be wafted over the mainland. This was borne out by the movement of the cloud out to sea today.

However, such caution was apparently not sufficient, for at the second series of tests at Monte Bello in 1956, ‘special precautions’ were to be taken. Meteorologists had to predict when suitable weather conditions would occur and

satisfy the Australian Safety Committee and the scientific director that these conditions will persist for a long enough time to ensure that the ‘cloud’ formed by the explosion will drift out over the sea and diffuse harmlessly into the atmosphere.

In other words, the ‘special precautions’ consisted of transference of public responsibility from unknown British scientists to a group of readily identifiable Australian authorities. Given that it was assured from the start that there would be ‘no danger whatsoever from radioactivity to the health of people or animals in the Commonwealth’, it is difficult to believe that such a change was motivated by a need for increased scientific authority. Rather, it would seem to have been a response to burgeoning public fears about the tests and radioactivity in general.

Doubts about the safety of atomic weapons tests, and in particular of tests on mainland Australia, gained increasing coverage from 1953 onwards. These worries were linked with such incidents as the contamination of the Fukuryu Maru and an international recognition of the hazards of radioactivity. It was hardly an atmosphere conducive to the establishment of a permanent atomic testing ground. The government, however, was able, in the following years, to invoke the authority of the Safety Committee, ‘scientific men of high repute and of great patriotism, with a great sense of responsibility and a great scientific knowledge’. Before the first Maralinga test Beale dismissed any fears, stating:

The highest scientific authority in Australia assured us that when the decision had been taken, the firing will be completely safe.

The Safety Committee was thus used as a means of reassurance, to convince the public that any fears were groundless. Indeed, at a meeting in July 1956, the Committee itself ‘appreciated the need for indoctrination of the public’. As part of this ‘indoctrination’ Martin agreed to give a radio talk on the tests.

Clearly, then, the Safety Committee’s role was as much concerned with public relations as it was with scientific safeguards. It was expected both to protect Australian interests and to demonstrate the safety of the tests under its control. This duality of roles might be acceptable if the claims of absolute safety made were compatible with the actions and attitudes of the committee itself in seeking to secure such safety. However, as Australian representatives to these British tests, the members of the Safety Committee were subject to the sorts of political forces that determined the participation of Titterton, Martin and Butement in the earlier trials. How would these forces have affected the integrity of the Safety Committee? Would the British have supplied the committee with sufficient data to gain a complete understanding of the hazards associated with the tests? Butement and Titterton, although Australian representatives, both had close ties with the British project. Where would they have felt their first duties to lie? Would the commitment of these scientists to defence science and atomic energy have affected their assessment of the risks involved in the tests? The political tension that surrounded Australian involvement in the British atomic tests hardly seems compatible with the official role taken on by the members of the Safety Committee. Mark Oliphant understood this well:

I’d learned by the bitter path that to touch the pitch of secrecy was to be contaminated for a very long time, that governments and politicians wanted not men who believed in the integrity of natural knowledge but men who would tell them what they wanted to hear, and that the truth has no meaning for a Churchill, a Morrison, a Menzies or a Casey, if it is politically inconvenient.

In the post-war world, Britain desired to share in the might and glory of the atomic bomb. Unable to obtain American co-operation in these aspirations, Britain sought to develop an ‘independent deterrent’, though remaining ever-willing to forsake its ‘independence’ should American attitudes change. Australia surrendered its lands to the radioactive desolation of Britain’s Bomb through hopeful self-interest and imperial loyalties. However, British and Australian interests came into conflict over the issue of Australian participation in the tests. As a result, the representatives chosen had to meet certain political criteria. Even in hosting such an important and hazardous undertaking as atomic bomb tests, the Australian government was content with a meagre scientific representation, shaped by the workings of global politics. The issue of Australian participation was a ‘political inconvenience’ to the British, but nothing more. The tests were held; they were a success; Britain developed its very own bomb; and humankind increased its capacity for self-destruction – all with Australia’s diffident acquiescence.

The radioactive dust had barely settled on the devastated cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when, in November 1945, Winston Churchill proclaimed: ‘This I take is already agreed, we should make atomic bombs.’ It was, and they did – seven years later Britain exploded its first atomic bomb in the Monte Bello Islands off the coast of Western Australia. In the years that followed, Australia hosted another eleven such tests at three different sites – Monte Bello, Emu Field and Maralinga. Thirty years later we are still attempting to count the costs.

The success of the first test was greeted with banner headlines and all the anglophilic pride the papers could muster. Prominent amidst such reports was the fact that three Australian scientists had actually observed this epoch-making event. Indeed, the Australian government was keen to share in the political prestige of the A-bomb, and had insisted that press releases make particular note of Australian involvement. The three scientists so privileged were Ernest Titterton, Alan Butement and Leslie Martin – men whose reputations are now on trial.

Certainly all three seemed well-credentialled for such a role. Each of them was a respected and talented scientist, and all had been previously involved in other highly secret defence-oriented projects. Titterton was professor of nuclear physics at the Australian National University; Butement was the chief scientist in the Commonwealth Department of Supply; while Martin combined academic and civil duties, being professor of physics at Melbourne University and scientific adviser to the Defence Department. By attending the test, these men were providing a valuable source of educated liaison between the British and Australian governments – this was particularly important since planning was already under way for further tests in Australia. Moreover, they gave Australia at least a pretence of authority in what was otherwise a British undertaking. But even this limited representation was not without its problems.

Titterton’s and Butement’s attendance at the test was arranged with little fuss. Martin, on the other hand, was the subject of prolonged and sometimes terse correspondence, being officially invited to the test only a matter of days before the actual event. Notably Martin, unlike his colleagues, was Australian born and bred. Butement and Titterton were both fairly recent arrivals from the mother country, whose scientific experience had been largely gained in top-secret British and Allied defence projects. Such considerations were important because of American attitudes which constrained the UK authorities.

Britain had developed its atomic device with little assistance from its wartime ally, America. Following the successful cooperative development of the bomb during the war, the US government decided that the evils of atomic proliferation would best be thwarted by keeping the relevant technology safely in American hands; thus their British partners were denied access to the fruits of their joint efforts. Nevertheless, the British remained hopeful that by continuing their own atomic research and yet generally complying with the American principles they might eventually re-establish a useful scientific dialogue on atomic matters. Consequently interchange of atomic information within the British Commonwealth was limited by American policy. The British felt they could not risk American offence.

When the British authorities found themselves dependent on Australia for the provision of atomic test facilities, they were placed in the uncomfortable position of being unable to involve Australians fully in scientific aspects of the test lest they contravene American dictates on non-proliferation. The situation was aggravated by the Americans’ especial distrust of Australian security arrangements. However, Butement and Titterton offered a workable solution to this dilemma. They were nominal Australians and certainly worthy representatives from an Australian point of view, nevertheless both had unimpeachable security records. Titterton had made a significant contribution to the birth of the bomb, and had in fact stayed on the top-secret American atomic research establishment after the war. Butement too had been a notable contributor to wartime efforts, working in the UK Department of Supply -the Department within which the British atomic project was established. It is difficult to see how the Americans could have objected to the involvement of ‘Australian’ representatives who already had such close ties with the British project.

Martin, though, was certainly in a different category. Irrefutably Australian, his wartime work, under the auspices of the ideologically suspect CSIR, constituted only a minor part of a long scientific career. Worse still, Martin had become somewhat of a focus for Australian interest in atomic energy -supervising research in his own department, and advising the CSIR and Defence Department. The Australian authorities were thus understandably eager for him to attend the test, hoping that his efforts in these capacities might benefit. The British, on the other hand, were understandably hesitant, for Martin’s involvement represented Australian manoeuvring for further atomic enlightenment. A compromise was reached whereby Martin was denied access to information about the bomb itself; nonetheless, the British promised, he would receive details of the weapon’s effects. Interestingly, it seems that Martin never received this data.

Thus the scope and nature of Australian representation at the British atomic test was to a considerable extent determined by American pressures. This is most clearly seen in the case of Mark Oliphant. Recently we have heard that he was considered a security risk and was therefore not involved in the tests. However, correspondence reveals that the British authorities were not so much worried about possible breaches of security as about ‘the possibility of unfortunate repercussions in Washington’. Oliphant was unsuitable not because he necessarily was a security risk, but because the Americans thought him so.

All these political machinations may have been dismissed as ultimately unimportant had Titterton, Butement and Martin remained simply observers. However, in 1955, with the establishment of the Maralinga testing range, the three became founding members of a Safety Committee, whose task was to ensure the safety of Australian people and property. This committee was to draw its conclusions from data supplied by the UK authorities. Given the British reluctance to involve Australian scientists fully, we may well wonder how comprehensive such data would be. Even if the Safety Committee was fully informed, where would its members have perceived their duties to lie? I have suggested that both Titterton and Butement had close ties with the British project; might they not have felt some responsibility towards its successful completion? If they too valued the tenuous Anglo-American relationship, would this have affected their attitudes towards the Australian government? All three men had a commitment to defence science: how might this have affected their assessment of the risks involved in the tests? These are merely postulations, nevertheless, they demonstrate ways in which the political implications of Australian involvement in the atomic tests may have affected the attitudes and behaviour of those concerned.

I do not want to suggest that blame can somehow be conveniently confined to certain individuals. The political forces at play become evident when we examine the roles of these particular scientists; but they did not themselves create the forces which constrained them. Society enabled the atomic bomb to be developed and tested, and it is here that any blame must be levelled. We should seek not scapegoats but reform -for if we believe that we have outgrown the naivety of our past, then perhaps we should take a stroll out to Pine Gap.