How Britain poisoned its own soldiers
The human cost of acquiring the bomb
I have a piece out in Foreign Policy about a new BBC documentary: Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story. The film investigates British servicemen and Indigenous people in the South Pacific who were knowingly and deliberately irradiated as part of Britain’s dash to acquire a nuclear bomb. In 1955, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was even shown a report that warned that exposure to radiation would damage servicemen’s DNA. “It’s a pity, but we can’t help it,” came his indifferent reply.