Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25626-20151023184552/@comment-21519-20151027020503

Well it doesn't have to be Morrison. It could be Dalton or Gaitskell or Wilson or anyone you want. (A shame it can't be Cripps; he was Bevin's most bitter foe over this issue, and it would be nice to see him have to eat crow. But he retired with the 1950 General Election.) Or it could be a Tory, even Churchill himself (though the first round of the exchange would take on a different tone from what I'd written).

By the way, they did listen to Bevin. In the end he convinced the Cabinet to go ahead with the nuclear program, in part by convincing Attlee (a staunch proponent of nuclear armament himself) to disinvite Cripps from the meeting where that was discussed. Locking the Chancellor out of a Cabinet meeting is, of course, a big fucking deal.

But the Brits began work on the Bomb in 1947. Which means that by 1951 they really should have been pretty far along with it. Maybe they will find a way to get over the finish line after all (even if it just involves twisting Truman's arm into violating the McMahon Act; it might help if Truman, assuming he got caught, could say "Look, they were almost there anyway"). After all, the middle of a nuclear war is a time when nuclear weapons are bound to come in handy, it would be a shame to get so close only to give up on them right when you need them the most.