Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25626-20151023184552/@comment-21519-20151026035754

Here's something interesting: I'm researching Attlee's Cabinet to see if there might be any personalities who should be taken into account in our discussions. The Foreign Secretary is Ernest Bevin. Well, he was as of the POD; Attlee reshuffled his cabinet in March of '51, I suspect he called off his plans to do so in this timeline.

Bevin was the major champion of Britain's atomic project, pushing it past the objections of both the Chancellor, who said it was way too expensive, and left-wingers who didn't want to provoke Stalin. Bevin argued that, regardless of the cost, it was absolutely essential if Britain was going to have any control over its own national security in the Cold War.

We've agreed that the completion of this program is almost certainly delayed. The very reason it's delayed is also the reason it must be completed: the limitations of the US's ability to defend the kingdom in a nuclear war are painfully clear by now. Seems Bevin's being validated (and incidentally, all in a book that was published right before the anti-nuclear left wing who'd opposed him finally retook control of Labour; just the other day I saw a clip of Cameron expressing disgust that Corbyn has ended "decades of bipartisan agreement" in this area).