Product Description

This text reveals the full extent of Britain's preparations for nuclear war during the Cold War. When would the Prime Minister have authorised the use of nuclear force? At what stage in a nuclear exchange would government and the country have broken down? Who would have gone with the PM and the War Cabinet and where was the immensely secret underground bunker that they would have gone to? What would the Queen have been told, and when, about the end of her kingdom? Peter Hennessy answers these questions in an accessible style.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32513 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
History is often best understood as a series of errors and misjudgements with profound, if not disastrous, consequences, but The Secret State reverses the trend as it is the story of a group of people who, with a bit of luck and a lot of skill, actually got it right. Had you asked many politicians or military personnel back in 1952, very few would have put money on the world remaining free of nuclear war for the next 50 years, especially given the history of the first half of the 20th century. But, with a few narrow squeaks along the way, peace prevailed and The Secret State goes some way to explaining Britain's part in that achievement.

With the domino-like collapse of the Eastern Bloc communist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Cold War effectively ended and with it the need for many documents relating to that period to remain secret. In 1992, as part of the Waldegrave Initiative, the Conservative government, under pressure from historians such as Hennessy, began to drip-feed previously classified documents into the public domain, and to date more than 100,000 items have been released. From these, Hennessy has been able to piece together all the retaliation procedures had a nuclear strike been launched against Britain. The picture that emerges is surprisingly reassuring; many of the documents are couched in the formal stiff-upper-lip of both the military and Whitehall of the 50s and 60s, but there is a humanity and pacifism, too. Far from being the hawks of popular imagination, the military clearly went to great lengths to keep us out of a nuclear war, both by their actions at home and abroad. Britain may have been a smallish player compared to the US and the USSR in the global nuclear game, but it did its fair share of keeping the peace by curbing some of its more aggressive American counterparts. Hennessy is a past master at bringing dusty archives to life and The Secret State is one of those rare books that reflects credit not only on the author but on its subjects, too. This is a must read for anyone who has ever wondered just how lucky they are to still be alive. --John Crace

Review
Using recently declassified material, Hennessy reconstructs the picture of the Soviet threat which was presented to ministers from the last days of the Second World War to the 1960s. Includes previously unseen photographs of a secret government installation.

The Times, 6 March 2002
riveting, path-breaking and wonderfully readable

Customer Reviews

It's war Peter, but not as we know it!
Yet again the legendary constitutional expert, Professor Peter Hennessy, has provided a unique insight into the inner workings of Whitehall's Cold War apparatus. In 'The Secret State', Hennessy, the pre-eminent Whitehall 'de-mystifier', provides cut-throat analysis of the secret planning for the possibility of nuclear war and the role of the AA. Hennessy's majesterial style brings to life the ominous possibility of total destruction through miscalculation, a subject which has gained new meaning in light of the events of 11 September. His tantalising description of how Tony Blair 'went white' after his first nuclear briefing is only one of many gems in which Hennessy displays his unrivaled access to 'private information'. Indeed, his terrifying description of the realisation, only in the 1950s, of the devasting effect of fall-out begs only one question; why did CND not materialize sooner than it did! It is always difficult to find fault with Hennessy's illuminating work, many have tried and failed, and this new installment in the Hennessy saga is no exception! However, at under 300 pages future editions of this book shall undoubtedly benefit from the continuing investigations of Hennessy's army of industrious and inquisitive students, housed at the Public Records Office in Kew. This book will inevitably feature prominently on the bookshelves of those already converted to Hennessy phenomena but is also a must for anyone wishing to understand the nature of the society in which we live.

Not much wizz-bang - but a lot of bang for your buck.
If you'll pardon the poor punning, I'm trying to say that if you expect to read about secret bases in extinct volcanoes, you'll be disappointed. However if you want to read some brilliant forensic history in an accessible and sometimes amusing style, you're in for a treat.
On a personal note it's also nice to see that High Wycombe, where I grew up, was number 3 on the Soviet target list. Perhaps the KGB hated the place as much as I do.
The UK government won't release documents. Even on weapons and plans out of date for over 20 years. So a historian has to derive a lot of information from few sources. There is often more information available from Soviet sources, and always more from the US. This has to be skillfully combined with non-classified information.
There's also a fine UK tradition of finding papers in the Public Records Office that appear to have got stuck in the wrong file at some point. Otherwise this book might not have happened.
Hennessey uses the little he can find to produce a brilliant history of the early Cold War, it's a pleasure to read as well as being very informative. A great book to read if you're at all interested in British or Cold War history.
Finally, on a topical (ish) note, he shows how the UK Government were guessing in the dark about Soviet intentions, and had laughably little intelligence to work with. All they really had was observation of Soviet forces. The rest had to be inferred. Compare this with the famous dossier on Iraq. I read 'The Secret State' just after I'd read the dossier and it was pretty clear that the UK and US governments were in exactly the same position. It's instructive to see the limits of intelligence gathering when dealing with a closed, highly repressive society, and how that affects policy.
Enjoy.

A gripping examination of the UK's secret Cold War world...
'The Secret State' is a book that will appeal, because of the intrinsically fascinating nature of its subject matter, to academics and non-experts alike. And it will be enjoyed by academics and non-experts alike, because Hennessy caters excellently for both readers: he is both academically rigorous in his investigation of sources and eminently proficient at the presentation of the fruits of his investigation in a compelling and engaging narrative form.

Hennessy explores Whitehall's involvement in the Cold War on different levels, looking at the politics behind 'being nuclear' in the first place, at the ongoing need for Britain to keep up with nuclear technologies as world circumstances changed and evolved (the V-bombers, for example, became obsolete, practically, when Russian air defence improved), and finally (in perhaps the most interesting chapters of the book) at the planning involved in protection of the population and government in the event of nuclear attacks. Hennessy visited the bunker, now abandoned, that would have housed the Prime Minister and two hundred others if a strike were to occur, and it is here that the stark reality of it all comes home. And in addition to the horrifying details of the potential destructive power of thermonuclear weapons, there are also lighter, more humorous moments. Hennessy relates (with relish) how the civil service, needing to find a way for the Prime Minister to always be instantly reachable, even when travelling, in case of a 'five-minute' warning of a nuclear attack, adapted the Prime Minister's car to communicate on the AA (the British 'Automobile Association') radio network; and this system had, on one occasion, the amusing side-effect of relaying to the Prime Minister's car, while he was in transit, a call to the AA from a lady whose Ford Zephyr had broken down in the middle of the road...

It is, however, the sombre, grim, frightening reality of the Cold War threat that is most vividly evoked throughout 'The Secret State'. One particularly chilling piece of information related by Hennessy concerns how each Prime Minister is required to write an order for all four of the Polaris nuclear submarines to be opened only in the event of the loss of British government, and lines of communication, to a 'bolt-from-the-blue' nuclear attack. This order from beyond the grave could be anything from "take out Moscow" to "use your own judgement." It is a frightening thought, and one which casts a new light on Blair, and all other post-WW2 Prime Ministers.

'The Secret State' is an essential book, its stories and anecdotes and analysis in turns comic, ironic, sinister, and sombre; it is a cogently told narrative history of a period and sector of the recent British past that while still largely secret, is open enough for us to be able to look back and see just how close to the brink we came.