Much has been written about the dread experienced by J. Robert Oppenheimer following the detonation of Trinity in 1945, depicted in Christopher Nolan’s new movie biopic of ‘the father of the atomic bomb’
But one of the most chilling outcomes of the Cold War nuclear stand-off that followed was the fear that a nuclear device could be smuggled into the West by air or sea…and there was no effective method to detect its presence – until it was too late
This nightmare scenario was considered in 1950 by a Top Secret panel set up by the UK Government soon after the outbreak of the Korean War under the obscure cover-name ‘The Imports Research Committee’.
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David Clarke is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, UK. He teaches media law and his research specialism is contemporary legend. Previously he worked as a journalist for The Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post and spent four years working as a Press Officer in local government. His PhD in Folklore and was completed at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield, in 1999. From 2008-13 he acted as consultant and curator of the MoD UFO files project with The National Archives. His books include The Angel of Mons (2004) and How UFOs Conquered the World: the history of a modern myth (2015). In 2018 he co-founded the Centre for Contemporary Legend at Sheffield Hallam University. This blog covers his twin research interests in journalism and folklore. The views expressed in the contents are entirely his own.
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