A detailed look at the machinery of Government required to launch Britain's independent nuclear deterrent, and the way it developed from the end of the Second World War to the dawn of the Age of Terror. It is a thorough and detailed book, and so the reader must be prepared for a lot of detail of different Governmental committees, who sat on them, and what gems of wisdom they uttered or slipped into memos.

If that sounds dry, it is. Hennessy leavens the mix with personal recollections, odd humorous asides, and (later in the account) some stories from the men tasked with delivering nuclear weapons against their targets. The author makes the necessary wading through Cabinet Office procedural memos as painless as possible.

There are some set pieces in the text; an account of a visit to TURNSTILE, the alternative seat of Government in a disused quarry near Bath; anecdotes from V-bomber crews; and a detailed account of a simulated launch of a Trident missile. These last two in particular very effectively show the professionalism of the armed forces whilst continuing to harbour personal doubts and fears over what they have to be prepared to do to fulfil their oaths of duty. There is little room for discussion of disarmament here; Hennessey shares the absolute belief in the value of deterrence with those servicemen and goes into no little detail as to why that is.

The book was first published in 2002, and so there was little time to revise the book to take account of the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. This was done for the 2010 edition, which now makes for interesting reading in the light of the changes in the last ten years, in particular the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The planning in place in the early 2000s does seem to have been done with some forethought, though pandemic illnesses and cyber attacks come further down the list of risks than we might be comfortable with in the 2020s. But the analysis contained in the last couple of chapters is very clear and prescient - though how much notice recent political players have taken of that analysis must be open to doubt.

Some of the comments go to the heart, not only of security questions, but to wider matters. For example, the former Cabinet Secretary, Richard Wilson, is quoted as observing that the British appear to have the habit of going into their big changes "as if under anaesthetic". Hennessey considers that he had in mind the UK's accession to the European Community in 1973 and devolution plus the adoption of human rights legislation in the 1990s. Only later, Wilson said, do people realise the significance of these huge constitutional changes and ask 'Is that what we really meant?'. (Had the book seen a further edition ten years later, he might well have added Brexit.)

And our former ambassador to the UN, Sir Anthony Parsons, once said: "I would love it if we could become like Norway, where you can pick and choose. You can ... do good around the world if you feel you've got the money and if you run out of money you don't need to do anything... Nobody expects anything of you. But it's going to be a very very long time before people stop expecting something extra of us. We are now paying the price in these terms for our history - for having ruled a quarter of the world's population right up to 1945. And it's a very short time ago and you cannot simply wish that away in a matter of half-a-century."

Michael Quinlan, former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, said: "In matters of military contingency, the expected, precisely because it is expected, is not to be expected... What we expect, we plan and provide for. What we plan and provide for, we thereby deter. What we deter does not happen. What does happen is what we did not deter, because we did not plan and provide for it, because we did not expect it." (Our reaction to the war in Ukraine provides a perfect example of this.)

Finally: Tony Wright MP, Labour member for Cannock in 2009 and Chair of the Commons' Public Accounts Committee, said "...to improve the emaciated quality of our civic life, politicians could play it straight. Journalists could play it fair. Parties could resist the rise of a political class. Ministers could make sure that Cabinet government works. MPs could decide that Parliament matters....Interest groups could say who should have less, if they are to have more. Civil Servants could tell truth to power. Governments could promise less and perform more. Intellectuals could abandon their 'mechanical snigger', as Orwell called it. Social scientists could start writing in good plain English. The blogosphere could exchange rant for reason. Electors could decide to become critical citizens. None of this requires a written constitution, a bill of rights, proportional representation, or an elected House of Lords, no matter how desirable these things might or might not be. But it does require a change of culture." (Sadly, we seem to have gone away from this ideal rather than towards it. If only there was a political party willing to sign up to such principles....)

So in the end, Hennessy's book goes some little way beyond its brief of looking at the hidden machinery of the State and how it aims to control the awful power of Armageddon. In its closing pages, Hennessey sets out, in effect, what it is of the nation that the secret state is trying to protect. He quotes Karl Popper, who in 1945 said that we should plan for freedom and not only for security. Without the freedoms that some seem nowadays to want roll back, the necessary security stops defending freedom and instead restricts it. Without freedom, security becomes oppression. ( )

.A fascinating, and often terrifying, analysis of the machinery of government designed to orchestrate Britain's defence since the end of the Second World War and, in particular, on how the nuclear deterrent might be delivered in the event of a breakdown of peace.
Chapter 7, "The Human Button" (based upon Hennessy's Radio 4 programme of the same name) is especially chilling as it offers a step by step guide to how the decisions to use that deterrent might be arrived at, and how the bombs would eventually be launched. I had not previously realised, for example, that all of the Vulcan Bomber pilots were well aware that, in the event that they were ever scrambled to bomb the Soviet Union, they would not have enough fuel to return home.
While the weaponry may have been among the most technically advanced machinery to be found anywhere in the world, the administration required to launch it often stooped to farcical levels. For instance, during the early 19060s there was a standing requirement that the Prime Minister's official drivers should always ensure that they had four pennies with them in case the PM had to phone through instructions to launch the missiles. As the Cabinet Secretary of the time put it, "It would be ridiculous if the Prime Minister had to ask a bus conductor for change of a sixpence before he could phone the Chiefs of Staff!".
The depth of research behind this book is positively breathtaking, and it is all delivered in Hennessy's pellucid prose. ( )