Britain’s Cold War: Culture, Modernity and the Soviet Threat 9781788318648, 9781786733733

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Nicholas J. Barnett is Lecturer in Twentieth Century European History at Swansea University where he specialises in the cultural history of the Cold War.

‘With an innovative approach that combines socio-political analysis with cultural history and cultural studies, Britain’s Cold War brings exciting new insights to our understanding of the Cold War and this period of British history. Barnett shows brilliantly that, precisely because the war was “cold”, it affected the collective psyche in subtle, pervasive and not always conscious ways.’ Professor Joe Moran, Liverpool John Moores University

BRITAIN'S COLD WAR

Culture, Modernity and the Soviet Threat

NICHOLAS J. BARNETT

For My Parents

I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 This paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Nicholas J. Barnett, 2018 Nicholas J. Barnett has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7845-3805-7 PB: 978-0-7556-0180-6 ePDF: 978-1-7867-3373-3 eBook: 978-1-7867-2373-4 Series: International Library of Twentieth Century History, volume115 Typeset by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

List of Figures Acknowledgements

viii x

Introduction Britain and the Cold War Apocalypticism Glimpsing and Encountering the Eastern European Other Structure of the Book

1 2 5 9 16

1.

Between West and East: Fellow-Travellers and British Culture in the Early Cold War The ‘Red Dean’ and Early Cold War Culture The World Peace Congress Murder in Moscow and Cold War Allies and Enemies Conclusion

21 23 33 40 45

2.

‘No Defence Against the H-bomb’: British Society and H-bomb Consciousness in 1954 The Emergence of the H-bomb in British Media The Coventry Civil Defence Scandal The Coventry Civil Defence Exercise Conclusion

47 50 55 63 70

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3.

‘The Iron Curtain is Melting Away’: Encounters with ‘The Thaw’ A Camera in Russia Sporting Engagements Khrushchev in Britain The Ponomareva Affair Conclusion

73 74 84 87 92 97

4.

‘When are the British Coming to Help Us?’: British Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Budapest, 1956 The Crumbling of the Soviet Empire? The Repression Re-Stalinisation Conclusion

99 100 106 114 125

5.

‘Russia Wins Space Race’: The British Press and the Launch of Sputnik, October 1957 The Soviet Sputnik Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact The First Earthling in Orbit The Dog’s Death Conclusion

127 128 132 138 142 146

6.

The Thriller and the Cold War The Cold War as a Game Cold War Insecurity An Agent Without Agency Conclusion

148 151 156 164 172

7.

Nuclear Anxieties and Popular Culture Nuclear Anxieties and Protest Movements Fiction and Mutually Assured Destruction Criticising the Cold War Conclusion

174 176 181 185 193

8.

‘The Greatest Story of Our Lifetime’: The Successes and the Limitations of Soviet Ideology Modernity and Declinist Narratives Yuri Gagarin in Britain The Building of the Berlin Wall

195 196 204 206

CONTENTS

9.

vii

Damn You England Conclusion

215 218

Viewing the Soviet Union at the End of Khrushchev’s Rule The ‘Matrix of Us and Them’ in The Ashes of Loda After the Coup Conclusion

219 222 227 231

Conclusion

234

Notes Bibliography Index

242 273 285

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Sprod, News Chronicle, 1 April 1954.

54

Figure 2.2 Vicky, ‘Now aren’t you sorry that you haven’t learned how to handle a stirrup-pump?’, Daily Mirror, 3 June 1954.

65

Figure 3.1 Herni Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 29 January 1955.

76

Figure 3.2 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 5 February 1955.

78

Figure 3.3 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 5 February 1955.

79

Figure 3.4 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 12 February 1955.

81

Figure 3.5 Henri Cartier-Bresson, ‘On Soukhoumi Beach’, Picture Post, 28 May 1955.

82

Figure 3.6 Henri Cartier-Bresson, ‘Comradeship’, Picture Post, 9 July 1955.

83

Figure 4.1 Vicky, ‘Well I always did . . . .’, Daily Mirror, 24 October 1956.

101

Figure 4.2 Ian Scott, ‘While Hungary Burns’, Daily Sketch, 29 October 1956.

103

Figure 4.3 Vicky, ‘Order has been restored’, Daily Mirror, 6 November 1956.

107

Figure 4.4 Jack Esten, Budapest, 1956.

109

LIST OF FIGURES

ix

Figure 4.5 Vicky, ‘Fascist and reactionary elements have been crushed . . .’, Daily Mirror, 9 November 1956.

110

Figure 4.6 Vicky, ‘Freezing again after the thaw. . .’, Daily Mirror, 12 November 1956.

114

Figure 4.7 Vicky, ‘Bah! Counter-revolutionaries!’, Daily Mirror, 15 November 1956.

115

Figure 4.8 Vicky, ‘If I lived in England I would be a Conservative’, Daily Mirror, 26 November 1956.

123

Figure 5.1 ‘Guinness is good for you’, The Times, 10 October 1957.

133

Figure 6.1 Vicky, New Statesman, 10 July 1954.

153

Figure 6.2 Vicky, New Statesman, 10 July 1954.

154

Figure 6.3 Vicky, ‘Talking from strength’, Daily Mirror, 14 February 1955.

168

Figure 8.1 Lambretta, Daily Mail, 13 April 1961.

197

Figure 8.2 Schumann T-shirt on sale in Berlin 2016, credit: Dr Jameson Tucker.

215

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As with all books, this work has relied on the support and encouragement of a number of institutions and individuals. The publication of this book has been made possible by the kind support of the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research who have provided a Research Award to fund archival research and a Publication Award. The English Department of Liverpool John Moores University kindly funded my initial research at PhD level and Swansea University College of Arts and Humanities have provided funding to aid the publication. Thanks are also due to I.B.Tauris, especially Tomasz Hoskins and Arub Ahmed. I wish to thank the following individuals. First and foremost my PhD supervisor Professor Joe Moran, whose excellent feedback and patience over several years enabled me to develop as a researcher and helped me to strengthen my work; Dr James Gregory who provided excellent feedback on an earlier draft of this manuscript; Professors Glenda Norquay Tony Webster, Bill Osgerby and Dr Alice Ferrebe who all helped me to develop this book from the earlier PhD thesis. My thanks also go to the History department at Liverpool John Moores University notably Drs Mike Benbough-Jackson, David Clampin, Simon Hill and Professors Nick White and Frank McDonough; Dr David Tyrer, Dr Evan Smith; all the staff and students at the History departments of University of Chester; Liverpool Hope University; Plymouth University and Swansea University, especially those who have suffered my discussions about the ideas in this book and helped me to make it a reality.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

xi

Finally, I must thank Cat Owen, who has put up with the tribulations of creating this book over the best part of a decade, offering nothing but support and encouragement and who even saw fit to undertake her own PhD having seen the effects of the process on me. I wish to thank my own family for their support: Mum, Dad, Tim, Linzi, Sion and Kathy and all my friends. Every effort has been made to trace the original copyright holders but where this has not been possible, the author and publisher are willing to correct the mistakes in future editions of the book.

INTRODUCTION

In 1952 the celebrated Anglo-Hungarian cartoonist Vicky visited the Soviet Union. He recorded his encounter with the Soviet people in a series of sketches, which he published in a book that invited readers to Meet the Russians. In his account Vicky claimed that he had ensured that he had visited the USSR as an unbiased, independent observer.1 His claim promised readers an encounter with the Soviet Union, which he described as ‘another world’. Vicky emphasised the differences he noted in the USSR from lack of political freedom, to women’s full participation in the workplace and a tightly controlled education system. However, most of all he noted the differences in people. He sketched the people he saw, from the lined face of a ragged ‘Russian peasant’ who ‘could have stepped out of the pages of a Tolstoy novel’,2 to workers with rounded features gathered around a chess match or watching the Bolshoi ballet. Vicky’s focus was on the Soviet people; his drawings, whilst they focussed on difference, depicted his subjects as human beings who in some ways might not seem out of place in the ‘civilised’ West. Like many British impressions of the Soviet Union Vicky’s interpretation emphasised the stereotypes that readers expected and treated the Soviet Union as extremely different to the West. The Cold War was part of everyday British life. People engaged with the conflict when consuming media coverage of Cold War moments and works of popular fiction which depicted the conflict. Britain’s Cold War examines how British public culture represented the conflict and the threat from the Communist bloc at a number of important moments. The period examined begins in 1951, and explores British impressions of communist activity

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during the last two years of Stalin’s life, when the Cold War was more intensive than it was during later periods. It ends in 1965, the immediate aftermath of Khrushchev’s deposition from power. During this time the severity of the Cold War changed as politicians from both East and West used the international situation to secure their positions, but also as they attempted to ensure that the threat of nuclear war was lessened. In these years Britain was characterised by Conservative Party rule, but the party generally maintained the postwar welfare settlement that had emerged under the Labour government from 1945. Public attitudes towards the communist countries during this period were frequently more ambiguous and ephemeral than is commonly believed. These perceptions were often informed by the everyday experience of life in postwar Britain. Therefore, I situate key moments of the Cold War within changing conceptions of national identity, gender and deference during the period. From 1956 there were several attempts to ease the Cold War which were part of a policy termed ‘peaceful co-existence’ by Nikita Khrushchev. I emphasise how British popular perceptions of the conflict and the Soviet Union changed throughout Khrushchev’s rule and the various crises that occurred under his leadership, such as the Hungarian uprising in 1956 and increasing nuclear tensions in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Britain and the Cold War The ‘cultural turn’ in Cold War studies has diversified the scholarly field. Early analysis of Cold War culture primarily examined governments’ roles in cultural production.3 This intelligence-based approach has produced examinations of the British government and its attempts to reinforce anti-communist hegemony by influencing the producers of culture and several studies which have explored the role of intelligence services.4 Andrew Rubin has further examined official interventions in culture, suggesting that Western governments influenced world literature by promoting their favoured anti-communist authors, therefore discouraging dissent.5 Whilst Britain’s Cold War does not directly explore state intervention, it examines the narratives that emerged from the hegemony of a liberal-democratic and anti-communist Cold War ideology. Much of the previous scholarship in this area has focussed on American Cold War culture with several exemplary studies which examine public discourses.6

INTRODUCTION

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Britain has not been neglected; early monographs have been augmented by transnational studies led by David Caute.7 This research has usually focussed on canonical high and middlebrow culture. I expand this area by examining mass-produced fiction by authors who have not previously received critical attention. A number of studies emphasise specific genres, media and themes, notably Andrew Hammond’s exploration of British fiction between 1945 and 1991.8 Whilst my book builds on some of Hammond’s themes such as nuclear culture and espionage it also investigates culture outside the world of literature and offers a more in-depth exploration of my selected novels than Hammond’s wideranging survey of British Cold War fiction. The current book supports those works that examine public culture, as opposed to seeking evidence of government interventions in cultural dissemination. By analysing texts such as fiction and press presentations of the Cold War I suggest that the binary divide between the Soviet Union and the West was sometimes challenged by British individuals and groups who reacted to international affairs. In his examination of Western perceptions of international communism Marc Selverstone argues that the Eastern Bloc was regularly depicted as a ‘monolith’ in culture from 1947.9 He views this representation as officially ordained and as being revised when politicians sought to direct Cold War enmity towards Soviet communism in particular. Selverstone’s argument is particularly useful and my study supports his viewpoint that the monolithic depiction emerged through the late 1940s and early 1950s before declining somewhat by the 1960s.10 The case for the conflict to be examined in terms of collective attitudes and cultural representations is strengthened by the exploration of language. Terms such as Cold War or Iron Curtain were part of a system of language that was reinforced through popular fiction and news media, and which helped to create the impression of an apocalyptic conflict. This vision, however, did not necessarily correspond to all people in the Western nations and changed over time. Recent popular cultural and social histories of postwar Britain have added to our understanding of this period.11 David Kynaston reveals the conflict between modernity and tradition throughout much of the postwar era and I extend this examination by researching the roles of religion and science in several chapters. Brian Harrison analyses British cultural experiences identifying eight central motifs that can be employed when

4

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considering British values and identities and how they interacted with the geopolitical conflict.12 Of these, the most visible through my study are the debate between religion and materialism; anxieties over social change; political consensus, which limited the potential for dissent, and anxieties over Britain’s international role. I have identified five themes which were common to British representations of the early Cold War. These were not all consistently present throughout the period and some of them have been examined previously. The first is the viewing of Eastern Europe as an ‘Other’ against whom the British defined themselves. Eastern Europe was certainly not the only Other: pre-war otherness continued from imperialism, and anti-Americanism emerged as a trend on both the left and right of the political spectrum. Nevertheless many British Cold War concerns, especially those emerging from traditional hierarchies, which were under increasing threat, found an outlet in the demonisation of Eastern Europe. British public culture tended to homogenise Eastern Europe as the communist bloc. Despite the varied cultures of the different nations making up this region, the entire bloc came to be regarded as repressed and slavish. The Eastern Bloc was often presented as unknowable or secretive. Soviet information was frequently distrusted and the British often used glimpses of the Eastern Bloc to form their opinions with more solid encounters emerging later. However, I also seek to question this concept by exploring how Britons sought to overcome the secrecy of the East and gain knowledge of their Cold War adversary. The second theme is the presence of religion at the forefront of the cultural conflict. During the 1950s Britain’s Cold War frequently became a battle to defend entrenched moral codes and elites against emergent ideas. Consequently, British culture displayed apocalyptic thinking due to its presentation of a Manichean struggle, which utilised traditional Christian mythology. The religious engagement with the Cold War became slightly less visible in mainstream culture as the 1960s brought with them increasing questioning of authority, and periods which have been seen as a cultural revolution, during which British values became more secular. However, the effects of both the 1960s ‘revolution’ and secularisation are contested by historians.13 This leads on to the third theme: the interplay between modernity and tradition, which was most visible through the role played by science in fields such as nuclear

INTRODUCTION

5

weaponry and space technology. The morality of science was questioned as ever more potentially destructive technologies were invented. The fourth theme is the role of masculinity in the cultural Cold War. Many popular texts were gendered and featured predominantly male protagonists. The militarisation of much Cold War writing tended to lead to male predominance in terms of the authorship of novels which engaged with the conflict (although the number of female-authored Cold War novels was not small).14 I suggest that the Cold War was by no means a wholly ‘male’ sphere and that many women did influence opinion on the conflict. However, British representations of the East often imagined a feminised or emasculated opponent. I also adapt Suzanne Clark’s argument, which suggests that in America the Cold War was characterised by ‘hypermasculinity’, or a reassertion of masculine values, because of the mid-century threat to patriarchy.15 I apply Clark’s concept to the British context where a weakened nation state, which had previously been dominated by a patrician patriarchy, was increasingly unsure about its own masculine value system. The fifth theme is the narrow range of publishable ideological positions, which has previously been identified by Tony Shaw among others.16 Social democratic viewpoints were acceptable, but the mass media appeared to conform to anti-communist hegemony. Readerships, however, were not always convinced and sometimes celebrated Soviet achievements. Pressure for conformity suggested that certain publications like the Communist Party’s mouthpiece the Daily Worker were treated with either suspicion or disdain. One of the ways in which I suggest that anti-communist ideology maintained its predominance is the use of humour to present and understand both the conflict itself and the communist bloc. Humour helped to maintain anti-communist hegemony by ridiculing figures, such as the ‘Red’ Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, Hewlett Johnson, discussed in Chapter 1, and so lessen their credibility.

Apocalypticism During the early Cold War British public culture regularly reproduced apocalyptic narratives which have recurred throughout Christian civilisations. Historians have noted how apocalypticism has remained a feature of Western politics and culture since the Cold War and how the

6

BRITAIN'S COLD WAR

conflict became seen by Christians as a Manichean struggle between good and evil.17 Throughout the Cold War Evangelists such as Billy Graham, whose preaching ‘crusades’ began in 1947, reached large audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, as the movement went through a revival. This trend has continued beyond the Cold War with American political positions occupied by evangelical Christians, such as President George W. Bush (2001– 9). The events of 11 September 2001 and the ensuing Middle Eastern wars exacerbated the apocalypse theme as these disasters became seemingly seared into the Western collective consciousness by 24-hour news coverage and the emergence of a ‘post9/11’ literary and film genre.18 Representations of total destruction remain an everyday feature of life and, as in the Cold War, the popular consciousness imagines the possibility of apocalypse. The Cold War saw the development of secularised apocalypse myths, most notably around the nuclear arms race. However, apocalypticism’s modern development is reliant on ingrained Western apocalyptic ideas. Elizabeth Rosen has noted that the secular apocalypse myth has developed through threats to life on earth including nuclear catastrophe.19 These threats were presented through news media before the often timely development of similar scenarios by novelists such as Peter Bryant or Stephen King-Hall, whose fiction is examined in Chapter 6. Apocalypticism created the key cultural divisions between the eventual Cold War spheres: many differences would have occurred even without the Bolshevik coup in Russia. According to Anne Rehill, the division emerged from the first major sectarian rupture of Christianity, nearly a millennium before the Cold War. Rehill describes how ecclesiastical debates over the Book of Revelation led, during the third century, to ‘a rift [. . .] between the Western church and those of the East (which included Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem). The latter rejected the chiliastic beliefs and, hence did not accept the Book of Revelation.’20 This division culminated in the schism of 1054, which divided Eastern and Western churches and created the Orthodox tradition which informed much of the Eastern mindset. Rehill argues that the identities formed by Western European Christian heritage have created an almost unique apocalyptic mindset: then as now, in the midst of fears of widespread devastation, the Western mind often tends to conclude that everything is hurtling towards a final cataclysm.21

INTRODUCTION

7

Western mentalities, however, are not homogenous and Rehill’s generalisation does not examine the scope of belief in apocalyptic thinking which initially spread through religion but latterly through literature and film, such as science fiction and dystopia. Nevertheless apocalypticism remains a central tenet of Western thinking. The division between Eastern and Western churches, whilst not the cause of the Cold War, explains much about how the two groupings developed different thought processes and eventually formed blocs apparently based on opposing ideologies. The contradiction between these two traditions played some part, alongside other more pressing concerns, in the origins of the Cold War. Lenin and Stalin implanted a version of the Western ideology of Marxism as their nation’s central foundation myth. In accepting what might be described as a millenarian Western faith, Soviet Cold War thought exhibited beliefs that were simultaneously not Western but accepted part of modern Western thought. Apocalypticism, therefore, played a role in Western intellectual development and entered Eastern cultures in the form of Marxism and other ideas. Apocalyptic anxieties were disseminated through a number of Cold War narratives, most importantly through fear of the results of a nuclear war, which often became a theme of Cold War science fiction. Rosen perceives the Cold War as creating an ongoing fear of impending doom that remains with us in the twenty-first century: No doubt the nuclear arms race has contributed to this sense of permanent crisis. The atomic bomb is a tangible reminder that the End (or one Ending) is only a missile flight away and that it cannot be ignored. It relocates considerations of the End from the realm of the theoretical and places them squarely in the realm of the possible. The Cold War existed simultaneously as a world-ending threat and a way to understand the world.22 Rosen suggests the speeding up of time due to the instant destruction offered by increasingly mobile and destructive wars, culminating in nuclear war. Therefore, I consider the rapidity of mass communications such as news, which meant that events and their aftermaths were reported almost instantaneously, allowing crises to appear exaggerated. The widespread narratives of the workings and effects of nuclear weapons, which were often poorly informed, showed that the popular

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imagination required little effort to create fear of a rapidly approaching finality. Rosen sees the Cold War as a means by which people could understand the world. She suggests that the complicated geo-political structures which engrossed the globe and created often embarrassing partnerships, were portrayed in a stark manner which returned the world to a situation of good versus evil. Actions and injustices were placed within this prism and accepted even when it meant a curtailment of freedom of action or speech. Yet Rosen gives too much importance to the Cold War and the apocalypse myth. Whilst the conflict was present at least until the mid1960s and re-emerged in the early 1980s, it was not always a situation where nuclear war was just ‘a missile flight away’. The Cold War is often written about as a period of ongoing suspicion in which multiple crises all rolled into one. It is the nature of geo-political history to focus on such flashpoints rather than the prolonged social aspect and the lived experience. The nature of the Cold War was one of rhetoric and bluff which encouraged threats to be made, almost safe in the knowledge that both sides would take as many measures as possible to avoid a nuclear war. It is these threats and ‘hot’ moments that are remembered about the Cold War rather than, say, the visit to London of the Bolshoi Ballet, which cultural interpretations examine.23 Perhaps the nature of the Cold War, a generally peaceful time (for Europe and the USA but not Southeast Asia, Africa or South America) through which worldendangering threats were continually directed at populations, encouraged the collective memory to record the trauma but not the lengthier periods where the shocks lessened and where perhaps there were even gestures towards friendship. Certainly it is rarely mentioned that more Britons died in Northern Ireland or wars of decolonisation (although ensuring that non-communist governments succeeded imperial administrations often led to interventions) than in any conflict caused by the Cold War, with Britain playing less of an active role in Cold War conflicts against communism after the Korean War. Whilst the ‘end of the world’ narrative has evolved and is commonly associated with fiction, the Cold War saw an expansion of this discourse across a range of media. Considering that the earliest documented apocalypse tales emerged from the Bible, the persistence of religious language surrounding modern scenarios should be no surprise. John Gray’s argument that utopianism itself emerged from early Christian

INTRODUCTION

9

apocalyptic thought is useful here; we can see the recourse to religious thought that defined Western civilisation for many centuries and whose belief system still mattered for many in the West.24 These populations’ abilities to imagine world destruction emerged through literature over several centuries and more modern Cold War and dystopian fiction which engaged with this subject includes George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Neville Shute’s end-of-the-world novel On The Beach (1957).25 Fiction also used allegory to portray Cold War apocalypse scenarios, for example John Wyndham’s science fiction novel Day of the Triffids (1951).26 But apocalypticism also emerged from the experience of the twentieth century. The continuous development of ever more destructive weapons and faster means of delivering them had seen incrementally devastating world wars, which included attempts to murder whole peoples. Technology’s combination with particular ideologies permitted the world to be divided into civilisation and barbaric Others, who were incapable of responsible possession of nuclear weapons and therefore increased the chance of war. This apocalyptic atmosphere continued throughout the Cold War and provoked culture, such as Peter Watkin’s film The War Game (1965), which imagined nuclear apocalypse.27 Stephen King-Hall and Peter George, whose novels are examined herein, stop short of describing total destruction but allowed their readers a momentary glimpse of how the Cold War might progress.

Glimpsing and Encountering the Eastern European Other During the Cold War many British media relied on two methods to view the East: the glimpse and the encounter. These terms have emerged from my application of the art critic John Berger’s Ways of Seeing to the Cold War.28 My examination of photographic and satirical images builds on Berger’s work by introducing these terms to analysis of visual and textual representations of the Cold War. Berger’s unpacking of gendered perceptions in art is also useful because British Cold War popular culture frequently applied a gendered status as part of the Othering effect. Both the glimpse and the encounter occurred in fiction as well as in press accounts and non-fiction, and were therefore open to readerships as well as those who physically travelled to the East. The glimpse was a way of seeing which presented an external view; for example a fleeting moment

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where little was revealed about the Easterner. Glimpses include newspaper articles which sensationalised a minor piece of information, individual photographs or cartoons which reinforced the underlying assumptions about the East. These cultural artefacts rely on excitement, emotion and the suggestion that readers should not really be seeing what is presented. The device bears a similarity to the ‘snapshot’, making it much more of a visual act than the encounter. These visual (or sometimes textual) glimpses of the Cold War Other often evoked emotions and reinforced pre-existing assumptions, which were built up through previous episodes, and often prevented viewers from objectively seeing the East. A glimpse is more likely to confirm the viewer’s preconceptions than to change them. Whilst they are ephemeral, their cumulative effect might allow readers or viewers to build up a more complete picture, imagined or otherwise, based on these moments. The encounter, on the other hand, is a more substantial intellectual experience which increases or changes knowledge. It implies a more physical experience with the Other. Yet this is not always the case: an encounter might occur because an individual’s knowledge about the East is challenged. The main difference from a glimpse, other than being a relative rarity, is the implication that the viewer, reader or author becomes immersed in events. Encounters have the potential to change opinions. To do this, however, the ‘receiver’ (to borrow a phrase from semiotics, which describes the person who has either the physical, textual or visual experience) must allow their previous assumptions, usually built up through glimpses of the East, to be challenged. An encounter is therefore similar to what John Dewey termed ‘an experience’, which was essentially the satisfactory culmination of an act such as a conversation, playing of a game or viewing of a work of art.29 Yet whilst an experience can be said to result in a conclusion for the viewer, the nature of the Cold War encounter was such that opinions were subject to future revision and there was often no neat start or ending. An individual might have had an encounter through coverage of specific Cold War moments. One of the most substantial encounters was the experience of Communist Party members during 1956. Their viewpoints were constantly challenged throughout the year, and when the Soviets denied freedom to the Hungarians, up to a third of the Party resigned their membership. Similarly the human story that framed the closure of the Berlin border in 1961 changed the opinion of many

INTRODUCTION

11

Britons about communism, at a time when their technical progress had led many people to view the USSR as advanced. It is for this reason that Chapter 8 explores this event rather than the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 where the media representation mainly focussed on the decisionmaking processes of politicians. When the British viewed the East the lines between glimpses and encounters were vague. Many encounters were simply poorly disguised glimpses. The guided tour taken by many fellow-travellers since the inception of the USSR reveals this grey area. These individuals were sympathetic towards communism, but were not usually members of the Communist Party. Their positive reports of their visits were a vital part of Soviet propaganda in the West.30 On the face of it, the visitor saw the country, met Russians and increased his or her knowledge of the Soviet Union. But the selection of certain sites, people, activity and the provision of lavish hospitality meant that the longed-for encounter was frequently reduced to a frustrating glimpse of the Other. It is no surprise that so many fellow-travellers returned with little more than their optimistic assumptions confirmed. Furthermore, many engagements which appeared as little more than a glimpse contained a much fuller and more truthful picture than initially realised, even though impressions often relied on the viewer’s pre-existing assumptions. An example of this nuance is Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs of the Soviet Union in 1954, which are discussed in Chapter 3. The images appeared merely as a snapshot and viewers frequently stated that their publication confirmed their pre-existing view of the Soviet Union.31 These viewpoints were informed by the cumulative effect of Cold War culture. However, taken as a whole, Cartier-Bresson’s photographs revealed much about Soviet society, especially its inadequacies. The images had the potential to change readers’ opinions and might have caused some to rethink their impression of the Soviet Union. My next research project will further expand on the ability or inability of Western people to have an ‘encounter’ with the Eastern Bloc by examining official and unofficial journeys made by British people across the iron curtain. The preconceptions that could potentially be reinforced or challenged by glimpses and encounters relied on assumptions that Britons accepted that the Communist Bloc was unfriendly. Cold War enmity did not emerge solely from the divisions between the former wartime allies, or even with the Bolshevik coup of October 1917. Instead the Cold War

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built on long-term disconnections, which Larry Wolff sees as an imagined geographical entity that emerged during the enlightenment: It was Western Europe that invented Eastern Europe as its complement, within the same continent, in shadowed lands of backwardness, even barbarism. Such was the invention of Eastern Europe. It has flourished as an idea of extraordinary potency since the eighteenth century, neatly dovetailing into our own times with the rhetoric and realities of the Cold War, but also certain to outlive the collapse of Communism, surviving in the public culture and its mental maps.32 Within Wolff’s conception of Eastern Europe as the Other is the role of Western imaginations in segregating and homogenising diverse groups of peoples. Unfamiliarity, resulting from over two centuries of conceptualising Eastern Europe, has continued after the Cold War and is visible in panics over EU expansion in the first decade of the twentyfirst century. The division has continued throughout the 2010s with migration from central Europe being a key part of the British referendum decision to leave the EU in 2016. British intolerance towards various European communities, notably the Polish, increased during the early 2000s, as newspapers repeated narratives that condemned an Eastern Other.33 This xenophobia reached a crescendo following the plebiscite when certain people, having seen their racism legitimised by popular news and politicians, committed hate crimes against Central Europeans.34 Russia’s re-annexation of the Crimea in 2014 has also led to certain commentators seeing a new Cold War, following Edward Lucas’s geopolitical examination of Vladimir Putin’s government.35 But the blame for this perception of a new Cold War must lie with geographically-imagined conceptions made by Westerners as much as Russia and this sense of difference towards the nations of Central and Eastern Europe is created in the mindset of many Western Europeans. Wolff identifies the enlightenment as the beginning of a sense of civility within Western Europe and its absence outside, which became based on an East– West conception of alterity. The division coincides with the emergence, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of a number of ideological divisions within enlightenment thought, most

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notably liberalism and socialism. The Cold War being fought along these lines has at least some prima facie value. This concept, however, is simplistic and assumes that enlightenment values were accepted across both parts of the world divide – which is less than certain. In Britain modernised forms of religion and monarchy remained alongside a resistance to liberalising reforms throughout the 1950s. Anxiety around modernity was decreasing but as the ‘moral panics’ that emerged around the youth cultures of the 1950s and 1960s, such as the ‘Teddy Boys’ and Rock ‘n’ Roll, demonstrated changes in society remained divisive.36 Malia sees the Western perception of Russia in more varied tones than Wolff: [T]he West’s sense of difference has rarely attained the acute pitch of the Cold War years. [. . .] And during considerable periods, and for important segments of Western opinions, it has faded away entirely, to be replaced by a sentiment of kinship, even of adulation. Much less obvious is the fact that [a] heightened sense of hostility toward Russia is not inevitably caused by aggressiveness on her part; nor are periods of Russian reasonableness invariably rewarded by more kindly sentiments on the part of the West.37 This point is important in any attempt to analyse perceived Cold War collective outlooks, despite Malia’s homogenisation of the Cold War period. He suggests that Wolff is too hasty in proposing a homogenous and cumulative Western view of Eastern Europe and ignores many ambiguities in perceptions. It should therefore become apparent that even if the British government attempted to change Cold War public opinion by harnessing mass media the public themselves were not necessarily receptive to this. We might consider Michael Warner’s imagined conversations of public discourses here: the newspaper editor or radio broadcaster knows not who is actually listening or reading, as opposed to hearing or seeing, still less who believes them.38 Therefore, this book examines visible public responses to culture, such as letters, where this interaction between historic moments, authors and readers became visible. Malia, however, oversimplifies the Western perception, partially driven by his position as a neo-conservative historian who criticised liberal and social democratic groups alongside communists. He divides

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perceptions into ‘left’ and ‘right’, and argues that the Soviet Union was the logical conclusion of Karl Marx’s theories.39 Much of his argument aims to discredit an imagined homogenous entity called ‘the left’, who were at best sympathetic to communist ends and wilfully ignored their means. Malia, therefore, ignores the role of British (and American) social democrats who were at the forefront of the ideological Cold War. Most notably British anti-communist socialists were among several groups who Wilford argues formed the literary elite, and whose Labour Party founded the anti-communist propaganda organisation, the Information Research Department, in 1948.40 Wolff’s thesis demonstrates that the Soviet Union did not necessarily mark a break in European history: Western European cultures had long depicted Russia and its European neighbours as an Other including in nineteenth century juvenile fiction, but it did shift the narrative towards political differences.41 The way in which curiosity about the East combined with interest in communism has been examined by Patrick Wright.42 Early Cold War popular fiction combined with a broader narrative which was disseminated through a number of news media that were often more hostile towards the Soviet Union than earlier fiction and reportage about Eastern Europe, but which nevertheless fed into the continuing national narrative. Perceptions of other nations partially emerged from the ability to make an encounter with people of those countries. A 1948 Mass Observation report on attitudes to Russia and America suggested that opinions on Russians were formed almost exclusively on the country’s international political behaviour garnered through news reports.43 Conversely, opinions about Americans tended to be informed by the more frequent casual wartime encounters, and it should be added that a shared culture had also emerged from America’s export of Hollywood films. Newspaper readers did not uncritically accept the presentation of a binary division between West and East. As Martin Conboy suggests, readers, even of a single newspaper, are much more diverse than editors often imagine and their opinions frequently differ from that proffered by the press.44 In part, differences can be demonstrated through opinion polls and letters to the editor. Mass Observation researchers were aware of the complexity of reader reactions.45 In 1948 diarists confirmed Wolff’s view of an imagined inaccessible and separate Other, by emphasising how the USSR was perceived as ‘unknowable’, which was

INTRODUCTION

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partially attributed to misinformation spread by a predominantly anticommunist press. Mass Observation suggested that around 20 per cent did not trust press reports about the USSR, but added: Not many, even in this panel group, are whole-heartedly favourable and uncritical of Russia. And many of those who are make it clear that to some extent they feel Russia to be unknowable, not only because of biased press reports, but because the Russians are so different to ourselves, and so remote.46 The suggestion of an unknowable Other is central to my examination of representations of the Cold War and Soviet Union; this image of remoteness was built on a long-held view of a distant and different Other. One diarist, a 38-year-old clerk, gave his opinion on the matter: ‘I think it is impossible to understand the Russians. They seem to think and act as though they were the inhabitants of another world.’47 Although this opinion related to Russians in particular, it is clear that some people thought of Eastern Europe as ‘another world’, and the British press did little during the early Cold War to remedy this. Emphasis on Russian difference (Russian was used almost universally to describe the Soviet people) was present throughout much of the Mass Observation report. It might be attributable to the fact, stated by the author, that whilst many people had met Americans, very few had met a Russian. A 30-year-old housewife described a barbaric people who seemed determined to destroy Western Civilisation: There is something which makes me uneasy as I never felt where Germany was concerned. And that is Asiatic Russia, the feeling that behind the tactless raw officialdom of Western Russia there is a horder [sic] of little yellow men, uncontrollable and barely civilised who would come down on Europe like the Barbarian hordes. That is what frightens me about Russia. You are dealing with people with whom you have not even the most elementary things in common, no respect for justice or decency, no knowing where to draw the line.48 Whilst the report implies this viewpoint was rare, it demonstrates that part of the population perceived the Soviet threat as very real.

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Many people regarded Russia as being outside what Wolff defines as ‘civilised’ Europe, and therefore as barbaric. The author’s fear was tied to a broader mentality which is more similar to Edward Said’s construction of the Other in Orientalism, which focuses on the perception of how high culture generated conceptions of race in the African and Asian East, than it is to Wolff’s adaptive version.49 She fears the ‘Asiatic’, an anxiety which almost certainly emerges from earlier fears of Asian immigration into Britain and imperialist notions of race.

Structure of the Book In this book I investigate the often complex relationships between authors, readerships and attitudes to the Cold War and Eastern Europe. The sources used can broadly be described as ‘public culture’, which Robert Hariman and John Lucaites define as: ‘[t]hose texts, images, discourses, and arts that [. . .] define the relationship between the citizen and the state’.50 Their list includes print journalism, literary and other artistic works and documentary films. These publicly available items express the coded Cold War ideologies that emerged from state institutions as well as from producers of culture and their audiences. During the Cold War public culture often existed as a series of imaginary conversations between authors, publishers and their readerships which Warner sees as a process of directing culture towards an imagined and idealised public.51 He views public discourse as an intertextual relationship between numerous forms of text which the individual engages with on their own terms.52 Scholars have established a canon of Cold War fiction which includes George Orwell, John le Carre´, Len Deighton and Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Whilst I do not doubt the importance or popularity of these texts I have analysed a number of novels which also contributed towards public conversations about the changing nature of Britain during the Cold War, but which have received much less critical attention. Popular fiction has frequently proven less memorable than those texts mentioned above, which, in the case of Orwell, benefited from the involvement of Western governments in disseminating the novels abroad, or, in the case of the spy genre, were often part of a series which ensured their endurance.53 Whilst the novels examined here were popular and important in their day; they were chosen because of their lack of previous

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critical attention and the authors’ public positions. Frequently these books achieved broader success than is often remembered. The British Press was at the height of its popularity during the 1950s and 1960s with 87 per cent of adults regularly reading at least one daily newspaper during the 1950s.54 Newspapers were many people’s main source of information about the Cold War. Newspapers allowed readers to interact with and to inform the debate. Readers frequently responded through letters to the editor and sometimes became the feature of news. Readerships could influence the news and inform their chosen newspaper that they opposed the editorial stance on certain issues. Therefore, each newspaper did not simply represent a broad swathe of public opinion but mediated its coverage in line with its readers. I examine headline news reports, but also several star columnists and editorial cartoonists, who often helped to boost readership figures.55 The newspapers I examine represent a broad range of viewpoints with differing target audiences. Newspapers usually supported a political party although, as Bingham argues, these relationships were by no means uncritical.56 The Conservative view was broadly represented by the Daily Mail and Daily Sketch; Labour by the Daily Herald, and Daily Mirror; and the Liberal viewpoint by the News Chronicle. More nuanced, less partypolitical positions emerged from The Times, Manchester Guardian and New Statesman. Local newspapers have also been a useful source when the Cold War moment centres on a particular locality. The sources used tend to locate Britain as those items published in London. The ‘British’ identity tends to be an extension of Englishness. Scotland and Wales have not been ignored by Cold War scholars and where possible I have explored events or reaction to them from outside the London-centric view of Britain that tended to emerge in fiction and the press.57 The chapters of this book relate to specific Cold War episodes when British culture can be seen to engage with the conflict or with the Soviet Union. Chapters are organised around works of fiction or nonfiction, which provide an insight into how each historical moment was perceived by groups of British people. Popular fiction represents a slightly delayed reaction to flashpoints due the time taken to write and publish a book. Consequently it often reflected some of the longer-term anxieties which are further explored by juxtaposing them with newspaper articles, letters, cartoons or photographs, which provide a more immediate reaction to events. The novels form part of a broader

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discourse in a public culture, which engaged high literature and culture with more popular forms and often integrated readers’ views alongside, or within, printed media. Chapters 1 and 9 explore Paul Winterton’s Murder in Moscow (1951) and The Ashes of Loda (1965) respectively. The works of Paul Winterton (1908– 2001) were published both in the UK and America, and have been frequently reprinted. Winterton was an important interwar opinion former as Moscow correspondent for the News Chronicle and Economist. Winterton’s fiction bookends the period: by examining these novels as representative of encounters between East and West, the chapters reveal the interplay between the conflict and its representation in works of fiction. The first chapter explores the late-Stalin era when Britain was experiencing a period of heightened anti-communism. Winterton’s novel Murder in Moscow (1951) echoes his journalistic warnings about the Soviet Union made in the immediate aftermath of World War II. It provides the context for the exploration of this scare and of the ‘Red Dean’, Dr Hewlett Johnson, who drew press and public anger for his defence of the Soviet Union. Johnson was one the key figures behind the abandoned World Peace Congress, scheduled for Sheffield in 1950, which became the site of a test of Cold War principles when the Labour government denied entrance to several visitors from the Eastern Bloc. The ninth chapter examines the period following Khrushchev’s deposition and suggests that British attitudes towards the USSR remained suspicious but lessened presentations of the Eastern Bloc as a ‘monolith’ by the end of the period. Nuclear anxieties were a key feature of British Cold War culture which intensified at several points during the conflict. Chapter 2 explores how the H-bomb’s emergence into prominence in popular culture raised anxieties about Britain’s ability to cope during a nuclear war. The chapter provides a case study of the Labour council in Coventry – the icon of World War II resistance – to implement a civil defence programme in the year 1954. The chapter shows how older narratives such as apocalypticism combined with the recent experience of mass bombing in Britain to create a narrative of a future war. The narrative of nuclear anxiety is continued in Chapter 7 which uses two thrillers, Peter Bryant’s Two Hours to Doom (1958) and Stephen King-Hall’s Men of Destiny (1959), to examine how fears of accidental nuclear war in the late 1950s meant that the apocalypse narrative re-emerged and led to the

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formation of nuclear disarmament movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. King-Hall (1893– 1966) was very much a public figure being a wartime MP and former Royal Navy Commander. His fiction and non-fiction warned about the communist threat and about a potential accidental nuclear war. Bryant on the other hand was more private. His real name was Peter George (1924– 66) and following his career as an RAF pilot he became disillusioned by the Cold War experience and criticised the conflict in fiction. Two Hours to Doom became one of the most famous Hollywood productions of the Cold War following its adaptation into Dr Strangelove (1964) by Stanley Kubrick. Throughout the era many Britons wanted to examine the Soviet Union. Often the USSR was seen as secretive and unknowable but, at various points, the Cold War enemy was depicted as changing for the better or sometimes as the cradle of modernity. Chapter 3 analyses a number of texts such as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photographs which offered the first Western-taken images of the Soviet Union since Stalin’s death, as well as encounters formed in sport and politics where Britons were able to see a perhaps unexpected vision of the Soviet Union. Chapter 4 explores how the Soviet Union became presented as brutal during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. In particular it analyses editorial cartoons by the Daily Mirror’s Vicky and several photographs to assess the depictions of the conflict. I suggest the moment was vital in remaking long-term British perceptions of communism and acted as a point of departure for many communists, not least the Daily Worker’s correspondent Peter Fryer, whose book Hungarian Tragedy (1956) is discussed as indicative of the trend of British communists to break with Stalinism. Many Britons saw the Soviet Union as modern because of its early success in the space race. Chapter 5 examines the British reaction to the USSR’s ascent to space in 1957. I suggest that many members of the British public celebrated this achievement, whilst some became fearful of the new technology. Public attitudes were therefore not as ingrained as Western governments might have wished. Space and modernity are also central to Chapter 8 which explores how 1961 became a pivotal year for British perceptions of the Soviet Union. Reciprocal trade fairs and the Soviets’ achievement of manned space flights extended the image of modernity. Soviet advancement was compared to Britain’s apparent comparative decline. However, this representation was countered by a

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return to depictions of communism as withholding freedom from subjects following the building of the Berlin Wall. Chapter 6 examines the spy thriller A Call on Kuprin by the Labour MP and journalist Maurice Edelman (1911– 75). The chapter explores how the spy genre represented the Cold War as a deadly game as well as suggesting that subtle changes were occurring within British nationhood and hegemonic classes and masculinities. The chapter also considers how the Cold War became a cipher for a number of insecurities in Britain. In particular, the novel depicts a working-class form of masculinity which challenges an upper-class version. Britain’s Cold War concludes by suggesting that encounters and glimpses which occurred in fiction and mass media contributed towards and revealed perceptions of the Soviet Union, communism and the Cold War. I argue that Cold War attitudes were not unique to the conflict but were informed by other features of British society such as masculinity, family, religion, nation, social democracy and humanitarianism. Ultimately the period was informed by uncomfortable relationships between tradition and a creeping modernity which characterised the 1950s and early 1960s. Modernity here refers not only to the new technologies of the postwar era such as nuclear and space technology, but also to the idea of a society which is ‘fair’ with some form of rationality behind its structures and goals. Perceptions were not as sharply defined as might otherwise be assumed, and opposition towards communism and the USSR was not as all-encompassing as governments might have liked.58 Furthermore, popular perceptions of the USSR, communism and the Cold War were varied and changed according to events; they did not necessarily follow the narratives disseminated in mass media. Finally I argue that the general population were more affected by the Cold War than argued in interpretations like Peter Hennessy’s which limits involvement in the conflict to specialists.59 The population interacted with the conflict and drove media narratives such as with the antinuclear movements, or when offering support for Hungarians following the Soviet invasion in 1956.

CHAPTER 1 BETWEEN WEST AND EAST: FELLOW-TRAVELLERS AND BRITISH CULTURE IN THE EARLY COLD WAR

During the early Cold War the British were faced with a supposed threat from Soviet communism. Whilst scholars such as Marc Selverstone argue that communism was presented as a monolithic and aggressively proliferating ideology, attitudes towards the Soviet Union were not simply formed by the anti-communism which was present in popular culture.1 Similarly, British relationships with the USA also remained ambiguous; there was no homogeneous Western or Transatlantic identity. Paul Winterton’s crime thriller Murder in Moscow (1951), which, alongside other engagements with communists in public culture, is the subject of this chapter, features an encounter with the East that echoed the author’s pre-war experiences. This chapter primarily considers how the emergence of the Cold War affected British perceptions of the Soviet Union, but also examines changing attitudes towards the USA. Whilst America’s public attacks on suspected communists reached their height during this period, British civil institutions tended to downplay their role in removing potential subversives from positions of influence but still deployed the state’s judicial powers to wage the Cold War. The victim of Winterton’s Murder is the seemingly incongruous figure of a communist supporting vicar, Andrew ‘Red’ Mullett. Mullett,

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however, was based on the very real ‘Red’ Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, Hewlett Johnson (1874– 1966) and this chapter compares both figures. The Church of England was one of the key institutions in forming British identities and waging the Cold War. The Church had long tied itself to nationhood and helped to build and reinforce the binary mentality through the statements of clergy at all levels, as well as the internal controversies which emerged around figures such as Johnson. Johnson promoted communism in Britain and was heavily involved in the communist front organisation, the World Peace Council (WPC). He confirmed many Britons’ negative impressions of the Soviet Union. Murder in Moscow was representative of a British culture which was prone to fears over communists and their fellow-travellers. These groups, either through ideological conviction or Soviet trickery, were accused of promoting communism in the West, and fed into the evolving binary representations of the Cold War, which prevailed until at least Stalin’s death in 1953. Furthermore, the novel suggested a masculine hierarchy which symbolised Britain’s changing relationship with America. This assertion of hierarchy reflected an emerging atmosphere in which those who deviated from accepted norms of masculinity were vilified alongside communists. Moreover, the novel was indicative of the period’s heightened Cold War paranoia. It employs these stereotypes to build the depiction of communism as a monolith, and it foregrounds the theme of political religions. Murder in Moscow blends suspense with satire and echoes the hardboiled language which had characterised American detective fiction over the previous three decades and was by the 1950s influencing British crime writers. The novel sold on both sides of the Atlantic and was translated into Italian. K. John of the London Illustrated News described its plot by referring to it as something of a generic whodunit. But he noted a certain mystique: ‘the Moscow setting, the hotel background, life in the small depleted colony of correspondents – these are at once convincing, farcical and fascinating’.2 John’s review helped to situate the novel as Cold War fiction. Winterton became a founding member of the British Crime Writers Association and, under a number of pseudonyms, published 40 novels by the end of the 1970s. Winterton’s fictional critique of the Soviet Union, produced under the pseudonym Andrew Garve, contrasted with the optimism towards the USSR that characterised his pre-war accounts of several visits made in the 1920s and 1930s.3 His early books appear

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distorted by his later claim that he wrote positively in order to maintain his visa.4 Youthful idealism prompted Winterton to suggest that the Soviet dictatorship, whilst not perfect, was at least honest in admitting its position, as opposed to the ‘bourgeois dictatorships’ of the West.5 Winterton’s experience of the Soviet Union included a period as Moscow correspondent for both the News Chronicle and Economist during the 1930s and Murder in Moscow was informed by these visits. However, he was now avowedly anti-communist and warned readers about the Soviet Union in both his journalistic work and fiction. His position as a former sympathiser turned enemy of the Soviet Union made Winterton one of Britain’s foremost warriors in the cultural Cold War. When Murder in Moscow was published Britain was still absorbing the reality of the Cold War. Different factions within the ruling Labour Party disagreed over Britain’s Cold War policy: whilst the official line was anti-communist and pro-American, several left-wing Labour MPs produced Keep Left, a pamphlet which attempted to situate the UK outside the Cold War. The pamphlet argued that Europe’s socialist parties could form a bloc which was neither pro-American nor proSoviet.6 The crystallisation of the Cold War into two seemingly irreconcilable power blocs, however, overtook the social democratic left and, following the release of Marshall Plan credits, the 1948 Czechoslovak communist coup and Stalin’s attempted blockade of Berlin over the winter of 1948 –9, it became obvious to most with a left viewpoint that the option of non-alignment was unfeasible.7 Winterton’s novel emerged out of and into this post-blockade atmosphere where the Cold War was encountered daily and communism appeared to threaten the British way of life.

The ‘Red Dean’ and Early Cold War Culture Hewlett Johnson was a controversial figure in the Church of England hierarchy even before World War II. Scholarly insights depict him as one of the key Western communist sympathisers who is central to examinations of British religion and the Cold War.8 Johnson’s belief that communism unwittingly embodied Christianity, whereas capitalism was an anathema to the New Testament, set him at odds with many members of the Anglican hierarchy. Many Church leaders proffered a narrative of a Christian West engaged in a Manichean struggle with a godless East as

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part of what Dianne Kirby terms ‘Ecclesiastical McCarthyism’.9 Whilst it was unusual for Christians to become fellow-travellers several, including Johnson, did so because they were non-Marxists who during the interwar years became dissatisfied with capitalist society and wanted to alleviate poverty.10 Robert Service attributes Johnson’s support for the Stalinist regime to being ‘out of [his] intellectual depth’.11 Service is simplistic, however: Johnson was very learned and accomplished in religion, but perhaps not in Marxism and failed to see the reality behind the image presented to him on his highly choreographed tours of communist countries. In common with many other Western visitors to the Soviet Union, Johnson’s experience of the country was limited to certain sites that the authorities wanted him to see.12 The Soviet Union and China exploited his infamy for propaganda purposes and contemporaries suggested that in Eastern Europe he was sometimes mistaken for the Archbishop of Canterbury.13 Winterton on the other hand was one of a number of left-wing intellectuals who criticised the Soviet Union. Others included George Orwell and Arthur Koestler, who became anxious to reveal the truth about Stalinism following the suppression of revolution during the Spanish Civil War and the 1939 pact with Hitler.14 Winterton reported his own enmity towards communism in Report on Russia (1945) and Inquest on an Ally (1948), which attempted to warn Western publics about the Soviet threat.15 During this period Western representations were increasingly moving towards the Cold War binary between the democratic countries and what Marc Selverstone describes as the perception of an international communist ‘Monolith’, which ‘helped to shape popular and official conceptions of the Soviet Union and its allies’ and whose ‘lesson was that all Communists, regardless of their native land or political program, were first and foremost tools of the Kremlin’.16 In 1949, Johnson gave evidence for the French magazine Les Lettres Francaises against Victor Kravchenko when the latter successfully sued for libel following a review of his anti-communist memoir I Chose Freedom (1947).17 Johnson’s participation in the trial appeared to confirm the view of his critics that he was siding with the Cold War enemy.18 When reporting Johnson’s role in the case, the Daily Express reprinted his statement that ‘he had come to Paris “in the interests of peace and better understanding between East and West”’.19 The outcome of the trial gave the British media and other governmental and

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non-governmental institutions a legal justification to mistrust not just the words of fellow-travellers like Johnson, but also others who sought to ease Cold War tensions. Koestler’s and Kravchenko’s positions as ex-communists helped to disseminate Western portrayals of communism as a religion. Their apparent apostasy placed them among the most virulent anti-communists and they wrote about their own experiences and disillusionment with totalitarianism. Johnson’s association with communism served to reinforce this comparison of the ideology with a misguided religion. The pastiche of Johnson in Murder in Moscow is not surprising considering the regular sensationalised treatment of the cleric. During a House of Lords debate discussing Johnson’s accusation of British troops using ‘germ warfare’ during the Korean War the Conservative peer, Lord Hailsham, noted the effect of Johnson’s antics: ‘The Dean with his ridiculous vanity, his fantastic press conferences and his grotesque rolls of paper is a gift to the comedian.’20 This taunting and a broader atmosphere of derision has led Andrew Thorpe to suggest that by the early 1950s copies of Johnson’s books, and indeed those of the most famous fellow-travellers, Beatrice and Sydney Webb, were bought for ‘grim amusement’ rather than an insight into the Soviet Union.21 The dean was also in some ways similar to the Boulting brothers’ later creation Reverend John Smallwood (Peter Sellers) in their 1963 film Heavens Above! Smallwood was a left-leaning priest who struggles to get his congregation to accept his non-conventional ideas.22 The film’s plot was an idea from the former fellow-traveller turned Christian evangelist, Malcolm Muggeridge, who became a staunch anti-communist critic of those, including Johnson, who saw good in the USSR.23 Winterton’s Andrew ‘Red’ Mullett leads a group of fellow-travellers to Moscow where he is murdered, causing a British journalist to investigate the Soviets’ official explanation. The disdainful presentation of Mullett is extended to the rest of the peace mission, who all display what might be termed typical characteristics of the naı¨ve fellowtravelling communist sympathisers. The presence of the peace mission places the protagonist, George Verney, in a somewhat contradictory position: whilst on Soviet soil, he narrates from the perspective of the West. Verney’s disdain for the peace mission, however, makes them an abject group of British subjects whom he, like much of Britain, despises and who simultaneously reject him. The plot unfolds within this space

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of abjection, which is more readily ascertained by the novel’s American title, Murder Through the Looking Glass. The term, which is a reference to Lewis Carroll’s 1871 book Through the Looking Glass, later became a Cold War theme in novels such as John le Carre´’s The Looking Glass War (1965).24 It implies that the novel compares the two world systems and here it finds that the Soviet Union is a distorted reflection of the West’s system in which law and society have gone awry. Notwithstanding Verney’s precarious position, by the end of the novel it is obvious that the members of the mission are too self-centred to notice that he poses as one of them, ultimately allowing him to appear superior to them. Murder in Moscow was published when early Cold War intellectual and political ideas had turned against communism. The God that Failed (1949), a collection of essays edited by the Labour MP for Coventry East, Richard Crossman, had become a new orthodoxy for anti-communist socialists and confirmed the common presentation of communism as a religious cult.25 The journalist and historian Frances Stonor Saunders likens the essays in Crossman’s collection to confessions by those converting from Stalinism.26 She also argues that the book was Western propaganda because it was encouraged and distributed by official agencies. Despite Saunders’ focus on the book’s distribution, however, its main importance is that it indicated that many left-wing intellectuals rejected Stalinism. One intellectual who accepted the book’s antiStalinism was Isaac Deutscher, a Polish historian and Trotskyist political activist who lived in Britain. Deutscher obscured the Cold War dichotomy because he remained Marxist whilst condemning Stalinism, and he was also subjected to professional prejudice by liberal institutions because of his political beliefs and was unable to secure a full-time academic position.27 He labelled many of the ex-communists as ‘inverted Stalinists’ because of their renewed zealousness; their abandonment of principles and their gradual conversion to being cheerleaders for bourgeois society.28 Johnson was another figure who became associated with the rejected ideology of Communism. However, he never joined the Communist Party, a fact which David Caute sees as important to fellow-travellers’ political positions. Caute suggests they were ‘confined, in fact, to three main avenues of useful activity: political journalism, membership of communist front organisations, and, where appropriate, the loan of their prestige, their lustre’.29 This description is particularly apt for Johnson,

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whose title was exploited regularly by the Soviets. Johnson became the face of several such ‘front organisations’, which were allied to the Communist Party, but attempted to appear politically neutral, including the British Peace Committee (BPC) and the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR. He also published several widely read books on the USSR, the most notable of which, The Socialist Sixth of the World (1939), was reported to have sold 250,000 copies in Britain alone.30 The press reported Johnson’s visits to the East with a mixture of bemusement and anger and he formed one of the key British encounters with the communist Other. He became an abject subject whose position within the establishment made him appear more threatening. Following American press claims that Johnson spoke for the Church of England, the Daily Mirror was one of several newspapers which printed a response from Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that ‘it is a matter of great regret that the Dean should advocate views which are so insensitive to the facts of the situation’.31 Fisher added that Johnson had not been sacked from his position because he had committed no crimes and because British society upheld freedom of speech – thereby emphasising the difference in values between the two Cold War systems. Winterton, in contrast to Johnson, reversed his pre-war stance by warning the British public and government that Stalin wanted to dominate the world.32 His work was again informed by his encounters, or rather his lack of them, as a wartime Moscow correspondent for the News Chronicle. He produced a short book claiming that Western journalists were treated as ‘Yes Men’ by the Soviets. Winterton appears to have had a Damascene moment when the Soviet novelist, Ilya Ehrenburg, told him that in wartime all honest news correspondents should be shot.33 Whilst Selverstone suggests that Winterton’s early criticisms of the USSR were important in informing Western readers about the threat posed by Stalinist expansionism, he ignores the author’s fiction, which often reflected his Soviet experiences.34 Winterton’s postwar change of opinion regarding the USSR informed his Cold War novels. Therefore, Murder in Moscow’s protagonist George Verney and the character of Tim Quainton in Winterton’s The Ashes of Loda, which is examined in Chapter 9, were in part products of the authors’ own wartime encounter with the Soviet Union.

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Verney is a newspaper correspondent who had covered World War II from the Soviet Union. The semi-autobiographical nature of this character, which allowed Winterton to embellish his own experiences within a Cold War masculine identity, was also visible in Maurice Edelman’s Smith and Winterton’s later creation, Tim Quainton. All three characters, as newspaper correspondents, were ideal fictional vessels whose encounters with the Other emphasised the differences between East and West and created uneasy relationships which echoed the narrative presented in printed news media and other forms of culture. Verney’s masculine identity included displaying qualities including intrepidness, suaveness, bluff and modesty – values which David Matless, Jonathan Oldfield and Adam Swain suggest existed in reports made by male academic travellers to the Eastern Bloc.35 Their examination of the output of ethnographers identifies a number of masculine values which were visible among the visitors. These characteristics were also visible during other encounters such as the fictional Verney’s and the photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson’s visit made in 1954, which I examine in Chapter 3. However, unlike some later characters, especially Quainton, Verney displays another characteristic identified by Matless et al: diffidence. This trait, deployed sparingly, allows Verney to survive his encounters with the Other, when it is clear that he could be imprisoned or killed if he attempts to embarrass the Soviets. Consequently, Verney has power over the Soviets despite appearing to allow them to triumph. Alongside the engagement with Cold War masculinity, the novel examines the relationship of Christianity to the conflict, and communism as an alternative religion. The early conflict was characterised by Western religions situating themselves at the forefront of the rhetorical war against communism. Historians disagree about religious attitudes in the 1950s. Callum Brown suggests an evangelical revival until at least middecade, whilst several examinations of everyday Britain suggest that religious authority and congregation sizes declined from the early 1950s, but with many people maintaining a belief in God.36 A News Review poll in October 1947 found that half of Britons never attended church, suggesting a growing ambivalence, despite increased evangelical activity.37 Nevertheless, only seven per cent said that they had no faith, suggesting that belief remained, at the very least for cultural reasons, even if attendance at religious services was waning.38 When the Archbishop of Canterbury defended Hewlett Johnson, saying he had

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‘profoundly the same Christian faith as you and I hold’, the Daily Mail’s opinion column criticised the primate and referred to King George VI, who in June had sent a message to the Convocations of Canterbury and York, stating ‘Our civilisation has a religious basis; our tradition is a Christian tradition; both are threatened today.’39 The article asked of the Dean ‘How can he expect to be recognised as one of his Master’s ministers on earth while preaching – as he does – both Communism and Christianity? And has he a right to any sort of protection from his spiritual superiors?’ For the Mail the two ideologies were diametrically opposed in a struggle that one must lose, and only Christianity had any place in the life of Britons. All those with any links to the Other must be cast out from society. The newspaper was willing to openly criticise the Archbishop, whilst defending the religion as central to their conception of both civilisation and British identity. Figures within and outside the established Church saw religion as the key civil institution which could mobilise the population against communism. One of these, the social reformer, Seebohm Rowntree believed Christianity defined the nation’s moral framework.40 Moreover, the Catholic Church presented itself as the opponent of godless communism throughout Europe.41 Religious leaders like the Archbishop of Canterbury were given plenty of newspaper publicity, especially when bemoaning a perceived moral decline or the threat of communism, which suggests that church leaders found plentiful space for their opinions in public culture. Heightened tensions over communism in the early 1950s reduced career opportunities for openly communist members of the intelligentsia and clergy. Consequently any incongruous pronouncements by a communist-supporting priest such as Johnson or several other left-wing religious figures including Canon John Collins, who later chaired the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, received disproportionate and negative media coverage.42 This sensationalised reporting produced a fertile atmosphere for Winterton to introduce his character Andrew Mullett, who bore more than a passing similarity to media representations of several maverick priests. Verney’s first glimpse of Mullett is from a train window as he watches the delegation disembark in the Polish capital, Warsaw. His image relies on his professional impression:

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I’d never met Mullett personally, unless you call covering one of his big postwar meetings an encounter, but I knew plenty about him by reputation [. . .] I suppose he’d always been fond of the sound of his own voice, particularly in places where people couldn’t answer back. It had struck me in the meeting at the Albert Hall that his manner had perfectly combined the didacticism of the pedagogue with the professional unctuousness of the divine. His interest in Russia dated back to the late ‘twenties. He had got the idea then that the Soviet Union was the one country in the world where the Sermon on the Mount was being translated into practice, and he’d plugged that line ever since and made a lot of other people believe it too.43 The window distances Verney from the delegation; this separation between the parties indicates mutual distrust, which is maintained throughout the novel. In this first glimpse readers see Mullett as a misguided man whose personality and ability to persuade makes him dangerous. Whilst Mullett is driven partly by vanity, the passage suggests he also acts out of an apparent conviction. Part of Mullett’s danger comes from his professional ability to convince others about the Soviet Union. He acts in opposition to Britain’s Cold War anticommunist orthodoxy. The apparently flippant comment about the Sermon on the Mount might not have appeared so surprising, especially if readers were familiar with Johnson’s work. In The Socialist Sixth of The World he argued ‘this Soviet programme regards men as persons and plans for them as brothers. There is something singularly Christian and civilized in the attitude and intention.’44 Winterton engages Johnson’s argument about communism in an ironic manner and the idea’s introduction, in the glimpse of Mullett, already begins to discredit him. Verney eventually uncovers the clergyman’s character more fully: ‘Mullett began to shepherd his flock back onto the coach.’ This priestly manner continues as we learn that he ‘fussed up and down the corridor as though he were allocating seats in the Kingdom of Heaven’.45 These short phrases reveal Mullett’s personality: he dominates and controls those who fall under his messianic power. When combined with the earlier passage the reader might notice his dictatorial personality. Mullett’s leadership and ‘shepherding’ present communism as a new religion, with its own hierarchy, which is in opposition to the West’s

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Christian tradition. The novel echoed the presentation of communism as a God that failed and as a political religion, which was common even before World War II.46 Gidon Cohen argues that the view of communism as a political religion was strengthened by the 1951 publication of the ex-communist Douglas Hyde’s biography I Believed.47 Murder in Moscow’s engagement with this treatment of communism and fellow-travellers situates it perfectly as early Cold War literature. Cohen suggests the pseudo-religious presentation was an attempt to link communism to fascism as a totalitarian ideology. Therefore, it is possible to see representations which emerged in non-fiction and fiction as supporting Selverstone’s argument that Western mentalities were forming into the ‘monolithic’ model during this period.48 Winterton further examines fellow-travellers, a group who were commonly vilified. An atmosphere emerged in which Kynaston suggests that ‘certainly, in 1949, to be a Communist, or even merely a “fellowtraveller”, was not (in the short term at least) an astute career move’.49 The fervour surrounding communist ideology led to a number of people being sacked from the Civil Service and pressure for conformity on people in prominent media positions. For instance, as John Jenks notes, in the late 1940s the Foreign Office pressurised the editorial team of the Times who were deemed soft on communism by encouraging criticism in other newspapers, before those employees eventually quit the newspaper.50 As Verney’s journalistic eye examines the delegation he judges each member: Bolting [. . .] the hard-headed ambitious type of left-wing MP who saw fellow-travelling as a stepping stone [. . .] The professor [Tranter] was [. . .] a cold blooded fish [. . .] Thomas [. . .] was, politically, just a retarded adolescent, and in any communist revolution would be certain of achieving the martyrdom he was inviting [. . .] As for Perdita, she was a typical drawing-room red [. . .] Something, I felt must have gone badly wrong with her life to bring her into this company.51 Disdain towards the fellow-travellers reflects the outsider position they occupied as the Cold War created binary divisions between communist and liberal ideologies. The delegation had chosen Bolshevism and therefore Verney’s prima facie judgements are scathing. As the

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autonomous male he finds himself among a group who would normally repel him. The outsider status of communists in British society has been linked by Kevin Morgan to the perception of a predominance of ethnic nonEnglishness.52 However, Winterton’s presentation goes further. Bolting grew up in Russia, Thomas is Welsh, but many of the delegation are English and they have chosen to accept the ‘foreign’ ideology of communism. The rejection of British identity, therefore, differs from Morgan’s linkage of the outsider position to a kind of ethnic otherness. Thomas’s Welsh identity suggests that ‘small’ nationalism threatens British values. His support for Communism also reflects the popularity of the Communist Party in interwar Welsh mining communities, where several communist councillors were elected.53 This postwar growth in Welsh and Scottish separatism as a challenge to a homogenous British identity has been discussed by Richard Weight, who notes the Labour government’s attempt to diversify national culture and to foster regionalism to help build an intellectual bulwark against Soviet communism.54 Perceived threats to the national make-up are demonstrated through Winterton’s use of non-English characters such as Thomas. Moreover, communists are perceived as an Other which is partially linked to ethnic difference. This form of anti-communism reveals similarities to the reactions against ethnic equality in America and South Africa which were sometimes justified on anti-communist terms. The political and social marginalisation of British communists in the early 1950s builds a similar identification and can be likened to the treatment of groups who were perceived to threaten the predominant English identity such as West Indian migrants and homosexuals.55 By 1950 several Cold War developments, especially the British involvement in the Korean War and the on-going counter-insurgency in Malaya, pushed mainstream British depictions of communists towards feverish levels. Fears of an expansive Soviet Union, which threatened to invade Western Europe, expanded further following the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin blockade. The Conservative peer Robert Vansittart played a prominent role in identifying and urging a purge of communists among the clergy, BBC, civil service and the teaching profession. Some of the more unusual curtailments of communists’ freedom of speech in the institutions of British civil society included Middlesex County Council banning communists from being employed

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as teachers and the Scouts censuring of members who also belonged to the Young Communist League.56 Whilst carefully distancing himself from the American process led by Joseph McCarthy, Vansittart demanded that vetting be introduced in the civil service in order to remove all communists and ‘every borderline case’.57 He insisted such a measure would not be a purge but instead a ‘small security transfer’. Communists were increasingly presented as being co-ordinated by Moscow which was part of the broader trend of creating the monolithic representation. Steve Parsons describes the effect of this on producers of culture as creating an ‘atmosphere of cultural caution’, which caused many intellectuals and others to moderate their political opinions in line with the predominant ideals.58 Anxieties about communist activity increased in British culture and Ray Boulting’s 1951 film High Treason features a communist sabotage campaign.59 However, British ‘McCarthyism’ was muted in comparison to the American variety and the country never engaged in any process like the House Un-American Activities Committee.60 Pro-communist views, when expressed, were usually disparaged by the press but this partially stems from the absence of a large-scale Communist party, comparable to those which had emerged in France and Italy.61 That a country in which social democrats became a popular ruling government in 1945 became so anti-communist should not cause surprise. Moreover, anti-communism did not suddenly manifest itself with the onset of the Cold War but built on a longer tradition of reformist socialism. Anti-communism was common on the British left long before the emergence of the Cold War.62 Whilst some supporters of communism among the intelligentsia might have maintained a utopian hope that the USSR would deliver a world free from capitalist exploitation, the reality had quickly dawned and authors such as Orwell and Winterton helped to extend this view of socialism. British anti-communist fervour was revealed by one encounter with the East in particular: the WPC’s aborted second peace congress in Sheffield in 1950.

The World Peace Congress The WPC was a Soviet initiative which aimed to demonstrate communism’s peaceful intentions. The BPC undertook its activities in Britain and it had several prominent Communist Party members in its

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leadership. Knowledge of the origins of the WPC and BPC among government agencies such as the Information Research Department (IRD), whose aim was to distribute information about communism to well-placed media contacts, meant that any activities in Britain would be challenged by the state using legislation and its influence in the press.63 Following the launch of a mass peace petition in Stockholm, their second peace congress was scheduled to be held in Sheffield in November 1950 and press attention focussed on a number of delegates, including Hewlett Johnson. The British government applied a deliberate ambiguity over the persona non grata status of foreign delegates to ensure the maximum disruption and confusion to the conference organisers.64 The issue prompted Catholic Action, an organisation that sought to increase the influence of the Catholic Church, to protest to Sheffield Council over the agreement to hire Sheffield Town Hall to the peace organisation.65 Various newspapers continued to depict communism as a religion: the Manchester Guardian referred to the peace delegates as ‘gospellers’.66 They further stressed the religious aspect of the Cold War by reporting the Archbishop of York’s declaration that the peace congress was a weapon in a larger attack on Western civilisation.67 When the congress was rescheduled in Warsaw, the Daily Herald published David Low’s cartoon captioned ‘Exodus From Sheffield’, which shows a number of delegates boarding an airplane with a clenched fist salute, and using religious terminology in order to depict communism as a political religion.68 Throughout this period, especially when reporting the WPC, the word peace was regularly placed in inverted commas; this rhetorical technique is also employed in Murder in Moscow when referring to the delegation, and implies a change in its meaning. Christopher Mayhew, the Labour MP and founder of the IRD, claimed that he began the informal convention in a Sheffield Telegraph article that stated ‘“peace” [. . .] meant a communist victory’.69 Mayhew was claiming credit for a longer term linguistic trend which had emerged through the British government’s reaction to official Soviet language and had been made clear previously by others such as George Orwell. Commentators frequently suggested what ‘peace’ actually meant. In a European Service broadcast in 1950 the historian Max Beloff stated: ‘The Stockholm appeal was not simply an appeal for peace; it was an appeal for peace on the Soviet terms; it was an appeal to accept the Soviet pattern of life for ourselves; because if we resist its imposition, force will be

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used, as it is being used elsewhere.’70 Furthermore, the government and intelligence officials used the press to spread distrust of the WPC, with the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, referring in parliament to the organisers as ‘the so-called British Peace Committee’.71 The press quickly adopted this practice when reporting the Sheffield Peace Congress and it added a sinister meaning to reports of this and later peace movements, regardless of communist involvement. The presentation of ‘peace’ by government and press demonstrates the ease with which Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was linked to British popular culture and became part of a collective cultural mentality. In Orwell’s novel, when the workings of the totalitarian system are explained in a book supposedly written by the dissident Goldstein, Winston discovers that ‘the Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war [. . .] These contradictions are not accidental [. . .] they are deliberate exercises in doublethink’.72 The episode demonstrates how Orwell’s fiction engaged with postwar attitudes towards the Soviet Union and helped to cement his book’s permanence in the literary canon. The promotion of Orwell’s literature by the IRD and other official agencies allowed his terminology to enter common British vocabulary, especially when referring to the Soviet Union and this trend was noted by Deutscher as early as 1954.73 The ambiguity which emerged around peace continued throughout the Cold War as it served to harden the attitudes of many towards the USSR. The trend is consistent with Andrew Rubin’s argument that visible antipathy towards communism was part of a conscious coordinated effort by Western governments to shape culture by setting the ‘free world’ against ‘totalitarianism’. Both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four were in the vanguard of this creation of hegemony.74 The prevalence of suspicions around the word ‘peace’ within the press and political rhetoric reveals how effectively what Rubin terms ‘world literature’, those works which British and American governments used to influence the ‘global literary landscape’, was able to change formally published domestic presentations.75 The British government disrupted the congress by denying entry to a number of foreign delegates. Ultimately this prevented the conference being worthwhile and the organisers restaged it in Warsaw. Several cabinet members opposed the banning on the basis that it was antidemocratic and that, if it were given the space to do so, international communism would show itself up.76 The Daily Mail, however, criticised the government for not going far enough. Its comment section stated

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‘odd is it not that a government who propose to control British people hand and foot cannot stop a lot of subversive aliens coming in’.77 By linking the controlling nature of communism to the government the newspaper continued its long-held narrative of Labour being either soft on communism or crypto-communist. The editorial continued: No one wants to see our liberties infringed, but it may be necessary to take something from them to preserve them. That happened in the last war – and we are at war again, though they call it a Cold War now [. . .] The country is gravely disquieted by increasing acts of sabotage and the apparent inability either to prevent them or to round up the wreckers. It does not help to know that dubious aliens are now arriving. The Mail represented the extreme end of the early 1950s anxieties over communism. Its binary presentation of the world meant it proclaimed an almost permanent state of war, which readers of Orwell’s recently published Nineteen Eighty-Four might have recognised for its justification of abandonment of civil liberties. The newspaper’s earlier criticism of the Labour Party for being too controlling and its support for ‘freedom’ appeared lost in the apparent self-contradiction that they also demanded more measures be taken. The Mail’s comment was in line with what, after much disagreement, had emerged as government policy. Weston Ullrich reveals how the government expected the public to support its restrictions of visas to the foreign delegates.78 However, letters published in a number of newspapers suggest that this was far from the case. W. J. Cleary wrote to the Daily Mail and condemned the action as illiberal. He asked, ‘were they too frightened to allow these people to state their views publically?’79 The letter demonstrates that whilst journalists might have written with an idealised readership in mind, the reality was often that readers were much more diverse in their opinions.80 Other newspaper readers also applied the British value of toleration of even the most abhorrent viewpoints to their criticism of the ban. Councillor J. B. Cohen of Hackney wrote to the Daily Herald: ‘We had a magnificent opportunity of exposing the falsity of the so-called Peace Congress. Instead we have allowed ourselves to become the instruments of the very

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things we as Socialists are fighting.’81 Cohen’s letter is important because it reveals a broader anti-communist narrative that the Herald advanced among other left-wing newspapers, but it also proposes that certain values, such as tolerance, are socialist as well as British. The governmental and popular reaction to the peace congress demonstrates how the late Stalinist period often marked a different type of Cold War to that which emerged following Stalin’s death, when cultural exchange between East and West was tolerated and competition became one of the most important methods of waging the conflict.82 The British government’s obstructive actions prevented an encounter with the Soviet Union on terms which they had not pre-determined. When discussing the visa bans, the Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede was happy to allow the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso to enter the country because he ‘is of no interest as a politician’. When it came to the barred composer Dmitry Shostakovich, however, Ede referred to him as ‘the Russian musician whose name I dare not pronounce’, and later, ‘the other gentleman’.83 This reluctance to engage with the unfamiliar, whether intentional or not, builds distance between West and East and makes Russians appear strange because of their unfamiliar names; it also implies that the Other cannot be mentioned. A value judgement on art was made by politicians with Picasso, originating in a country with a non-communist dictatorship, gaining entry, but not Shostakovich of the USSR, whose art was deemed to be political, while the Spaniard’s was not. As with many of Hewlett Johnson’s antics, the Sheffield Peace Congress was a target for humourists and cartoonists. One such cartoon by Carl Giles in the Daily Express, which depicts two children playing war and one complaining when the other chalks ‘peece’ [sic] on the floor because he ‘wrote a wicked word’, has been discussed by Peter Salisbury, who suggests it was an attack on the government’s opposition to peace proposals.84 However, the cartoon also revealed how peace had taken on more sinister meanings than its official definition. Low used an animal allegory which is reminiscent of Orwell’s Animal Farm, which was by then becoming one of the West’s key pieces of Cold War propaganda.85 The cartoon clarifies the congress’s meaning of peace, with communists depicted as wolves and the delegates as sheep who would disarm themselves against a rapacious enemy. The next day Attlee’s rhetoric in the House of Commons engaged with the same allusion, claiming that the peace congress was, ‘an appeal by wolves to the sheep’.86 The cartoon relies on the simplicity of the animal

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metaphor, which as Tony Shaw argues, was one of the main reasons why Animal Farm was disseminated so broadly by Western governments.87 The cartoon and the Prime Minister’s attitude appeared to resonate with some of the newspaper’s readership, with H. Grenville writing ‘Our innocents here who supported the Sheffield – now Warsaw – “peace” congress must learn to distinguish between truth and a lie.’88 Examinations of cultural and media representations of the Soviet Union and Communism can lead to the conclusion that the monolithic presentation, which Selverstone has identified, predominated throughout society. We should, however, be wary of viewing prevailing cultural attitudes as completely hegemonic. Selverstone’s book focuses mainly on American attitudes and when it examines British cultural attitudes below the governmental level it relies on three newspapers – The Times, the Manchester Guardian and the New Statesman. These publications attracted relatively small readerships which were focussed mainly in the upper echelons of society. The Guardian’s readership in 1950 was 140,000 and The Times’ 270,000.89 Both newspapers lacked the popular reach of even the Daily Herald which, whilst its circulation was declining, still reached around 2 million in 1950 but went bankrupt because advertisers perceived its readers to have low incomes.90 A similar comment might also apply to Rubin whose examination relies on high cultural artefacts such as Encounter and the BBC’s Third Programme. Encounter, an Anglo-American magazine, which was founded in 1953, was funded by the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom and the IRD.91 Therefore, the encounters with culture that the title promised were at least in part mediated or facilitated by Western governments in order to persuade intellectuals to reject communism. However, whilst these products were influential among the cultural elite, they did not reach the vast majority of the population. Encounter’s readership was fewer than 40,000 and until 1958 was never more than 16,000.92 Estimates for 1949 suggest there were 100,000 regular listeners to the Third Programme and these were predominantly upper and middle class.93 Therefore the majority of Britons might not directly have encountered these sources. The 1950s were characterised by expanding mass media and the Daily Mirror reached 6 million readers by 1950.94 Examinations of the effects of Cold War culture must go beyond narrow literary audiences. Whilst Selverstone refers to The Times as centrist – presumably because it regarded itself as above party politics –

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it is hard to see the newspaper as anything but conservative and it certainly sought to represent the viewpoint of the establishment.95 The other newspapers in these studies aimed their content at a more highbrow and narrow readership. A vast amount of cultural sources remain unexplored and it should not be assumed that those deemed popular opinion formers were actually effective in doing so. Whilst the quality press had important readerships in terms of influencing policy it is hard see them alone as representative of the masses, which requires a much broader study than Selverstone’s or Rubin’s. Reactions to the media suggest that the monolithic presentation was not universally accepted. The Mass Observation Report on Middle Class Attitudes to Russians and Americans, whose interviews took place following the coup in Czechoslovakia, reveals that among the panel at least, the press were not widely trusted, especially where the Soviet Union was concerned. A fifth thought that much of what the press published about the USSR was lies; whilst a quarter believed that perceived Soviet aggression in the early Cold War was a fearful reaction to capitalist countries’ actions and was mainly bravado.96 Some of the participants saw the British press as more of a problem than the Soviets: How little we know about them. The masses of lies and slanders slung at them by the millionaire press is only an indication of the press owners fear of the modern trend of social progress, and little to do with the Russians as a people [. . .] (Miner, 20) My chief feeling is one of helplessness at not being able to form a judgement of my own, not being in possession of the facts, on the contrary, being dished up with news coloured to suit heaven knows what interest. One’s head is full of other people’s speculation and theories (Company Secretary, 34) I feel that the Russians are much maligned, distorted and misrepresented by the spokesmen and press of the capitalist world. When I consider how they were eulogised when they were our allies, I find it almost farcical, and certainly preposterous, that British and American politicians,[. . .] press and radio, should expect even the gullible newspaper swallowers to stomach all that we are now told about Russia and communism. I suppose it is the capitalists’ last attempt to save their putrefying system (Local Government Officer, 41)

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These views are admittedly not wholly representative because of the panel’s self-selective nature and tendency for mass observers to be better educated than the general population and therefore more likely to question media representations. They suggest, however, a mixed climate of opinion and a desire to defer judgement on the Soviet Union and communism in the early years of the Cold War. Moreover, during the 1950s the belief that communism was monolithic, whilst conspicuously present, was more limited than might be assumed. Much of the reluctance to condemn the Soviets outright might have emerged from the wartime alliance; resentment at the apparent American replacement of Britain’s internationally prominent position and a belief in the benefits of a planned society. Gallup opinion polling for the period reveals a similarly mixed range of opinions about the Soviets emerging in 1949 and continuing through 1951. In August 1949, when asked about the government’s attitude to Russia, 58 per cent stated that it was ‘not firm enough’. In May 1950, 49 per cent answered that there was ‘much danger of war’, and 76 per cent of these thought it would be caused by Russia. In August 1950 63 per cent of respondents answered that Russia was trying to dominate.97 At the very least these figures, which indicate a high watermark of anti-Soviet feeling, compared with answers before 1947 and after 1952, suggest that for around half or more of the population, geopolitical events and domestic anti-communism led to negative feelings towards the Soviet Union. For some, this would have been a departure from the immediate wartime and postwar feelings of solidarity, or confirmed what they had believed about the Soviet Union all along. However there was still a sizable portion which harboured positive feelings towards the Soviet Union or simply expressed no opinion. By 1951 the Cold War had not yet caused all Britons to accept the monolithic presentation without criticism, nor had they necessarily accepted their junior position to the USA.

Murder in Moscow and Cold War Allies and Enemies Murder in Moscow presents the relationships between Western characters as diverse and complex. This is most obvious when Verney meets his American colleague, Jeff:

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No one would call him handsome but he has a great deal of charm [. . .] He likes getting his facts straight, and saying what he thinks, and drinking anything with alcohol in it, and pretty girls. He hates censors, and hand-outs, and humbugs, and stuffed shirts, and being on his own. ‘Well, you old son of a gun’, he beamed, ‘how’s Paradise regained?’ ‘You know’, I said, ‘It’s a funny thing – I always hanker to get back to Russia, and when I’ve been here a couple of hours I can’t for the life of me think why.’ ‘Nuts! You know you’re crazy about it.’98 The description of Jeff and his dialogue features short clauses and is more evocative of the fast-paced nature of hardboiled detective fiction; therefore it displays an abruptness which is more distinctly American than the British mystery genre. The second sentence creates an image of a quick-witted, straight-talking, heavy-drinking womaniser. The exchange demonstrates a difference between the American and English characters: Jeff uses abruptly short sentences and slang terms like ‘son of a gun’ and ‘nuts’ whilst Verney’s language is more explanatory and conversational. In many ways this is reflective of the ambiguous relationship between Britain and the USA. They are presented as working together, but each is distinctive. In 1948 Mass Observation suggested that more people were unfavourable to America than were favourable, and that the USA was only slightly more popular in the UK than the USSR.99 Whilst Britain and America already exhibited very different cultures the emergence of McCarthyism in America tended to cause the British to distance themselves from the public purge, even if, as several scholars have shown, individual institutions attempted to clear communists from their staff or membership.100 Winterton reflects on the emergence of changing attitudes, yet his protagonist appears to unquestioningly accept the hierarchy between the Western powers in order to fight communism. Verney’s image of Eastern Europe appears fully formed and unchanging, with observation playing a key part of the conveyance of the narrative. The reader is directed towards the Soviets’ observation of the Westerners. As Verney checks into his hotel he notices ‘nothing seemed to have changed except the faces of the manageresses who sat at

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strategic points on each floor, watching and noting’.101 The final three words of the sentence remind the reader of the more sinister aspects of the Cold War; the Westerner is observed by an all-seeing Soviet state. Compared to Verney’s observation of Moscow this appears more sinister; whilst he claims to be an objective viewer who simply reports what he sees; the communists observe in order to control. Therefore the exchange emphasises the role of spying in both the novel and the Cold War. The sense of difference to the West is accentuated by the fact that the spying is done by females as opposed to those hyper-masculine characters which came to define Western fictional portrayals of the Cold War such as Ian Fleming’s James Bond series which was published from 1953. This amounts to a degree of emasculation of Eastern Europeans and emphasises the difference between the two spheres in Winterton’s writing. In comparison we are later introduced to a Western style of observation with the eccentric English journalist Potts who ‘spends all of his time doing his own private mass observation’.102 The narrator shows awareness of the Mass Observation diary project but the association of the survey and Potts’s actions with voyeurism raises suspicions about him among the journalistic clique. When meeting Potts, Verney notes, ‘He didn’t look like a newspaperman and he didn’t shake hands like one.’103 Potts’s difference is accentuated: unlike Verney, Jeff or the elder journalist, Waterhouse, he lacks the masculine confidence of the foreign correspondent. As the meeting continues allusions are made to his sexuality when Potts exclaims ‘“about half the people in this city sleep in their underclothes – did you know that [Jeff] Clayton?” “I know that half the women sleep in their brassieres,” said Jeff with a grin, “if they get the chance.”’104 Jeff is presented in the hardboiled style of masculine assertiveness. Potts, by contrast, is emasculated by this statement and appears weak and voyeuristic compared to the apparently serious journalists. The disdain towards Potts occurs because of his attempts to analyse everyday life and is coupled with irony because the other journalists are also employed to observe the Soviets. Verney and Jeff’s taunting of Potts borders on the ‘mean journalist syndrome’ that Matthew Ehrlich has alluded to, whereby popular culture has a tendency to exaggerate the sleazy aspects of journalists.105 The difference between the journalists and Potts emerges because of the hardboiled language used mainly by

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Jeff but also by Verney in comparison to Potts’ blandness. Disparagement for Potts occurs because he does not accept the predominant Western viewpoint of the monolithic Other, choosing instead to form an independent opinion. The novel separates the instances of observation and paranoia. In the East observation is overt, omnipresent and routine; the West’s observation is downplayed and appears benign. Winterton’s fiction disguises and reverses the sense of observation which is seemingly only practised by the Soviet Union but was also part of the British domestic Cold War. Nevertheless, Verney conducts his own observation and the novel examines the East from a Western perspective. The narrative uses dense description which frequently borders on ethnography. When Verney arrives in Moscow, the air of mystery becomes visible in his description of a glimpse of the Other: The streets were as noisy as ever, with tram bells ringing and car horns hooting incessantly. A distorted voice on the open-air loudspeaker system was exhorting citizens to contribute to the latest voluntary state loan. The ancient single decker trams which clattered over the worn tracks were so packed within and without that a sardine would have felt jostled. Gangs of women with padded jackets and shawled heads were brushing and chipping away at the snow and ice in the ceaseless winter struggle to keep the streets clear for traffic. On the uneven pavements, bulky figures carrying brief-cases and parcels were shuffling expertly along in their high felt boots silent dogged and pinch-faced in the keen frost [sic]. Paper flowers on sale at a corner kiosk seemed to mock the distant spring. The green towers and golden domes of the incomparable Kremlin provided a fantastic background to the dour winter scene.106 This passage reveals how the Westerner views Moscow. Whilst the city appears alive with noise and life, it is generally unpleasant. The loudspeaker implies an omnipresent and intrusive state. The author engages with the reader’s pre-existing assumptions of totalitarianism to confirm the existence of a dangerous opponent. Momentarily the glimpse presents some of the poverty and under-development of Moscow which emerges through the word ‘ancient’ and the onomatopoeic

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‘clattered’, suggesting an image of overcrowding and constraint. Winter is emphasised and conforms to the Western impression of a cold and hostile country. This glimpse reveals how the Westerner views the Soviet Other. Moreover, much in this passage relies on the reader’s assumption to complete the picture. Russian life appears impervious to atmospheric and political constraints with people ‘shuffling expertly along’, as though they have always done this. Throughout the passage we are prompted to judge the Soviets but not the Westerners’ observation of the Other as we do when the Soviets are the observers. Potts, whilst being Western, is mistrusted because he fails to conform to the masculine journalistic stereotype. He is judged by the apparent weakness of his handshake. The exaggerated sense of masculinity is consistent with Jopi Nyman’s characteristics of hardboiled fiction. He identifies ‘the autonomous male [. . .] a truly masculine character who opposes all forms of otherness and relegates everyone who does not fulfil his criteria to the category of the dominated’.107 Whilst the novel does not fully fit the genre of hardboiled fiction, Verney is similar to the autonomous male and the treatment of Potts displays this type of domination over anything that is slightly different. A masculine identity is asserted by establishing a hierarchy. This identity is tellingly shown in the American character Jeff’s ‘wisecrack’ towards Potts. Jeff asserts his position at the top of the hierarchy and Verney appears happy to conform to this provided that Potts is humiliated. The belittlement and emasculation of Potts by Jeff and Verney conforms to Nyman’s thesis that this creates a masculine hierarchy: This character is central to the ideology of hardboiled fiction, which is based on the importance of hierarchy and order. His identity is constructed in opposition to other forms or models of identity. Forms of otherness, including femininity and nontraditional masculinities, are seen as threatening the social and public identity of the hardboiled protagonist.108 Verney acts from weakness when examined in Nyman’s terms; he attempts to reassert a British style of masculinity because of the emergence of the USA as the dominant world power and the threat of the USSR, which both challenged Britain’s world stature. Furthermore, he represents a British version of Suzanne Clark’s ‘hypermasculinity’, which seeks to reassert its hegemony from a position of weakness.109

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Potts threatens the traditional masculine identity, not least because he appears intellectual and is therefore feminised. This feminisation of the character is extended because he does not fit the Cold War binary divide: he seeks to know and understand the Other rather than dominating them. Because of his emasculation Potts cannot be accepted by Verney and Jeff as an equal part of their masculine group of journalists. Potts’s position, however, is more ambiguous than that described by Nyman; when solving the murder his observations are used by Verney despite his emasculated position. Potts’s status remains that of an Other. However, he is an allied Other rather than an enemy Other, which is the position that the peace delegation and the Soviets occupy. Jeff is also an allied Other; his hypermasculinity marks him out as dominant in the hardboiled hierarchy. This hierarchy and system of allied and enemy Others creates a relationship which allows Verney to define himself in opposition to others. Opposed to communism, not as masculine as Jeff or as suspiciously voyeuristic as Potts. Verney’s ability to solve the murder and survive relies on his own innate masculine traits – his courage, intelligence and his belief in the truth.

Conclusion Murder in Moscow reflects many British attitudes towards communism and its fellow-travelling supporters in the period preceding Stalin’s death. The novel sensationalises the threat of communism and depicts those with sympathies to the Cold War enemy as sinister and naive. The period was characterised by a form of moral panic as institutions of civil society including mandated government, religions, trade unions and the press sought to defend British traditions against the perceived threat posed by a communist Other whose representation was at the height of its centralised monolithic phase. The traditions which were defended were of a white, heterosexual, supposedly ideologically neutral, masculine-dominated Britain and this is demonstrated through a narrator who mistrusts all those who fall outside this stereotype; ultimately the plot proves him right. Murder in Moscow encapsulates the moment during the early 1950s where fear of a monolithic opponent who might start a hot war caused Cold War mentalities to crystallise and began to justify potential restrictions on British life. This was the McCarthy Era, and whilst Britain did not deploy its institutions to the

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same degree as America, a line was marked in the sand; once it was crossed, rhetorical and occasionally legal assaults were launched. Postwar Britain remained a partial siege state with continued rationing and the confident advance of authority and planners into many areas of personal life. As a result many people were willing to trust the establishment and national institutions of civil society which maintained an importance which would dissipate as the Cold War progressed. Britain’s mainstream religious organisations demonstrated this trust as they sought to preserve their influence over British society and defend the nation’s moral framework. Their influence helped to normalise the early Cold War mindset for many of their followers and contributed towards a broader fervour where communists and their sympathisers were seen as subverting British traditions and were vilified and treated with humorous contempt. Government and press both reinforced these viewpoints and their actions towards the 1951 Sheffield Peace Congress and others who argued against the Cold War deepened depictions of a Manichean struggle between East and West. Stylistically Winterton engaged with a broader Western genre of mystery fiction, but he also revealed differences from the more assertive masculinity which characterised American hardboiled fiction. Murder in Moscow demonstrates a predominant masculine identity but one which was more subtle than that of Britain’s Cold War ally, and which reflected the nation’s tenuous postwar position. The novel reveals diversity in Britain’s relationships with both allies and enemies; it suggests an insecurity echoing international politics, which was resolved by creating masculine hierarchies in order to try to identify a new position for the changing national identity. There is also some suggestion that whilst an element of ‘hypermasculinity’ existed because of the whodunit genre that the author worked within, this was not as strong in comparison to the motif in American culture. Winterton did not use his novel to make a new argument, but instead reinforced preexisting media stereotypes, employing a degree of knowingness which is shared between both author and his readership. A range of non-fiction directed much of the intellectual debate as concepts of totalitarianism and comparisons of communism to Nazism became predominant among the language of political and civil service figures. Moreover, this language flowed throughout society and brought the debate into the broader levels of popular culture.

CHAPTER 2 `

NO DEFENCE AGAINST THE H-BOMB': BRITISH SOCIETY AND H-BOMB CONSCIOUSNESS IN 1954

America’s Castle series of thermonuclear tests, which began with the Bravo shot on 1 March 1954, profoundly affected the British population. Both the USA and USSR had previously conducted hydrogen bomb experiments, but this test exacerbated public anxiety over the survivability of nuclear war. The political diarist and influential Labour MP for Coventry East, Richard Crossman, noted the importance of the press in raising public awareness of the potential destructiveness of thermonuclear weapons claiming that, alongside sporadic newspaper reports, he ‘had written about it often enough but people refused to take it seriously’.1 This indifference vanished following the Daily Herald’s report on the Lucky Dragon, a Japanese fishing vessel outside the exclusion zone whose crew became sick from radiation poisoning, which revealed the enormity of the test and, Crossman claimed, caused ‘this country [to] become H-bomb-conscious’.2 On 5 April 1954, Coventry City Council voted to refuse to fulfil their requirement to organise and train a local Civil Defence Corps because they believed that thermonuclear weapons made all defence pointless. The ensuing controversy became a worldwide media story, which revealed the uneasy relationship between the British people and nuclear weapons and prompted written responses to national newspapers or to the councillors from members of the public.3 Their letters, opinion polls and broader press coverage reveal how the Cold War and nuclear anxieties were

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linked to contested forms of British identity and that apocalyptic narratives emerged during nuclear controversies. The atom bomb had existed in the British public consciousness since 1945 and Winston Churchill had credited it with hastening Japan’s surrender.4 Clement Attlee, whilst recognising that deterrence might not necessarily prevent a future war, and therefore advocating international control of atomic weapons, had attempted to maintain Britain’s international stature by pursuing independent nuclear weapons.5 British vulnerability to a nuclear attack in the near future became obvious in 1949 following the Soviet Union’s first atomic test and heightened Cold War tensions, which peaked with the start of the Korean War in 1950.6 Visible civil defence was central to the Churchill government’s defence strategy and required increasing funding to maintain effectiveness.7 In April 1954, around 100 Labour MPs, led by Fenner Brockway and Anthony Wedgewood-Benn, launched the Hydrogen Bomb National Campaign. Their main activity was the collection of over a million signatures on a petition calling for an end to the production of nuclear bombs.8 Moreover, Coventry City Council’s stance deepened the public awareness and anxieties over nuclear destructiveness. As Richard Taylor notes, from the mid-1950s there was increasing co-operation between diverse groups from Christian pacifists to mainstream Labour politicians, culminating in the 1958 launch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.9 Peter Hennessy suggests that 1954 was the ‘pivotal year’ for British official decisions about pursuing thermonuclear capabilities, with Churchill’s government accepting that Britain must pursue a hydrogen bomb in order to maintain world influence and deter any potential European war.10 Yet 1954 was also pivotal in the formation of a popular anti-nuclear movement in Britain. This chapter analyses the media and public reaction to the test and Coventry City Council’s subsequent decision to abandon its civil defence requirement. I suggest that the incident revealed concerns over Britain’s evolving national identity and contributed towards a Cold War version of the apocalypse myth. During the postwar period British identity was remade, no less than in any other era, and the moment revealed the contested nature of this cultural construct. Often the common linguistic referents in the debate were overwhelmingly English.11 Previous scholars have examined nuclear cultures within the context of British identities and I apply the concept to the early

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thermonuclear era.12 I argue that the controversy was situated within a battle for memory of the wartime Blitz, which became contested between traditionalists and modernisers who situated national characteristics either within a stoical or warrior spirit or questioned how far militarism should symbolise Britain when a single weapon could instantly destroy any city. Hugh Berrington argues that during the 1950s British public opinion was largely supportive of possession of a nuclear deterrent, whilst Gerard De Groot suggests that patriotism and a desire to maintain international prestige drove this support.13 I suggest, however, that public opinion was more nuanced than Berrington allows and that widespread fears over the existence of nuclear weapons stimulated better organised anti-nuclear opposition. Furthermore, the recent experience of war meant that, in addition to those whose patriotism meant that they supported the British manufacture of nuclear weapons, many used this contested concept to oppose nuclear weaponry. Several previous examinations of 1950s British society suggest that nuclear weapons rarely affected the British public’s daily lives.14 I argue that the psychological shock of the Bravo test and subsequent controversy caused many Britons to consider how survivable a future war would be. Matthew Grant contends that the majority of the press condemned Coventry Council’s decision; whilst this is largely the case, the issue did divide opinion and allowed the voices of a sizable portion of the population, who opposed all forms of nuclear weaponry, to be heard.15 Popular newspapers contributed towards nuclear anxieties and also suggested that communism challenged British values such as democracy and freedom. Newspapers reinforced liberal-democratic hegemony as part of a ‘state-private network’.16 This network acted informally and formally to reinforce this hegemony, often utilising national rhetoric over memories of the Blitz to further British objectives such as maintaining civil defence and countering communism. The state also intervened in the seemingly independent press. It conducted civil defence recruitment campaigns and managed the release of information about nuclear weapons.17 Moreover, the government exerted pressure on the BBC to refrain from broadcasting potentially alarming programmes about nuclear weapons.18 The chapter firstly examines how the initial coverage of the Bravo test reignited public debates over nuclear weapons. The second section explores national and local press reactions to

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Coventry City Council’s vote to disband their Civil Defence Committee and the subsequent letters to the council’s Labour leader Sidney Stringer (1889– 1969).19 Often the response to this incident engaged with Coventry’s fame for its destruction during the German Blitz and whose rebuilt cathedral (which was completed in 1962) became a symbol of peace. Many of these respondents imbued this history with patriotic sentiment. Finally I examine reactions to the civil defence exercise held in Coventry on 30 May and how this exacerbated questions around thermonuclear war’s survivability.

The Emergence of the H-bomb in British Media When the Bravo explosion and the Lucky Dragon’s contamination grabbed news headlines in March 1954 it prompted suggestions that the test was ‘out of control’.20 Press coverage reignited debates over morality and destructiveness which had first emerged over the atom bomb in publications such as George Orwell’s 1945 Tribune article and the radio broadcast of John Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946), which brought eyewitness accounts of the bombing into mainstream public culture. Orwell predicted that a nuclear armed world would entrench power in the hands of elites creating ‘a peace that is no peace’, whilst Hersey confronted mainstream audiences with eyewitness accounts of the aftermath of nuclear attack.21 When the American government announced its intention to release footage of the Mike thermonuclear test from November 1952 the conservative Daily Express engaged with nuclear concerns by serialising Elleston Trevor’s ‘The Doomsday Story’, which the previous month had been broadcast on the BBC’s Light Programme.22 The story concerns a journalist who tries to prevent the testing of a super hydrogen bomb, which scientists had suggested might destroy the world. As the protagonist awaits the bomb, he observed the streets of London: ‘But there had been other streets in Berlin, Stalingrad, Coventry, Hiroshima. And people had looked at them and thought that they could never change. And they had changed. Overnight, into dust.’23 Before the stand taken by the councillors of Coventry on civil defence, therefore, Trevor situated the city as part of an arc of worldwide destruction that should warn humankind about future wars. The following day all newspapers printed America’s official images, thereby exacerbating concerns over nuclear weapons. The ostensibly Labour-

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supporting Daily Mirror likened the blast to ‘a crouching obscene beast [. . .] with nightmare powers’.24 The metaphor suggested that the device was unimaginably destructive. As Adrian Bingham suggests, the editorial situated the bomb almost ‘outside the realm of human understanding’.25 Images and reports of nuclear destructiveness raised anxieties and suggested that humankind’s existence was threatened. In a parliamentary debate on 5 April, Clement Attlee highlighted the risks of ever more destructive weapons and questioned the certainty of nuclear deterrence.26 His widely publicised speech employed apocalyptic rhetoric by comparing modern society to ‘the great civilisations of the past’ such as Rome, Macedonia and Greece which had collapsed. He situated nuclear warfare within a line of changing and ever more destructive weaponry. The former Prime Minister urged Churchill to prioritise attempts to persuade America and the USSR to undertake a testing moratorium and stated: ‘More than once Britain’s courage and British initiative have saved Europe. British initiative may well save world civilisation.’ Attlee’s patriotic speech stressed British moral leadership and questioned the logic of a worldwide arms race. His performance was regarded as masterly by Crossman, who represented one of three Coventry constituencies which all returned comfortable Labour majorities at the 1951 general election.27 Moreover, the speech raised awareness of nuclear destructiveness. Several leading newspapers also expressed near apocalyptic fears for the future of civilisation. The Daily Mirror’s William Connor, under his pen-name of Cassandra, was a staunch critic of nuclear weapons. He described the weapon in contradictory terms as a ‘Dreadful and beautiful bomb’. Alongside this ambivalence he engaged with a secularised apocalypse myth using vivid descriptions which frequently employed religious phraseology such as ‘The angel of death is also the angel of peace.’ Cassandra accepted that many believed that the H-bomb could save humankind, a point which was emphasised by a number of politicians including Churchill, whose statement that the H-bomb would stop future wars was widely reported, especially in the conservative press.28 Cassandra’s apocalypticism was echoed by the liberal Manchester Guardian on 17 April which stated, ‘The early Christians believed their world to end soon. But they expected the end to come through the wisdom of God not the folly of man.’29 However, the newspaper avoided total pessimism and stressed that ‘fear or wisdom or

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sheer moral scruple may hold back the men in power’. It urged readers to ‘pray that our world is not reduced to atomic ashes’ and to ‘live the best lives we can’. During the 1950s British national identity remained defined by its relationship with religion.30 The thermonuclear scare prompted several newspapers to draw on this aspect of British identity whilst expressing a fear that a form of loosely defined civilisation, which emerged from Christianity, was under threat. The manufacture of hydrogen bombs caused apocalypse narratives to evolve by drawing on the horrific destructive potential of modern weapons. Many of these narratives would have been familiar to readers because of the expanding science fiction genre. John Wyndham’s postapocalyptic Day of the Triffids (1951) raised questions of survivability following a disaster and the Boulting brothers’ near-nuclear disaster movie Seven Days to Noon (1951) made postwar apocalypse narratives appear more secularised.31 Moreover, the serialisation of science fiction in newspapers invited comparisons between news and fiction and allowed readers to fear that apocalyptic narratives might be realised. Throughout the early nuclear period newspapers represented the horror of the bomb, but they also suggested that calmness in the face of danger was characteristically British. The press stressed both the apocalyptic and more reserved forms of national characteristics throughout the crisis, and politicians and members of the public reacted to each representation of Britishness as coverage of the tests influenced their visions of the thermonuclear era. The Conservative-supporting Daily Mail utilised apocalyptic rhetoric by referring to the test and its ‘manmade fires of hell’. However, they insisted it was the USSR that threatened humankind and that stopping production of British nuclear weapons would be irresponsible.32 The newspaper appeared stuck between pragmatically supporting the weapon and criticising ‘science’ for threatening the world. A feature by the novelist Charles Morgan titled ‘The H-Bomb and You’, mimicked Orwell’s article at the outset of the Atomic Era.33 Morgan attributed the dangers to humankind’s pursuit of knowledge, through which people accumulated ‘more and more power instead of greater and greater wisdom’. Morgan warned: ‘Because everything that we value in Western Civilisation, including Christianity, is threatened from the East, we cannot abandon the use of the atomic bomb for the purpose of defence.’ The Mail placed the nation and its constituent institutions,

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including Christianity, above renewed nuclear anxieties. When reporting on Attlee’s request that Churchill convene a summit with Gregori Malenkov, the Soviet Chair of the Council of Ministers, and President Eisenhower on nuclear production, it praised him for being ‘more statesman-like than some of the recent Left-wing comment’.34 The newspaper also printed the views of some readers who disagreed with its editorial line and expressed apocalyptic concerns that hydrogen bombs could bring about ‘the destruction of the earth’.35 Norah Shone of Chelsea suggested that anti-nuclear campaigns were needed because their paucity ‘has allowed this thing to start, to continue and to assume its current proportions’.36 The Mail’s readership did not always follow its narrative of the weapon as a necessary evil but its editors accepted that nuclear anxieties existed among the public and were not necessarily irrational. Ultimately, the H-bomb’s potential destructiveness formed part of the Mail’s argument for deterrence. Some newspapers extended their versions of British stereotypes and placed the weapon within an ongoing battle for Britishness. The Liberalsupporting News Chronicle printed an interview with the philosopher and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, Bertrand Russell.37 Russell was an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons and in 1954 twice broadcast his opposition to nuclear proliferation before launching an anti-nuclear manifesto with Albert Einstein in July 1955.38 Alongside this, a cartoon by George Sprod lampooned the characteristically reserved British attitude to danger. It featured a middle-aged couple walking tartan-attired terriers. The moustachioed man attempts to calm his wife’s supposedly irrational fear about the hydrogen bomb: ‘Oh, relax, Edna! – First of all we won’t be told; secondly, we’ll just be quietly vaporised. So what on earth are you worrying about?’ The cartoon exposes British society’s gendered structure and engages with supposed national characteristics such as emotional restraint, courage and humour, which were reinforced and projected through popular culture.39 Whilst the man implies that his wife was acting irrationally, the ironic tone suggests that middle Britain has much to worry about and that those who flippantly dismissed the possibility of sudden destruction were being foolish. The use of humour suggests that nuclear destruction, whilst a concern, might not have been overwhelmingly frightening because, as Sandbrook implies, it usually remained beyond the immediate imagination and, therefore, allowed everyday life to continue.40

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However, the cartoon, and broader coverage of thermonuclear tests, brought the issue of nuclear weapons and their potential into everyday life, which Sandbrook argues was uncommon. Awareness of the test was widespread. A Gallup opinion poll In March found that 88 per cent of respondents had heard about the Bravo

Figure 2.1

Sprod, News Chronicle, 1 April 1954.

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explosion.41 Arms control was overwhelmingly popular with 74 per cent favouring an ‘agreement to ban the atom bomb’. Nevertheless, this desire for multilateral disarmament was believed by 57 per cent to be unlikely in the next year or two. Polling data, however, can be misleading and Berrington notes how differing political contexts caused respondents to give contradictory answers.42 Therefore, use of letters published in the national and local press alongside surveys explores the range of public discourse on the issue. One Daily Mirror reader expressed her fear of nuclear destruction: ‘Your articles on the H-bomb fill me with terror. We mothers should refuse to bring children into a world run by fanatics.’43 The letter showed this woman’s identity as a mother. She advocated using her power within this role in order to argue for change. Nuclear anxieties were also visible across the generations. Pauline Dawson of East Fenton, Staffordshire wrote to the Daily Herald: I have read in the paper about the horror bomb. I am 12 years old and I have three brothers and two sisters younger than me, and I love the children of the world. I have seen on the television about the people who are suffering from the bomb. Please don’t let us have war.44 Dawson’s letter conveys her anguish simply and innocently. She shows that the growth of television news and the attention given to nuclear weapons, most probably referring to coverage of the Lucky Dragon incident, showed that the news reached young people as well as their parents and older people. Both newspapers’ emphasis on youth made the nuclear issue the type of human interest story which the popular press commonly used to make the bomb more understandable to readers.45 Dawson suggested that adults were irrational and threatened the world. These pleas for peace reveal fear for the next generation which, as Jonathan Hogg argues, became a commonly expressed form of nuclear anxiety.46 The popular press frequently repeated worries about the effects of radiation and contributed towards fears of a future apocalypse.

The Coventry Civil Defence Scandal The anxiety that Dawson expressed was also visible in the actions of Coventry’s Labour council. The council, who consisted mainly of

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members from the left of Labour, was led by Sydney Stringer and the party had dominated local elections since 1938, holding a strong majority of seats in 1954.47 They caused a sensation when they took measures to disband their Civil Defence Committee, which was part of the legal requirement on local councils to organise a Civil Defence Corps as part of the 1948 Civil Defence Act and subsequent regulations in 1949.48 As Grant shows, Coventry was the closest of all British local authorities to fulfilling its recruitment targets.49 However, thermonuclear anxiety challenged local confidence in the survivability of an Hbomb attack. The council justified their actions on 5 April, stating that there was ‘no protection against the H-bomb’.50 The refusal accentuated political debates about Britain’s civil defence plan, which was intended to assist national survival. It involved mobile columns providing targeted rescue assistance to the civil defence volunteers whilst central government provided higher priority measures such as evacuation, emergency feeding and ensuring the operation of Britain’s essential industries and maintenance of import capacity.51 Coventry’s conventional bombing damage had been manipulated by politicians at the local and national levels during the previous decade and the council’s stand evoked wartime memories, causing many to question changes in the nature of warfare.52 Opinion was polarised, with Coventry’s supporters agreeing that civil defence was pointless when the new generation of bombs could completely destroy any city. Opponents, however, stressed the need for continuity and pointed out the possibility of conventional bombing. Moreover, they took the opportunity to depict the council as betraying the stoical national spirit associated with the Blitz and as aiding Moscow. A Daily Mail editorial suggested that Stringer’s actions betrayed the ‘great spirit’ that Coventry demonstrated during wartime.53 The Mail evoked wartime memories by printing opposition to the council from ‘Blitz Hero’ Leslie Bonham, whom they labelled ‘the hero of Coventry’s “Hellfire Corner”’.54 The newspaper suggested that Coventry was symbolic of British wartime suffering and recovery and that ‘this is no more a local affair than is the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral’. Coventry’s decision fed into public fears about total destruction which, as Grant argues, rose from this point.55 His examination of civil defence from the perspective of government and the civil service explains that the onset of the thermonuclear age led to a change in its provision, with the government recognising that it was unlikely to save lives in the event of an

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H-bomb attack. As the crisis progressed, it was suggested at a cabinet discussion that ‘no structural precautions could provide protection against a direct hit’ and that civil defence would only be useful outside the blast area.56 Despite this realisation, the government attempted to calm public anxiety throughout the civil defence controversy and restated its importance. One of the more vocal critics of Coventry Council’s decision was the News Chronicle columnist, Percy Cudlipp, who stated ‘I think they have behaved with an irresponsibility that borders on idiocy’.57 He asked ‘What does the H stand for – hydrogen or hysteria?’ Ironically he was accusing the council of reacting to the kind of emotion exaggerated by his own newspaper and by the Daily Mirror, run by his brother Hugh. The hysteria, expressed by some of the popular press, was aided by the government’s secrecy about the effects of nuclear weapons because they feared the public would side with disarmers were the destructive capabilities fully known.58 The Chronicle carried the condemnatory opinions of four civil defence volunteers. Captain Stanley Rowe of Southampton declared ‘It’s Sabotage.’ He expressed concern for the burden on other councils: ‘Neighbours would have to look after Coventry if war came . . . Do you just leave them to die?’59 Rowe’s statement emphasised the characteristic postwar sense of collective responsibility, duty and deference that was present in much Civil Defence publicity but also suggests divisions over how ‘duty’ was expressed.60 Having contributed to the mood in which Stringer and his colleagues disobeyed the government, the Daily Mirror opposed their stand. In contrast to the Daily Mirror’s editorial stance its star columnist Cassandra supported Coventry Council and accused the press and government of creating ‘a thin optimistic piping about the bomb’, causing the newspaper’s editors to issue a counter argument, warning, ‘Cassandra is talking nonsense about Civil Defence.’61 These seemingly contradictory positions often existed within individual newspapers; Cassandra, who wrote for the most widely read newspaper in the country, was what Bingham describes as a ‘valued critic’ against the newspaper’s more ambivalent nuclear line.62 The leader concluded that, ‘It is an essential service and our Civil Defence volunteers are doing a fine job.’ Such diversity of opinion, even within a single newspaper, demonstrates that the thermonuclear tests and Coventry’s actions had stimulated a popular debate about the new weapons and the effectiveness of civil

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defence. Even those who supported deterrence agreed that potential destruction was terrifying, but disagreed concerning the abandonment of the devices and civil defence. The Daily Herald was initially more supportive. It demanded a full enquiry into the effectiveness of civil defence: ‘Blitzed Coventry adopts shock tactics to draw attention to the inadequacy of Civil Defence in the light of the H-bomb [. . .] Coventry is right to shock, let’s not delude people that they have protection.’63 The newspaper evoked memories of the Blitz to suggest that Coventry’s wartime experience logically fused into this pacifist stance. Such memories became a national unifying factor which, as Weight argues, contributed towards reinforcing national identity for the next half century.64 Coventry Council’s symbolic position ensured that this patriotism became a focal point in the remaking of postwar national identity: opponents suggested the council’s apparent pacifism was defeatist and un-British, whilst supporters recalled the horror of the last war and suggested that modern warfare was unimaginably worse. Instead of condoning Coventry Council the Herald reflected its Labour-supporting stance by emphasising the need for more effective civil defence. As the controversy progressed, the newspaper criticised the Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe’s approach to civil defence but stressed that ‘the more people who trained the better’.65 Evocation of the previous war contributed towards the emergence of Coventry’s self-depiction as a city for peace and the theme featured in several of the 212 supportive letters sent to Stringer. Arthur Edmonds of Fitzroy Road, in Primrose Hill, London wrote, ‘Coventry has a special place in the hearts of Englishmen for historic reasons.’ This letter, which emphasises Coventry as central to a collective national experience, combined the wartime memory with patriotism and suggested the possibility of an anti-Cold War national identity.66 John Becker, Bernie and Guy Yates of London engaged with Coventry’s emerging depiction as a city of peace, urging Stringer to ‘please become an example to every other city and town bombed by the Nazis’.67 That these and many other letters came from outside Coventry contributed towards the city’s depiction as a symbol of recovery and peace, which represented Britain’s collective wartime memory, and was now adapted for the Cold War. Coventry’s image as a city of reconciliation was reinforced by winning the Council of Europe’s European Prize in 1955. The city’s application stressed that Coventry ‘has taken the leading part in the development of

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friendly relations and understanding with their counterparts in other European countries’.68 Moreover, Coventry became a rallying point for peace campaigners throughout the world: a telegram from the German Democratic Republic invited Stringer to attend a conference of delegates ‘from all place of the fashistic [sic] terror [. . .] as a symbol of the feelings that that should never happen again’.69 This letter and the councillors’ subsequent visit to Stalingrad meant that the local political controversy became an encounter between West and East during which members of the council sought to create understanding between the populations of the two blocs. Even before the council’s announcement, Coventry’s local press had reported the new weapon. The Coventry Evening Telegraph quoted the provost of Coventry Cathedral, Richard Howard. The newspaper used Howard as a local figurehead who tied Anglicanism to both nation and locality. The headline ‘Provost Condemns Use of H-bomb’ suggested a general denunciation of nuclear war. Howard, however, went much further arguing that nuclear annihilation was preferable to living under communism: We dare not commit ourselves to a position where communism could dominate the free world at will. To be brought into subjection to soul-destroying Godlessness would be a much worse evil than all the physical devastation of hydrogen bombs.70 Howard’s potentially apocalyptic statement, which fully endorsed the Cold War, contradicts Jeanne Kaczka-Valliere and Andrew Rigby’s perception of him as the creator of Coventry’s presentation as a peace symbol.71 Religious organisations, however, were divided over thermonuclear weapons and several groups condemned the Anglican leadership for their failure to criticise the tests.72 Some clergy sympathised with Stringer. J. J. Ambrose of St Andrew’s Church, Manchester, wrote to him: ‘We know the facts and for anyone to think that any sort of Civil Defence [. . .] can deter the use of the H-bomb is surely a form of brain softening.’73 Further support for the council’s stance came from branches of the Quaker pacifist organisation Peace Pledge Union and the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a group of non-denominational Christians opposed to all war preparations.74 The Peace Pledge Union, and their broadly aligned newspaper Peace News, had a long-term national campaign

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against civil defence and nuclear armaments as part of their pacifist mission. The historian of global nuclear disarmament movements, Lawrence Wittner, suggests that their activism peaked in 1950 with the printing of 100,000 anti-civil defence leaflets before experiencing a steady decline.75 However, the Coventry incident caused a resurgence of activity and on 28 May they used the unfolding controversy to urge their readership to be proactive and ‘End the Futility of Civil Defence’, by asking recruitment officers awkward questions including ‘Have you any instructions as to what action the Civil Defence forces are to take if an H-bomb drops in this area?’76 Sometimes the newspaper’s message appealed to national sentiment. On 23 April it stated: ‘If the British Government wants to give a moral lead to the world on the issue of the H-Bomb then it must have nothing to do with policies which use the bomb either as a threat or a weapon and it must take steps to disarm unilaterally if necessary.’77 This argument suggests that religious organisations were not united in their Cold War view. Certain religious elements argued against the Cold War and pressurised governments to denounce a war which might bring an apocalypse. The Coventry Evening Telegraph attacked Labour over the issue, stating that it was ‘intended by the Labour group to act as a reminder to the government that, in Labour’s view, they are taking a ‘“non-sensical attitude” towards Civil Defence and hydrogen and atomic bombs’.78 By suggesting that the council represented the national Labour Party, the newspaper pursued its conservative political line and exploited civil defence’s national prominence. The following day they claimed that failure to fulfil civil defence commitments would increase the burden on ratepayers, because the government would be forced to take over Coventry’s civil defence force, and castigated the decision as an abandonment of duty.79 The leader column increased its vitriol against the council by accusing them of ‘wallowing in the depths of pessimism’ and lacking ‘any sort of rational argument’.80 The newspaper defended its view of national identity and its attitude reveals the kind of tension in perceptions of national characteristics which, as Peter Mandler argues, emerged with the turn towards social democracy in the postwar years.81 The council was an affront to this definition and they were presented as acting hysterically against the newspaper’s depiction of stoical Britishness.

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The council’s decision prompted a mixture of supporting and opposing letters to the local newspaper. On 8 April a regular correspondent, Chris Keegan, repeated points from the newspaper’s editorials. He labelled the council ‘disloyal nationally’ and accused them of making a ‘contribution to Communism’.82 The letter echoed broader political arguments against the council that they betrayed a British tradition of fighting against adversity. Anti-Labour viewpoints were expressed by several correspondents over the coming weeks, not least W. A. Coker who wrote, ‘I see our Socialist Council Dictators have been at it again. This time with reference to Civil Defence.’83 Coker displays a frantic reaction to the party, which Nick Tiratsoo suggests the local Conservatives were quick to capitalise upon by associating Labour with communism in their election material.84 The association of all socialists with communism depicts Labour as part of an homogenous entity called ‘the left’ whose implied association with communism meant it threatened the British way of life. Not all Coventry Telegraph correspondents, however, condemned the council; the majority of letters printed on 10 April were supportive. E. McLuskey congratulated the council on ‘exposing the fact that there is no adequate defence against nuclear weapons other than their complete abolition’.85 McLuskey’s letter repeated the council’s argument, that there was no protection against the H-bomb. Lack of public information about the effects of nuclear weapons encouraged proliferation of rumours about their disastrous consequences. John Spencer framed his support in more poetic terms. He wrote, ‘I regard their action as a further sign that the moral conscience is at last being aroused.’ His language framed the debate within the historical nature of pacifism based on righteousness. He quoted Tennyson: ‘Their’s [sic] not to reason why, Their’s [sic] just to do or die,’ Was perhaps suitable for the Crimean war but when mankind stands juggling with the means of their own destruction it is time someone ‘reasoned why.’ Tennyson featured in John Betjeman’s 1943 list of defining features of Britishness, which was heavily focussed on England.86 However, now the poem’s militaristic association with patriotism was changed to

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highlight ever more destructive warfare and therefore echoed Attlee’s earlier speech. Spencer questioned the glory of a charge into certain death. Moreover, the connection with Betjeman’s list and modern warfare situates the letter within contested notions of national identity and the memory of the Blitz. Spencer’s use of Tennyson exposes the battle for British national culture between traditionalists and modernisers which sat uneasily within British cultural politics of the Cold War. Much of the correspondence addressed to Stringer suggests divisions in national identity and patriotism. W. A. Scott wrote, ‘Congratulations for ensuring there will always be an England.’87 The telegram refers to the wartime film The Battle of Britain (1943), which memorialised Coventry’s blitz with the song ‘There Will Always Be An England’.88 Its usage reveals an anti-war British national identity which utilised memory of the Blitz to oppose the parochial and more jingoistic version which predominated throughout much of the Cold War.89 Frank Stuart of Gloucester echoed this stance and tied pacifistic patriotism to the Blitz: ‘Coventry knows more about being bombed than any city in England, and respect for Coventry is growing everywhere [. . .] as a loyal Englishman wanting England’s happiness, I would like to thank you and your Council for your courage and sincerity.’90 This type of viewpoint was common among Stringer’s supporters from across Britain who regularly expressed their patriotism alongside an evocation of the memory of the Blitz as a reason to suggest that any nuclear war would be very different and civil defence less effective. In April Gallup found that there was general support for civil defence with 25 per cent saying they would approve if their council disbanded their civil defence corps and 62 per cent disapproving.91 The poll found that 52 per cent believed the new weapon made war less likely. Therefore, it would appear that there was narrow support for the existence of a nuclear deterrent, although 25 per cent believed war was now more likely and 22 per cent expressed no opinion. Whilst the coverage of the weapon caused many to oppose nuclear armaments the poll suggests that for around half of the population the shock soon dissipated. These results reflect the lack of newspaper or political support for the council, but the 25 per cent support for Coventry suggests that their message had convinced a sizable minority despite

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overwhelming criticism in popular media. On 28 May the Coventry Evening Telegraph anticipated a forthcoming civil defence exercise in dramatic form: ‘A raider hard-pressed in his approach to drop a hydrogen bomb on Birmingham, releases it prematurely. Seconds later the blast strikes Coventry, ripping off roofs, smashing windows, in fact damaging all buildings to a varying degree.’92 The quotation from a Civil Defence department press conference warned readers that the government believed a thermonuclear attack was possible.

The Coventry Civil Defence Exercise Coventry’s councillors opposed the display on 30 May with counterprotests. The ensuing physical confrontation brought anti-nuclear campaigners, some of whom were elected representatives of Coventry, into direct conflict with the state and its defence forces. Nuclear anxieties and anti-communism formed a fierce encounter, which directed attention to the government-ordained performance, designed to convince Britons that civil defence was effective. Many areas of the press reinforced pro-liberal and anti-communist hegemony by depicting the councillors and their supporters as a kind of internal enemy who wittingly or unwittingly supported Moscow. Following the exercise, patriotic sentiment in supportive comments was less common. Instead, the congratulatory telegrams and letters that Stringer now received praised his stand for peace. As with the initial reaction to Coventry Council’s refusal, support came from branches and members of the Peace Pledge Union, the local trades council, or eccentric groups such as an organisation calling itself Wallasey Fighters for Peace and Proletarianism, who wrote ‘Congratulations on your heroic fight against the evil capitalist – hyena – class enemy – warmongers.’93 Other letters came from individuals. A. J. Keen, a shopkeeper in Edinburgh, who described himself as ‘an ex tank man of the last war’ praised Stringer stating, ‘I am happy to say that I am yet to hear your action condemned.’94 Stringer’s protest prompted support from groups who were pre-disposed to support peace or the Labour movement but also from individuals who supported their challenge to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Liberal-supporting News Chronicle emphasised its anti-communism by suggesting the councillors were Moscow puppets:

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Loud Speakers proclaimed that there is no defence against the H-bombs, and called upon Coventry to lead the world in a ‘Workers’ Peace’. As a theme song from Moscow this line is familiar enough. But it has not hitherto been plugged in this country in such a coldblooded fashion at the expense of a service which is intended to save people from injury and death.95 The editorial recast the councillors, who were previously regarded as local heroes for their rebuilding work following the World War II, as traitors, who were in league with the Cold War enemy. Furthermore, it suggested all peace campaigners, or those who questioned the utility of a weapon with immeasurable power, were enemy agents. Britain’s pre-existing anti-communism was used by the press to suggest the councillors’ actions were un-British and to depict them as outsiders. However, the Daily Herald attacked the government’s civil defence policy and sent their journalist Dudley Barker to report on Sweden’s policy, which involved building underground shelters.96 Some of their readership continued to utilise the Blitz as their key way of viewing modern warfare. Mrs C. Weaver of Hampstead wrote, ‘It is illuminating that the people who have shown a sense of realism about the H-bomb are the members of the City Council of Coventry, one of the greatest sufferers from bombing. There would be no mobile columns if an H-bomb fell.’97 Weaver’s letter emphasised Coventry’s wartime spirit but suggested modern warfare would not produce such stoicism. She took the common position that civil defence was unchanged since the last war and therefore unsuited to the nuclear era.98 The destructive threat of thermonuclear weapons, therefore, prompted suggestions that the Blitz spirit was anachronistic. Whilst her letter forms part of the battle for the cultural memory of the Blitz, other voices on the left, notably Crossman, argued that, unless precautions were improved with more investment, ‘civil defence shall remain a facade’. In the Commons, Crossman summarised his case: I say [. . .] and I think I speak also for the Coventry City Council – that my form of civil defence would be either a declaration that Britain would not manufacture H-bombers or bombs at all; or a

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declaration that Britain pledges herself not to use these weapons unless they are used against us.99 Whilst he also argued for more effective civil defence, funded by reductions in conventional arms, Crossman’s qualified support for Coventry Council suggests that some Labour politicians used the

Figure 2.2 Vicky, ‘Now aren’t you sorry that you haven’t learned how to handle a stirrup-pump?’, Daily Mirror, 3 June 1954.

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controversy to attack the Conservatives or, like the parliamentary signatories of the Hydrogen Bomb National Campaign, to agitate for arms control. Maurice Edelman, Labour MP for Coventry North, mentioned the exercise in parliament, making the city representative of the national defence position. He railed against the perceived insufficiency of civil defence, accusing the government of engaging in a ‘public political controversy’ and being ‘provocative and foolish’.100 Peace News used the confrontation to further their opposition to civil defence. On 4 June they published a four-page leaflet, which their activist readers were asked to distribute to the public.101 The supplement featured photographs of the confrontation alongside images of Hiroshima to argue that civil defence was useless. During this early H-bomb period the pacifist newspaper claimed that its circulation had grown to 12,300 from previous claims of around 10,000 made throughout the early 1950s.102 This modest increase suggests that continued coverage of the hydrogen bomb, which was partially stimulated by Coventry City Council, encouraged some to take an interest in the broader campaign to prevent escalation of the Cold War. Whilst the Daily Mirror dedicated little space to the exercise, Cassandra continued to be a ‘valued critic’. In opposition to the newspaper’s editorials he labelled the exercise ‘a derisive farce rather like playing ring-a-ring of roses in a graveyard’.103 Cassandra was joined by the Mirror’s newly appointed cartoonist, Vicky, who later became a founding member of CND (Figure 2.2). Their support for Coventry City Council supports Bingham’s argument that newspapers were not solely reliant on official sources over the nuclear issue and sometimes highlighted the bomb’s destructiveness.104 Vicky agitated against nuclear weapons and mocked the government’s stance on civil defence. He used irony and his characteristic heavily-shaded style to parody the governments’ newspaper advertisements for the Auxiliary Fire Service and Civil Defence Corps.105 Juxtapositions of the stirrup pump and thermonuclear explosion encouraged questions over the effectiveness of the current civil defence procedures. Vicky’s representation of thermonuclear explosions relied on readers’ familiarity with America’s widely published photographs of their earlier tests. Whereas the American government used this to demonstrate its technical superiority,

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Vicky’s stark image aimed to frighten, and raised a sense of impending nuclear apocalypse. Nick Tiratsoo suggests that during the postwar period Coventry’s Labour Party enjoyed a form of hegemony, which the Conservativesupporting local press rarely challenged.106 Yet, throughout this Cold War episode, the Coventry Evening Telegraph attacked Labour. Following the protest, their editorial stated: ‘All who care for the good name of Coventry must be dismayed by the unseemly conduct of Labour members.’107 The column offered a vitriolic attack on the council: To hold a rival demonstration, to shout down the commentary by means of loud speakers, to act in a manner which might have caused a breach of the peace, and this on a Sunday afternoon in the neighbourhood of the Cathedral is surely deplorable conduct on the part of public men. The editorial contrasted with the Daily Herald, which suggested that attacks on the councillors by the civil defence volunteers were just as likely to cause a breach of the peace.108 During wartime the Telegraph had presented civil defence as vital for good citizenship.109 Its postwar support for the activity suggests that this conception of nationhood continued. It echoed government messages by situating civil defence within these concepts of patriotic duty.110 The column also placed the argument within the central metonym of Coventry’s Blitz by attempting to accuse the councillors of some sort of desecration of the cathedral, a site which was established as a sacred symbol of wartime destruction and hopes of a future recovery. Therefore, they promoted a more traditionalist form of national identity, with Christianity at its centre, and depicted the councillors as harming the efforts at rebuilding. The next day the Coventry Evening Telegraph printed a number of critical letters, which generally echoed the newspaper’s condemnatory editorial stance. Pat Turner roundly condemned the council: Most of central and Eastern Europe has disappeared behind the Iron Curtain since the war without a bow and arrow being shot, let alone a hydrogen bomb being dropped. While responsible representatives continue to spread gloom and despondency such as

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we witnessed last weekend in Coventry, the Kremlin have no need to further extend their cause. Had the people of Britain been led by such as the present Coventry Socialists in 1940 none of us would be here to witness this interesting but sickening exhibition on the part of the chosen representatives of the gallant city.111 Turner echoed the public discourse which blamed the Soviets alone for the Cold War.112 Fear of communist expansion was common and, in The Communist Conspiracy (1953), Stephen King-Hall had stressed the need for Britons to accept that ‘“We are at war” with the Communists.’113 Turner furthered this Cold War narrative and accused Coventry Council of helping the Soviets by arguing against nuclear weapons. The letter recycled the myth of the Blitz, and was one of a number of correspondences which suggested that Stringer and his colleagues’ were betraying the wartime spirit by being defeatist. On 3 June a letter by D. Furnival-Adams built on the regular suggestion that the council were inadvertently doing the Soviets’ bidding and accused the councillors of being communist sympathisers: The disgusting exhibition by Coventry Socialists should not surprise anyone. These raucous outbursts and demonstrations are all part and parcel of Socialism. In fact, I venture to suggest it couldn’t work without them [. . .] I would suggest to Alderman Stringer and the fellow-travellers in his party that they book single tickets to Russia and preach their gospel there, because, after all, it is Russian H-bombs we should be afraid of, not our own.114 Furnival-Adams’ letter displayed the indignation typical of politicised rhetoric which generalised about both socialism and Labour. His statement repeated the shouts of ‘Go back to Russia’ which had been directed towards the councillors by civil defence supporters at the protest.115 This attitude was echoed in an anonymous card sent to Stringer, one of eight pieces of correspondence opposing his stance. It simply said, ‘“Yellow Belly” Why don’t You go and live in Russia.’116 As the fall-out from the incident subsided, Stringer and his colleagues did ‘preach their gospel’ in the USSR, although they used return tickets.

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Their visit to Stalingrad, Coventry’s twin city since wartime, aimed to promote peace and rekindled the wartime allied memory.117 The visit reveals that for these councillors the previous memory of alliance was more important than Cold War enmity. The Coventry Evening Telegraph reported the council’s request that Stalingrad follow Coventry’s lead, with bemusement.118 The visit contributed towards promoting Coventry as a city of peace, a discourse with which councillors happily engaged. However, the presence of armaments factories around the city, which Crossman suggested made Coventry a target and should be dispersed more, was at odds with the emerging peace symbolism.119 Tiratsoo reveals that the local Conservative and Liberal parties were quick to portray the Labour council as crypto-communists and, in the anti-communist atmosphere of the early 1950s, attributes the 1955 loss of several council seats to this approach.120 Therefore, the peace message was disputed and it might be that underlying fears of communism outweighed appeals to the Blitz memory. However, the Coventry Telegraph also printed supportive letters, suggesting that, as with many other newspapers, their correspondence page facilitated democratic public discourse.121 V. J. Briggs described the destruction of Hiroshima before reiterating the council’s argument that ‘There is no adequate defence against the hydrogen bomb.’122 Readers frequently expressed their disagreement with the newspaper. Over the next week several such letters were printed each day, although such views were usually fewer and less prominent. Their selection reinforced the newspaper’s implicit claims to representativeness and objectivity. For the Coventry Evening Telegraph, this extended to being a voice for the City, which channelled opinion despite its opposition to the council. Readers’ viewpoints often bore some resemblance to the broader political debate. Whilst these letters were not wholly representative of British public opinion on nuclear weapons or the Cold War – it was perhaps the more educated and politically-engaged citizens who wrote to newspapers – they reveal that arguments for and against nuclear weapons drew on specific versions of national characteristics.123 Many of the letters on civil defence followed the arguments set out by politicians, especially Churchill and Attlee, but which were not necessarily entrenched party positions. Support emerged from writers such as Conservative voter Sybil Matthews of Buckinghamshire who praised Stringer’s stance against the ‘futility of the present home office’s way of

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thinking’.124 Whilst the debate raged in letter pages and opinion columns, the population of Coventry had more cause to think about the nuclear issue and worry than many other British cities because of the conflict between its council, the government and the press. Coventry’s civil defence controversy fed into broader political anxieties which remained a concern throughout the 1950s as thermonuclear testing continued. In May 1954 Gallup found that 61 per cent believed a nuclear war would destroy civilisation, which suggests that Coventry’s argument was attuned to many people’s viewpoint about the uselessness of civil defence, even if most objected to the council’s decision. Support for nuclear weapons had fluctuated since April but now only 25 per cent agreed that nuclear deterrence was the only way to stop aggressors, with 24 per cent believing nuclear weapons should not be used in any circumstances and 42 per cent saying they should only be used in retaliation.125 Notwithstanding differences which emerged from the wording of questions, this suggests that the thermonuclear shock extended beyond the Coventry councillors and that arguments against nuclear arms received a sizable hearing. The controversy continued until July when the government appointed new commissioners to organise the city’s civil defence at the council’s expense.126 The onset of the thermonuclear era weakened confidence in civil defence and whilst government and the press insisted on its importance a large proportion of the population no longer supported the institution. The Strath report of 1955, which predicted that half the population would die, with the remainder struggling to survive, might have vindicated Coventry’s councillors had it been made public before 2002.127 Instead media opposition condemned the council for being defeatist, whilst the government confronted the dissenters with a choreographed imagination of a potentially apocalyptic scenario. The councillors were therefore depicted as outsiders who were at best naı¨ve and at worst in league with the enemy.

Conclusion The thermonuclear era caused the re-emergence of anxieties which had first surfaced in the early atomic years. Newspaper coverage exacerbated British perceptions of impending destruction of civilisation and led to a

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particularly vicious moment in which Coventry acted as a microcosm for the Cold War, and caused a polarisation in British popular attitudes towards thermonuclear weapons. Having contributed to nuclear anxieties, most newspapers condemned the council’s decision or turned their attention to the broader debate around civil defence. Newspapers, however, did not act as homogeneous entities and often facilitated debate around key nuclear questions by taking seriously some of the concerns of their opposition. Thermonuclear weapons worried the British government who realised that their current civil defence measures were ineffective. However, this recognition came too late because confidence in governmental institutions’ ability to protect and recover during a nuclear war was already waning. News of the test invigorated opposition to nuclear weapons and over the next three years several disparate groups became more organised and exploited nuclear anxieties before forming CND in 1957. The civil defence debate recycled many arguments: that there was no protection against nuclear weapons had been frequently repeated since their invention, but the increased destructive power intensified this claim. The press emphasised supposed features of British national character such as stoicism, bravery and composure; this acted to present an image of calmness in spite of perceived impending destruction and prevented the thermonuclear scare from challenging the British social fabric. When Coventry’s councillors dropped civil defence following the explosions, they were condemned as being communist sympathisers and therefore un-British. The press depicted them as a Cold War antagonist who, alongside other socialists, were the enemy within. British coverage of the Coventry incident fed on long-term traditions of democracy and anti-communism. Supporters and opponents alike situated their argument within the memories of wartime bombing, which evolved throughout the postwar period, making Coventry symbolic of the Blitz spirit. Yet many of the council’s supporters used patriotic language and turned the legacy of wartime destruction into an argument for disarmament. When the council physically confronted the service, which had aided recovery from the Blitz, patriotism was less forthcoming from their supporters, with many choosing instead to emphasise their desire for peace. The civil defence controversy revealed on-going tensions in the British sense of national identity and patriotic duty.

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The thermonuclear shock and subsequent civil defence controversy reveal how British civil society and public culture often willingly adhered to the predominant Cold War ideologies and supported state structures and assertions. Much of the press agreed with the government during the controversy and opposed the council. Their arguments engaged with the pre-existing perceptions of civil defence as a vital patriotic service. It is not surprising that most people opposed the council’s stance. However, backing for the council emerged from a diverse range of the population, which suggests that political and media support for Civil Defence did not convince all. Moreover, the initial shock of the images and reports of thermonuclear devices prompted people to question civic institutions like civil defence and ultimately the survivability of a thermonuclear war. At times the shock encouraged a secular version of apocalyptic narratives which parts of the press and public used to make sense of increased Cold War tensions. It was fitting that opposition to civil defence emerged from Coventry. The council and their supporters often utilised the very wartime memory that consecutive governments had rekindled in promoting civil defence. Coventry was in the process of becoming a national symbol of the Blitz and the controversy and ensuing protest at the site of its Cathedral ensured that patriotism and religiosity were combined by either side in their argument over nuclear weapons.

CHAPTER 3

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THE IRON CURTAIN IS MELTING AWAY': ENCOUNTERS WITH THE THAW'

Stalin’s death in March 1953 led to domestic and foreign policy change for the USSR. There was a slight relaxation of censorship which was signalled by the publication of Ilya Ehrenburg’s The Thaw in 1954.1 The novel contained coded criticisms of the Stalinist regime and leant its name to a period of reform in the Eastern Bloc. Denis Kozlov argues that the period saw intellectual and social changes in the Soviet Union that mirrored those taking place in the West.2 In part this was due to the increased opportunities for certain Western and Eastern citizens to encounter the other side. This chapter explores several such encounters which took place before the Hungarian revolution of October 1956. In 1955 the British pictorial magazine, Picture Post, stoked curiosity about the Soviet Union when it published a series of photographs of the USSR by the celebrated French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. The images were portrayed as a revealing look at Soviet life and would have surprised much of the readership, as well as confirming many pre-existing assumptions about life in the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev’s ‘secret’ speech, made in February 1956, criticised Stalin and caused many Britons to reappraise the Soviet Union, which paved the way for Khrushchev’s official visit in April 1956. Some of the popular reaction to this visit is explored in this chapter along with the coverage and reaction to cultural exchanges in sport, which offered the British public brief glimpses behind the iron curtain, and which

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I suggest the government used as an extension of the diplomatic Cold War. Furthermore, many such sporting encounters with Eastern Europe were mediated by both the British and Eastern governments. This chapter argues that during the mid-1950s many British media outlets and people believed that substantial and lasting change was occurring in the Soviet Union and that the more ‘open’ USSR would lead it to have a more peaceful relationship with the West. British politicians warmed to the change with the expansion of trading links and ultimately increased understanding between the nations.

A Camera in Russia Henri Cartier-Bresson toured the Soviet Union in 1954; he was the first Western photo-journalist to visit since the death of Stalin. His images were seen as sensational and were published in magazines throughout the West including Life in the USA, Der Stern in West Germany and Paris-Match in Cartier-Bresson’s native France.3 A selection of Cartier-Bresson’s photographs was published in Picture Post over four weeks during 1955. The title of the series ‘A Camera in Russia’ implied that an objective device was revealing the previously hidden reality about the Soviet Union. Throughout the rest of the year, Cartier-Bresson’s images were used to illustrate stories on the Soviet Union and became one of the key ways for Britons to encounter the USSR.4 The accompanying captions created meaning and helped to situate the images within British culture’s tolerated range of presentation. Robert Hariman and John Lucaites argue that photographs exist in an intertextual relationship with the common myths in society.5 Cartier-Bresson’s Picture Post essays did allow his images to create such associations, but the textual meaning of captions introduced further context and suggests a particular meaning with specific Cold War connotations. Cartier-Bresson wrote the captions himself, suggesting ownership of meaning from image capture to publication. When he republished some of the photographs in 1974, captions were notable by their absence, with the author’s preface explaining that he preferred the viewers to make their own judgement.6 Even here, however, Cartier-Bresson’s work is not free from ideology; he produced the images and effectively invited the reader to confirm or dispute their assumptions. The approach

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of Cartier-Bresson’s Picture Post series framed the photographer as an anthropologist. The photographs partially satisfied the West’s desire to know the East. In doing so, however, they presented glimpses of the East as wholly Other. The photographs reflect Cartier-Bresson’s street photography style of being an unseen observer. He saw photography as an objective representation of the often unique or fleeting moment.7 His subjects are generally un-posed and, on the face of it, provide an unguarded glimpse of life in Soviet Moscow in the post-Stalin period. The photographs were intended to present an objective image which went beyond the ideological constraints of the Cold War. Peter Conrad’s 2011 review of the photographs suggests that the subjects’ natural body language revealed that Soviet ideology had failed in its totalitarian aims to control thoughts and actions, with human nature and traditional Russian rituals remaining, despite the Orwellian state commonly portrayed in the British media (Figure 3.1).8 Conrad’s argument would mean that the photographs challenge the orthodox position that the Soviet Union was totalitarian throughout its existence and that the Soviet population slavishly obeyed their leaders. Whilst several of the pictures do challenge the totalitarian representation of the Soviet Union, others present the regimentation of daily life in the Soviet Union much more clearly than Conrad claims when examining the fairly innocuous image which adorned the cover of Life in January 1955. Clemont Cheroux also focusses on this photograph and notes that it was given different meanings in different Western countries by the use of captions, or in the case of Der Stern placing a logo over the vendors in the background.9 This emphasis on ordinariness allowed the pictures to be seen as ideologically neutral and showed readers that life in the Soviet Union existed outside officialdom. The photograph was used in the first essay and illustrated an advertisement for the series which stressed that these were ‘pictures of ordinary human beings going about their daily lives’.10 However, the attention given to one image, out of nearly 10,000 that CartierBresson made during his encounter, overemphasises a single marketable photograph rather than the overall context in which they were taken.11 Moreover, it downplays Cartier-Bresson’s role as the West’s observer in the East and how he simultaneously confirmed

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Figure 3.1

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Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 29 January 1955.

and challenged Britons’ preconceptions about the USSR. Other photographs show a ‘traditional’ image of Russia with characteristic peasant clothing and what might be seen as a glimpse of precommunist times. This emphasis on the primitiveness of Soviet citizens recalls the earlier tradition of representing the Eastern Bloc as an uncivilised Other, which was a long-held feature of Western depictions of Eastern Europe. Picture Post’s editorial columns further situated the photo-essays within the Cold War public conversation and evoked the Soviet threat. They claimed that the collection ‘does not pretend to be a political commentary, but it is a superb human document’.12 The representation of the East, therefore, was shifted away from the overtly political Cold War and appeared to focus on human interest, whilst engaging with the readers’ preconceptions which it helped to confirm or challenge.

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Picture Post simultaneously serialised George Orwell’s Animal Farm during the publication of the essays, thereby placing the photographs within an ideological context which associated the Soviet Union with the totalitarian representation of the USSR that Orwell’s novels had popularised. On 5 February Orwell’s allegorical tale concluded on the page prior to a photographic essay on Russia’s children, adding a juxtaposition which connected Orwell’s language to the Soviet Union.13 The set appears the most sinister of the series. The editor’s introduction stressed his own opposition to communism and warned readers that the pictures cannot show ‘the effect of Soviet education on their young minds’.14 Furthermore, this suggestion of Soviet indoctrination reveals innate assumptions about the Soviet Union. The belief that the Soviets regularly used a form of indoctrination or brainwashing emerged in much British literature of the period, most notably in Len Deighton’s The IPCRESS File (1962) and Sidney Furie’s film adaptation (1965), in which kidnapped scientists and agents are subjected to mind control.15 Readers are reminded of the totalitarian style of education practised in Nazi Germany and now seemingly extended to the Soviet Union. It is therefore possible to view many of the photographs within Selverstone’s concept of ‘monolithic’ communism, which extended into viewing the Soviet ideology as ‘Red Fascism’.16 The images, however, simultaneously indicate a freer Russia than might be assumed. One depicts two children playing, we are told at a Pioneer camp (Figure 3.2). They walk across a field holding towels, whilst enlarged pictures of key Bolsheviks appear to keep a watchful eye. Largest of all are Lenin and Stalin. Stalin appears to gaze directly at the children and reinforces the idea of the all-seeing dictator. Oblivious to this ubiquitous propaganda, the girls smile as they pass the photographer. From the twenty-first century we might see an element of irony that the girls were not observed from within the Soviet Union but by the external Other, whose desire to see and to covertly know them makes them his subjects. However, the 1950s viewer sees a Soviet Union which places its citizens under constant observation. The picture is also incongruous because, despite the presence of the Politburo, life carries on in a seemingly normal manner. Therefore, the girls are seen to subvert the totalitarian aims of the Soviet state, further suggesting that the Soviet Union was not uniformly presented as a

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Figure 3.2

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 5 February 1955.

monolith. Another picture, however, features even younger children in a nursery. Their shaven heads produce an image of uniformity and dehumanisation. The image suggests that Soviet people throughout their lives are subservient to the controlling state. Readers would realise the contrast between the society which brings up its children in the care of nurses and Britain, which immediately following World War II reverted to a tendency for nuclear families and for women’s roles to return to that of ‘homemaker’.17 Other captions state that mothers are working ‘in the fields’ and re-emphasises the difference between East and West. Many of Cartier-Bresson’s images reinforced the idea of social engineering because of the state’s overbearing involvement in children’s upbringing but others presented a more complex impression.

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One image which questions the concept of the controlling state features three boys in a field near some farm animals (Figure 3.3). The caption states that they are ‘watching’ the herd on a collective farm and further engages readers with the narrative of the observation society. Moreover, the collective farm label reminds readers of the difference between the two systems with collectivism taking preference over ‘free’ commerce. Despite these narratives the boys appear to be ‘ordinary’ children who wear a range of clothes and are not overtly regimented. The composition places the boys slightly off-centre and the line of sheep leading the viewers’ eye towards the cows and the river. The farm might look like any other if we were not told about its organisation. Beneath, another image shows Ukrainian children in traditional outfits. This photograph romanticises ‘peasant’ imagery and demonstrates the continuity of tradition in modern Soviet life. It is similar to several other CartierBresson photographs which suggest that the peasantry has not succumbed to forced modernisation and maintains its traditional dress. For many throughout the West, these images would have contradicted their perception of Soviet life as uniform but it would also have reinforced preconceptions of the Soviet Union being a premodern society.

Figure 3.3

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 5 February 1955.

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The photographs represent a symbolic and highly important Cold War moment. Cartier-Bresson’s accompaniment by a translator implies that his journey was more of a glimpse of the Soviet Union than an encounter, but the photographs’ candid nature suggests less of the potemkinism which characterised the reports of many interwar visitors.18 Several images demonstrate Cartier-Bresson’s ability to create what he called the ‘decisive moment’, or the split-second where an object becomes worthy of capture, rather than stumbling upon it fortuitously. Clive Scott suggests that Cartier-Bresson’s technique produces an already ideologically loaded image, which does much more than capture reality: ‘the decisive moment was not when meaning suddenly and unequivocally came to the surface of reality; it was rather a moment when meaning was made available, when the image became unreliable, when it moved out of its own field of reference.’19 Scott suggests that the photographer was looking or waiting for the moment when something unusual occurred. The publication of these photographs as a realistic and objective examination of the Soviet Union is therefore problematic because Cartier-Bresson added meaning at the point of capture and during editing. Many of the published photographs retain elements of surrealism: people were photographed next to seemingly omnipotent Soviet leaders in a technique which echoed the style of some of Robert Capa’s images made during his visit with John Steinbeck in 1947, which were published in the latter’s A Russian Journal (1948). Furthermore, apparently innocent juxtapositions such as Russians next to mannequins, taken through car or shop windows (Figure 3.4) or viewing themselves through mirrors, maintain the representation of a constantly observed society which was present in other images such as the pioneer camp. Such suggestions are ironic: often the observation is implied rather than real and therefore relies on the viewer’s assumptions. In all of the photographs the voyeurs are Cartier-Bresson himself and the magazine readers who now share this apparently frozen moment. Many photographs contain elements of the ‘hypermasculinity’ that Suzanne Clark associates with American Cold War culture. The concept refers to a Cold War representation of Western masculinity as superior and characterised by reason as opposed to feminine or emasculated hysterics which characterised depictions of communism or Eastern Europe.20 Gendered presentations occur throughout these photosets.

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Figure 3.4

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Henri Cartier-Bresson, Picture Post, 12 February 1955.

Cartier-Bresson’s action in breaching the iron curtain makes him appear to be the ‘brave’ and ‘intrepid’ male – similar to the ‘autonomous male’ discussed in Chapter 1. He is seen to take risks. His style of street photography is also reminiscent of the intelligence war. In contrast to Sally Cline’s reporting at the end of the Khrushchev era, which is examined in Chapter 9, Cartier-Bresson uses his Leica camera to distance himself from the population and becomes distinct from the Soviets. By depicting the Soviets as ‘Other’, Cartier-Bresson reinforces the gendered assumptions of the era; many of the subjects are either women or children. They are often engaged in manual work, giving the impression of a feminine nation where men’s importance is lessened. Often, the pictures’ composition frequently makes women appear more important than men and plays on British anxieties around changing gender roles.

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Figure 3.5 Henri Cartier-Bresson, ‘On Soukhoumi Beach’, Picture Post, 28 May 1955.

Alongside the emphasis on women in positions of authority, many photographs featuring men fall into one of the two categories which might cause viewers to respond with their own assumptions about masculinity. The first is strength: the military figures, the politbureaucrats, the muscular torsos of athletes or the toned semi-naked man lying on a sun lounger talking to a woman, who is partially obscured by a parasol, and whose femininity is represented solely by her legs (Figure 3.5).21 These presentations of strength and sexual forwardness correlate with Clark’s identification of a reassertion of

Figure 3.6

Henri Cartier-Bresson, ‘Comradeship’, Picture Post, 9 July 1955.

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masculine values in America and the broader Western sphere.22 The second position is ridicule: a picture published later in 1955 showed two soldiers holding hands as they viewed the newly reopened AllUnion Agricultural Exhibition that the headline likened to Britain’s Royal Shows (Figure 3.6).23 This latter element, whilst only referred to as common in the caption, used the readers’ underlying assumptions and projects the repression of homosexuals in Britain on to the Soviet Union.24 Cartier-Bresson explained that soldiers could ‘often be seen walking hand in hand on occasions like this’ and the caption ‘Comradeship’ evokes the collective endeavour which was presented as central to communist ideology. Whilst Cartier-Bresson might have claimed to simply show the Soviet Union, the view that many 1950s readers might have taken could have reinforced the feminised presentations of the Other by engaging with the predominant perceptions around gender and homosexuality in Britain during the 1950s. Therefore, the pictures simultaneously justified the masculine reassertion and prompted comparisons with threats to domestic forms of masculinity.

Sporting Engagements The political changes, which affected all Eastern Bloc countries, occurred as the British were reappraising their own national purpose. Britain’s long-term re-evaluation of her international importance had been visible throughout the postwar era with independence being gradually won by former colonies. However, England’s defeat by Hungary’s Olympic championship-winning football team on 23 November 1953, made the reduced international stature obvious to the British public. Richard Weight argues that the loss represented a national disgrace because it was the national side’s first home defeat to a team from outside the British Isles and was acutely felt because it was to a communist country.25 The match was also an ideologically charged Cold War contest: a Pathe´ newsreel reminded viewers of the international political context by referring to England trying to ‘crack Hungary’s iron curtain defence’.26 Future England manager, Bobby Robson, then a professional footballer who was at Wembley, commemorated the match in 2003, saying of the then Olympic champions ‘they were men from Mars as far as we were concerned’.27

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Robson displays an attitude of assumed supremacy over the Other and a lack of desire to know them. The defeat represented a loss in national confidence which would be made more explicit following the Suez debacle in October 1956. Football became an important way for Britain to wage the Cold War and the thaw created new opportunities for clubs and the national team to play friendly matches against Eastern European opposition. In an era before English participation in organised European competitions, matches against high profile foreign opponents allowed clubs to prove their ability on the international stage. Some of these visits became celebrated in popular culture with Geoffrey Bennett’s novel Death in the Russian Habit (written pseudonymously as Sea-lion) featuring a British policeman who meets a Soviet major on a train to Sochi and finds that ‘ [h]e was a great soccer fan: he had seen both Arsenal and the Wolves play in the Moscow Dynamo stadium.’28 The crossover with popular fiction suggested that these encounters had captured the British imagination. Whilst the sport appeared politically neutral the government interacted with the Football Association and the clubs when arranging these visits. When Arsenal were preparing for a visit to the Soviet Union in 1954 the British embassy wrote to the Foreign Office stating that, ‘we should urge on the Football Association that they should send out a really first-class team, ensure that they are in good condition and that they do not drink too much while they are in the Soviet Union. This will, at least, ensure that we put up a credible performance.’29 The visit of a domestic club was seen as nationally important and the government felt that it needed to intervene to prevent Arsenal from showing weakness in the sporting arena. The British government viewed sport as an extension of the Cold War. The British embassy even sent a scouting report on the footballing style of the Moscow clubs on the basis that ‘a few remarks by an expert member of the staff about the standard and tactics of the club teams they will meet may be of interest and of possible help to the British team’.30 Even with the British state’s advice Arsenal lost their match to Moscow Dynamo 5 – 0. The limited encounters available to Britons were often regulated by their own and the Soviet state and in the case of sporting encounters played a broader role in demonstrating national strength in the cultural Cold War.

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The British public were able to glimpse the East when Wolverhampton Wanderers, who were English First Division champions in 1954 and finished second in 1955, visited Moscow in August 1955. The tour was arranged to allow a rematch of a game between Wolves and Spartak Moscow played in Wolverhampton the previous year. Picture Post’s Joseph McKeown photographed the visit and helped to familiarise the readership with the Soviet Union.31 One image implied control of the Soviet population by the state. It showed Soviet football fans queueing for the match and the crowdcontrol operation. The accompanying caption familiarised readers with Soviet culture by stating that, ‘It was no easier for Muscovites to get seats than it is for Londoners to buy cup final tickets.’ The comment created a sense of commonality between the two nations through the popularity of football, which formed a common code that could be understood by populations both in Britain and in the East. However, the caption continued, ‘Hundreds of militiamen (in dark uniforms) and police (in white) manhandled the overenthusiastic crowds.’ The word ‘manhandled’ enhanced the representation of an oppressive culture and signified the continuation of state control in the USSR. An action photograph of the match showed players challenging for the ball against a background, which featured a giant picture of Lenin and Stalin above a banner. Readers were told that the slogan read ‘Under the banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin – under the leadership of the Communist Party – On to the Victory of Communism!’ Whilst this image signalled the role of political propaganda in the Soviet nation, others showed how the English team explored Moscow, taking their own photographs or another showing players looking in apparent astonishment at the ornate decoration of a Moscow underground station. Further visual representation of the tour emerged from Pathe´ News, whose report informed cinema viewers that ‘our own cameraman’ had filmed the tour, thereby demonstrating the more relaxed atmosphere regarding foreign correspondents.32 Whilst newsreel clips showed Wolves losing 3 – 0 to Spartak Moscow and 3 – 2 to Moscow Dynamo, a more revealing clip introduced cinema viewers to Moscow itself and helped to reinforce the iconography of Moscow. 33 The title scene showed the Kremlin,

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which was the most prominent symbol of Moscow and the Soviet Union. The commentary explained how the team had ‘entered the Kremlin, the historic fortress which is the seat of the government’. The commentary implied a militaristic image of the USSR, whilst simultaneously allowing viewers to glimpse its rarely seen capital. Images of the Kremlin featured regularly as the symbol of Soviet government, most notably in the Vicky cartoons, discussed in the next chapter, and on the cover for Sea-lion’s Death in the Russian Habit, in which the protagonist visits most of the tourist sights shown in the clip. The newsreel reported that their cameraman was ‘the first British newsreel man to be allowed inside its towering walls’. The secrecy of the Soviets was contrasted with the opening of the country to foreign visitors. Shots of a giant early-modern canon, Red Square and the mausoleums of Lenin and Stalin helped to complete the touristic iconography of communist Moscow. As the Wolves team queued to visit Lenin’s tomb the camera panned across the waiting Soviet people. This shot gave a glimpse of the Other and allowed British viewers to see the unfamiliar Soviet population which included ‘farmers from Kazakhstan and Mongolia’ who were shown looking emotionless and which helped to reinforce a sense of difference between Britain and the USSR. At the end, the commentator stated ‘Surely the iron curtain is melting away at last; may it never return.’ The images of Moscow in Picture Post and Pathe´ News reinforced previous stereotypes of a repressive and secret state – but they also gave hope of new accommodation with the USSR and the possibility of an end to the Cold War. The encounters with the Eastern bloc that Britons formed in the postStalin era increased and potentially changed many viewpoints on the Soviet Union.

Khrushchev in Britain In February 1956 the Soviet Communist Party held their Twentieth Party Congress. Nikita Khrushchev’s speech, made in a closed session, criticised Stalin and signalled that the Cold War was easing. Khrushchev reiterated that the Eastern Bloc countries could follow their own ‘paths to socialism’. The reaction from the British ambassador, Sir William Hayter, was that the congress,

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may tend to modify some of the preconceived views which we tend to have about the Soviet Union. We may find that the danger we are facing from Communism is quite different from, and in many ways more alarming, than the one we had before.34 The speech marked a change but also had the potential to create new anxieties because the Soviet Union declared its intention to create a consumer society in competition with Britain and the other liberal nations. However, Hayter noted that the congress appeared to ‘sound the death knell for theoretical Stalinism’.35 Therefore, the gradual changes, which had occurred from 1954, became entrenched in official Soviet ideology. The text, which was leaked by Polish sources in early June became an international sensation with the Observer publishing all 26,000 words in a single issue. The edition sold out its print run, requiring a reprint to meet demand.36 William Taubman reveals that Khrushchev claimed that prior to 1955 he did not believe that the purges and trials of communists could have been falsified.37 The speech from Khrushchev the pragmatist allowed him to distance himself from Stalinism and changed the domestic and international policies of the USSR. In April Khrushchev made his most important encounter with Britain when he and Nikolai Bulganin visited. William Taubman suggests that the trip ‘kept Khrushchev’s diplomatic offensive moving forward’, as part of the new Soviet direction, whilst Mark Smith’s recent re-appraisal of the visit has situated it as a moment of genuine rapprochement that helped to remake Anglo-Soviet relations following the death of Stalin.38 David Kynaston notes that the visit prompted responses from public figures and the press.39 However, Kynaston focusses on elite figures such as Prince Phillip and the diplomat Harold Nicolson. It is worthwhile considering the broader reaction and attitudes of press and public, whose opinions were often divided over the visit. Smith argues that there was general indifference to the visit, but that some members of the population – often fellowtravelling groups – welcomed Khrushchev.40 However, other areas of the population and press were willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Khrushchev following his, by now, un-secret speech. The clerk of Letchworth Urban District Council wrote to the Foreign Office, ‘My council would be pleased to invite some members of the Soviet party

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to Letchworth as they feel that the planning and development of Letchworth, the First Garden City, [sic] would be of interest.’41 The council saw the reforming Soviet Union as a representative of modernity and socialism achieved through planning. Furthermore, Picture Post produced a light-hearted series of fake images, which showed Khrushchev and Bulganin drinking beer with working-class people in a pub, at the races and sticking two fingers up to a Stalin waxwork.42 This satirical examination of the Soviet leadership might suggest that much of the residual fear of the Stalin era had lifted. The thaw allowed Britons to perceive the USSR as an ‘advancing’ society that might become like Britain and the threat that had existed before 1953 appeared lessened to many people by 1956. However, other areas of the press did express concerns about the USSR. The Daily Mail raised the spectre of intrigue, with a headline detailing a complaint from Khrushchev that he was not permitted to meet normal Britons and that he was subject to ‘an “Iron Curtain” of restrictions’.43 The following day the newspaper led with an expose´, which claimed that the Soviets were manipulating public opinion by ordering communist supporters to request to meet the Soviet leaders.44 Such newspaper coverage suggests mistrust of the Soviets and that editors thought that the conciliatory approach was a mask for ulterior motives and propaganda. The ironic use of ‘Iron Curtain’ reminded the readership of the binary Cold War opposition and might have caused some to question whether it was their own nation or the enemy who was most likely to be associated with the phrase. Widespread reports of Khrushchev’s complaint prompted reader responses. One wrote to the Daily Herald: ‘I am sure British people will want to open their doors for Messers B. and K. For a chat and a cup of tea and some good fun.’45 This convivial treatment of world events suggests that the Cold War was not always taken as seriously at this point as under Stalin, or at flash-points in the conflict such as the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. The British treated certain Cold War moments such as Khrushchev’s visit and the Soviet’s ascent to space in 1957 with joviality.46 The letter also demonstrates some symbolism of British national traits with the long-established emblem of a cup of tea as a way of breaching international divisions and a gesture of friendship.47 Other respondents made an outward expression of ambivalence with one reader writing to the Mail: ‘I

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think it is time you gave B. And K. a rest.’48 There was certainly no uniformly warm or cold attitude towards Khrushchev’s visit but many people at this point tenuously accepted that change was occurring in the Eastern Bloc. Therefore, reactions to the visit suggest a desire among some to see an end to the Cold War or not to be reminded of it daily. The Daily Mail also focussed on business and industry. Before the visit Khrushchev was hailed as a leader to put ‘Big Business above Communism’.49 The Daily Herald continued this theme, albeit in a more congratulatory tone, by printing news of an anticipated rise in the output of Soviet industrial production.50 This subtle change in Cold War priorities towards economic competition caused a reduction in the presentation of an expansive and threatening state and marks the early stages of a turn away from the monolithic presentation of the Soviet Union.51 Several readers responded by either lamenting the lack of patriotic zeal or suggesting that the British taxation system removed all incentives for hard work.52 Assumptions of British decline and fear of Soviet superiority had become a key postwar discourse and it is possible to see public reflections of this even before the watershed moment of Suez. The reality of the decline of empire was already obvious to many Britons. Khrushchev’s visit made it impossible to deny the existence of another superpower.53 However, the visit was not without opposition. The North Cheshire Cantenian Association, an organisation of Catholics working in the professions, circulated a resolution to all Cantenian branches and the government, which stated that the USSR did not allow ‘fundamental rights given by God’ and that only the minimal courtesy should be given to the Soviet representatives. The accompanying letter stated that ‘To pay tribute to people who glory in such history is a shameful thing.’54 The Daily Mail further raised the invective against the Soviets by printing a letter from a group of people including members of the House of Lords and a shorthand typist.55 The authors stated that the visitors would only meet those who want to meet them and that even then to smile was easier than to ‘think and resist’. Readers were therefore reminded of Western concepts of freedom and, by contrast, Eastern European oppression. Other opposition to Khrushchev’s visit that the Daily Mail published lamented the ease with which Britain made accommodation

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with dictators and saw the visit as the latest move in a line of shame which included Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. 56 The commentary blamed Britain for allowing Stalin to run ‘his beastly Cold War’, before attacking the ‘woolly baa-lambs’ of the Labour Party who had an, ‘unrequited passion for the U.S.S.R.’57 The statement infantilises the Labour Party with a generally unfounded attack considering that there were only a handful of MPs who were sympathetic to the Soviet Union throughout the entire Cold War, against the overwhelming majority who, as Darren Lilleker argues, were virulently opposed.58 I suggested in Chapter 1 that Labour leaders and left-wing journalists used the sheep analogy to depict communists and fellow-travellers. It was also, however, a common feature in the right-wing press throughout the Cold War and continued a myth which had first emerged in 1924 when the Daily Mail published the fraudulent ‘Zinoviev letter’, which raised suspicions of communist infiltration of Labour, helping to secure the defeat of their first administration.59 The right-wing media narrative of Labour being soft on Communism continued into the 1950s despite the proscriptions of CPGB membership that Labour had introduced. The myth was further disrupted when the Labour MP Nye Bevan upset Khrushchev by enquiring about the fates of social democrats in the Soviet Gulag system, causing an argument between Labourites and communists.60 The popular press acted to reinforce myths over several decades. In the Cold War long-term media narratives were frequently recycled and the conflict often became an extension of domestic political divisions. Some members of the public believed that Khrushchev’s reforms would ultimately work. One Daily Herald reader struck a forgiving tone by asking others to allow the Soviets time to change: ‘It is only reasonable to expect that a country so long under iron totalitarianism should receive freedom gradually.’61 This pragmatic request contrasts with the virulent condemnations of the repression of the Hungarian revolution later the same year. Furthermore, the letter demonstrates that some Britons were willing to question the continuity of totalitarianism following Khrushchev’s secret speech. At this point there was tentative acceptance of the changes in the Soviet state. Khrushchev’s visit appears to have met with endorsement from the public, with a Gallup poll showing that over 60 per cent approved.62

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The opinion poll and some of the letters suggest that many Britons wanted tensions to ease; it also reflects the press treatment of the visit, which Mark Smith describes as ‘pragmatically if grudgingly accepting’.63 This approach appears to have been informed by the possible reactions to the visit. Some attempts to direct public opinion against the visit, however, such as the Daily Mail’s presentation of Khrushchev’s complaint that he would not meet many real Britons, suggest that there were more than a few areas in the British press who were quick to exploit opportunities to attack the Soviet Union. The Gallup poll also suggested that fewer people (43 per cent) said they would bother to watch the Russian leaders if they appeared in their neighbourhood, with 59 per cent of the public preferring to watch the Soviets on television.64 Such an ambivalent response suggests that Britons preferred to consume news rather than participating in events and suggests a detachment, with many perceiving the conflict as waged by the political classes alone. Later the same year, however, outrage over politics and news was more visible, as many people expressed their support or opposition to the Suez Crisis and the general outrage over the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Khrushchev’s visit signalled an intention to increase contact between the two populations and this continued throughout the summer of 1956.

The Ponomareva Affair On 13 October 1956 the Daily Mirror’s front cover reported that ‘Nina Goes Home’.65 The headline referred to the case of Nina Ponomareva, an Olympic champion discus thrower from the Soviet Union, who had been arrested in Britain having been accused of stealing five hats from the department store C&A Her detention, before a hastily cancelled athletics competition two months earlier, had resulted in diplomatic and newspaper sensationalism and caused readers to question the trustworthiness of the Soviets.66 The potential prosecution of Ponomareva imperilled future Anglo-Soviet exchanges, including the forthcoming visit of the Bolshoi Ballet, with the Soviet authorities describing ‘the charge as provocative’ and the Attorney-General suggesting that ‘the harm which was likely to result to Anglo-Soviet relations might make it desirable, on grounds

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of national interest, to decide not to continue the prosecution’.67 However, the courts decided to prosecute Ponomareva and she was found guilty but given an absolute discharge, leaving her with no conviction. David Caute argues that the intrigue surrounding the incident showed how fragile improvements in international relations were, even before the invasion of Budapest.68 Whilst Khrushchev had attempted to reform and ease tensions through cultural exchanges, this incident accentuated the differences between West and East. The Ponomareva affair prompted interest from the public and some people wrote to the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary or the Queen. Out of 48 letters in the Home Office, Foreign Office and Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) files, 37 wanted her released, with six demanding that the government push ahead with the prosecution. Seven letters came directly from communist-affiliated organisations including the British-Soviet Friendship Society, whose telegram stated ‘in view profound anxiety of Soviet public to request Director Public Prosecutions reexamine facts relating to charge against Nina Ponomareva with view possibility withdrawal’.69 However, overtly communist-supporting writers were a minority suggesting that sympathy lay with Ponomareva and that many people did not want to see the easing of relations imperilled. Other correspondence came from various professions and the case prompted interest from several members of the judiciary who wrote directly to the DPP. Dennis Gordon of Rowley of Ashworth and Co, solicitors informed the DPP that he would ‘appeal to the learned magistrate to quash the warrant for the arrest of the defendant’.70 Gordon continued that I have no interest in the case apart from my concern as a subject for the harm to the realm which is being caused by the proceedings and my belief that by such action it may be possible to demonstrate the independence of the judiciary and freedom of the subject which exists in this country. This letter did not express sympathy for communism or the USSR, but Gordon claimed that the rule of law was being subverted by the political considerations of the Cold War. Gordon engaged with the rule of law as

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one of the defining features of British national identity and the letter can be situated both as opposing the prosecution but also within the Cold War discourse in opposition to the Soviet Union which the author implied lacked this defining framework. Ten of the letters appeared to be motivated by the Soviet Union’s threat to cancel the visit of the Bolshoi ballet, suggesting that this was an effective tactic. G. J. Rendle complained about the prosecution of Ponomareva, labelling her ‘a poor woman’ and adding ‘P.S. Let the Russians keep this ballet it’s a question of history.’71 Some of the letters tied the Bolshoi ballet visit to decreasing international tensions. Edith and Lewis Christer wrote to the Home Secretary pleading for the case to be dropped. They added ‘the need for artists to visit other countries is very vital if we are too [sic] understand one another and keep world peace, I think you will agree that world peace is the most important thing.’72 Cultural and sporting exchanges were seen by some British people as facilitating better relations and as vital for peace. Norman N. Pampel wrote to the DPP on the headed paper of the firm of chartered accountants that he ran in central London. He stated: On hearing the news this morning of the cancellation of the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet visit to Covent Garden I wish to protest at your dilatoriness and indecision which quite apart from the merits of the case, has allowed 32/11d. to become a ‘cause celebre’ and is now justification for this latest Russian action. I enclose my cheque for this amount and suggest the case be brought on in the accused’s absence. Cost should undoubtedly be borne by your department.73 Whilst Pampel’s letter is not necessarily sympathetic towards communism, he valued ‘high’ culture like ballet and saw something worth preserving in the improved relations that characterised the thaw. Pampel valued Russian culture, with its pre-Soviet tradition of ballet, and wanted to form an encounter with Russia despite the Soviet government, which he still blamed for the visit’s cancellation. Four other people also sent cheques or postal orders to pay for the hats and another offered to pay the money. G. J. Greenfield wrote to the DPP

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and enclosed a cheque for £1/12/11 in payment stating that ‘the hats being now paid for, surely C&A Modes can withdraw the original charge.’74 The DPP responded that ‘I regret that I have no authority to accept this payment.’75 Florence Millichip wrote to the Queen pointing out ‘a mother is being kept away from her husband, son þ home, indefinitely’ and that ‘years ago I too was an International Discus Thrower [sic], when my son also was small; so I feel more than ordinarily sympathetic to her.’76 The story of Ponomareva allowed Britons like Millichip to see the human aspect of Soviet society. In so doing many looked beyond Cold War and wrote or sent money because they drew comparisons to themselves. For those wanting Ponomareva prosecuted, upholding the rule of law was commonly cited as a reason. An anonymous letter received on 28 September stated, ‘Why for the sake of a Ballet Company should Nina go free when this sort of thing is happening to our own people every day [. . .] It’s not justice, unless of course, shop lifting is going to be allowed in future to certain sports people [sic].’77 Some who wanted the prosecution of Ponomareva felt that exceptions should not be made for Soviet subjects: one demanded ‘let’s have British justice’.78 Two letters expressed hatred towards the Soviet Union. A letter from G. Parker to the Newspaper’s Proprietors Association was passed to the Home Office. The letter described Ponomareva as ‘this wretched Russian woman’ and the incident as a ‘piece of blackguardism, so typical of the Russians, they should all be made quit of this country’.79 The letter continued in its condemnation of the Soviets: These Russians be they dancers or professors have for years been guilty of the worst crimes ever perpetuated. All know that. They are behind Nasser, the murderers in Cyprus and in Malaya and elsewhere. All our troubles, the world over, are blatantly formented [sic] by them: yet a large section of our people ogles these wicked people, our inveterate enemies aiming at our ruin. All the world looks on at it; the smaller countries see it with fear. The letter later claimed ‘If our govt. gives way to ignorant clamour and Russian blackmail over these stolen hats, it would be a complete

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abnegation of Principle; we should have gone still further to becoming a satellite of Russia.’ The author expanded his hatred beyond the Communist hierarchy to all Soviets and held them all guilty for crimes. The letter also blamed the Soviets for Britain’s wars of decolonisation and by extension for British decline. The Manichean belief in Cold War divisions did affect some people – although those who acted on these feelings were a small minority at this point. Such expressions of hatred were rare but this person was influenced by the atmosphere of the Cold War and believed that the entire Soviet people were the enemy. On 15 October William Connor’s Cassandra column discussed Ponomareva’s court discharge whilst criticising her release and highlighting a similar case of a Norwegian lady named Jenny Larsen who had received no punishment for stealing hats.80 The latter case received a tiny amount of publicity in comparison to Ponomareva’s, suggesting that even as both sides attempted to build a closer relationship, newspapers were quick to condemn the communist states. Picture Post had initially imbued the issue with Cold War terminology by describing Ponomareva’s residence as ‘Sverdlovsk (scene of the Tsar’s execution)’, which reminded readers of the brutality of the Bolsheviks takeover of power. They also questioned the sense of injustice which the Soviets apparently felt by asking ‘if a country can steal Poland, Esthonia [sic], Latvia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia without ever being brought to the bar of justice, why bother about five hats?’81 The continuation of the Cold War ensured that the slightest intrigue would become news, despite efforts by political classes of both nations to ease tensions When Ponomareva left Britain she did so with good tidings from many areas of the population. The Daily Sketch photographed her wearing a hat that they had presented to her and declared it a ‘good-bye and good luck hat’. They added their own meaning to the hat by informing readers that ‘We made one addition to the traditional Cossack hat; a pair of doves.[. . .] The two doves symbolise the future harmony that we all know will exist between Great Britain and the USSR.’82 That this expression of goodwill towards Ponomareva and by extension the Soviet Union came from the conservative press suggests that attempts by the Soviet Union and by Britain to ease Cold War tensions were popular.

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Conclusion During the Thaw many Britons examined the Cold War ‘Other’ and experienced developments by engaging with the increasingly clear glimpses and encounters made by those able to travel to the East. The changes in Soviet domestic and foreign policy affected the perceptions that many Britons had towards the Eastern Bloc. Visual images in the form of photography and newsreels were key in reinforcing pre-existing stereotypes, but also in challenging some of the British population’s perspectives of the Eastern Bloc. Photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson built on preexisting perceptions whilst creating new meanings with authored images. The early encounters relied on predominant Western ideologies and went some way to reinforcing hegemonic impressions of the overarching state which controlled people throughout their lives and which many believed undertook brainwashing and existed as a panoptical organisation. However, these encounters simultaneously depicted change such as the attempts to make more consumer goods available. They also sometimes challenged the perspectives that people held regarding ‘freedom’ in the USSR. Other images relied on depictions of masculinity and femininity in the USSR which were presented as unfamiliar for many Britons. Later exchanges up to 1956, which included sports teams visits, acted to reinforce the competitive nature of the Cold War by pitting East against West. These exchanges, however, created opportunities for sportspeople and the accompanying press to package glimpses of the East, which were conveyed to people in Britain. Where these exchanges became controversial, such as during the Ponomareva affair, the reaction of many Britons suggested that they believed in the process of reform and were happy to see an easing of Cold War tensions. The reaction to this incident saw a number of people expressing ideas that they associated with Britain, such as the ‘rule of law’. They also expressed sympathy towards a woman and a mother who many believed was simply the victim of a set-up and that Ponomareva had not retained her receipt because the vendor usually kept these in the Soviet Union. However, this attitude also revealed that many Britons believed that a woman had no place in the Cold War despite causing a diplomatic incident. The reaction to the Ponomareva affair implies that many Britons believed the messages of reform that emerged from the Soviet Union, and were willing to see how the situation developed.

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As the autumn of 1956 approached it appeared that the Cold War might be coming to an end and that a period of warmer relations, at least between Britain and the Soviet Union, had lessened the belief in the Soviet threat. However, as 1956 drew to a close, events that resulted from the reforms haunted the Soviet Union and threatened to plunge the world back into the icy waters of the Cold War.

CHAPTER 4 `

WHEN ARE THE BRITISH COMING TO HELP US?' BRITISH RESPONSES TO THE SOVIET INVASION OF BUDAPEST, 1956

By 1956 Hungary had been ruled by the self-proclaimed Stalinist disciple, Ma´tya´s Ra´kosi, for more than eight years. His brutal rule had led to the widespread persecution of political opponents. Ra´kosi was deposed as General-Secretary of the Hungarian Workers Party in June 1956, shortly after Nikita Khrushchev condemned Stalin’s brutality at the Twentieth Communist Party congress. Khrushchev’s denunciation marked a change in the exercise of power and several communist states began to implement their own ‘paths to socialism’, with Poland securing increased freedom in decision making whilst remaining within the Warsaw Pact. Hungary in turn attempted to implement liberal reforms but only succeeded in raising the temperature of Khrushchev’s thaw to boiling point. Emboldened by a renewed appearance of free expression, Hungarians began to demand the withdrawal of Soviet troops.1 On 23 October 1956 a mass protest in Budapest turned violent when the AVH, Hungary’s secret police, opened fire on protesters. Those shots led to a tumultuous period of revolution and subsequent suppression by Soviet troops, during which the entire notion of the Cold War and the practice of socialism was reconsidered on either side of the iron curtain. This chapter analyses British responses to the Hungarian uprising using public culture and letters about the crisis that were sent to Members of

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Parliament as well as directly to the British civil service. Photojournalism and cartoons, alongside newspaper coverage featured vivid images which evoked empathy with the Hungarians. During this moment many Britons, politicians and journalists created a narrative of heightened moral selfidentity by demonstrating humanitarian concern for Hungarians. However, this self-perception was interrupted because of Britain’s participation in the invasion of Egypt that became known as the Suez Crisis and which exposed the hubris of the postwar imperial project. Britain’s aggressive actions, moreover, challenged the national belief in being the ‘good guys’ in the Cold War. The events of 1956 became an encounter with the East as many Britons had their views on the potential of communism for reform dramatically altered. The Communist Party of Great Britain, in particular, was riven by challenges to Stalinism following Khrushchev’s denunciation and, for some, their belief in communism was destroyed following the invasion of Budapest in November. Moreover, members of the ‘mainstream left’, who sometimes retained a tentative belief that the Soviet Union would ultimately act for the good of mankind, had their hopes for reform raised only to be shattered by the Soviet invasion. Much of the focus of this chapter is on visual representations of the conflict with cartoons and photojournalism being important to how the British understood Hungary. In particular the cartoonist Vicky (1913– 66), who drew for the Daily Mirror and New Statesman, became fully immersed in the conflict. The Mirror was experiencing an expansion in its readership. During the late 1950s it regularly sold over 5 million copies and it claimed to have the ‘Biggest Daily Sale On Earth’.2 As a Hungarian by birth, a socialist and a humanitarian, Vicky retained a personal interest in events in Budapest and therefore partially represented an Eastern European view. Vicky’s Budapest cartoons were critically acclaimed and I follow other historians who see them as important in raising Britons’ consciousness about Hungary.3

The Crumbling of the Soviet Empire? The mass demonstration against Russian troops in Budapest on 23 October heightened world awareness of the Soviets’ problems. Throughout the previous few weeks the press had focussed on the demonstrations and negotiations in Poland. As the crisis intensified, the Mirror reported on two Soviet cruisers heading for Poland. An article by, the Labour MP,

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Richard Crossman demanded that the Soviets grant ‘Freedom for Poland’.4 Crossman’s anti-communist stance reflected the newspaper’s ideological position and utilised the Western Cold War lexicon by demanding ‘freedom’ for Eastern European countries. The position might have appeared hypocritical to those who were appalled by the use of British armed forces against national liberation movements in Kenya and Cyprus. Moreover, the newspaper’s back page gave readers their first insight into the emerging strife in Hungary and Vicky’s cartoon inside drew further attention to the growing Hungarian crisis (Figure 4.1).5 Khrushchev and Bulganin appear distressed over both recalcitrant satellites. Initially it was the Polish leader Wladislaw Gomulka who most concerned the Soviets. Poland had been more turbulent than Hungary and appeared most determined to break away from Soviet rule, with Imre Nagy’s reforms in Hungary receiving less emphasis. In Vicky’s drawing Stalin’s portrait is inverted, suggesting a reversal in his system by the reformers, who are indicated by their light suits. The Stalinists Molotov and Lazar Kaganovich wear dark suits and

Figure 4.1

Vicky, ‘Well I always did . . . .’, Daily Mirror, 24 October 1956.

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appear to assert power over Khrushchev, as indicated by Molotov standing whilst the reformers sit. The by-line ‘Well, I always did say it’s a mistake to rehabilitate them before they’re dead’ indicates that Molotov and Kaganovich believe that Khrushchev’s destalinisation programme has gone too far by rehabilitating living people who were able to return to the political stage. Vicky, therefore, depicted reform of the Soviet system as a sham which was not designed to alter power relations. This cartoon supports Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius’s argument that British cartoons during the crisis tended to depict a ‘pack mentality’ in Eastern Bloc countries, with Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia all apparently moving away from Soviet control.6 The cartoon casts doubt on the ability of the Soviet Union to reform itself and heightened awareness of the Eastern Bloc’s emerging crisis. The cartoon was, however, received poorly by the leadership of Poland who were shown the image by New Statesman correspondent K. S. Karol: The Prime Minister, Mr [Josef] Cyrankiewicz, remarked to me that Vicky was wrong. On the contrary, said Mr. Cyrankiewicz, the only chance for Communism [. . .] is that there still exist Communists who survived the Stalinist terror without being compromised by it [. . .] it was because there was no Gomulka in Hungary that things there took such a tragic turn.7 Vicky’s ability to reach positions of power with his satire demonstrates not only that those leaders were nervous about public opinion, but also that his anti-communism had international influence. Cyrankiewicz disagreed with Vicky but suggested that the artist was expressing a personal view, when Vicky was actually attributing the message to the Stalinists. The printing of this message highlighted the difference in outlooks between East and West because it demonstrated a failure of this particular Eastern European leader to understand Vicky’s satire. Nonetheless, it demonstrated that Poland’s leaders, in contrast to Hungary’s, wished to remain within the Communist bloc of Eastern Europe: Cyrankiewicz was willing to emphasise that connection. The Hungarian revolution appeared to be successful with the reinstatement of Imre Nagy as Prime Minister on 28 October and the withdrawal of Soviet troops two days later. The Mirror implied that Khrushchev had lost control of the situation by reporting that he and Bulganin spent a ‘carefree’ night at a party in the Persian embassy.8

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The report evoked the myth of Nero, who was said to have played the violin as Rome burned. This narrative portrayed the Eastern Bloc as a modern monolithic empire and, whilst Moscow’s power appeared to be waning, Khrushchev was depicted as the decadent emperor who was powerless to prevent disaster. The myth was recalled in an Ian Scott cartoon in the Daily Sketch (Figure 4.2). Scott portrayed Khrushchev as controlling Nagy who ‘fiddled’ over a burning Soviet Empire, suggesting that monolithic control continued. The Sketch had

Figure 4.2 1956.

Ian Scott, ‘While Hungary Burns’, Daily Sketch, 29 October

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previously printed several articles which suggested the Soviet Empire was crumbling, one of which made a direct comparison to Nazism, suggesting ‘Hitler’s “Reich of a thousand years” lasted 12 years. Stalin’s Reich has lasted 11 years so far. This may well be the last.’ 9 Comparisons between Nazism and communism were frequently made by the Sketch and suggest something of an ideological dichotomy and frequent reference point: ‘freedom’, which essentially meant liberal democracy, against ‘totalitarianism’, which was represented by Soviet communism. The liberal narrative emerged alongside self-perceptions of the British Empire which was far from democratic but was frequently portrayed as benign.10 Yet, the reality of this myth was realised in the coming weeks when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt.11 The Suez crisis intensified the narrative of decline by making Britain’s insecure international position more obvious.12 The anti-communist rhetoric questioned the presentation of a monolithic Soviet imperialism, which Selverstone argues characterised Western depictions of the Eastern Bloc from the early 1950s.13 This moment appears to suggest something of an apogee in terms of this monolithic presentation. Following the suppression, the perception of the monolith remained but was frequently clouded by ambiguity. The New Statesman’s front-page headline ‘The Cracking of Stalin’s Empire’, suggested a monumental change in the Eastern Bloc. They declared the previous seven days ‘the most momentous week in European history since 1945’.14 In common with the Daily Mirror’s and Sketch’s narratives, the social democratic weekly affirmed that ‘the regime has for the present lost control’. Whilst praising the Western concept of freedom, the newspaper promoted socialism but free of monolithic communist control: ‘Socialism just as much as freedom, was strangled in the iron grip of Stalin.’ The Daily Herald reinforced this anti-communist narrative with an article on 30 October which stated, ‘Revolt in Hungary and Poland should destroy for good the assumption, shared in varying degrees by millions of people over the last forty years, that Communism is a short cut to Socialism.’15 This idea echoed other socialists such as George Orwell, who had previously argued that ‘nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of Socialism as the belief that Russia is a Socialist country’.16 The common expression of anti-communist views among left-wing newspapers and commentators suggests a broader narrative among

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‘mainstream left’ groups during the Cold War, which held that the Soviet Union did not represent socialism, and that the only way to achieve socialism was by embedding democracy. Throughout the uprising, areas of the British press expressed national moral authority. The Daily Mail correspondent Noel Barber reported from Budapest: ‘The pro-British feeling is fantastic. Crowds cheer us all the way [. . .] and always the same question: “When are the British coming to help us?”’17 Britain was presented as humanitarian and morally superior. This self-perception would be wounded once the story of Suez emerged and the national mood changed. A Hungarian e´migre´ wrote to the paper, ‘I remember how the Hungarians looked up to the English as demigods. In fact, they copied England from the Magna Carta to the last football match.’18 The Daily Mail depicted what it perceived were British values such as fairness and deep-rooted democracy. Often the British looked to their own values when reporting the revolution. The press presented an image that Britain was a model society that other nations should seek to emulate. British esteem remained important in attempts to influence international public opinion during the Cold War. Individuals and organisations from Britain and the wider world contacted the British government with many expressing the same sense of British moral superiority which had emerged as part of the press narrative. An e´migre´ organisation, the ‘All American Hungarian Societies’, telegrammed the Prime Minister Anthony Eden urging him to ‘use your personal prestige and influence and the good offices of the United Kingdom and the United Nations to accomplish the withdrawal of the Russian troops from Hungary’.19 Mr Kimheller of Zurich wrote in November pleading for British intervention. He addressed the British Prime Minister as ‘the leader of the humanity’.20 Britain still held a certain amount of international prestige for these foreign citizens who believed London could act to avert humanitarian tragedy. Foreign nationals living in Britain and some Britons hoped the government would act to avert humanitarian tragedy or make some other form of intervention. A Hungarian, George Boldus, telegrammed the Prime Minister on behalf of the ‘Hungarian Liberty Movement in Great Britain’. He urged Eden to ‘send blood plasma and medical help at least’.21 Moreover, the government’s limited programme of aid was often deemed to be inadequate. Elizabeth Abraham wrote to Allan Noble, her

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Conservative MP for Chelsea, stating ‘This is a turning point in history, and the British government participate in it to the extent of £25,000. It is laughable.’22 She compared this relatively small amount to the ‘hundreds of millions we are spending on “defence”’ but also urged that the government send arms to the Hungarian people. Noble responded that the amount had since been increased and that ‘a decision to supply arms could have led to grave international complications without affecting the outcome in Hungary’.23 British citizens as well as some abroad believed that Britain had the potential to make an effective intervention using either its prestige or physical intervention. As Britain’s position in the world was about to be undermined, there was some unpreparedness for the change that followed Suez.

The Repression Imre Nagy’s Hungarian government took their own path to socialism too far for the Soviets’ liking. The announcement that Hungary would withdraw from the Warsaw pact, made on 1 November, prompted emergency talks by the Soviet government who re-invaded on 4 November. The appearance of Soviet tanks in Budapest prompted several days of alarmist headlines and following Britain joining the Israeli invasion of Egypt on 5 November led to claims of moral equivalence. AVicky cartoon on 6 November was a sombre response to the crushing of Hungarian resistance. Vicky portrayed Hungary in chains with the caption, ‘Order has been restored’, indicating that ‘freedom’ had been suppressed (Figure 4.3). The cartoon also implies that communism in Eastern Europe was returning to Stalinism and slavery despite Khrushchev’s attempt to reform. In contrast to Vicky’s later depiction of women and children as victims of Soviet aggression, the cartoon uses a male body as a metaphor for the Hungarian nation. This imagery turns communism into a threat to the masculine embodiment of freedom and is consistent with Suzanne Clark’s description of hypermasculinity, which also argues that females were invisible from culture during the Cold War.24 Within the Budapest crisis, however, women became visible through their active participation and some media, which are examined below, depicted women in more active roles. Nevertheless, women’s actions were frequently downplayed by the British press and their portrayal as victims tended to predominate.

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Figure 4.3 1956.

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Vicky, ‘Order has been restored’, Daily Mirror, 6 November

‘Order has been restored’ can be read as a visual allegory with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and its depiction of slavery within the totalitarian state. In the novel the party’s slogans are, ‘WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.’25 Orwell’s literature, especially Nineteen Eighty-Four, was part of how Western nations viewed and defined totalitarianism.26 Orwell’s oxymoronic phrases in particular helped form a considerable part of that view of totalitarianism and the official rhetoric of one-party states. Eastern European communism was depicted as a means of occupation, not a path to freedom for the masses as intended by Marx. Yet official terminology consisted of terms like People’s Republic, which suggests democracy, despite heavy repression and the absence of free elections. The depiction of slavery engages with a narrative that utilised Orwell’s

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concept of doublethink to condemn both the actions and rhetoric of the Soviet Union. Alongside cartoons a number of photojournalists visualised the conflict for Western readerships. Their images helped to romanticise the uprising and editorial comments and captions reinforced Western views of the totalitarian East. Many photographers took great personal risk: the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Pedrazzini was killed during his assignment. Newspapers and magazines exploited the proximity of the almost exclusively male photographers to the action and portrayed them as heroic adventurers.27 Moreover, newspapers depicted photojournalists as objective observers whose images channelled the truth. These depictions confronted readers with the reality of the conflict. One reader wrote to Picture Post: ‘Thank your cameraman Jack Esten and writer Trevor Philpott for their courageous exposure of Russian terror in Hungary.’28 Perceptions of combat photographers as brave and masculine continue today, as demonstrated by the reaction to the death of Tim Hetherington, among other journalists, whilst covering the Libyan conflict of 2011.29 Whilst several present day foreign correspondents – and a number of conflict photographers – are female the profession, like journalism itself, remained almost entirely male during the Cold War and acted to reinforce predominant discourses of masculinity. The proximity to danger and intelligence required to safely complete their work meant that it came close to the idealised views of ‘hypermasculinity’. Alongside this, photographers both reinforced and disrupted the traditional male-dominated view of the conflict. Budapest became an incongruous moment in the Cold War not just because tyrannised people tried to overthrow their oppressors but because women were visibly active during the revolution and postsuppression resistance. Some images challenged the hypermasculine view of the revolution. The most celebrated image of the conflict is Russ Melcher’s Heroes of Budapest which features an heroic-looking male fighter and his female counterpart who uses her satchel as a first aid kit. Ester Balazs and Phil Casoar argue that the photograph subsequently became a Cold War icon and romanticised the ideal of youthful rebelliousness and revolution.30 The image, however, reinforces a traditional gendered role within the conflict and it is not surprising that an abstract of the male figure was used to partially represent the ‘Hungarian Freedom Fighter’, who became Time’s man of the year for

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1956.31 A more challenging but no less romanticised image by Jack Esten was published in Picture Post (Figure 4.4). A group of onlookers and photographers stand around the corpse of what the caption explains is a member of Hungary’s secret police, the AVH. A woman nonchalantly holds a rifle under one arm, and a cigarette in the other. The image breaks the traditional perception of feminine virtue and passivity – this woman is clearly a fighter, possibly the killer of her oppressor. The caption discourages sympathy towards the dead man and other AVH whose corpses are shown throughout the photo-essay. Readers are told that she is a mother ‘but there is no pity in her heart for the AVH Colonel who tore men from their wives, mothers from their children’.32 The woman rejects an assumed female quality of compassion because of the effects of anger and repression by the secret police and viewers similarly are asked to suspend their compassion. On 9 November the Mirror printed Vicky’s most emotive cartoon of the crisis (Figure 4.5). The depiction is typical of his ‘grims’; such cartoons featured heavy shadowing and grotesque portrayals of victims. Skeletal Hungarian characters suggest that supposedly communist-induced

Figure 4.4

Jack Esten, Budapest, 1956.

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Figure 4.5 Vicky, ‘Fascist and reactionary elements have been crushed . . .’, Daily Mirror, 9 November 1956.

deprivation has been exacerbated by the crisis. The ghostly mother and child in the background reveals that the ‘Fascist and reactionary elements’ to which the caption refers were actually women and children who were ordinary inhabitants of Budapest. Vicky’s image shifts perceptions of the conflict outside the theme of masculine posturing, which had previously represented Soviet actions. Furthermore the feminine images are distorted and grotesque; they evoke sympathy and the destruction of power rather than the previous masculine images which represented conflict and domination. The female and youth characters represent the oppressed subject, whilst male images have been used to portray the oppressor.

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The portrayal of Hungarian women as downtrodden and repressed was at odds with many other portrayals of women during the conflict, not least Esten’s image. Eastern European women were depicted as vulnerable and passive which contradicted the experience that emerged later in Hungary. Not only did women play an active role in the revolution but they also organised many of the acts of passive resistance. Most notably, on 4 December women marched through Budapest proclaiming, ‘We protest against these slanders instead of our husbands [. . .] do not allow men into our ranks. [. . .] Working women, women of Budapest. The revolution now depends on our unity, our discipline and our self-awareness.’33 The Illustrated London News published photographs of the march which showed women suffering and grieving but also an image, which was reprinted in The Listener, showing women playing a central role in resistance by leading the march with a black flag.34 Women played a far greater role in the revolution than Vicky’s portrayal, which limits them to victimhood in order to evoke sympathy. Vicky’s cartoon became acclaimed. The Daily Mirror portrayed it as a virtuous example of humanitarianism and used it to launch an aid appeal, whilst Picture Post dedicated two pages of a special Hungary edition to the image.35 The Mirror used the cartoon next to an article which evoked anti-communism and spoke of Budapest being ‘martyred by the Red Army’, with thousands ‘massacred because they asked for freedom to live their own lives’.36 Moreover, further emotion was aroused when the column proclaimed the cartoon would touch ‘millions of hearts’, before urging the reader to donate money to one of the relief operations. The newspaper’s reportage on Hungary had been restricted in recent days due to the British involvement in the invasion of Egypt, which overshadowed coverage of other foreign affairs. Earlier in the month, Vicky had focussed on Suez either wholly or in conjunction with the Hungarian revolution, but he now returned solely to the event which for him and many left-wingers confirmed that the Soviet Union was incapable of delivering equality or socialism. The Soviet invasion provoked anger and sympathy from British people. Mrs Amy Robson wrote to Edward Heath, her MP in Bexley. She begged Heath to use his influence to ‘save the remainder of the Hungarian people from slaughter by the evil Russian Communists’. She continued with her appraisal of Soviet aims: ‘Like Hitler, the men in Kremlin will never give up their idea of World Conquest and will

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continue with their trouble making (in the Trades Unions etc.,) all over the world, and especially are their efforts directed to this country.’37 Robson believed in the worldwide Soviet threat and thought that communists were actively working towards infiltration and domination of British society. Robson’s letter engaged with fears about Communist infiltration of trade unions and acting under instruction from Moscow to launch potentially destabilising strikes and other acts of sabotage such as those which feature in the 1951 film High Treason.38 There had been a press narrative of communist infiltration of Trade Unions, particularly the Electrical Trade Union (ETU). The ETU, according to Glyn Powell, began a campaign to oust Communist Party members from leadership positions in mid-1956.39 Robson’s vision of communism was similar to the totalitarian and expansive interpretations that predominated during the Cold War with comparisons to the Nazis being used to simplify her depiction of the communist enemy. The hypermasculine depictions of the revolution led to a sense of adventurism from some British men. Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth, Conservative MP for Hendon South, wrote to the Under-secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Douglas Dodds-Parker, concerning a conversation with a constituent. A. F. Kovacs, a Hungarian e´migre´, who had ‘an idea that he might be useful in doing something in the present situation’.40 However Lucas-Tooth was ‘inclined to think that it was something of a hare-brained idea’. Dodds-Parker responded: ‘I appreciate Mr Kovacs’ offer, but I know of no way in which, in the present circumstances, his services could be used.’41 An offer of ‘services’ came also from William Smith, a qualified radio operator from Fife, who pointed out that he served ‘in occupied Europe during the last war’.42 Smith informed the Prime Minister that ‘I hereby offer my services in whatever capacity you might decide would be advantageous to that cause.’ However, the response to Mr Smith stated ‘while the motives inspiring your offer are fully understood, it remains contrary to the policy of Her Majesty’s Government to encourage any form of armed intervention in Hungary’.43 A. T. Hosegood from Somerset wrote to the government asking ‘Have you any information about any organisation under which one could serve in Hungary, against the Russians?’44 These letter writers to the government were generally men who, possibly having been influenced by cultural representations of the Cold War as a secret war, combined with ideals of duty and service to the nation,

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believed that there was covert Western intervention and thought that the government would welcome their offers. Such was the anger caused by the Soviet invasion that by the middle of November over 1,000 students and Hungarian exiles were reported to have volunteered to join the Hungarian freedom fighters.45 In an echo of the previous generation’s support for the Spanish republic, a group called the British Universities Volunteer Force began to recruit undergraduates to fight for the freedom of the central European nation.46 Therefore, it was possible, if resistance had continued, that British brigades might have intervened. However, the situation was different to Spain in 1936, where the British fighters travel had been organised by the CPGB, who were unlikely to facilitate intervention against a government that they supported.47 Letters about joining the volunteers were still circulating in December. Frank Fuller wrote to the Prime Minister asking ‘if there is any government department (Foreign Office?) or secret department or special services that I can contact with a view to assisting the Hungarian rebel forces [. . .] I am keen to participate actively.’48 Moreover, Kenneth Younger, Labour MP for Grimsby, wrote to Dodds-Parker in late November: A constituent has written to me under the impression that the British Government is encouraging a number of students in this country to go and fight in Hungary and is giving them passports for this purpose. I would be grateful if you tell me what the government’s attitude is to volunteers of this kind.49 Some members of the population believed that the government encouraged intervention in the crisis. There was no appetite for involvement from the British government and their response stated, ‘our view is that intervention by armed volunteers could only prolong the bloodshed without affecting the outcome and would lend colour to the Russian claim that the revolt in Hungary was instigated by the West’.50 Feelings of frustration about the inability to change the situation led certain male individuals to entertain fantasies of adventurism. The invasion of Hungary and the romanticised images of revolutionaries that journalists and photographers presented allowed these men to entertain their ‘war-hero’ visions of masculinity.

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Re-Stalinisation Throughout the next few weeks the Soviets and the new Hungarian regime under Ja´nos Ka´da´r attempted to establish control in the face of passive and sporadic armed resistance from organised Hungarian workers. The British press depicted the moment as the end of Khrushchev’s thaw and a return to Stalinism. On 12 November Vicky situated developments within the Cold War metaphor, suggesting its reemergence following an easing of tension since Stalin’s death in 1953. The depiction of the Soviet Union returned to being the polar opposite to the Western way of life. Khrushchev’s thaw is portrayed as having ended with the re-freezing of an iceberg, whilst a walrus resembling Stalin lurks in the icy sea and threatens any reforms (Figure 4.6). Stalinism is therefore shown to be ingrained within the Soviet Union. The Mirror emphasised the Cold War element of the concurrent crises by reporting that the Egyptians were fighting with Soviet weapons.51

Figure 4.6 Vicky, ‘Freezing again after the thaw . . .’, Daily Mirror, 12 November 1956.

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Both conflicts appeared to be destroying all previous conciliatory efforts. Vicky’s cartoon suggests the re-emergence of the Cold War metaphor, which had been disrupted over the previous three years. On 15 November Vicky criticised the supposed Soviet reformers. He drew the leadership dressed in black, a colour previously reserved for Stalinists (Figure 4.7). Vicky’s cartoon used irony to change the language of Marx and Lenin by suggesting that Khrushchev was reversing their tenets. The cartoon engages Orwell’s concept of doublethink to emphasise the oxymoronic terminology of the Soviet Union and shows how Marx’s anti-imperialism and Lenin’s notion of self-determination would make them counter-revolutionaries. This cartoon reveals Vicky’s left-wing stance: Stalin remains inverted, indicating his difference from the two revolutionaries. This depiction suggests that Lenin’s Soviet Union could have become socialist but that Stalin’s succession prevented this.

Figure 4.7 Vicky, ‘Bah! Counter-revolutionaries!’, Daily Mirror, 15 November 1956.

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Vicky built on the prevailing anti-Soviet atmosphere in the British press. On 10 November the Mirror had reported that Labour leaders had visited the Soviet embassy to complain about the invasion, only for the ambassador, Jakob Malik, to state that the Soviet forces were invited by the Hungarians.52 The newspaper extended its increasingly sinister depiction by reporting that rebel radio had claimed that Hungarians had tried to surrender but were immediately shot.53 Vicky’s symbolic image would have reinforced many Mirror readers’ belief that the Soviet Union in no way represented socialism, and encouraged any who were not yet convinced to rethink their support. The invasion drew publicity for the outspoken communist supporter Hewlett Johnson, the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral. John Butler suggests the process caused Johnson to reconsider his support for the Soviet Union and refused to accept Khrushchev’s criticism of Stalin.54 Several newspapers including the Times reported Johnson’s announcement on 12 November that ‘morally, I am no more able to condone these events than our attack on Egypt. Politically – and it is always very difficult to disentangle the moral from the political – the situation is different’.55 Johnson’s comments reversed the moral positon that much of the press had given to Great Britain and he suggested that the Soviet invasion had some justification whilst Britain acted illegitimately. The Daily Mail printed a polemic by Rev. C. O. Rhodes who said Johnson’s statement ‘play[ed] politics with the Hungarians’ wounds and encourage[d] their tyrants’.56 As anger aimed at the Soviets was redirected towards Johnson, the Daily Mirror’s Cassandra criticised two students from Durham University for apologising to Johnson, having previously stolen his hat to raffle for Hungarian refugees.57 The Times reported that as Johnson gave a speech at the university: Seven students walked in bearing a representation of a bier draped with the Hungarian colours. They set it down in front of the Dean, and as the seven stood with bowed heads one said: ‘This is a tribute to the Hungarian people who died fighting for the freedom of their Church and country.’ They then lifted the bier and walked out as loud applause broke out from the audience.58 The carnivalesque nature of the students’ protest aimed to embarrass Johnson by copying the funerary rituals that were part of his job, but it

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highlighted that Johnson was justifying deaths in Hungary. The language used at the mock funeral fits within the British Cold War lexicon with the appeal to ‘freedom’ and the holding up of institutions like the Church and nation as sacrosanct. Johnson made further headlines in the Mirror as children from the King’s School Canterbury presented a petition to the board of governors, who were historically chaired by the Deans, condemning his support of the Soviet invasion.59 This petition was one of a number of initiatives made by the school, including offering places to refugee children in order to embarrass Johnson. The other school board members later attempted to remove him from his position, but were only successful in downgrading Johnson’s chairmanship to a titular position.60 According to Butler, Johnson received many letters of support, although the attitude in the press and wider nation was generally hostile and he was treated almost as a figurehead for the communist movement, which increasingly looked like a bizarre cult. Johnson became a focus for domestic hatred towards communists and broader religious commendations of the invasion. The implicit Christian sensibilities of many framed the conflict and became visible following the Soviet invasion. On 29 October the Daily Sketch had depicted national identity as associated with Christian values by demanding British intervention and declaring ‘If we are still a Christian nation, we must meet this challenge without an hour’s delay.’61 One Picture Post reader wrote that because Johnson ‘can still find some excuse for the recent act of the Russian barbarians [. . .]. He should not be allowed to enter a pulpit again.’62 Christianity and by extension Britishness were seen as polar opposites of communism. Another reader, however, used the same Christian values to condemn the government’s action in Suez: ‘The Bible says, “Thou Shalt not kill”, “Love thy enemy”, “Turn the Other cheek”. Just because some people and countries go against these Christian teachings, does that give us the right to do the same?’63 This letter suggests that national identity was associated with Christianity in certain areas of the press and public and this meant that a specific value system should define the actions of both church and nation, which were frequently seen as parts of the same entity. The revolution prompted responses from religious figures who acted not just in the name of their religion, but as a moral part of British nationhood. The British Council of Churches wrote to the Foreign

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Secretary expressing its ‘grief and horror’ and ‘call[ed] upon the British Government to support any United Nations action which might, even at this juncture be of service to the people of Hungary.’64 The Bishop of Peterborough, Robert Stopford, also wrote to the Foreign Secretary stating that, ‘many of us feel very helpless and would welcome any suggestion of ways in which our sympathy with the Hungarian people could be expressed practically in addition to doing all we can to support Hungarian relief.’65 The Catholic Young Men’s Society of Great Britain added its weight to the religious outcry by sending a resolution on behalf of its 30,000 members. Their declaration stated If further bloodshed and inhuman conduct such as deportations are to be prevented then the leaders of all the free nations must act in a spirit of Christian-like charity and mutual understanding of the problem and legitimate aspiration of the Hungarian people.66 These figures felt that it was a Christian moral framework which led to the belief in human rights but which also caused many of them to identify the actions of a communist state as ‘evil’. Britons’ feelings of anger and sympathy were expressed through some of the institutions of civil society. The Christian value of charity was used to spread sympathy and to boost support for Hungarian refugees. The invasion of Budapest and the flow of refugees shocked many in Britain, not least those members of the Communist Party, who reassessed their beliefs and resigned their membership. The New Statesman became an outlet for recent ex-communists to express their outrage at the Soviet invasion and the magazine published several letters from former CPGB members.67 The Mirror’s Cassandra column reported on the 20 November that the Communist Party mouthpiece the Daily Worker was ‘haunted by the spectre of Hungary’, with eight editorial staff having resigned.68 Peter Fryer, the Daily Worker’s former Budapest correspondent, accentuated the reconsideration of Communist Party support by writing to the New Statesman. Fryer criticised the Daily Worker, who he claimed had prevented him reporting the revolution accurately.69 These communists were not alone in reassessing what communism meant. Around 11,000 members, up to a third of the total, resigned over the invasion of Budapest.70 The anger at the invasion was, therefore, able to break the almost religious bond of party discipline to

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which its members subjected themselves.71 There was an ideological realignment on the far left which would soon lead to the creation of the grouping termed the ‘New Left’ and the popular press were part of what became a very public conversation. Fryer’s resignation was among several high-profile departures from the Communist Party. He declared his book Hungarian Tragedy to be the truth which the Daily Worker refused to publish and it made him a mainstream figure.72 Fryer stressed his commitment to communism but also his antipathy to the centralising party system which the Soviet Union had instigated and CPGB had followed. Fryer condemned the Soviet-supporting parties: There is yet another tragedy with which this book must deal to some extent. But it is a British, not a Hungarian tragedy. It is the tragedy that we British communists who visited Hungary did not admit, even to ourselves, the truth about what was taking place there, that we defended tyranny with all our heart and soul.73 Fryer was one of a number of Communist Party members who rethought their allegiances during 1956. His criticism of the CPGB broke convention by suggesting that the party’s support for Stalinism was wrong. The book was one of several by former communists following the invasion, which suggested that even many on the hard left now opposed the Soviet Union and added to the sense that the rump of the Communist Party was little more than a cult. The impact of Fryer’s book on CPGB itself has been downplayed by former party members, with Alison McLeod suggesting in a 2006 witness seminar that, ‘No True One-Hundred Per-Cent Communist would read Peter’s book – or touch it’, whilst Brian Pearce labelled it ‘Political Pornography!’74 These comments, made decades after the event, suggest a disconnection from reality among those who remained faithful to CPGB, and reinforce the Cold War depiction of the party as a cult which ejected dissenters. Several eyewitness accounts of the revolution were written by British women. Edith Bone, a Hungarian-born doctor and freelance journalist who travelled to Hungary 1949, was another Daily Worker correspondent. Her book told of her imprisonment under Ra´kosi’s regime.75 Bone’s book became a testament to her ability to survive

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Ra´kosi’s prison by occupying her mind with intellectual pursuits. She reached a larger audience when she was interviewed for Pathe´ newsreel and was described as ‘a former communist who has changed her mind about Russia and communism’. This description suggests a cult which people had to flee and was reinforced with details of her imprisonment. When asked, ‘Do you still believe communism can bring happiness to the human race?’ she responded, ‘Alas no. I have seen it bring advantages to a small selection but not to the vast majority.’76 Bone appeared on television and radio over the coming years and in 1958 her book was adapted for radio and she featured in a television special on brainwashing.77 When combined with the previous newspaper coverage of the Hungarian revolution, this glimpse of the East acted to confirm the notions which emerged through the encounter since October. Bone reinforced the concept of the ‘cult’ of communism which had emerged in its Cold War context in Crossman’s The God that Failed. She was another ex-communist who reached a mass audience with a message that condemned communism. Dora Scarlett’s position in the Foreign Language Department for Budapest Radio meant that she saw the revolution unfold and she quickly sided with the Hungarians.78 Scarlett wrote in the New Left journal the New Reasoner condemning the failings of the local party because they were ‘afraid of the masses, because it came to power without the support of the majority and has not been able to win them since’.79 Bone and Scarlett challenged the dominant motif of masculine heroism which had been imbued in Barber, Pedrazzini, Fryer and other male correspondents. These women now became part of the British anti-communist motif. Previously their contribution to the Cold War had been largely invisible, despite their clear role in the conflict. Their association with the enemy justified their invisibility in British media. Their willingness to speak out against communism, however, meant that they too were celebrated and identified with those characteristics of intrepidness which had previously been reserved for male correspondents. The uprising and subsequent suppression led to outpourings of sympathy. Protest marches occurred in several cities and, in Cardiff and London, communist bookshops were smashed or burned. One march became violent when the headquarters of the Communist Party and Daily Worker was attacked by protesters.80 Among social democrats any

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sympathy for communism disappeared. Moreover many Communist Party members realised that when communism turned against the masses it was not worth fighting for. Trade Unionists and intellectuals condemned the CPGB. In mid-November Liverpool dockers refused to unload a Soviet ship.81 The unofficial boycott was against the trade union’s wishes and later spread to a Danish ship which was to transport its cargo of rubber to Riga.82 The boycott was later repeated in Hull as throughout November and December the population contributed to relief funds which attempted to send aid to Hungary or assist the refugees. While the British government’s actions were less than laudable, the wider British population gave their support to Hungarians and the cause became a popular demand for freedom. On 27 November the Mirror labelled members of the Communist Party ‘Dupes’ and questioned when the Daily Worker would come to its senses and condemn Khrushchev’s actions.83 The same edition reported the cancellation of a National Union of Mineworkers delegation to Poland because of the international situation.84 Reports of the Soviet reaction in Hungary caused those who thought the process of destalinisation would produce a fairer system to reappraise their beliefs. The desertions from the Communist Party divided opinion among the readerships of Labour-supporting newspapers. Mrs C.P. Shergold wrote to the Daily Herald: ‘let us welcome the ex-communists into our ranks. If they give to Labour the hard work and devotion they have mistakenly given elsewhere, our party will be the richer for them.’85 Shergold’s view, which allowed room for atonement, was not universal, however: A. W. Thompson adopted a more cynical attitude: ‘Hungary has nothing to do with their resignations. They could see their meal tickets slipping out of their hands’, suggesting that the party members were vainglorious revolutionaries who sought self-aggrandisement. Compassion from Britons continued throughout the crisis. Aid funds were established and many people offered to house Hungarian refugees. Anger towards the Soviets was expressed through protests and the unrealised attempts to form an international brigade to fight the Soviet invasion. The TUC led a large-scale appeal for aid through the Daily Herald, which was followed in November by the placement of advertisements in the newspapers: ‘In the name of British Trade Unionists the TUC condemns the despicable action of the Soviet Government in suppressing the struggle of the Hungarian people [. . .]

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The TUC appeal to all British Trade Unionists to help at once.’86 This leadership allowed the TUC to claim to speak about the conflict on behalf of British workers. As the fund progressed, the newspaper emphasised aid given by socialists, reporting that 6,000 engineers ‘went home and urged wives and mothers to rummage out warm clothing for refugees’. By 17 November the Herald was reporting that socialist solidarity had produced a fund of £27,750.87 The organisation of aid among trade unions reflected their importance as institutions of British civil society which were able to provide a form of moral leadership to their membership during the 1950s. By early 1957 the British government had accepted 5,016 Hungarian refugees with the quota of 5,000 refugees being deemed ‘just adequate to meet demand’. The government eventually admitted over 20,000 refugees.88 Among the conservative newspapers the Daily Mail expressed sympathy with Hungarians through several articles by Rhona Churchill which asked people to house refugees.89 Her second article reported an outpouring of offers from readers and was accompanied by a cartoon by Illingworth which expressed sympathy for children whose parents were ‘staying to fight’.90 Churchill’s title refers to the ‘heart of a nation’ and suggests that the newspaper depicted compassion as central to British identity. The Mail reported £11,297 had been donated to its fund by 13 November alongside emotional acts of sacrifice such as a pensioner who donated her wedding ring.91 Muriel Johnson of Derbyshire wrote to the Daily Sketch, ‘Cannot we all help to bring a little light into their darkness, a little hope of a brighter future? To start the ball rolling I would like to offer £50 to an aid distress fund.’92 The Sketch’s association of charity with British nationhood was easier because it was now associated with anticommunism; on 9 November it declared, ‘Britain is opening her heart – and her doors – to Hungarian refugees.’93 These newspapers placed more emphasis on nationhood and charity as a British value than solidarity with fellow workers, which dominated the narrative in newspapers like the Daily Herald and Daily Mirror. The variety of funds reflects competition between institutions for their versions of moral leadership and British national identity. Following Britain’s invasion of on 5 November this crisis gained more newspaper space than Hungary, but was often given a broader Cold War emphasis because the international reaction emphasised Britain’s declining international position. Vicky used this opportunity to attack the

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Conservative government and, as speculation mounted about the resignation of Eden, produced a cartoon which associated the Conservatives with the Bolsheviks. Khrushchev, dressed in stereotypical Conservative attire including a bowler hat, striped trousers and bow tie, demonstrated outside Downing Street in support of Anthony Eden who worriedly looked on (Figure 4.8). The caption ‘If I lived in England, I would be a Conservative’, had been uttered by Khrushchev during an argument that occurred between the Soviet leader and prominent Labour Party members on 23 April. Vicky drew comparisons between both leaders’ claims to be conducting police actions. Vicky’s cartoon reversed the Conservatives’ propaganda trope which associated Labour with the Bolshevik state and highlighted the irony of the Soviet leader associating himself with the

Figure 4.8 Vicky, ‘If I lived in England I would be a Conservative’, Daily Mirror, 26 November 1956.

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elitist Conservative Party. This association of the Conservatives with Communist actions echoed Margaret Belsky’s Daily Herald cartoon which showed a smartly attired gentleman in a parlour speaking to a member of the clergy and declaring ‘You are misinformed Bishop. I did NOT resign from the Communist Party over Hungary. I resigned from the Conservative Party over Suez.’94 British participation in the invasion of Egypt allowed the press to compare Conservative and Communist leaderships with many concluding that there was little moral difference. The Suez Crisis saw a different value placed on British morality from outside the country. Dr Zoltan Arkosi, an Assistant Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, sent a telegram to Eden from Zurich proposing a compromise ‘Russia leaves Hungary – while England þ France Leave Egypt.’95 British aggression overseas allowed people to draw a comparison with the Soviet action and different viewpoints on Britain’s international position began to be expressed. The intervention in Egypt began to change the way that correspondents viewed Eden and Britain. Dr Kurt Weachta wrote from Munich, addressed to ‘Anthony Eden, to the detriment and shame of his country Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.’ He claimed that ‘Hungary’s misery is caused by the Prime Minister’s aggression in Egypt.’96 Weachta’s letter accepted a common narrative that Britain’s aggression had encouraged the Soviet invasion. Alfons Wernersbach from Germany wrote to the Queen that ‘human lives are being sacrificed for share-holders and perhaps British prestige. The British Crown is the symbol of freedom and unity for many peoples [. . .] The cry of despair from Hungary is at the same time an appeal to the West to use peaceful means.’97 The tone in some of the letters from abroad showed that the projected image of British international prestige was under threat because of the imperial misadventure in Egypt and apparent impotence in the face of Soviet aggression. Often these letters reversed some of the earlier positive comments and suggested that British prestige had rapidly declined. Towards the end of 1956 Vicky evoked compassion towards Hungary by returning to his favoured ‘grim’ style.98 He drew a man lying prostrate, beneath three Soviet tanks. The obliterated slogan, ‘Workers of the World Unite . . .’, indicates a further turn of the Soviet Union away from socialism and equality. The cartoon engaged with Marxist terminology and reinforced the narrative that the USSR was anything but socialist. When the Daily Mirror published the image, however, they

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removed the slogan. It was used to illustrate the newspaper’s review of the year series. The cartoon adorned the ‘Hero of The Year’ column, which was awarded to the anonymous fighter who had died trying to overcome communist oppression.99 Budapest had for some weeks been sidelined by the domestic crisis. The occasional report from Hungary or story about Hungarian refuges extended the narrative, but no longer prompted the level of shock of the initial uprising and invasion. Readers were given an unmistakable reminder about Soviet tyranny on 24 December, when the Mirror printed a blank space as its picture of year. The article claimed that the image was of Hungarian refugees enjoying themselves at a reception in London, but that fear of reprisals on their families meant the subjects could not be identified.100 This technique suggested a Cold War dichotomy between the tolerant liberal West and the repressive ‘evil’ communist East. For a newspaper which built its reputation on printing photographs such a move added poignancy by evoking sympathy towards the refugees and antipathy towards the communists.101 The article ended by returning to the growing criticism of British communists by claiming that only ‘idiots like the Dean of Canterbury’ would excuse the actions of the Soviet Union. The Mirror firmly cemented its reputation as anti-communist through the article, and opposed the by-now shrinking minority of British communists. Throughout the conflict, newspapers such as the Daily Mirror upheld and built on British values, and frequently associated themselves with leftwing patriotism which linked humanitarianism and anti-communism with social democracy and Britishness.

Conclusion While Mark Smith reveals that the conflicts in Hungary and Suez did not derail relations between the Soviet Union and Britain, social democratic newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, Daily Herald and New Statesman and their staff, were at the forefront of a wave of condemnation of Soviet invasion of Hungary.102 Their reports, along with cartoonists such as Vicky’s satirical portrayal of the crushing of freedom, both influenced and reflected the public mood regarding the conflict. They helped to show that socialism meant something more than a single-party state which was willing to repress self-determination. The cartoons reflect the unfolding of events, with a tentative approach

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being taken at first. The invasion was by no means inevitable, and this Cold War moment initially produced hope that a communist movement could become subordinate to the people, rather than controlling them. Vicky and others on the left were delighted by this mass pressure and engaged in a narrative which predicted that a wave of freedom from Soviet control would sweep the Eastern monolith. When, however, the people demanded autonomy by withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact, the Soviets reasserted their power. Hereafter, the narrative reverted to depictions of the monolithic stereotype. As the New Statesman put it, ‘We have been watching not only the end of the Hungarian bid for freedom, but the end of the Soviet myth.’103 Similar narratives caused those who still believed in the Soviet Union as a vehicle for socialism to rethink their ideology, and caused many who embraced social democracy to laud Western values of freedom. Moreover, the invasion acted as a point in which the artificially created spheres of East and West became further separated and opposition became entrenched in the minds of the Western public following a brief period of ambiguity and thaw. Images including cartoons and photojournalism became central to raising awareness of the revolution among the British public. Both forms were highly ideological, more obviously so in the case of cartoons. Photographs were frequently captioned in such a way that portrayed violent acts as heroic and just. These images often conveyed Western values, such as freedom and democracy, with the implicit message that they should be extended to Hungary. Vicky’s images in particular carried ideological constructions of a certain type of British identity which depicted socialism and freedom as mutual and completely opposed to Soviet communism. These values were extended across much of the left, as far as Communist Party members themselves, who frequently saw the moment as a watershed for Soviet communism alongside the equivalent moment for British imperialism in Suez.

CHAPTER 5 `

RUSSIA WINS SPACE RACE': THE BRITISH PRESS AND THE LAUNCH OF SPUTNIK, OCTOBER 1957

The space age began when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit on 4 October 1957. While rocket technology had initially been used in the development of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, individual scientists saw space as their pet project. They helped to shift the policy of the American and Soviet governments into pursing space exploration to aid future missile development and demonstrate greater technological advancement under Khrushchev’s policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’. Space exploration became a key element in narratives of progress and raised questions about the competing Cold War ideologies. This chapter examines the British reaction to the Soviet space lead as celebration and anxiety were coupled with considerations of what else mankind could achieve. Space exploration became an essential part of how Britons viewed modernity and the Soviets appeared to be taking a leading role. I suggest that anxieties emerged over science and its relationship with some of the fundamental mid-twentieth century social narratives: the perceived decline of religion and the threat of communism to the Western concept of freedom. This chapter finds that anxieties over scientific advancement ran alongside a celebratory atmosphere and narratives of apocalypticism, which encouraged fear of the unknown. The chapter covers the first launch and the Soviets’ second satellite on 3 November, which contained a scientific test dog, which became known as Laika. I argue that British media coverage of this

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incident engaged with domestic feelings towards animals and restored a more traditional anti-Soviet Cold War narrative. The launch appeared unexpected and the press reacted with astonishment about Soviet advancement. British and Western feelings of superiority were challenged and the myth of Soviet technological advancement continued in British culture for some years. Paul Dickson notes that the Soviets’ lead in the space race led many American opponents of President Eisenhower to question his handling of the situation and led to calls for the West to mimic the system of central planning which had facilitated this advancement.1 Dominic Sandbrook argues that the British reaction to Sputnik was muted in comparison to America. His interpretation focuses on the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who noted that the public appeared more concerned about the dog in Sputnik 2.2 I suggest that Sputnik did provoke a response from the British population but it was a mixture of fear, celebration and amazement, combined with a realisation that Britain could not compete technologically with the superpowers. Many British newspapers now depicted the Soviets as seemingly uncatchable in their advance with several declaring, ‘Russia Wins Space Race’.3

The Soviet Sputnik The launch of Sputnik 1 dominated newspaper headlines. The Daily Mirror printed a Sputnik next to its masthead and changed its tag-line to, ‘The Biggest Daily Sale in the Universe’.4 The paper was at the height of its popularity, and its coverage of the space age over the next few weeks demonstrated the obsession with modernity with which historians have associated the newspaper.5 For much of the press the launch appeared to be more than a Cold War moment. There was frequent enthusiasm about the possibilities for humankind: this was a moment of the fulfilment of dreams and realisation of science fiction scenarios. Perhaps the best example of this was the tracking of the satellite by many newspapers, which printed the times that it would pass over British cities. On 11 October the Daily Mirror declared on its front page, ‘The Space Age Takes Off’, as it launched a new series of space specials.6 This engagement with modernity was vital to the newspaper’s success, alongside the selfassociation with mass aspiration and social change which, as Martin Conboy argues, allowed it to maintain the pertinence which made it the

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bestselling newspaper of the 1950s and 1960s.7 Space was popular and Britain was seen to play its part in making new discoveries, with the newly built radio telescope at Jodrell Bank able to track Sputnik.8 The popular press expressed enthusiasm for science and technology at the start of the space age, and where inventions could be associated with Britain they often evoked national prestige. This enthusiasm extended beyond space: when the Calder Hall nuclear power plant was opened in August 1956, there was widespread celebration, and technological revolution became a central pillar in Labour’s policies from the early 1960s.9 Alongside the popular fascination with space, religious language was frequently employed to depict the USSR’s achievement. The Cold War was often presented as a conflict between Christianity and Communism and the popular press found religious language a convenient means to frame the conflict and to depict space.10 When the Daily Herald invited readers to name the craft in a competition its title revealed the dichotomy of meaning surrounding the launch: ‘We call it THE BLEEP. Some call it SATAN.’11 This phraseology, while not necessarily connected to religion, invites readers to fear the unknown. The use of religious and sometimes apocalyptic terminology suggested a potential threat to mankind. Several entries such as ‘Nemesis’, ‘Red Pimpernel’ and ‘Red Peril’ reveal an engagement with Cold War thinking. Other readers, however, submitted apocalyptic names such as ‘Heaven’s Usurper’ and ‘Harbinger of Hell’, from R. Welham, who speculated: ‘Maybe the Russian moon will lead to discoveries that man will wish he’d never known.’12 Outer-space was previously unexplored and some readers were apprehensive about what new technology might lead to. The resort to religious language shows its prevalence as a traditional remedy at moments of anxiety. Despite Brian Harrison’s argument that established religion was suffering from decline and indifference by the 1950s, this engagement with Godly imagery indicates, linguistically at least, an undercurrent of religious and apocalyptic thought.13 It is consistent with Lorenzo DiTommasso’s argument that apocalypticism remains part of the Western mindset and expresses itself through popular culture.14 Such usage exhibited some fear of secularisation among the often socially conservative Herald readership.15 Furthermore, this fear of secularisation was exacerbated by these scientific advances being made by the atheistic Cold War Other. The reaction, however, was tempered by several more positive entries such as ‘Hope’, ‘New Dawn’ and ‘Saviour’,

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whose author chose the name ‘because it will end all war ambitions and give mankind eternal peace’. Therefore there were expressions of positive feelings about the launch alongside more anxious responses. In contrast to some of the other uses of religious terminology, however, here it is likely to indicate religion’s prevalence in everyday language rather than a spiritual hope that space travel would save mankind. Both positive and negative uses of religious language indicate the existence of a secularised apocalypse myth, which, while often associated with the destruction of the earth, also indicates that things will be corrected following the end of days. The Daily Mail associated the launch with national prestige by suggesting that the rocket was a British creation. Following the launch their front page claimed, ‘The leading brain behind the Soviet satellite is Cambridge-trained professor Peter Kapitza.’16 Kapitza, who later won the Nobel Prize for Physics, was educated in Britain, but it was erroneous to suggest that he created the Soviet space mission. Two days later the paper printed a full page article on Kapitza, which emphasised his hasty return to the Soviet Union in 1935 and highlighted his celebrity status in the Soviet media.17 These articles helped to counter the narratives of British imperial decline by reasserting British eminence and associating Britain with technological achievements, thereby retaining national esteem in an area neglected by the postwar economy. The story implied that the Soviets’ advantage did not originate with their scientists and that they must have cheated. The caveat to this, however, is that the creator of the Soviet satellite, Sergei Korolev, lived in secrecy and never achieved credit for his scientific achievements until after his death in 1966.18 The secrecy of the USSR gave the British press room to speculate on stories relating to the country; Maurice Edelman retold Kapitza’s story by restyling the scientist as Kuprin in his novel A Call on Kuprin, which is discussed in Chapter 6. In doing so the parliamentarian used a press narrative which allowed him to make his work more realistic. Sometimes the British press exaggerated the Soviet threat and portrayed the space advantage as an attempt at ‘world domination’. The Daily Herald reported that ‘with brutal abruptness [Western defence chiefs] have warned that Russia is in a position to dominate the World. . . Russia is now within finger-tip reach of a weapon that could devastate the world’s great cities.’19 The unquestioned claim correctly linked the space programme to the development of Inter-Continental

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Ballistic Missiles, but wrongly assumed that launching a satellite meant the Soviets could re-enter the atmosphere and destroy anywhere at will. The Daily Mail echoed the sensation by speculating on manned satellites: ‘Such a space station could dominate the world. Two of them in different orbits could keep the entire surface of the globe under permanent survey . . . They could deposit H-bombs where necessary.’20 Both newspapers situated space firmly within the Cold War and reinforced a discourse from across the political spectrum which viewed the Soviets advancement as a precursor to world domination. Newspapers and readership alike asserted that the Soviets were more scientifically advanced. This message led to two reactions: celebration of the success of the centrally planned economy and fear of the Soviet Union’s technological might. The Daily Herald’s editorial line was tentative and concerned about the potential military applications of space vehicles, but some readers were more celebratory. A.C.W. of Watford wrote to the editor, ‘So the Russians have pipped the Americans in the Space race! Let Socialists take heart, for Socialists have proved that their planning outstrips that of America!’21 The author equated communism with socialism and therefore made a connection to the Soviet Union that many on the left disparaged throughout the period. The author echoed other newspaper readers by taunting the Americans’ loss of face. This indicates a schadenfreude emerging from the previously dominant Western power which had seemingly lost its hegemonic position in science, technology and world influence. While Rubin perceives the Cold War as dominated by the transfer of cultural hegemony from Britain to the USA, reactions such as this suggest that the Western alliance was less harmonious and closer to broader antiAmerican trends from across the political spectrum.22 One reader put the apparent reversal in Cold War fortunes into song form: We knew, some day some how, somewhere, Despite our jokes Those Russian blokes Would get one in the air . . . No more we’ll scorn for in the Kremlin soon, They’ll speak of salt mines on The Moon.23

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The lyrics question assumptions that the Soviet Union was a backward country. The song celebrates the sudden change in perceptions of the Soviets. We are told that the West has underestimated the East, but also that anything imaginable can be achieved. The author stated that the lyrics were for the theme music to the movie Around the World in 80 Days of 1956.24 This link to the multi-Oscar-winning picture connects space exploration to the previous age of adventurism. Verne’s scenario had long been surpassed yet, like the spacecraft’s orbit, was a realisation of humankind’s dreams. The public imagination was still accommodating the reduction of Verne’s famed 80 days to circumvent the globe to 80 minutes. This frivolous and celebratory presentation was echoed in a number of press features including adverts, cartoons and competitions. Among the more notable items is a Guinness advertisement in The Times (Figure 5.1).25 The advertisement is light hearted, using a pun on the word ‘space’ and showing a scientist observing space through a telescope. It uses the Sputnik moment to promote its enduring brand myth: the ubiquitous slogan ‘Guinness is Good for You’ was well established by the 1950s.26 The Guinness lifestyle is thus associated with novelty and innovation, despite the obvious drawbacks of drinking alcohol at lunchtime. This jocular image promotes the drink as healthy, and as a catalyst for scientific discoveries.

Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact British science fiction had long entertained ideas of space travel as an inevitable outcome of scientific progress. Sometimes this had generated apocalyptic scenarios. The 1955 film The Quatermass Xperiment, which was based on the 1953 television serial, featured a British space programme which led to an astronaut becoming taken over by an alien being which begins to devour everything on earth.27 The suggestion that science fiction scenarios were being fulfilled continued as newspapers recruited space correspondents. The Daily Mail employed Arthur C. Clarke, who aimed to inform its readership about the new possibilities of space. The use of an author known predominantly for science fiction to elucidate real events obscures the divisions between the two. The previous month space travel had appeared to be a fantasy; its sudden arrival provoked readers to question science’s potential. The Daily Herald serialised a short story by Peter Phillips, a journalist and

Figure 5.1

‘Guinness is good for you’, The Times, 10 October 1957.

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occasional sci-fi writer, which was constructed through various news releases and bulletins, thereby echoing the unfolding story of Sputnik.28 The storyline concerns two Soviet space travellers who become trapped and are saved by a manned American rescue craft, heralding an age of international co-operation and a jointly manned space station. This serialised short story prompted the Daily Herald readership to consider the potential of space as a catalyst for peace, something which had already been expressed in several readers’ letters. At the beginning of the space age the popular imagination utilised fictional discourse to satisfy their craving for the unknown. Following the launch of Sputnik, newspapers often printed headlines which could have featured in a science fiction novel. On 8 October the News Chronicle erroneously reported that the Soviets had exploded a nuclear weapon in space. The report stated, ‘Russia has clearly tested an H-bomb rocket in deep space.’29 Such unambiguous language was frequently employed across Western news media and acted to sensationalise the issue of Soviet nuclear weapons. While Russia had tested a nuclear weapon, the story fed off a Soviet press release which stated that, ‘the explosion was conducted at a great height’. These exaggerated claims can be considered rational: Western journalists might have questioned what else the Soviets’ statement could mean. The report was made more dramatic by the words placed ahead of the title: ‘In the vacuum miles above the earth, sound is not transmitted, light is not scattered – the blast would shine like a star, then flicker and fade.’ This descriptive sentence creates a broader narrative for readers who might have sensed that space was now part of Britain’s Cold War enemy’s attempt to dominate the world. The exaggeration of the Soviet missile capability continued across several other British newspapers including the Daily Mirror, who reported the test with the phrase ‘Red Shock’, reinforcing the sense that the world was rapidly changing.30 Besides the sensationalised headlines, the launch provoked space age fantasies and celebration. The Daily Mirror’s columnist, Marjorie Proops, playfully speculated about outer-space, while seemingly lambasting feminism: ‘One thing I hope they have NOT got there is equality between men and women.’31 She used outer-space as an idyll for her imagination. She stated ‘I cannot help hoping that the first people I meet will be attractive moon men – something around 6ft. 6in. Tall and

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otherwise in proportion. Preferably blue-eyed.’ Proops’s moon fantasy emerges in a similar manner to the traditional terrestrial narrative that associated women with domesticity. She stressed her desire for a return to a ‘golden age’ of chivalry: ‘Any moon man is welcome to make a fuss of me.’ Proops was a rare female tabloid voice in an industry dominated by men; this engagement with the Cold War shifts the conflict away from the male sphere.32 She complains that ‘the stage of fighting for equality’ has taken a wrong turn and that ‘equality’ would mean the loss of her preferred way of life. Roy Greenslade, her friend and editor, attributes her failure to support feminist movements to her need to survive in a male-dominated domain.33 Kaitlynn Mendes is more negative and suggests that her supposed anti-feminism had a detrimental effect on perceptions of the women’s movement and helped to circulate counter-arguments against women’s equality.34 While the article appears to criticise the woman’s movement, the editorial decisions such as the boxed quote, ‘Feminism is not worth fighting for’, suggest that Proops was constrained by formal editorial positions as well as the informal constraints that Greenslade mentions. The conquest of space prompted speculation about how the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik’s October Revolution might be marked. The Daily Herald stated that the Soviets would reach the moon.35 This possibility was taken seriously by the Manchester Guardian, which published an article dispelling rumours that the Soviets planned to demonstrate their advancement by colouring the moon red.36 This story, however, did little to allay the persistence of the myth and the following day the Daily Mirror reported that the Soviets planned to land on the moon, whereupon ‘its colour may be changed’.37 The development of this rumour shows how speculation gathered momentum and was reported as fact. The ascent to space had created an atmosphere in the press where it was believed that the Soviets were so technologically advanced that anything could be achieved. Furthermore, collective imaginations which had been freed from the confines of science fiction now filled a reality where outer-space was no longer unreachable and a new narrative of human progress emerged. Belief in Soviet technological advancement gained an ideological edge when anticipating the anniversary of the revolution. Several newspapers presented the launch of the first and later the second Sputnik as a vindication of Bolshevik ideology and the benefits of a centrally

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planned economic system. The New Statesman printed an editorial about the Soviet Union: The new technological civilisation Stalin created is being forced, by the very magnitude of its achievements, to leave the silence of the Iron Curtain and display its products for all eyes to see [. . .] The satellite is not an isolated breakthrough on a narrow front: it merely crowns the growing pyramid of evidence that over a wide sector of scientific knowledge the Russians are advancing further and faster than the West [. . .] Science occupies a central position in the Soviet universe which in the West is accorded only to God [. . .] The conviction that the West does not in the last resort, need to negotiate except from ‘positions of strength’ is no longer tenable.38 This comment suggested that the Soviet Union was ahead in the ideological contest. The vagueness of this competition allowed many in Britain to conclude that the prize was world domination. Ultimately the race metaphor emerged from Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence as well as attempts by both sides to develop better and more numerous nuclear weapons. The New Statesman, however, portrays the launch as a legacy of Stalinism, contradicting the general attitude of many social democrats, including much of the periodical’s own readership, who wrote numerous anti-Soviet letters following the 1956 invasion of Budapest. Vindication of Stalin’s ends, if not his means, strengthened the press narrative that new technology might cause the end of the Cold War rather than heightening tensions. The paradox is that the New Statesman suggested Stalinism had facilitated the more open Soviet society. The Soviet Union is presented as worshipping science against the West, which is depicted as more morally sound despite appearing to lag behind in technological advancement. For many in the press the Soviets’ technological victories suggested that communism was synonymous with progress and that they were winning the ideological war for modernity. The New Statesman’s attitude further demonstrates Darren Lilleker’s argument that social democracy was antipathetic towards communism, but also indicates that there remained a utopian hope that the ideology which had overthrown aristocratic domination might further human progress.39 The advances of the five-year plans are acknowledged and

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there is little doubt that this progress depended on centrally planned scientific development. The article demonstrates the underlying hopes that by using a planned system the USSR was progressing faster than traditionalist Britain, if not the rest of the West. This attitude of comparative decline was echoed in other newspapers, with the Conservative-supporting Daily Sketch asking, ‘And what of Britain? Well. We never even started’.40 This declinist narrative (while coexisting with celebration of British achievements) portrayed Britain as failing without the chance of recovery. Across the political spectrum the launch reminded Britons that the country’s international position had weakened and that Britain simply could not afford to maintain a presence in many areas of the superpower conflict. The effect of the Soviets’ propaganda victory following the launch can, to a certain extent, be ascertained from Gallup opinion polls. When asked in December 1957, who was winning the Cold War, 36 per cent chose ‘Russia’ against 9 per cent who selected ‘The West’.41 The ascent into space increased belief in the capabilities of the Soviet Union. While newspapers contained plenty of scaremongering about the Soviet Union’s newfound potential 59 per cent of respondents believed that ‘Russia’ and ‘The West’ could live in peace with only 18 per cent believing there would be war. This poll suggests that, despite the amount of press coverage which had the potential to provoke fear, the majority were not frightened by the depiction of a Soviet rocket lead. Not all publications, however, accepted the launch as proof of Soviet technological advancement. The News Chronicle continued to exalt liberalism by emphasising the downside to Soviet ideology: ‘Man cannot live by science alone, knowledge, however extraordinary, and technical advancement, however revolutionary, cannot satisfy his needs. He still has to organise society. However great his mastery of machines he still has to master himself.’42 The article echoes the New Statesman’s assertion that the Soviet ideology sacrificed freedom for technological gains. The article suggests a flawed society despite Soviet advancement. The headline ‘Red Moon Politics’ renders the launch as a propaganda stunt rather than vindicating the Soviet system. On 10 October the newspaper urged the West to catch up or to negotiate disarmament, in order to counter the Soviets’ propaganda advantage.43 The News Chronicle, however, rarely depicted the launch of Sputnik as a change in the balance of power, and even then it promoted fear of Soviet advances in nuclear

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weaponry. The message remained ambiguous: while not directly stating that the Soviets were ahead technologically, it clearly accepted the binary opposition of the USSR and the West and acknowledged a war which was waged through the respective networks of state and private media.

The First Earthling in Orbit In November the Soviets restored much of the British population’s Cold War antipathy by launching a live dog, which became known as Laika, into space. Following weeks of speculation over how the Soviets planned to mark their 40th anniversary, prophesies of repainting the moon were unfulfilled, but the dog’s launch provoked outrage from many and a series of puns from the tabloids. ‘Pupnik’ and ‘Muttnik’ became typical names for the satellite.44 The punning continued and was used to refer to satellites for a number of months, especially around the failed American launch on 6 December. The Daily Herald printed the headline ‘Oh What a Flopnik’ while the Daily Sketch front and back page headlines contained the puns ‘Phutnik!’ and ‘Splutternik.’45 Not to be outdone the News Chronicle labelled the American craft ‘The Stay-Putnik.’46 These jokes taunted the American loss of face and were partially influenced by the US’s assumption of the technologically advanced position that Britain had previously held. The attention given to the dog also refocussed attention away from the satellite or the Soviet achievement and increased depictions of the Soviets as uncivilised. Much of the press insisted on naming the animal, despite the Soviets’ assumption that a scientific test subject could be nameless. The attention on the dog’s name depicted it in domestic form and helped to turn readers against the Soviets, who were endangering its life. The dog acquired multiple names. The Daily Herald came up with ‘Fluff’ and ‘Little Lemon’, before settling on ‘Little Barker’, which it translated from the Russian ‘Laika’.47 The Daily Mail decided on ‘Curly’, while the Daily Sketch named the dog ‘Spunky’.48 The Guardian opted for the Russian ‘Damka’ and printed photographs of several test dogs which added to their appeal to humans.49 The naming controversy continued when the Mirror’s front page gleefully attacked the Daily Express for incorrectly naming the dog ‘Little Lemon’. The section finished with the warning ‘The Dog is too important to be anonymous!’50 This seeming

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obsession with the dog’s name cemented its position as the most important aspect of the second satellite. Over the coming days the press continued to present the dog as domesticated and the Soviets, because of their scientific usage of it, as inhumane. Laika’s treatment emphasised the differences between East and West and became a device to demonstrate Soviet barbarity. The launch was announced in the evening by the BBC. By the time that the morning newspapers reported the story the outcry was already widespread. In this respect the press followed a spontaneous movement, which Colin Seymour-Ure suggests was a common technique for newspapers to remain relevant to their readership.51 The story led to protests which were in turn reported and produced further responses from the readership. Each newspaper reported similar statements from organisations such as the RSPCA and their Western European counterparts which had received huge numbers of phone calls complaining about the mission. The Daily Herald reported that: ‘Dog lovers of the world united.’52 This pun on the Marxist slogan situated space firmly within the Cold War. The Soviets’ own terminology, instead of proving their superiority and advancing the cause of the world’s working classes, succeeded in uniting dog lovers against them. While the appealing names attributed to the dog exacerbated negative feelings around the launch many newspapers stopped short of condemning the Soviets directly, therefore allowing their readership to speak through their protests. The shared experience between press and their publics helped to direct the broader Cold War narrative. As with the first launch some newspapers tied space exploration to British esteem. A Daily Mail cartoon by Illingworth on 4 November celebrated Western explorers; in doing so it connected with waning feelings of superiority because of the declining British Empire. Illingworth drew a gallery of famous explorers with the latest Eastern addition of ‘Curly’ placed by Khrushchev.53 The image indicates a clear dichotomy between West and East which is emphasised by the dog’s inclusion. Many of the explorers – Cook, Livingstone, Scott and Hillary – are exemplars of Britain’s colonial glories. Peter Hansen has shown how news of the New Zealander Edmund Hillary’s ascent of Everest in 1953 was withheld until the day of the Queen’s coronation, allowing the effort to be seen as a ‘great British achievement’ and generating a continuity of imperial discourse.54 Illingworth’s cartoon connected with

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this late imperial ideal, expressed through the spirit of discovery and adventure. Illingworth did not celebrate any Eastern Bloc explorers; the demotion of the Soviet Union’s most recognisable figure to picture hanger reinforced this. The cartoon returns to the idea of Soviet inferiority: while the other figures are symbols of discovery and Western adventurism, all the Soviets can offer towards human advancement is an animal. Newspapers often treated Laika’s space flight in a more humorous way than their readers. The Daily Herald ran a competition titled: ‘Just how intelligent can a dog be?’ It took the form of a caption competition in which readers matched the dog’s thought to the appealing photograph of a husky. The readership could choose from several captions: A. Laika? I love ’er! B. So they left it to us dogs again! C. What’s that? Space CATS?55 Such jocular treatment of Laika also built on the popular reaction to the news of the flight. Intelligent thought was attributed to animals and the appealing photographs helped to create an atmosphere in which scientific experimentation on animals was seen as barbarism. The Daily Herald’s reader competition followed the Daily Sketch’s front page picture of a Husky captioned: ‘I’m a Space Dog, Win Me!’ This endearing image complemented the informal language of the newspaper. Along with the various cartoons and puns made about Sputnik the light-hearted treatment of the space race and general interest in space travel continued. The Daily Mirror turned Laika into a star and situated her as central to the Cold War. They printed reports on Laika’s well-being and William Connor’s Cassandra column discussed her. Cassandra reacted to anger surrounding the dog’s launch by questioning why people never protested about dogs dying on Britain’s roads or monkeys used in British experiments.56 He imagined Laika going through a Stalin-era interrogation process and confessing: I am wholly responsible and solely guilty for the failure of Sputnik Experiment Two. I freely admit that my dogma has been deviationist and my attitude towards space-rocketry has not been

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in accordance with the principles laid down by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Guy Fawkes. I am deeply conscious of my mistakes and realise how far I have strayed since I was awarded the Bolshoi Biscuit for my Indictment of Crufts Hierarchy of Hereditary Hounds. Laika became a cipher for the Cold War, and the news included knowingly made-up reports that made light of her plight but situated it within the more serious context. Laika is depicted as a victim of the Stalinist purging that was perceived to have continued into the Khrushchev era. The piece adds humour with the puns on ‘dogma’ and ‘strayed’, alongside the imagining of a parallel dog world which was divided in ways similar to humanity. However, the false confession recycles previous Western perceptions of the East and recalls not only Winston Smith’s false confession in Nineteen Eighty-Four but also LayeParker’s various confessions in A Call on Kuprin. The false confession suggests that the press narratives presented the Soviet state as wholly totalitarian to the extent of being able to change individuals’ beliefs and self-perceptions. The Daily Mirror initially declared that Laika would die, yet they continued to republish the false updates that the Soviet government had distributed in order to suggest that she was still alive.57 A poem written by popular fiction author Denise Robins reflected on the public concern for Laika: Little dog lost to the rest of the world Up in your Satellite basket curled Do you feel lonely? Do you know fear? What can you see and what can you hear? [. . .] Scientists are watching – men standing by Waiting to see if you live or you die. Little Dog Lost, will you shrivel or thrive? I wish I could think that you’d come down alive!58 Robins further domesticated Laika and contributed towards the outpouring of emotion. Robins’ articulated the feelings that many might be unable to put into words. The poem depicts Laika as a

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domestic creature and an intelligent being which has no place in outer space. Robins attributed human emotions such as loneliness, fear, and hope to Laika. She returned to the Western conception of a pet that exists only to be owned. As a poem ‘Little Dog Lost’ is simplistic: it appears to be a straightforward outpouring of emotion directed towards an animal; yet it raised the possibility that she still lived. Claire Molloy reveals that the Daily Mirror throughout the 1950s helped to establish the narrative of Britain as a nation of animal lovers.59 The Mirror and other areas of the press used this pet-loving narrative in the manner that Molloy suggests: animal stories are regularly used, to increase sales, and when combined with Laika’s story they acted to evoke emotions and helped to integrate readerships into each newspaper’s idealised grouping.

The Dog’s Death The narrative of Laika continued for several weeks after her death. Despite previously hinting at Laika’s death, the Daily Mirror regularly raised the possibility that she might return to earth.60 The following week, however, they closed the narrative with a flourish by printing a back-page headline ‘The Death of a Dog’, accompanied by a photograph. A two-page Cassandra obituary quickly turned into an attack on the Soviet gulag system. Towards the end Cassandra returned to an outpouring of sympathy for the dog: ‘No gaol, no solitary cell plunged in darkness was ever like this. One small beating heart, two luminous eyes a plump little body and four paws were buried alive in the heavens.’61 The piece also took on a religious theme with the launch presented as a sacrificial ceremony of modernity. Moreover, Cassandra evoked images of sacrifice and punishment of an innocent by referring to the dog in a ‘spinning metal grave travelling at a prodigious speed around the earth’. The Soviet Union appeared crueller because, despite the attribution of human qualities to Laika, readers could recognise her as an unintelligent and innocent creature which had been ruthlessly used by the communists. Cassandra concluded by quoting the hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ which restated the column’s religious aspect. By referring to a commonly known song, he set out the Cold War dichotomy of Western Christianity against the godless Soviet Union with science taking precedence over any other

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consideration. The article depicts the latter as being willing to sacrifice any person or creature for its communist experiment. The treatment of dogs in the two societies exacerbated the differences. The West was perceived, not just by Cassandra, to respect all life; the Soviets, by contrast, were seen as cruel because they used animals as a tool for their ideological ends. The next day Cassandra reported that he had been inundated with telephone calls from communists who questioned his ‘assertion that dog had died “slowly and painfully”’.62 Cassandra cited this as ‘a classic example of the calculated communist technique of acting in concert under a direct command from a central source’. The Cassandra column formed part of the left’s attack on communism, an ideology reduced to being a centralising, hierarchically controlled system. The piece contrasts with the reports of the masses of callers to animal welfare organisations, the BBC and Soviet embassies, which accompanied the second launch. These callers, although influenced by Western ideology, were never accused of acting in concert. Molloy suggests that animal campaigns in the media often act to cement the relationship between press and readership when a newsworthy animal is eventually saved.63 The press campaign was unable to prevent Laika’s death – which had occurred shortly after take-off – but by continuing the narrative they raised emotions which culminated in a sustained outpouring of anger towards the dog’s killers and the Cold War enemy: the Soviet Union. The attention given to Laika prompted letters to several newspapers which demonstrated antagonism not only towards the Soviets, but also scientists. Mrs J. H. Kemp of Kent wrote to the Daily Herald: ‘I can’t get that dog out of my thoughts. I feel terrible about it. If they must send up living things why not collect a few child murderers.’64 Like Cassandra’s later columns, Kemp equates the scientific test with the punishment of an innocent being. The letter shows an emotive response to the news and this continued across the spectrum of opinion on this launch. A letter published beneath Kemp’s by Edmund Charnley claimed ‘Man’s quest for knowledge is more important that any number of animals. I find this talk about the dog sickening and nonsensical.’ This communication directs emotion differently. The author appeals to reason and rationality, despite talking about being sickened by the furore over Laika. The dog evoked emotion from many people but others were more concerned by the ‘hysterical’ reaction.

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The Daily Mail quantified its readership’s response towards the dog and stated that 55 per cent of correspondents ‘condemned the Russian action without qualification’.65 Such a statement provides an idea of the anger which emerged following the launch but it does not tell us whether the reaction was caused by the dog’s mistreatment or because it was the Soviets who did this. One reader, Christine Bareham, hinted at the reasoning behind the condemnation: ‘I have not heard of a single British scientist protesting . . . Does this mean that our scientists are in favour of such abuse of the canine species and only regret that they were unable to get there first?’66 While Bareham implicitly condemned the Soviets for their actions, she directed anger towards the broader scientific community for their failure to join in the denouncements. Bareham mentioned the ‘abuse of the canine species’, as though the Soviets were engaged in widespread maltreatment of dogs. Another reader who condemned the dog’s treatment was the publisher Sir Newman Flower who urged others to ‘do what I am going to do – refuse to buy any article or goods known to be of Russian origin’.67 His proposed boycott reveals how Laika exacerbated Cold War tensions. Her space flight prompted a similar reaction from Flower as the invasion of Hungary had for many British people the previous year. Flower’s letter is indicative of a broader trend in British society, which treated the launch as conclusive proof that the Soviets were inhumane. A number of Daily Mail readers were annoyed at the controversy that Laika’s flight had prompted. Several wrote and stressed the universal benefits of scientific development. M. A. Winttor wrote: ‘How can we hope to progress technologically when impeded by a public with more sympathy for street-fouling disease spreading beasts than its own kin?’68 Winttor compared the outcry over Laika with cases of mistreatment of humans which did not evoke such emotions. A second form of attack over the dog furore used religion; the Daily Mail’s correspondence page featured two such letters, the most interesting of which, from a Mrs E. White, states: ‘To suggest a minute’s silence for the unfortunate dog comes perilously near a breach of the first commandment.’69 The correspondence suggested that, in common with Cassandra’s columns in the Daily Mirror, the dog was being deified. Religion helped to spread opposition to communism but also influenced the reaction to Sputnik and Laika. Therefore, Christianity was not evoked simply as an opposition to communism but as part of the British way of life.

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Christianity was one the key motifs that existed throughout the Cold War, and reference to religious ideas demonstrates how it continued to influence British identity throughout 1950s at least, which runs counter to statistical interpretations based on church attendance.70 As with the Daily Mail, the Manchester Guardian quantified its letters. On 6 November they stated that 52 per cent of all letters received since news of the second satellite were about the dog, and 66 per cent of these condemned the launch outright; the Guardian printed a sample which covered the case for and against the experiment.71 Conservative MP Douglas Dodds-Parker argued that the outcry over the dog was hysterical when compared to the real crimes of the Soviet Union: ‘Soviet scientists suggest that the dog in the second satellite may return to earth alive. Thousands of people deported by the Kremlin did not have this dog’s chance of survival.’72 Dodds-Parker unquestioningly applied the stereotype of the cruel Soviets, but did not condemn the experiment; instead he questioned his countrymen’s reaction which he claimed was muted following far greater crimes. Another correspondent, Marjorie Gardner, highlighted the ambiguous relationship between science and the general population. She quoted the late-nineteenth-century novelist George Gissing: “‘I hate and fear science . . . I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world.’” For Gardner, Laika symbolised Gissing’s prophesy. Gissing has been presented as part of a ‘literati revolt’ against science, which had remained a feature into the twentieth century with C. S. Lewis’s 1945 novel That Hideous Strength engaging with religious ideas of natural laws to suggest limitations on scientific experimentation.73 Gardner’s letter formed part of what Morris Gorman views as an attack on the lack of humanism in science which had Gissing at its centre.74 The letter suggests that the questions over the relationship between science and society existed before the controversy between C. P. Snow and F. R. Leavis, which emerged following Snow’s Rede Lectures in 1959.75 The belief that scientific development threatened life has partially developed through fiction. Nevertheless, the letters were divided between science’s detractors and defenders. The latter often resorted to the teleological idea that scientific development meant human progress. The defence automatically equates technological development as being good for humankind without questioning the social relations that both make and result

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from it. Many authors who might be termed part of the ‘literati revolt’ attacked the automatic association of science with progress through dystopian fiction. In terms of Cold War perceptions this suggests that both science’s critics and supporters viewed it as a monolithic entity which held the ability to drive humankind’s future either positively or negatively and which could not be resisted. Science was depicted as an international discipline, which therefore produced some of the criticisms in the press that British scientists had not condemned the Soviets. Science was often perceived to be universal and mutually supporting even across the vast Cold War divide.

Conclusion The Soviets’ space lead became a central part of the Cold War experience. It jolted orthodox Cold War depictions of the Soviet Union as an uncivilised system in a country which was struggling to cope with industrialisation and overcome the destruction suffered in World War II. British narratives both celebrated and feared the progress of the Other. The Soviets’ space lead revealed public discourses which were part of a process of questioning the British and Western belief systems. The main change was a rethinking of what modernity meant; it now seemed impossible to suggest that it was absent from the Soviet system. The teleology of liberalism, which was usually manifested within the narrative of freedom under representative party democracy, was forced to reassert itself and it took the launch of the American satellite early in 1958 to return to the notion of parity. Furthermore, this Cold War struggle exacerbated the battle between Christianity, secularism and the role of science in Western society. As humankind reached into the heavens, the naysayers launched warnings of the unknown and some kind of divine retribution which might emerge from space exploration. That the early advancement was made by the godless Soviet Union only acted to amplify the fear that Christianity was becoming moribund. Science was often presented as a homogenous entity which formed itself into a teleological metaphor for the human story and which would therefore replace Christianity as the dominant Western system of thought. In the struggle between modernity and pre-modern hangover, science as a worldwide entity was driving the human story to the next level of development.

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The Soviets’ achievement caused Britons to consider the success of the centrally planned Soviet system. Various areas of the social democratic left suggested that the ambiguously defined ideology of ‘socialism’ was in the ascendency. This celebration of Soviet advancement, however, did not take seed in the British press or among most of the left which remained largely anti-communist. The cause for celebration, which simultaneously prompted fear of the consequences of Soviet space exploration, meant the event was also lauded for the human achievement or, in some cases, tenuous links to it being a British exploit. The narrative of early space exploration displays how it moved from fiction into an imagined reality that contributed to the British livedexperience of the Cold War. From its inception readerships were invited to engage with the space age, which prompted the audience to think about the consequences of space exploration. When the second satellite, containing the dog, was launched the anthropomorphism of an animal helped to perpetuate the myth of an uncivilised and inhumane Other. Moreover, the importance of naming the dog became central in producing its legend. Longer-term narratives of British national decline, combined with widespread condemnation of the Soviets, led to a counter-narrative of the West being more civilised because of its apparent abstention from the inhumane treatment of animals. While space exploration was the realisation of science fiction scenarios it also prompted future fictional engagements with science and the Cold War such as Maurice Edelman’s A Call on Kuprin. The novel was a spy thriller whose plot revolves around attempts to persuade a Soviet rocket designer to defect.

CHAPTER 6 THE THRILLER AND THE COLD WAR

In 1956 two British foreign office diplomats appeared on television in Moscow. They had both disappeared in 1951. The pair revealed that they had been passing British secrets to the Soviets for decades. Their names, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, have become associated with Cold War treachery and betrayal against Britain. Their defections prompted a public search for ‘a third man’ who was eventually unmasked as the intelligence officer Kim Philby, and by the end of the Cold War the ‘Cambridge Five’ network was revealed to have included another civil servant, John Cairncross, and Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures. The scandal breathed new life into the British spy thriller, which became immensely popular throughout the rest of Cold War and defined the way that many people perceived the conflict. This interest was fuelled by further intrigues. In October 1962 the former British Naval Attache´ in Moscow, John Vassall, was jailed for passing information to the Soviets. Vassall had been blackmailed into spying. As a homosexual during an era of state-ordained persecution in Britain, Vassall fell into a Soviet ‘honey-trap’. In 1954 he attended a party in Moscow where he got drunk and was photographed engaging in homosexual activity. Cases such as these allowed spy fiction and drama to become central to the British imagination of how the Cold War was being waged. Spy fiction has long been seen as a fundamental part of British Cold War culture. Michael Denning argues that the genre emerged out of

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adventure and detective fiction, with espionage novels exposing ‘the crises and contradictions of ideologies of nation and empire and of class and gender’.1 Recent scholarship has offered large-scale surveys of the genre.2 This chapter has a narrower focus and mainly explores Maurice Edelman’s A Call on Kuprin. The novel has been overlooked during the creation of a spy fiction ’canon’ which includes the most popular authors such as Ian Fleming or the more literary John le Carre´. Edelman was Labour MP for Coventry North and he combined his experience of visiting the Soviet Union with his engagement with the class structure that dominated British politics. My focus in this chapter is the manner in which the novel exposes anxieties over class and masculinity, which emerged in British society throughout the 1950s.3 Hammond identifies a ‘reactionary’ school of spy fiction that acted as a bulwark against the loss of empire and changes to gender and class privilege, which was challenged by a progressive genre of spy fiction that emerged through the breakdown of deference.4 Kuprin belongs to the latter and it highlights the conflict between the establishment parliamentarian who fails in his mission and the working-class agent who competently serves the nation without seeking personal glory. However, the novel’s characters remain amateur agents and as a result the book does not quite fit with ‘the new realism’ that characterises later spy fiction.5 Edelman’s novel is a Cold War thriller in which national and ideological allegiances are more important than lifelong friendships and love. A former British paratrooper turned journalist, Smith embarks on a mission to persuade his estranged friend, the Soviet rocket designer Kuprin, to defect to Britain. The challenges to hegemonic positions of nation and class are key motivators for several characters. It is because of the Cold War setting that Smith is willing to betray his former friend. The upper-class Conservative MP Brian Laye-Parker is forced into a situation where class privilege is meaningless, and his position as a male patrician is undermined by Soviet cunning and duplicity. This chapter examines how conflicts emerge throughout the text, which forces the reader to analyse the differences which exist in the bipolar Cold War world: male and female; heterosexual and homosexual; upper and working class. All of these create a sense of insecurity for the 1950s reader and feed into the larger dichotomy which defines both the text and its era: East and West. The figure of the spy or special agent became a common feature in British culture and went beyond novels, which are the subject of this

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chapter. The BBC regularly broadcast spy fiction. The juvenile radio programme Dick Barton – Special Agent was broadcast from 1946 to 1951 and regularly featured Eastern European characters who attempted to get the better of Barton. A more serious treatment of the spy genre emerged in 1952 when the Light Programme serialised the popular historian Alan Moorhead’s book The Traitors, which was about the atomic spies including Klaus Fuchs.6 The popular radio comedy The Goon Show returned to the light-hearted treatment of spying when it broadcast a parody in the style of Dick Barton called ‘The Whistling Spy Enigma’ in September 1954.7 The show made light of the Cold War encounter between the English and Hungarian football teams, which was explored in Chapter 3. Harry Secombe’s character Seagoon was told by Hercules Grytpype-Thynne (Peter Sellers) that he had to travel to ‘Budapest via Hungary or Hungary via Budapest’ because ‘One thing killed Britain and that was our defeat by the Hungarian football team.’ Seagoon was to take some exploding boots to prevent the Hungarians winning another football match against the British. His signal to pass the boots to a British agent was the whistling of ‘the Hungarian Rhapsody. . .but in English.’ The show ended with a radio announcement that: ‘the match was nearly called off because the British team forgot to bring their football boots, but the Hungarians sportingly gave them theirs’. 1958 Saw a marked increase in spy fiction on radio and television and throughout the year the BBC children’s television programme Studio E ran a spy stories segment narrated by the spy fiction author Bernard Newman as well as a special broadcast called Brainwashing which featured Edith Bone, who had been imprisoned by the Hungarian Communists on suspicion of spying.8 The spy story became a firm part of British popular culture by the end of the 1950s. A Call on Kuprin’s popularity saw it turned into a BBC Saturday night play, starring John Gregson, which screened in two parts in 1961.9 Kuprin was also adapted into a 1961 Broadway play, directed by George Abbott, which featured Americanised versions of the book’s British characters. The novel employs literary techniques to depict the Cold War. Here, I examine how Edelman’s novel portrayed the Cold War as a game, specifically chess, and suggest that this metaphor ran deeper through the literary genre and was more generally present in British culture. I suggest that anxieties over masculinity, class and national confidence affected how the British engaged with the Cold War.

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Furthermore, I examine the role of agency and suggest that this novel was typical of much Cold War culture, which depicted the conflict as the preserve of the specialist. Moreover, when conscripts were used they were often sent to faraway posts such as Korea which distanced them from British society, which on the whole was increasingly focussed on pursuits such as work, leisure or occupied by consumerism rather than being concerned with the Cold War. A Call on Kuprin situated the main characters within the Soviet Union and as such it presented readers with the author’s vision of the East, gained through his visit with the Labour Party in 1954. However, it also reveals much about social changes in British society at the end of the 1950s.

The Cold War as a Game A Call on Kuprin features frequent references to chess. The search for the scientist unfolds using this metaphor for the Cold War. Ultimately it ends with Smith as a pawn of Laye-Parker, who is stuck in stalemate with the Soviets, but whose lack of free will determines that he must capture or kill the Soviet king: Kuprin. However, the game changes frequently and there are allusions to various other games which progress the narrative. The use of a game as a narrative device has been identified by Umberto Eco in his examination of Ian Fleming’s novels.10 Eco suggests that the game metaphor is common in Cold War thrillers. The technique is present in a number of later spy thrillers, for example the chess rules and moves which open most chapters in Len Deighton’s Funeral in Berlin (1964) and draughts as a metaphor in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana (1958).11 Edelman engages with the generic spy thriller by using this device. Frequently subtlety is dispensed with when spy novels employ the metaphor, and its centrality to the text is obvious to readers but continues despite the cliche´. One of the more cliche´d uses of the metaphor is in the titles of Deighton’s Game, Set and Match series in the 1980s.12 By then, however, the genre had developed into a type of kitsch, and the game metaphor became an almost ironic feature of the spy formula. Nevertheless, Edelman wrote before the device became cliche´d and as the Cold War itself was more novel. In A Call on Kuprin the game acts not just as a narrative device, but dramatises the Cold War itself. By extending the metaphor beyond the narrative to the entire Cold War it is possible to see how the

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characters’ actions can be viewed as part of a game. Kevin Brooks, a literary scholar, writes: Many of our actions in life may appear to be moves in a game, may appear to be determined by the conventions and rules of the society we inhabit, but unless we give ourselves up to the game [. . .] we can, presumably, maintain some sense of agency, some sense of our ability to act other than how our communal or societal rules dictate.13 The main characters of the novel – Smith, Kuprin and, to an extent, Laye-Parker – are controlled by the Cold War game and therefore lack the sense of agency that Brooks describes. They are forced into a world where social rules dictate how they behave. Yet even Smith at times acts against the Cold War’s rules. By starting a relationship with Kuprin’s cousin he deviates from playing Laye-Parker’s game. In doing this, however, he reverts to the rules of the spy thriller genre with the key protagonist placing sexual urges above his mission. Edelman’s patrician MP Brian Laye-Parker breaks a code of masculinity in which public restraint and self-reliance are key virtues.14 The Cambridge-educated MP represents two contradictory sides of the British upper class: he is sure of his genetic superiority over the working class and the Soviets, yet as the novel progresses a deeply flawed sense of insecurity about his sexuality emerges. Laye-Parker is a cold warrior and an exponent of realpolitik. He and Smith are former chess players. Each player uses chess to set out his game plan. As Laye-Parker and Smith talk about chess, conversation turns to their Cambridge colleague, Kuprin, who designed the Soviet rocket: ‘“Yes it’s a game I like” . . . “I think could persuade him to return.”’15 Laye-Parker’s initial expression of confidence reveals his attitude to the Cold War: it is dehumanised and is played out like a game. He sees himself as the Western King directing the movements of those like Smith, who will capture his Soviet opposite: Kuprin. The chess theme recurs throughout the novel; Kuprin, Laye-Parker and Smith were all players at university and the first encounter with Kuprin takes place at a chess tournament in Moscow. The scene resembles a chess game. Laye-Parker attempts to reach the Soviet King, but Kuprin is protected in a rook-like movement by his minders. The novel’s narrative unfolds in a chess-like structure with the opening consisting of the

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positioning of pieces: Smith and Laye-Parker are made ready for the assault on the Soviet ranks. The middle consists of attacks on the Soviets and various counter-attacks upon the British characters. Ultimately the trap laid by the Soviet grandmasters in the KGB takes Laye-Parker out of the game, and the narrative moves into an end-game situation in which the Soviet king is stalked and trapped by the British pawn, Smith. Chess was a particularly apt metaphor for the Cold War, which its popularity in fiction and news reflects. The Soviet Union prided itself on becoming the world’s dominant chess power by the 1950s, regularly beating the USA in competitions. Stalin’s commissar for war, Nikolai Krylenko, had a long-term development strategy and organised mass ‘shock brigades of Chess players’.16 The Soviets’ domination of chess can be regarded as a victory of state planning. Chess, therefore, reflected the increasing belief that the East was developing faster than the West. Daniel Johnson describes chess as representing the competition between the two blocs and as a generator of Soviet intellectual prestige.17 Furthermore, chess imagery became one of the key ways that Britons glimpsed the conflict. Johnson discusses the role that chess played in generating an ‘official image of Soviet man as serious-minded, logical and “scientific” even in his leisure activity’.18 This image, however, was also common to the West’s depiction of Soviet identities. Edelman’s use of the metaphor was therefore apt; indeed chess, by its association with

Figure 6.1

Vicky, New Statesman, 10 July 1954.

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Figure 6.2

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Vicky, New Statesman, 10 July 1954.

Soviet national identity, metonymically represented the entire East. Chess was used not just by the Soviets to create a Soviet identity, but by the West in representing a reductive Eastern identity to the public. Chess symbolised the Cold War in a number of forms of British culture, and the cartoonist Vicky regularly depicted the conflict as a game, often to emphasise Soviet diplomatic successes. His New Statesman cartoon of July 1954 extended the metaphor to the entire Soviet hierarchy (Figures 6.1 and 6.2). From pawns as collective farmers through worker-knights, Stakhanovite-bishops up to the GeneralissimoKing, Vicky reflected the manner in which the Soviet revolution had reordered society. The game metaphor was employed to reveal how the Soviets approached not just the Cold War as a series of diplomatic manoeuvres, but also how their ideology opposed capitalism. A mirror image showed a chess set drawn in the style of the ancien re´gime of Bourbon France. The dichotomy, therefore, highlights the change from two centuries earlier. Chess exists as a class system and the game represents different ranks in feudal society. Furthermore, the cartoon suggests that the Bolsheviks had created a modern bureaucratic hierarchy instead of following Marx’s demands for a classless society. It also engages another key symbolic trope which was frequent throughout the Cold War: the role of the mirror image, which suggests that the structures that are criticised in representations of communist society are often reflections of our own. Cold War narratives frequently

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used the looking glass or mirror image to imply a hidden meaning that was masked by propaganda and duplicity. The term became most famously applied to the Cold War in John le Carre´’s spy novel The Looking Glass War (1965). The popularity of mirror symbolism emphasises the cultural perception of difference between East and West, but it also implies that many things were similar. The looking glass reveals a different Cold War world, and Russell Davies and Liz Ottoway note that Vicky made regular references to Lewis Carroll’s fiction, where the idea originates.19 Moreover, the device marks a common Western public perception of alterity which emphasises the differences and exoticisms of the Other rather than similarities. Vicky frequently used chess to suggest the Soviet Union was winning the Cold War. During the prolonged Berlin crisis (1958– 61), he drew Khrushchev as a grandmaster playing the collective Western team including Eisenhower, Macmillan, Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer.20 Khrushchev confidently plays his game alone, representing the East as a hierarchical monolith. Khrushchev plays the pawn figure of Walter Ulbricht against the West, further bolstering the view of the homogeneous and hierarchical East. Khrushchev had delivered an ultimatum stating that the Berlin situation was untenable and he proposed solving the problem by creating a unified and neutral city. Vicky’s utilisation of the chess metaphor accentuates Western fears of Soviet superiority in the arms race and the diplomatic Cold War, but also specific insecurities in Britain about comparative international decline. Britain’s reduced power is revealed by Macmillan standing in the second row only able to advise the West’s player, President Eisenhower. Britain’s imperial decline recalls the game metaphor’s nineteenth century origins in the rivalry between Britain and imperial Russia. Vicky visualises a generations-old metaphor which Edward Said has identified within Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. Said cites the metaphor of the ‘great game’ of imperial rivalry within literature, and uses it to depict the masculine worlds which exist in diplomacy, sport and war.21 By drawing on the metaphor’s cultural continuity and its association with masculinity, Vicky depicts the Cold War as a male and elitist world which prohibits intervention from the general population. Vicky’s frequent employment of sporting metaphors has been identified by Malcolm Gee as an attempt to visualise British national stereotypes.22 As the Cold War developed,

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Vicky continued to associate the conflict with national identity, but also revealed the binary division of geo-politics.

Cold War Insecurity Throughout A Call On Kuprin the Cold War is a motivating factor for the characters. The perceived loss of Western supremacy forces British characters to ruthlessly serve their nation. Moreover, the threat from the Other must be equalised by stealing their technology and persuading Kuprin to defect, or by decapitating their scientific establishment and killing him. The book was not the only spy thriller to engage with the scientific Cold War as a threat, with Deighton’s Funeral in Berlin featuring the potential defection of a molecular biologist. Kuprin’s plot reveals something of the West’s insecurity and the Cold War domain of the masculine. Smith and Laye-Parker act not to equalise the balance of power, as the text claims, but to reverse the threat to Western masculinity and counteract the perceived advance of the Soviet Union. Edelman combines the gradual decline of masculine and upper-class hegemony at the end of the 1950s, with the broader anxiety about the perception of loss of Western supremacy in the Cold War. Historians suggest that this period featured diversification of British identities and challenges to deference following the national shock of Suez, which was a catalyst for social change.23 Kuprin, therefore, questions and eventually destroys power structures; patrician rule and indeed Western civilisation itself appear threatened, not just by the Cold War Other but by domestic forces. Laye-Parker’s insecurity, moreover, is revealed as a driving factor in his Cold War zealousness. Susan Clark has described hypermasculinity as an uncontested type of hegemonic, white heterosexual and conservative masculinity.24 Whereas Clark associates American hypermasculinity with the frontier myth, its British form, which displayed itself throughout the Cold War, was associated with imperialism and by the late 1950s attempts to reassert both national and masculine hegemony were being questioned. The novel challenges predominant notions of masculinity, however, by revealing Laye-Parker to be an anachronism whose position is threatened by modernity. His class status is frequently challenged and further insecurities surface with suggestions that his wife is unfaithful, that he disguises a latent homosexuality, and his apparent jingoism.

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For each of these factors Laye-Parker projects his insecurity onto a person who represents the Other. Laye-Parker represents an establishment figure whose personal issues affect his professional conduct. In many ways he prefigures that later emblem of Cold War fiction, George Smiley, who was created by John le Carre´ and was the central character in his 1960s novels A Call for the Dead (1961) and A Murder of Quality (1962) among others.25 The root cause and final outlet of Laye-Parker’s anxieties is the Soviet Union. Laye-Parker attempts to represent the masculine ideal of the citizen-soldier, which Brian Baker suggests emerged in the post-Suez era because of renewed British insecurity.26 His wife, Isabel, is Laye-Parker’s comfort and confessor. As he travels through the Soviet Union the MP fears that he might lose his wife, causing him to realise that: He could tell Isabel about it in the privacy of their bedroom, in the darkness of her arms, when she becomes soft, unknown to anyone but himself, a confessional where he could tell almost anything, and feel absolved [. . .] when he came to think of it, he had travelled to Moscow most of all as an act of affirmation to her.27 Laye-Parker’s motivation, therefore, differs from that of others, such as Smith, to whom patriotism and the Cold War are decisive factors. The differences between these two male protagonists demonstrates Lynne Segal’s notion of conflicting postwar masculinities, with Laye-Parker attempting to be the family-orientated male, and Smith as the war hero who values freedom above family life.28 Ultimately both varieties fail, Laye-Parker’s by his emasculation and Smith’s by his murder of Kuprin; this suggests an insecurity born of the Cold War which is channelled through Edelman’s novel. Laye-Parker’s involvement, and indeed the entire mission, is based on selfishness and on maintaining his relationship with a woman he suspects of infidelity. He uses the operation to reaffirm his masculinity. Smith’s deferential but accomplished nature clashes with Laye-Parker’s insecurity and suggests that, in contrast to Clark’s concept of a constrained liberal masculinity, some British fiction actually challenged hypermasculine hegemony.29 This notion is also revealed in John Bryan’s The Man Who Came Back (1958), in which the class system, which dominates British intelligence, relies not so much on a working class figure per se but rather Sarel,

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an intelligence officer from Canada, and subsequently implants parts of the increasingly disconnected empire within Britain’s Cold War.30 For Laye-Parker the romantic confessional and the intimacy, which he knows are not his exclusively, are a crutch which allow him to forget his insecurities. The passage acts as a reassertion of Laye-Parker’s masculinity and heterosexuality; he embodies the tradition and values upon which his status and power are reliant. When he is with Isabel he is able to escape from his Cold War emasculation. Laye-Parker meets an academic, Trifonov, who appears to be a dissident, and attends a party where he meets intellectual dissenters. As his relationship with Trifonov develops, it becomes apparent that Laye-Parker is being seduced, not by the literary critic, but by his imagined ideal that groups of intellectuals are waiting for the right moment to overthrow the Soviet regime. At the party Laye-Parker is introduced to Anneliese, an actress, and the only person beside Trifonov who can speak English. As the conversation progresses Laye-Parker’s feelings towards his new friends change: ‘I heard him,’ said Trifonov, linking his arm in Anneliese’s. Laye-Parker saw the movement from the corner of his eye, and objected to it. Till the present he had regarded Trifonov as an abstract thinker, preoccupied with ideas. His arm linked in Anneliese’s offended him. It made Trifonov too human, Anneliese too accessible.31 Laye-Parker’s conception of the East is shattered. He objects because he is attracted to the differences to the West which are implicit in the characters of Trifonov and Anneliese. He realises the similarity in relationships between the two nations. His discomfort is caused not by the idea that the woman he desires appears to be seduced by another man, but because his friend, who helped to create his image of the East, is also human. Furthermore, he is upset because he is excluded from the embrace. Anneliese is from East Germany and the action with Trifonov represents the binding together of the East into one homogenous entity which excludes Laye-Parker. Eventually Trifonov metaphorically brings the Englishman into the Eastern Bloc when ‘he linked his other arm in Laye-Parker’s’. This acceptance into the East represents Laye-Parker’s return of confidence and security, but also the dropping

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of his guarded distance from the Other. Laye-Parker’s encounter with the East suggests that there was much more scope for East and West to mix, and it is useful to view it with reference to Heonic Kwon’s ‘multidimensional matrix of “Us and Them”’, with certain Easterners occupying different positions for Laye-Parker, who shifts across several points on the matrix as he is embraced by the Other.32 Trifonov is in one corner of the matrix because of the characters’ difference to Britishness, but Anneliese is considered more similar. Laye-Parker moves across the spaces until he believes he occupies a similar position to Trifonov. This variation in representation of the bipolar conflict is also visible in Cold War detective fiction such as Bryan’s The Man Who Came Back, where an MP who returns from the USSR desires ‘to be a bridge’ between the antagonistic East and West, further suggesting that by 1958 the binary depiction lacked solidity.33 Trifonov and his friends take the inebriated Laye-Parker to a restaurant. Here Laye-Parker’s idealised view of the Eastern bloc is confirmed. When he arrived, ‘the table was already piled with horsd’oeuvre - brown bread, salt herring, pickled cucumbers, ham, sliced sturgeon and liver pate. A bowl of caviar in crushed ice stood in the centre surrounded by four carafes of vodka.’34 Laye-Parker feels he has joined a gathering of the Eastern intellectual elite. Furthermore, he believes this alluring image, which is the opposite of his hatred and disdain for the East, and is vital to his creation of an essentialised Other. As he becomes drunk the Russian vodka and gypsy music further romanticise his idealised image of the East. Laye-Parker feels he is seducing Anneliese. His enticement into the East becomes complete when he rejects the attempts of his British colleagues, in the guise of the undercover agent Holloway, to extract him from the situation. A waiter manhandles Holloway out of the restaurant and Laye-Parker shouts: ‘Holloway, go home!’35 For Laye-Parker his acceptance into the East has overcome the original reason for his visit: his seduction by the Other has changed his Western identity so that his romanticised ideal controls his actions. This act can be seen to symbolise the breaking of both of the postwar masculine identities identified by Segal: LayeParker’s mission emphasises the soldier-subject identity in order to replace that of the family man but now he rejects his nation and his association with the enemy suggests his removal from the masculine sphere.36

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When Laye-Parker awakes his new-found association with the East is still present. The romantic image remains but is strewn with feelings of nausea as he fights the effects of alcohol and attempts to consciously recover his Western identity. His dream-like state and reality compete. The passage begins, ‘An alp sat on his chest, a monster with knees that compressed his diaphragm, an evil without a face.’ This allusion to illness adds a hallucinatory quality to the scene and continues later in the paragraph: ‘The voices didn’t stop. They were talking about him; he knew it; but they were in remote places among the suns and explosions that shone and burst around him. He gave in, and sank into the waters.’37 Laye-Parker’s internal illness and romanticised image distance him from reality. The passage confuses both Laye-Parker and the reader. The nausea and the feeling of a crushing weight are products of alcohol or drugs. The reader assumes that the suns and explosions are also his bodily reactions. Laye-Parker’s seduction by the East maintains its allure as he feels another body in the bed with him: ‘Anneliese. His hand moved over the firm flesh, and a stir of guilt and pleasure rose in Laye-Parker’s loins. His fingers travelled contentedly over the hard smoothness of a breast-bone; over the moist and yielding tissues of flesh . . ..’ It appears that his sexualisation of the Other has reached completion. In conquering Anneliese, Laye-Parker has conquered the Eastern Bloc; it is a Cold-War battlefield which few would encounter but he has fought there and won. He simultaneously feels guilt and pleasure. Laye-Parker conforms to the genre’s formula, which Baker suggests occurred ‘throughout Cold War espionage fictions, where the “dangers” of emotional or sexual contact with the “Other” are emphasised’.38 Laye-Parker, however, ignores these dangers and actively seeks sexual contact with the Other and betrays both his wife and his country. The novel’s chess-like narrative re-emerges within the sentence that exposed Laye-Parker’s seduction by the East. A Soviet trap is sprung on him as they launch a counter-attack: ‘and then, in a moment of horror, he stopped. His fingers were resting on a stubble chin.’ His emasculation is sudden and complete. He feels horror. Suddenly Laye-Parker’s defeat is multiplied: ‘“Get up!”’ a voice rasped in English . . . the suns that had been blazing into his hidden retinas changed into the flash-camera of a photographer . . . “Dress” said the other. “We are from State Security.”’ At once Laye-Parker’s exoticised image is shattered and the reality reveals the Other to be harsh and brutal. Eastern deviousness is displayed

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through the honey-trap and the MP’s false sense of security. The novel associates the East with homosexuality; a feature which Alan Nadel argues was common to Western culture, and created Cold War portrayals of a ‘gendered courtship narrative’ between the USA and Soviet Union.39 The world, therefore was divided into binary dichotomies of polarised opposites including masculine/feminine and heterosexual/homosexual. This range of dichotomies, which is created by the West in its generation of the stereotypical East, permits the dual possibilities which Edelman created for Laye-Parker in seeing the East as simultaneously feminine and alluring, and homosexual and repulsive. By allowing Laye-Parker to carry homosexual ambiguity, Edelman generates another layer of otherness. Class differences between the characters create a dichotomy within Western identity. The linkage of the Other and homosexuality can be seen as both a product of the Cold War and of 1950s culture itself. As Segal suggests, homophobia was a method of regulating masculinity by repressing the feminine in men, and during the 1950s persecution intensified following the defections to the Soviet Union of Burgess and Maclean in 1951.40 The association in Edelman’s novel and the coincidental similarity to the Vassall case, whose details would not be known until 1962, utilises the connection between the fear of both subversive homosexuality and communism. The discovery of Laye-Parker’s homosexual past reinforces his opposition to 1950s British society. Laye-Parker’s arrest and treatment by the Soviets causes him to accentuate his British identity. Upon arrival at the jail he demands, ‘“I want to see your senior officer. . . . and take your bloody hands off me.”’41 His immediate reaction to the threat to his masculinity is to assert the authority he commands by birth in Britain; he insinuates that the Soviets have no right to treat him like this. Edelman highlights the deference which Laye-Parker expects and which was being challenged throughout this era; that the defiance comes mainly from the communist state rather than Smith, or even Holloway, suggests that ideas of class had not quite diminished. Edelman invites the reader to question class relationships and the apparent persistence of deference throughout the novel. Laye-Parker’s demand to see the senior officer highlights both his belief in his own class-based superiority and his naivete´ in failing to realise the difference between West and East. Returning to the chess metaphor, he has been caught in check. He makes a play to extricate himself:

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‘“Brian Laye-Parker of Beckworth Court, London S.W.1. I am a British member of parliament, and I refuse to answer any further questions.”’ The Soviets, however, no longer adhere to the rules and his appeal to fair play is quickly rebuked: ‘“Strip”, said the man in the summer suit . . . “I do so under duress.”’ Routine and casualness are implied by the summer suit, suggesting that this is an ordinary circumstance. The choice of clothing reveals the wearer’s casual professionalism. The novel engages with Western concepts of totalitarianism and the ‘banality of evil’ which were advanced by the late 1950s. Although Hannah Arendt’s book, which popularised the latter phrase and which refers to the everyday operation of participants in totalitarianism, was still four years away, it is possible to see the features that she would analyse in this fictional representation of the Soviet security service.42 They are ordered, efficient and carry out their jobs according to their rules. The further emasculation of the respectable Englishman shows a disdain for tradition and suggests that the Eastern mindset is brutal for its lack of fair play. Within Laye-Parker’s Western mindset, however, this is a grave error, and the only way out is to return to the rules of the game. He is a prisoner of the Cold War but the rights that might be extended in a conventional war no longer apply because of the lack of boundaries. Yet he knows no other way to behave. His emphasis on his duress becomes not only a failed attempt to assert his superiority; it is also a plea to return to the rules of war, or the game, and to fight on his own terms. Laye-Parker’s doubts about the Soviets following the rules of the game are confirmed when his captors trap him in check by revealing his inquisitor: ‘“My friend Trifonov.” He had begun to think of him in that way . . . “My friend the provocateur . . . No more talk of literature, Trifonov?” . . . “No, Laye-Parker, no more talk of literature.”’43 This revelation further unravels Laye-Parker’s imagined East. His seduction has now returned to revulsion. Trifonov, who had made the East attractive and revealed its potential for a gentler and intellectual sphere, has become the most brutal of all. Laye-Parker is particularly disturbed by Trifonov’s abuse of friendship. This demonstrates not only a difference in values between East and West but also Laye-Parker’s insecurity: he had admired the Russian and craved acceptance. Now, however, he sees that the whole thing was a ruse which exploited his insecurity. Trifonov’s character suddenly changes: he moves from being a benign literature professor to being a calculating member of the Soviet

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organs of repression. Once again, the analogy with the ‘banality of evil’ becomes paramount. Trifonov is able to operate in several occupations and the Soviet secret police is just a job like any other which offers advancement for the detached professional. As his interrogation progresses, the Soviets exacerbate Laye-Parker’s insecurity about his wife and a former arrest that had occurred during the war for ‘“persistent . . . importuning of male persons.”’44 As his previous offence is read out Laye-Parker interrupts: ‘“I don’t want to hear it,” . . . his voice croaking, “I don’t want to hear it.”’ This marks the height of Laye-Parker’s emasculation and leads to a suicide attempt. It suggests that his insecurity is based on threats to his position in society. In terms of the dichotomies set out by Nadel, it is not the Soviet Union which represents homosexuality, but the British upper class. The East uses it as a tool in order to dominate the West, suggesting that Britain’s weaknesses were the divisions it imposed in terms of class and hegemonic type of masculinity. Laye-Parker’s despair is connected to the failure of the family ideal. He has attempted to be the family man in order to mask his previous homosexual identity. This act of selfrepression on the part of Laye-Parker would not have been uncommon in the UK of the 1950s which, as Leif Jerram shows, was characterised by the legalised persecution of homosexual men.45 Jerram also suggests an earlier period of comparative freedom, where homosexual practice often coexisted with masculine values. Edelman applies this practice to LayeParker and is potentially critical of the persecution of homosexuals because of the way that the Soviets use the information.46 Laye-Parker’s crisis is heightened, as both his class position and masculinity have changed and threaten his identity. The Soviets use Laye-Parker’s deteriorated mental state against him by attacking his sense of self. Previously there was no doubt over Laye-Parker’s identity. Now, however, the MVD attempt to distort his identity: ‘“But Zagornetz”, said Makarov patiently, “He’s told us everything – that he’s been working with a Laye-Parker. You say you didn’t work with him. So how do we know you’re Laye-Parker?”’47 The approach shows the Soviets engaging in Orwell’s concept of doublethink: the ability to accept two contradictory facts simultaneously. They believed that Laye-Parker was the person they arrested but also that if he did not work with Zagornetz he was not Laye-Parker. This is a further extension of the MVD playing a game against the MP.48 They were aware

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who Laye-Parker was, but his denial of spying has now thrown this into doubt. The Laye-Parker that the Soviets know through their other prisoners is a spy, so if he denies being part of the network he cannot be Laye-Parker. This denial of identity is reminiscent of the paradoxical trope that runs throughout Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.49 Edelman’s anticipation of the American novel also engages one of its central criticisms of the absurdity of bureaucracy. Here we see an omnipresent MVD denying its own painstakingly gathered information. Edelman uses the paradox to continue the attack on the Soviet bureaucratic system rather than criticise the West and capitalism, as Heller does. Laye-Parker reasserts his superiority over the East when he reveals his network to the MVD: ‘“To start with there’s Christopher Robin [. . .] Bulwater Lyton and William Sykes [. . .] Bishop Stortford [. . .] and then there’s my other connection – Willesden Green.” People or Railways – it was a game he hadn’t played for thirty five years.’50 This subversion restores Western superiority and returns the Cold War to its game status. Laye-Parker, however, has changed the rules of the game, as had the Soviets previously. The narrative, to continue the chess allusion, is entering the phase of the end-game, with Laye-Parker beginning a counter attack.

An Agent Without Agency The main protagonist in the novel is Smith, a working-class, grammarschool boy and Cambridge graduate, who joined the paratroopers before becoming a journalist. Smith, however, rarely makes his own decisions; he defers to Laye-Parker because of his class position and loyalty to Britain. As a cold warrior this accentuates his dedication; it also absolves him from blame and makes him a victim of the decisions taken by those who monopolise power. Smith is similar to Segal’s ‘wartime hero’ figure, he puts nation above personal interests and as such is the antithesis of Laye-Parker, who has failed as both ‘family man’ and ‘wartime hero’.51 The question of agency occurs in the first chapter when Smith returns home from watching the Soviet’s spacecraft the Chelovyek, where LayeParker had proposed the mission. The narrative describes his mood: ‘He felt contented. In all those houses people were being born and were dying, they were ill and were making love, they were fighting and being reconciled; and he had said “no” to Laye-Parker.’52 This passage shows

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that Smith’s happiness comes from the ordinariness of everyday life and being outside the Cold War; he does not seek glory or adventure. His refusal to participate in Laye-Parker’s scheme sets him alongside the unknown people in the houses within the ordinariness of 1950s Britain and he represents something of a change from Nyman’s hardboiled autonomous adventure-seeking male character.53 The passage, however, describes something beyond Smith’s desires for a normal life: the ordinariness of the Cold War for the general population. While many ‘ordinary’ people in the novel might hear about the Cold War intermittently, it does not affect them on a daily basis. Most people are distant from the decisions taken by people like LayeParker and acted out thousands of miles away in the Soviet Union. Deference characterised the early Cold War and the population, like Smith, do not make the decisions but defer to those who hold power. Neither Smith nor Laye-Parker are professional spies yet Smith’s former military service places him in the category of ‘emerging professionalism’ which Thomas Price has identified as characterising the spy genre through the 1950s and 1960s.54 Smith’s precision and training make him different to the rank amateur Wormold in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana, who is a salesman, recruited into a bureaucratic network, who simply invents the spying process to satisfy his paymasters.55 Edelman, however, shows up the hollow nature of deference through Laye-Parker’s ineptness and Smith’s detached efficiency. Smith and Laye-Parker, although friendly, are opposites, and their conflict becomes a subtext throughout the novel. Their relative competencies and class divide them: Smith is working class and able, but defers to Laye-Parker who has power but cannot exercise it due to his insecurities and ineptness. Their relationship is highlighted when Smith reflects on the offer: ‘“Let’s go to Moscow and find Kuprin,” Laye-Parker had said with the boyish laugh that took you in the first time. He knew Laye-Parker. It meant each would take responsibility – Laye-Parker for success, he for failure.’56 The Cold War is an individual pursuit for Laye-Parker who uses it for personal glory and reveals the realpolitik of the upper-class male desperate to secure his own position in the process. Laye-Parker appeals to realpolitik when trying to persuade Smith to join the mission: ‘“If Kuprin returned to England – and I’m not exaggerating – the whole Balance will be altered.”’57 His appeal relies on Smith’s patriotism and demonstrates Laye-Parker’s

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manipulative nature. He appeals to Smith as a loyal citizen of Britain. Fighting the Cold War becomes paramount over any personal desire for a quiet life. There is some ambiguity in Smith’s decision to accept the mission; he tells Laye-Parker it is for a ‘change’, but in a personal moment he reflects: ‘I’d be a patriot . . . If only they’d find another word for it.’58 Here a Cold War dichotomy is visible: this war, although different to other wars, displays the same division between the officer class and the average man who is misled and exposed to unnecessary risks. This sense of service is closely related to Smith’s conscription into the Cold War. Baker argues that this type of conscription and submission to the national above the individual puts men like Smith in a contradictory position: they are forced to fight communism but to do so must submit themselves to the collective, therefore adhering to the ideology they are fighting.59 However, postwar British culture did value collective institutions and service to the state was demanded through policies like National Service. Smith does not have the option of turning down the mission because of his sense of duty, but, in contrast to previous twentieth-century wars, he is unsure as to whether it is acceptable to be a patriot. The loss of millions of lives over the course of two general wars and the decline of the British Empire, alongside the loss of British political and economic primacy, means that Smith’s sense of obligation is difficult to define. He cannot call it patriotism, but it is still not his decision to make. As Smith prepares to leave, he visits a specialist at Cambridge University where they listen to a radio broadcast by the British Prime Minister: ‘The danger to peace,’ the Prime Minister went, ‘and there is undoubtedly a danger – lies in the Soviet Union making the false assumption which is clearly not supported by our own knowledge that they are today in a commanding position in respect of intercontinental ballistic weapons.’ ‘It’s a damned lie, and he knows it,’ Smith said. ‘Why doesn’t he tell the country bluntly? They’re ahead, and because they’re ahead they’re liable to use it.’60 The passage presents the Cold War as the preserve of specialists. The Prime Minister is unable to reveal the truth because this war is only

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fought by politicians and specialists. Furthermore, politicians have to assert their ability to the population, causing the Prime Minister to deny the Soviet lead in the arms race. He must also stress that the danger comes, not from the existence of a mutual arms build-up, but from the Soviet belief that they have the best weapons and might act on this. Therefore, the British assume that the Soviet Union is the cause and the danger in the armed standoff. Smith uses his belief that this is deception to justify his own involvement. He wrongly believes that the Soviet space programme puts the USSR ahead in the weapons race, and this is the reason for his involvement in Laye-Parker’s poorly prepared mission. Smith, as someone who refuses to be a cold warrior, displays a naivete´ in expressing a wish that the population are told the truth. He is not in touch with the methods of fighting the Cold War because he defers to others. The Cold War methods of the Prime Minister and Laye-Parker are a central premise behind A Call on Kuprin. The balance of power is crucial to the Cold War and Laye-Parker refers to it in his persuasion of Smith: ‘“The last summit was inconclusive . . . at any moment we and they hoped to negotiate from strength. Wouldn’t you agree that there’d be more hope if we argued not from strength but from” – he groped for the word – “From parity?”’61 The Cold War, therefore, is returned to being a battle of confidence and insecurity. Laye-Parker convinces Smith that the West is insecure and that the Soviet Union has superiority. He utilises Smith’s conception of the Cold War as one of conferences and negotiations and returns to an impersonal conflict fought by politicians, which paradoxically requires the equivalent threat in order to maintain the peace. The critique of the paradox of parity was not unique to Edelman. Vicky had ridiculed the idea in 1955 in several cartoons, the most notable of which was captioned Talking From Strength (Figure 6.3). The cartoon featured Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Nikolai Bulganin and Khrushchev. All stand upon stockpiles of weapons, with each proclaiming, ‘We can make a louder bang than you can. . . .’ Vicky implies that the leaders were engaging in childish behaviour by intensifying the arms race in order to negotiate arms limitations from a position of strength. This Cold War paradox was important to critics of the conflict and became the central critique of movies like Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove.62 Whereas Kubrick takes the paradox of

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Figure 6.3 Vicky, ‘Talking from strength’, Daily Mirror, 14 February 1955.

security to its extreme in launching a war, both Vicky and Edelman emphasise the day-to-day control the arms race holds over each nation’s foreign policy, concluding that neither side in the Cold War is actually in charge of its own arms build-up, with the level of armament dictated by presumptions about the Other. Vicky’s cartoon depicts male domination of the Cold War arena, and reveals how masculinity could be used as a weapon. The missiles are symbolic of manhood and the phrase that each side utters shifts the conflict to a battle for masculinity. Ultimately the winner will be the one who ends up being able to make the ‘loudest bang’ with their fetishised arsenal. Moreover, the association of these symbolic weapons with ‘strength’ places the image within a common Western masculine identity. Vicky’s usage

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predates that of Helen Caldicott, whose Missile Envy reinterpreted the Cold War as driven by masculine insecurity.63 Caldicott’s book is a polemic in favour of nuclear disarmament, which provides a critique of the generally male right-wing Western leaders. It slightly overstates its argument, however, by attributing masculine brinkmanship to a genetic trait, rather than something learned through the patriarchal system in which many of these leaders had spent their formative years. Where the Cold War differs from conventional conflict is the negative connotations of the use of nuclear weapons. It is intended that these symbols will never be used, therefore rendering any winner of a potential nuclear conflict impotent through their non-use. Henri Myrttinen outlines how mass culture has brought the image into popular consciousness: The relationship between ‘masculine’ men and weapons is such a prevailing cliche´ that one finds it everywhere, from advertising to left-wing revolutionary posters, fascist imagery to the novels of Hemingway, war memorials to homoerotic art, from the porn industry to feminist critiques of male militarism. Weapons systems are designed mostly by men, marketed mostly for men and used mostly by men – and in many parts of the world, they are the primary source of death for men.64 For twenty-first century scholars such as Myrttinen, weaponry remains one of the central pillars of the formation of masculinity, to the extent that its ubiquity is exploited by advertisers. Western culture has embedded this metonymical image over many centuries and it forms part of the creation of masculinity. Myrttinen fails to explain, however, how the stereotypical association of weaponry, war and masculinity are equally used to provide a critique of outdated ideas of manhood and the nobility of war. Critiques such as this were present during the nuclear era when masculine strength or parity, through ‘louder bangs’ and nuclear stockpiles, increased the likelihood of being killed. Characters such as Laye-Parker and Smith reveal the weapons fetishism within 1950s masculinity, and it is partly responsible for their potentially suicidal mission. While talking to Ridley, the M15 controller, Smith is offered the chance to change his mind: ‘“Do you still want to go?” Neither of the

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men replied. “I wouldn’t blame you if you dropped the whole thing.”’65 Smith appears to be in control of his destiny. Previously the mission has been justified by ensuring that the UK has the potential, like the Soviets, to destroy millions of lives, and Smith is happy to ensure that this happens. Smith’s attitude changes, however, when the subject of carrying small arms and the potential for violence is raised. Suddenly he asserts his right to choose: ‘“Look here Laye-Parker I’m not in on this if it means violence.”’66 Consequently Smith reveals his attitude to conflict and the Cold War: he is unwilling to commit violence as an individual, but is content for his nation to possess the ability to kill millions on his behalf. In contrast to Laye-Parker, Smith is reluctant to use small arms. Smith has a proven war record and appears secure in his sexuality, while Laye-Parker had been demonstrably incompetent during the war and, as discussed above, involves himself in the mission out of feelings of masculine insecurity. The reaction to Smith’s decision to back out, however, demonstrates that Cold War politics go beyond the individual: ‘“Don’t start getting sanctimonious, Smith,” Ridley said tranquilly. “You’re under starter’s order. You’re an informed and interested party (. . . ) it’s too late to back out. You’re in it my dear fellow. You ought to look pleased – shouldn’t he?”’ Smith’s agency has suddenly been removed; he is reduced merely to the pawn in the global game of diplomatic chess. The use of the phrase ‘my dear fellow’ implies Ridley’s class-based authority which Smith must deferentially accept. Ridley’s offer to withdraw was merely empty rhetoric which provided Smith with the illusion of power over himself. Once in Russia, Smith sets about trying to find Kuprin. Laye-Parker forces him to accept a gun in order to murder the scientist if he refuses to defect. As he does so he utters the words, ‘“Russia minus Kuprin equals peace. Britain plus Kuprin equals peace.”’67 This equation, which changes the mission from persuasion to force, relies on Smith’s willingness to defer to the needs of the Cold War. Laye-Parker sees that the only prospect for peace is for Kuprin to defect or to kill him. Like Smith, the Soviet scientist has no say in the matter; he is at the mercy of the cold warrior. The situation adds tension to the storyline but for a twenty-first-century reader appears to be laced with irony. The need for parity which Laye-Parker talks about is based on the late 1950s assumption that the Soviets were ahead in missile technology. Exaggerated fears of a missile gap were later raised by American

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politicians, notably Nelson D. Rockefeller and later John F. Kennedy.68 Laye-Parker’s insecurity, born of fears about the decline of masculinity, represents the perception of the missile gap. Within Kuprin this parody is more subtle than in Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, where the situation is taken to the extreme and while human survival is debated Strangelove proposes using mine shafts as survival shelters. Fear of the Soviets adopting the same policy leads the belligerent American General Turgidson to declare ‘“Mr President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap.”’ Kubrick’s parody is a direct attack on those who inflated the fears of a missile gap. Edelman reserves judgement on the idea of Soviet superiority and the unending quest for parity through a more subtle approach. He encodes these doubts within the flaws of Laye-Parker and highlights the dangers of Cold War deference. When Laye-Parker’s arrest becomes known, the British authorities decide to abort the mission by recalling Smith. Having chased Smith over various Moscow tourist attractions, the diplomatic assistant Hesketh-Paine locates him as he sits on a train that pulls away to the Crimea, where he is to convince Kuprin to defect.69 Britain’s Cold War attitude is therefore reversed: the decision is made to protect a British citizen instead of an aversion to murder. The Cold War dominates the activities of the British but taking unnecessary risks with their own citizens is too much. Smith’s mission in the Crimea is against both his own wishes and those of his country. The Cold War sense of morality therefore becomes more ambiguous: Smith does not yet realise that he is no longer required to commit murder in the name of the nation. Consequently Britain is redeemed from committing this kind of extrajudicial political murder but will ultimately benefit if it takes place. When Smith finally meets Kuprin the Russian claims he does not want to defect. We learn, however, that, like Smith, Kuprin is bound by his lack of free will. He reads Smith a Soviet decree that if he defects his family will be exiled to Siberia.70 This interpretation of a Stalin-era law recasts the Soviet Union as the repressive state that prevents the free will of its citizen by threatening his family. Smith eventually realises that he must let Kuprin live. However, as he turns to leave, he slips and accidently shoots Kuprin. For Smith, the Cold War has led to this action and he justifies the killing to himself: ‘Alone with ghost of Kuprin [. . .] The volunteer had in the end become a conscript without faith.’71 The two sentences sum up Smith’s feelings on completion of his mission.

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He had simply followed orders, despite his unwillingness to carry them out. It was he who lived with the thought of murder and the loss to Kuprin’s family. Kuprin’s murder has become the weight that Smith must bear in waging the Cold War. By viewing him as a conscript, readers see why he among all the characters lacks a first name: he is simply a foot-soldier fighting for the whims of politicians like Laye-Parker. Smith’s loss of innocence makes him as much a victim of the politician’s Cold War as Kuprin; he has been Laye-Parker’s pawn in a selfindulgent game. The murder occurs with no forces willing it, but Smith acts as the automaton into which he has been turned by Laye-Parker.

Conclusion Maurice Edelman’s A Call on Kuprin was a product of the narrative which had been created since the Soviet’s launch of Sputnik and its effect on how the British lived the Cold War. Edelman engaged with the narrative to dramatic effect combining the Cold War with a renewed fear of Soviet supremacy to produce a text that could only have been believed for a short period during the conflict. Moreover, the text criticised the way in which the Cold War evolved as a game between two hemispheres. Edelman also implicitly criticised the myth of parity and speculation about nuclear capabilities that misinformed both publics during the conflict. Edelman depicted a Cold War in which public agency and knowledge were removed with experts appointed to wage the conflict on behalf of citizens. Edelman’s novel went further than the more obvious engagement with the Cold War. It questioned citizens’ responsibilities to the nation state, the class system and the residual patriarchy, all of which formed part of the ideological conflict over nationhood and class within the UK. Besides engaging with the lived experience of the late 1950s, Edelman’s novel in many ways lay between genres. It was part political thriller and part spy fiction, which allowed it to work alongside popular Cold War narratives. One particular aspect borrowed from the spy genre is the manner in which the narrative unfolds as a game of chess. This produced a metaphor which engaged partly with a Soviet identity which both sides reinforced: intellectual, cunning and calculated. As values related to family and masculinity changed or reasserted themselves through the 1950s, so did Britain’s cultural engagement with Cold War politics and the Other.

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Edelman’s novel, however, takes this a step further and the game becomes a metaphor for the Cold War itself: agency is removed from individuals who act as though directed by the hidden hand of nation states. The Machiavellian nature of the undeclared war is better represented by the game in which brinkmanship and bluff, sacrifice and entrapment, become part of the manner in which the reality of the Cold War could be brought home to the public.

CHAPTER 7 NUCLEAR ANXIETIES AND POPULAR CULTURE

The reaction to America’s Bravo H-bomb tests in 1954 and the subsequent increased public awareness of mutual assured destruction raised concerns over potential nuclear war. These anxieties emerged within the political classes, with Gregori Malenkov publicly declaring in 1954 that a nuclear war would bring ‘the end of world civilisation’ while Khrushchev attempted to ease international tensions because of similar fears.1 This realisation had spread to the American elite by 1956 with President Eisenhower reversing his earlier belligerence and discussing fears over the disastrous consequences of any nuclear war.2 Khrushchev frequently exaggerated the size of the Soviets’ arsenal; John Gaddis identifies 1957–1961 as a period when this nuclear rhetoric was at its most extreme.3 That Khrushchev’s boasts were made without the missiles to back it up was inconsequential; the British public still received the messages, and the clownish nature of the Soviet leader, when combined with his brutal reputation, made him an attractive cover story. The perception of fear was exacerbated by nuclear accidents, which were presented as the great threat to world peace. Following several incidents involving nuclear facilities or bombs, including the Windscale fire in Cumberland in October 1957 and the unintentional dropping of a nuclear bomb by the United States Air Force on Florence, South Carolina in March 1958, public fears of accidental nuclear disasters increased.4 Nuclear accidents led in several cases to missing nuclear weapons or inadvertent activation of internal explosives.5 While the full story of these

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accidents was rarely public knowledge, enough was known to increase anxieties around an accidental nuclear catastrophe. Popular fiction engaged with these anxieties and authors imagined scenarios that might emerge from an attack resulting from a failure in the systems of nuclear weapons control. This chapter examines how public culture was informed by political events and ongoing fears of nuclear war. In particular Peter George’s Two Hours to Doom (1958, published in the USA as Red Alert) and Stephen King-Hall’s Men of Destiny (1959, published in the USA as Moment of No Return) were published during increasing tensions over nuclear armaments. The chapter firstly explores the heightened public sense of nuclear tensions that characterised the late 1950s and examines the early reception of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Anti-nuclear movements grew from the mid-1950s and, following the launch of Sputnik, J. B. Priestley published his article ‘Russia, the Atom and The West’ in the New Statesman, which portrayed the satellite as a catalyst for nuclear competition. CND was formed in February 1958.6 CND both reacted to and contributed towards the development of broader anxieties over nuclear war which emerged in the late 1950s. As Jodi Burkett argues, CND was, simultaneously, radically left and traditionally British in terms of furthering a progressive morality.7 CND brought differing ideological groupings together for the single aim of nuclear disarmament, leading to the apparent contradiction caused by its membership containing a number of clergy who disagreed with official Anglican support for nuclear weapons. The late 1950s saw the explosion of the nuclear disaster genre.8 Several novels examined the effects of such a war, including Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957).9 Shute imagined the final days of a group of nuclear survivors in Australia as they awaited the end of life on earth through radiation poisoning. The novel and its 1959 film adaptation had a wide-ranging impact on public and politicians alike and helped CND to gain support.10 While Shute dealt with the aftermath of war, Bryant and King-Hall speculated about a nuclear holocaust’s potential causes. They drew on increasing Cold War tensions, producing novels which warned about the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Peter George’s Two Hours to Doom, published pseudonymously as Peter Bryant, and Stephen King-Hall’s Men of Destiny, created scenarios where rogue military officers, from the West or East respectively, bring the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. Both novels diverge from the improved diplomatic and cultural relations

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fostered by Khrushchev and Western leaders to lessen Cold War tensions.11 While ‘peaceful co-existence’ led to competition between the spheres, the British emphasised the potential for nuclear conflict. KingHall was a former naval commander and wartime MP who had been a radio personality in the interwar years when he regularly presented BBC’s ‘Children’s Hour’. His memoirs were broadcast on BBC’s Home Service in 1961.12 King-Hall contributed towards political discourse through his self-published weekly National News Letter, which reached a transatlantic audience of over 60,000, as well as publishing occasional polemical books and pamphlets.13 His public persona attracted publicity and Richard Weight argues that he was instrumental in the formation of CND.14 Bryant, on the other hand, was a former RAF officer whose novel was a rare incursion into authorship. Both novels highlight an internal battle within each bloc: the military specialist against the politician, but they also represent the conflict as fought by professionals reducing the general population to being potential victims. This chapter situates both texts within the spectre of nuclear counter-strike systems and their potential for misuse or use in reaction to small-scale peripheral events. The ease with which such destructive systems could be activated evokes the apocalypse narrative that has recurred throughout Western history. I suggest that both texts and anti-nuclear movements, such as CND, were products of an increasing fear of nuclear destruction emerging from an accidental war. Furthermore, both texts engaged with specific Cold War terminology by criticising politicians who talked of peace, while they prepared for war.

Nuclear Anxieties and Protest Movements In 1960 the American economist and conflict theorist, Thomas Schelling, criticised novels which engaged with the fear of nuclear war. In the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Schelling claimed: ‘If war is too important to leave to the generals, accidental war should not be left to novelists.’15 Schelling issued a warning which cited Bryant among others. He criticised the tendency to imagine the Cold War becoming hot and defended the nuclear system: We have evidence in the newspapers that a nuclear weapon may drop out of an airplane in peacetime, though not that one can detonate under the circumstances. But while it is easy to imagine

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how accidents might occur, it is not so easy to trace out how they might lead to war. Schelling’s attempt to dissipate the tension surrounding an accidental nuclear war indicates that these fears were increasing in public discourse. By citing Bryant, Schelling revealed how effective his novel was in its ability to cause the reader to question the usefulness of nuclear deterrence. Two Hours to Doom convinced Schelling to write the article and question the realities behind Cold War fiction. The article’s subsequent republication in the Observer brought the novel to the attention of Stanley Kubrick, who adapted it into his film Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.16 This interaction between fiction and the press suggests that rising fears of nuclear war coincided with CND’s formation and its early popularity. Two Hours to Doom was released into an atmosphere of mass concern over the arms race with the first Aldermaston march in its year of publication.17 Nuclear anxieties recurred frequently throughout the early 1960s, with the Cuban Missile Crisis signalling the apogee of British nuclear fear. Sandbrook argues that the Cold War was generally absent from British daily concerns, noting a general indifference to international politics.18 However, reportage of flashpoints such as the Budapest invasion or nuclear arms race made the conflict impossible to ignore and anti-nuclear activists incited people to at least think about the international situation. Whilst people thought about potential nuclear conflict, most did not support CND’s objective which was to persuade British politicians to abandon nuclear weapons unilaterally in order to provide moral leadership to the world. Whilst much of the popular press treated the unilateralists of CND with contempt or downplayed their early activities, Britain’s largest-selling daily newspaper, the Daily Mirror, gave them much publicity, despite not completely supporting their objectives. During the first Aldermaston march in April 1958, the newspaper ran coverage of its progress complete with photographs. On the marchers’ arrival at Aldermaston, the Mirror congratulated them on doing something about the dangerous world situation: The Mirror salutes the Aldermaston marchers. Blistered feet and all [. . .]

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Everybody wants to get rid of the bomb. The argument is the best way to do it [. . .] This newspaper has made it clear that it thinks the Aldermaston marchers are on the wrong tack. But at least they UPPED and DID something.19 This non-committal approach to CND reflects divisions in the Labour Party. Within two years, the party’s leader, Hugh Gaitskell, would be forced to fight many members and constituent unions who demanded a unilateralist approach.20 The Mirror appealed to both sides in a divided Labour movement and in the process publicised CND. The newspaper’s commentators expressed their own views on the early movement. Regular columnist William Connor or Cassandra supported the Mirror’s editorial stance, unlike his earlier position discussed in Chapter 2. He expressed his unwillingness to disarm whilst the Soviet Union maintained nuclear weapons but applauded the marchers: ‘But the fact that hundreds of people, no matter how misguided, are prepared to tramp through the streets and the lanes for four days of acute discomfort shows that the people of this country are deeply uneasy at the nuclear perils that now surround them.’21 The Daily Herald followed this ambiguous line declaring, ‘We may not agree with all they are marching for but at least [. . .] they have acted for their beliefs.’22 The protesters, therefore, were engaging with a perception that was more common in society and further weakens Paul Chilton’s claim that the popular press merely followed the government line by accepting the existence of nuclear weapons.23 By steering the news agenda, marchers made the nuclear issue a familiar concern, which now went beyond the irregular nuclear accidents, bluster and brinkmanship which were engaged in by elites of both sides in the Cold War. This popular activism suggests that Peter Hennessy’s argument that the Cold War was solely a ‘specialists’ confrontation’ does not account for the effect of nuclear anxieties on domestic society and the activity of protest groups such as CND.24 Other newspapers expressed opinions according to their imagined readership. The Daily Sketch portrayed the CND’s rank and file as naive and suggested that many ‘are going BY CAR’.25 It stressed the involvement of ‘about 2,000’ communists.26 The News Chronicle’s Frank Barber also suggested that the marchers were largely communist and the newspaper printed a page full of readers’ criticisms of the article.27

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One correspondent John Barnes, urged people to read John Hersey’s journalistic expose´ of the first nuclear bomb, Hiroshima. Another correspondent stated that: ‘For every Communist marcher there must have been dozens of people [. . .] who believe that to think of using nuclear weapons against other peoples is a denial of faith in humanity and Christian values.’28 The first letter demonstrated that nuclear narratives operated intertextually and internationally with Hersey’s book being important in the narrative of disarmers. This latter comment reinforces the more traditionally British and religious identity that Burkett notes ran through the movement. Moreover, the level of criticism by this particular readership, which filled the letters section on 9 April, tends to augment her argument that CND was more radicalliberal than hard left.29 By the time the march ended Barber was referring to its participants as ‘U-folk’.30 The Daily Mail’s Alan Brien continued this classification of CND and strayed from the newspaper’s generally pro-nuclear editorial line referring to the march itself as ‘highly un-English and non-U activity’, embarked upon by the ‘quiet suburbanites’. He countered accusations of communist infiltration by stating: ‘For every one of these there were a hundred respectable private persons from semi-detached houses with tradesmen’s entrances who [. . .] wished to show their uneasy concern for tomorrow.’31 The terms, ‘U’ and ‘non-U’, which were popularised by Nancy Mitford, refer to upper-class and non-upper-class identities and the language they use, which became a popular way to examine class in the late 1950s.32 The use of these terms suggests that the CND was not depicted as a populist working-class movement but echoed the concerns and aspirations of many ordinary people who would have made up newspaper readerships. The Mail, however, was not wholly supportive of CND and reported that: ‘Screaming women attack car’, when pro-nuclear campaigners Ross and Norris McWhirter had driven into the marchers’ paths accusing the protesters of being ‘Guilty Men’.33 Even conservative newspapers, therefore, did not condemn street activism outright, nor did they uniformly attack those who opposed the principle of nuclear arms. In part, this cautious approach can be attributed to heightened nuclear anxiety even among their own readerships. Lindsay Anderson’s documentary March to Aldermaston, released in 1959, which was screened alongside Jean Renoir’s anti-war film Le

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Grande Illusion (1938), allowed the campaign to engage with a niche cinema audience.34 The film’s opening interspersed shots of nuclear explosions and the destruction at Hiroshima with comments by ‘ordinary’ people, who were mainly women. The first, an unnamed woman, talks of raising children: ‘I try to do the best for my children. We try to give them a chance in life [. . .] and what is the point of all this if somebody can press a bomb [sic], just to obliterate them all.’ Her emphasis on the next generation appealed to viewers’ nurturing instincts. Another woman standing next to a child says ‘I’m glad to have a chance to show what I feel about nuclear warfare, because one doesn’t usually have that opportunity . . . as an ordinary person.’ The film sought to present the marchers as ‘ordinary’, but also as youthful and the jazz sound track that accompanied many of the marching scenes helped the movement appear to young and as part of the jazz revival that was taking place in metropolitan areas like London. The film aimed to have a diverse audience and its review on the BBC’s women’s interest programme Mainly for Women in November 1959 was one of the few mentions, outside of the news, that the early Aldermaston marches received on British television.35 Anxiety surrounding the nuclear threat, which attracted increasing numbers of demonstrators for the first five marches, was not the only component of the nuclear narrative at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. International diplomacy meant each side sought concessions from the other whilst attempting to maintain their own power. The first Aldermaston demonstration in 1958 coincided with ongoing summit talks about nuclear disarmament. In late March, Khrushchev unilaterally announced that the Soviet Union would suspend future nuclear tests provided that the West did the same.36 Whilst this can be seen retrospectively as diplomatic bluff, it formed part of an emerging narrative which emphasised the danger faced by the world and was now combined with a form of mass action with groups of individuals determined to influence the situation. By the third Aldermaston march in 1960 nuclear arms were a major public issue, and CND maintained its prominence in public discourse through mass action; the accompanying rally drew an estimated 100,000 protesters. Several previous detractors had seemingly become impressed by the movement with the Daily Sketch commenting,

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‘Though some may scorn the marchers’ methods, few of us in our hearts deny the common sense of their minds.’37 The Daily Mirror applauded the marchers whilst maintaining its ambivalent stance and Cassandra referred to it as ‘the greatest rally in Trafalgar Square since VE day’.38 On the face of it this recycling of recent memory reflected unilateralism’s popularity. The wartime and Blitz spirit, which was central to the modern day shaping of British nationhood, was frequently used in the postwar era to justify the actions of governments and populace alike.39 By invoking the wartime myth, the Mirror recycled recent memories of a costly victory in order to campaign for peace. Therefore, the narratives of World War II and the Cold War became linked and the painful memory of the former was used to attempt to mobilise public opinion against increasing dangers in the latter. Moreover, it suggested that CND was a movement which utilised British national identity to try to shape the future self-image of the British.

Fiction and Mutually Assured Destruction Two Hours to Doom and Moment of No Return criticise the nuclear arms race of the late 1950s. Both novels employ humour to cause readers to think about the situation, and paradoxically to take the threat seriously. The novels, however, are not comedies but contain elements of humour which in the case of Two Hours to Doom are much more subtle than Stanley Kubrick’s more satirical adaptation. Two Hours to Doom’s humour focuses on the belief that mutually assured destruction (MAD) will save mankind and bring peace. The plot develops into farce when the unhinged General Quinten decides that rationally the only way to save the USA is to order his squadron to continue past their return points and to bomb the Soviet Union. 40 In many ways this action thriller follows the traditional farce structure, with a protracted chase scene as America and the USSR combine to attempt to call off the attack or destroy the bomber, culminating in it dropping a bomb. Like its film adaptation, Dr Strangelove, Two Hours to Doom describes the aftermath of the dropping of the bomb. In the novel, however, it fails to reach a full nuclear chain reaction and it becomes the turn of the Americans to prevent a Russian attack on their city.

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The novel becomes more farcical with the American President’s decision that to prevent such events recurring he must take action and create even more destructive weapons with decreased delivery times: ‘The Russians have a lead with the I.C.B.M.,’ the president said slowly. ‘We will need six months or so before our minutemen sites will be ready, so that retaliation would become inevitable and infallible. On that day, I believe, war will become not only impossible but will be recognised by both sides as such. [. . .] I am ordering a force of at least twenty bombers [. . .] to be airborne twenty-four hours of each day, fully armed [. . .] They will be under my direct control. They will guarantee the peace [. . .] And peace gentlemen, I am determined to create.’ 41 In making this statement the American President extends the system which generated the nuclear war scare. By increasing the threats instead of securing peace, the President makes the ending a tragedy instead of averting one. The critique of MAD and its apparent false rationalisation is emphasised with the words ‘inevitable’ and ‘infallible’, which turn the concept into one of the unquestionable assumptions of the Cold War. This passage encourages distrust towards politicians and their policy of deterrence. The entire novel suggests that the system of MAD and over-flights increases the chances of war but the president believes that extra threats will make war impossible. ‘Peace’, therefore, becomes one of the Cold War’s ambiguous terms in common with my earlier discussion in Chapter 1. The Americans claim to be conciliatory whilst increasing the threat and effects of nuclear war thereby reducing ‘peace’ to its own antonym. Whilst Bryant uses ‘peace’ to disguise American warlike intentions its misuse had more often been associated with the Soviets, especially in King-Hall’s novel. Men of Destiny resembles a thriller, with a disaster being narrowly avoided. Its criticism is directed against the bipolar division of the world and both sides are damned by their recourse to war without negotiation. The novel upholds British national identity by portraying its leaders as rational whilst somewhat outdated in comparison to the warlike American and Soviet leaderships, the indecisive and vain

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French and the duplicitous Germans. As the novel reaches a climax and the American President tries to launch a nuclear attack, the Prime Minister remains a rational peacemaker and shouts ‘“Stop! Stop! We Refuse.”’42 National stereotypes act as a driving force for the plot which unfolds as each nation acts or reacts in character to the situation. Most notable is the French President, de Gallique, who insists he embodies France. When awakened during the crisis he proclaims “Without adequate sleep de Gallique becomes exhausted; if de Gallique is exhausted, France becomes tired.” 43 This vanity accentuates both the French inaction and the crisis. The stereotypes also act as a humorous device which exaggerates the portrayal of nations, but which simultaneously reflects the real situation in international politics, causing readers to question the rationality of deterrence. King-Hall reinforced the novel’s realistic association with international politics in his National Newsletter: ‘it is a disturbing reflection that a curtain-raiser now seems to be developing in Berlin which could be the prelude to a drama closely resembling the situation described in Men of Destiny’.44 The narrative fluctuates between the unfolding of a plot, within the thriller genre, and an imagined history produced from sources. Consequently, Cold War culture co-exists alongside the diplomatic argument and reminds readers of the conflict. Therefore, the device obscures the difference between reality and fiction and forms inter-textuality between the novel and the ongoing Cold War narrative. King-Hall depicts the conflict as one of deference to authority. Ordinary citizens play no greater role than panicking as war looms. The book opens with a historical account of King-Hall’s scenario ‘The Great Crisis’.45 On the same page he refers to The Guardian’s coverage of the crisis, therefore creating a parallel with similar crises and cementing the idea that these fictional events were typical of the Cold War. He maintains drama by deviating from this reportage style but frequently returns to it. This device escalates realism by engaging with imagined editions of publications. As the crisis evolves he quotes memoirs from one of the British characters, Baron Hatchenboy, and mentions the review of these in the Times Literary Supplement adding weight to the novel acting as a time-delayed historical appraisal of the crisis.46 When information published in The Times is seemingly acted upon by the Soviet premier, he refers to a poster that the newspaper’s

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eager marketing team had been prevented from publishing: ‘TOP PEOPLE AND TOP COMMUNISTS READ THE TIMES DO YOU?’47 The novel again associates itself with reality. Moreover, the headline emphasises the bipolar difference between Western ‘people’ and Eastern ‘communists’. The systems designed to maintain peace actually increase tensions in either novel. Two Hours to Doom focuses on Quinten’s misuse of the technology designed to ensure that a counter-strike is successful. Men of Destiny, meanwhile, focuses on the political decision making process which means that confusion and time lapses turn traditional brinkmanship into war, despite conciliatory moves being made. The 1950s reliance on what became known as the ‘failsafe’ system relates each novel to reality and encourages readers to imagine the potential for disaster. The system which essentially meant that, even in times of peace, H-bomb loaded planes were travelling towards their allotted targets only to return home unless the order to attack was received, lends itself well to narrative fiction and allows many differing scenarios to be imagined. Culture familiarised audiences with the system through both novels and movies such as Dr Strangelove and Stanley Lumet’s deadpan thriller Fail-Safe (1964). Nuclear deterrence dehumanises many characters in Two Hours to Doom despite the novel’s focus on the flight crew of the errant bomber. Quinten, who orders the attack, is mentally unstable and his abnormality forces the USA to neutralise him. Whilst many of the chapters take place inside the bomber, we see little questioning of the attack order by the crew. They believe that the USA’s main cities are destroyed and implement their vengeance even though it means they will die. The system of revenge causes them to bomb their Russian target; they play no role in the decision making process and merely follow orders to block off radio contact and to avoid Soviet attacks on their aircraft. Whilst the mission progresses, the narrative describes the crew’s preparations for the attack: ‘As Brown watched intently the red lights flicked out one by one, and below them green lights flashed on in their place. The weapons were armed.’48 These mundane technical details raise the tension of the attack as each incremental step brings the reader closer to the launch of the bombs. Nuclear war, therefore, is dehumanised and even the people who launch the attacks are controlled by systems and machines.

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Criticising the Cold War Ambiguity over the word peace characterised the Cold War. Whilst technically the democracies and communist countries were at peace, people were constantly reminded that they were perilously close to war. Therefore, a paradox existed in how peace and war were defined. As befits a war with such a heavy emphasis on culture, linguistic nuance was important and can be seen in terms such as ‘People’s Democracy’, which was something of an oxymoron because of the initial meaning of the phrase and which was frequently cited as an example of the Soviet Union’s duplicity. The literature scholar, Steven Morrison, suggests Two Hours to Doom was a critique of the deterrence system, which would effectively allow the USA and USSR to fight a nuclear war without facing total annihilation. For Britain, however, the position was different, with total destruction likely due to the positioning of airbases and major cities, which were key targets. Morrison perceives the inherent Britishness in the text as being a criticism of the position where ‘a nuclear war is as likely to be started by “us” as “them”’.49 In identifying this fear, Morrison comes close to recognising the overriding apocalypticism which informs both novels. Both of these British authors created a scenario in which the nation is not in control of the battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and is at the mercy of the perceived inevitable clash between the two conflicting powers. King-Hall’s text emphasises the dichotomy between East and West. He quotes a speech from the fictional Soviet leader, Buglov, which is broadcast on the BBC: ‘“In the fight for peace we have a common aim and no cost is too great for the winning of this battle. We co-exist for the peace which the peace-loving people of the Soviet Union so ardently desire. Peace to you from all the peaceful Soviet people.”’50 This emphasis on ‘peace’ reveals how the Cold War utilised language, with both sides selecting propagandistic terminology. For the West, and especially the USA, ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ became the defining words of the conflict. The Soviet Union’s sponsoring of peace congresses and insistence upon their peaceful intentions meant that Western culture imbued ‘peace’ with a pejorative meaning and association with internal subversion. The irony employed by King-Hall in the idea of a ‘fight for peace’ shows disdain for the international system which had brought the Cold War, as well as for the Soviet government’s more overt

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use of propaganda. The paradoxical ‘fight for peace’ indicates that whatever Buglov means by peace it is far removed from its traditional meaning. King-Hall’s lampooning of Soviet phraseology was widespread among many critics of the regime and he engaged with that broader media narrative. Bryant also portrays the irrationality of a fight for peace. The interaction between the novel and reader might be questioned at this point. Kwon points out that for most Europeans the Cold War was a period of peace, whilst in South Asia it was very much a war that was actively fought; this difference in experience suggests that traditional Western perceptions of the Cold War as a period of extended peace are insufficient and that greater examination is needed into the reality of that peace.51 Both novels can be used to do just that because they heighten the Cold War for readers and familiarise them with nuclear war. Quinten’s contradictory notions of peace are used as justification for his launch. When explaining his reasoning to the junior officer, Paul Howard, the following exchange occurs: ‘“When you heard that wing going off in the distance the sound was something monstrous, something inhuman and dreadful to you. Right?” “Right.” “No, Paul. There was nothing monstrous about it. You know what that sound meant? I’ll tell you. It meant peace on earth.”’52 The novel’s paradox of killing millions of people to achieve (or maintain) peace is central to its moral argument and situates it within the modern secular apocalypticism that Rosen mentions as ‘permanent crisis’.53 The novel would have heightened this sense of impending apocalypse which motivated many founding members of CND.54 Ambiguity again surrounds peace: Quinten uses it to refer to waging a massive and unprovoked war on the Soviet Union; his use of peace reverses its formal definition. For Quinten, and by implication many in the military hierarchy, peace simply means security for America at any external price. The passage demonstrates the moral failing and false rationality of deterrence. Moreover, the division relies on the word monstrous: Quinten acknowledges that most people, including Howard, regard the bombing as unnecessary and evil but his twisted definition of ‘peace’ suggests his actions are not hideous. His rationalised conclusion is shown to the reader and there is still some way to go before the plot proves Quinton wrong, thereby prompting readers to question their own beliefs.

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In Two Hours to Doom, however, the definition of peace remains fluid. For Howard, peace has a more moral aspect than the security of the USA. His military position allows him to engage with Quinten’s reasoning. As he considers the morality of the attack, however, his thought process changes and he works to prevent it. When searching through Quinten‘s notebook, Howard discovers his obsession with the phrase ‘peace on earth’ and concludes that this must be the recall code for the attack wing. In this instance, peace actually means just that; the word is used to prevent a war, albeit a war that Quinten believed was being waged in order to bring about peace. The ambiguity, however, remains when it finally becomes apparent that the arms race is to be escalated instead of stopped, thereby blurring the difference between peace and war. The uneasy relationship between ‘peace’ and ‘war’ is reflected throughout both novels. For individuals living through the Cold War and witnessing armaments build-ups, constant brinkmanship and defence through retaliation, it would be hard to identify the boundaries between the two. Misuse of the term ‘peace’ to denote a build-up in weapons exacerbated anxieties. Both novels suggest a fluid definition: the absence of war does not necessarily mean peace. In The Imaginary War, Mary Kaldor suggests the Cold War was a convenient device which cemented ideology and political systems within each separate sphere, a kind of mutually beneficial opposition.55 This argument, whilst focussed mainly on the political sphere, permeated more general uses of ‘peace’ and exacerbated mistrust of peace movements and those who openly doubted the political consensus over nuclear deterrence and the Cold War. Western governments exploited the geopolitical divide and mistrust of dissent. Andrew Rubin suggests that these tactics facilitated the creation of a ‘world literature’ which softened the writings of potential dissidents.56 Whilst all sides in the Cold War wanted peace, these two novels among others, demonstrate that the term was open to interpretation. Very often implicit in the various definitions are threats of domination over the Other, which is consistent with Kaldor’s ‘imaginary war’, whereby the two blocs must oppose each other in order to justify their own political system’s domestic domination. Rubin argues that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was one of the key volumes in shaping that world literary space. The novel’s impact was almost instantaneous and lasted throughout the Cold War, with the historian Isaac Deutscher noting as early as 1954 that Orwell’s

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terminology had become assimilated into the British language when depicting communism or the Soviet Union.57 Deutscher, however, suggests that the dystopian novel bears much responsibility for the British perception of the Cold War and mass existence of apocalypticism: 1984 has taught millions to look at the conflict between East and West in terms of black and white, and it has shown them a monster bogy and a monster scapegoat for all the ills that plague mankind. At the onset of the atomic age, the world is living in a mood of Apocalyptic horror. That is why millions of people respond so passionately to the Apocalyptic vision of a novelist. The Apocalyptic atomic and hydrogen monsters, however, have not been let loose by Big Brother. The chief predicament of contemporary society is that it has not yet succeeded in adjusting its way of life and its social and political institutions to the prodigious advance of its technological knowledge [. . .] It would be dangerous to blind ourselves to the fact that in the West millions of people may be inclined, in their anguish and fear, to flee from their own responsibility for mankind’s destiny and to vent their anger and despair on the giant Bogy-cumScapegoat which Orwell’s 1984 has done so much to place before their eyes.58 Orwell’s work, according to Deutscher, defined the Cold War in the minds of many Britons. Nuclear proliferation combined with emerging perceptions of binary division to generate the new apocalypse myth. Later authors such as Bryant and King-Hall combined both the language and the apocalypticism which was inherent in Orwell’s work to produce believable disaster novels. The ease with which the meaning of words such as ‘peace’ became obscured was an act of double-think on the part of the British press which projected the idea that the contradictory meanings applied to words were only engaged in by the communist bloc. Therefore, Bryant and King-Hall were engaging in a long-term intertextual relationship, of which even the term Cold War was a key example, where war and peace were ambiguous terms and the end appeared to be an ever-present threat.

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Whilst the nuclear aspect of the Cold War was never physically waged, the threat of total destruction of life in Britain, was never far from the public imagination. Bryant and King-Hall exploited the gap between threat and reality to produce novels which informed the public imagination. Both used plausible scenarios in order to make the threat appear more realistic. Their implicit criticism encouraged readers to question the legitimacy of the Cold War situation. For Bryant the main scenario is the uproar over the discovery that American bombers loaded with H-bombs were on continuous flights towards targets in the USSR but would always turn back unless ordered to continue the attack. Newspaper reports of the flights did not generate masses of readers’ letters, but they contributed towards a pre-existing climate of fear. The News Chronicle‘s front page on 10 April 1958 suggested that the USA was antagonistic. They reported that: ‘each time these blips on the radar have been a shower of meteors – or just electronic disturbances. So far the planes have been recalled.’59 This sentence engaged with readers’ fears over accidental nuclear war, prompting them to question what might happen if the recall was omitted. Simultaneously, however, they reassured readers that the system worked and that authority would prevent attacks. The planes are shown to be at a state of readiness in order to make deterrence work. The article continued in dramatic fashion by quoting Frank Bartholomew, President of the United Press, who wrote from the pilot’s perspective: ‘You are in flight towards an enemy target. You are carrying thermo-nuclear bombs. . .this is not practice. Eight minutes ago you were dispatched from base. You are bound northwards across the Pole, flying faster than the speed of sound.’ [. . .] ‘Do you proceed to your target, does your bombardier press the button and does the first atomic bomb go ‘down the chimney’ to start World War III?’ He asked in his dispatch. He reported: ‘A powerfully simple plan called Fail Safe prevented error – human or technical.’ This statement directed attention towards the agency of the pilots. They were trained to obey such orders, yet a philosophical process in the wake of the horrors of World War II caused some readers to consider whether orders, which might result in the deaths of millions, should be followed.

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Bryant follows this process in Two Hours to Doom, but the questioning occurs at the level of generals rather than the pilots. The latter obey, despite reservations and the belief that their homes have been destroyed. The thought experiment in which readers are encouraged to participate becomes one of the Cold War’s key discourses. Both press and novelist dramatised the reality of the situation. Bartholomew’s statement develops into a realistic narrative that is as tense as Bryant’s. The reality and dramatic style of the text allowed readers to imagine themselves in the pilot’s position. The scenarios in press and fiction stressed the speed of future wars. For Bartholomew it is the plane travelling ‘faster than the speed of sound’, whilst Bryant’s narrative is compacted into a two-hour time frame. These literary devices show that technology had compressed both time and space and removed the room for manoeuvre and second thoughts that existed prior to 1945. This compact timescale exists in King-Hall’s novel, but he makes room for diplomatic manoeuvre by stretching the narrative over a number of days, and adding confusion due to different time zones and the speed of transmission of dispatches. The compression of time and narrowing of distance, which had become exaggerated with the onset of the space age in 1957, was one of the key devices used across a number of media to dramatise the Cold War. Consequently, anxiety over rapid destruction became part of the lived experience of people, not just in the West, as the threat of accidental destruction was exacerbated. The rapid and certain destruction became the latest version of the ‘end of the world’ narrative which, whilst not necessarily a daily concern, was always present in the minds of the population and would emerge during Cold War flashpoints. The Cold War offered a plausible apocalypse myth which was continually reinforced by news media who reported the conflict, as well as in fiction such as Two Hours to Doom and Men of Destiny, which encouraged the reader to imagine how the end might occur. British, like American culture, also offered a brand of science fiction which dealt indirectly with the Cold War. Novels and films such as John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids (1951) offered an apocalypse myth but in an allegorical manner which refracted the Cold War through the metaphor of nonhuman invasion. In the case of Wyndham’s novel, it is mutated plants which end mankind’s dominance on earth.60 The Cold War, and in particular the nuclear arms race and system of Mutually Assured

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Destruction, offered a vehicle through which the apocalypse myth could be re-imagined during a secular age. In both Two Hours to Doom and Men of Destiny the secular apocalypse myth is evoked as a potential nuclear holocaust. Both plots end with humankind choosing to avoid war, in contrast to On The Beach or Peter Watkins’s BBC film The War Game (1965). Both evidence an apparent unwillingness to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear war.61 They create an averted apocalypse, a tendency which DiTomasso suggests exists in science fiction, to reflect the apocalyptic motives of characters – Quinten in Two Hours to Doom and Tanya, the translator in Men of Destiny, who deliberately misinterprets conciliatory statements as threats.62 Therefore, each novel’s avoidance of the end of time reduces apocalypticism to being a narrative technique. The horror for readers is not the aftermath of war: it is the everpresent nuclear threat. Furthermore, their own leaders have created and maintained the system that can create death within hours. This narrative avoids the kind of controversy that saw The War Game confined to minority audiences following government pressure within the broader atmosphere of self-censorship which pervaded the 1950s and 1960s, until the BBC finally deemed it safe enough for broadcast in the 1980s.63 These fictional narratives generate criticism towards several nations’ leaderships, inviting readers to question how politicians direct the Cold War and their own role in the conflict. In Two Hours to Doom the crew of the aircraft Alabama Angel, who eventually drop the faulty nuclear bomb on the Soviet Union, have a tenuous relationship with the apocalypse. As far as they are concerned the Soviets have bombed the USA. Furthermore, they believe that they are agents in furthering the devastation. For these men the signal to proceed to their target essentially informs them that Western civilisation has been destroyed and that they must wreak the same destruction on the Eastern Other. Their demeanours change little – they recognise the enormity of what they believe is their responsibility – to destroy the Soviet Union: There was silence in the cabin for all of ten seconds. Goldsmith spoke first, but only because he was the first to be able to put his thoughts into words. ‘My god no,’ he said, and then as realization grew in him that the orders could only mean that an attack on the States was underway, ‘Where have the bastards hit? What have they . . .’

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‘Shut Up!’ Brown’s voice cut through Goldsmith’s words with warning coldness.64 This scene is one of the most dramatic in the book. It is the only visible expression of grief from the crew. It reveals that the crew are not automatons, but that they accept their role as death-dealers. Bryant invites the reader to view themselves as part of the highly-trained airwing, just as Bartholomew had the previous year when anxieties about nuclear armed flights had first surfaced. A moment of near panic occurs as the crew realise that they have lost all they know, and that they must now complete their retaliatory mission. The moment indicates Bryant’s Manichean representation of the Cold War; two forces are set to wage a vengeful war, until time ends through radiation poisoning, which is caused by the Soviet Union’s secret insurance device. The American President shows several reactions to the possibility of apocalypse. It appears he would not mind a nuclear war if America could win. He knows, however, that the Soviets have planted a group of nuclear missiles in a mountain range, which if exploded together will produce enough radiation to destroy life on earth. Therefore, he alone can prevent this secular apocalypse. In effect he has a position akin to that assumed in earlier Christian apocalypse myths by God. In DiTomasso’s terms this suggests the adaptability and persistence of the apocalypse myth.65 Moreover, this scenario reveals the difference between the two sides in the Cold War struggle; the American President works to prevent nuclear apocalypse. The Soviet leader, on the other hand, whilst not actually willing the apocalypse, puts measures in place to ensure that all life will be exterminated should the threat be great enough. When the president announces an expansion of MAD he displays similar apocalyptic thinking to Quinten, in insisting that violent activity will maintain peace. The use of peace by both characters displays the apocalyptic idea of the ‘new Jerusalem’ that will follow destruction. Both men, however, suggest that, whatever the current state of the world is, it is not peace. However, exaggerating the potential of apocalypse was not always the objective or outcome of cultural engagements with nuclear destruction. For instance the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe satirised the concept of civil defence in 1960. Dudley Moore, posing as an audience member, asked, ‘Following the nuclear holocaust, could you tell me when normal

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public services will be resumed?’66 Jonathan Miller responded that ‘following Armageddon’ public services would resume almost immediately, but it might be a ‘skeleton service’. The ability of audiences to laugh at the prospect of total destruction, which is present, to a lesser extent, in both novels studied in this chapter suggests two outcomes. Firstly, that many people had reached an accommodation with potential destruction. Secondly, however, the humour can be seen to demonstrate the absurdity of a world in which nuclear weapons appeared to be a constant threat. This latter use of humour is employed in both novels and was exaggerated by Kubrick in his adaptation of Two Hours to Doom into Dr Strangelove.

Conclusion During the late 1950s there existed a public discourse over fears of nuclear apocalypse. The majority appeared to agree that nuclear weapons were bad. However, this opinion was split. Some believed that whilst the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons Britain must maintain its own nuclear arsenal which it had possessed since 1952. The supporters of CND, on the other hand, believed that Britain should set a moral example by unilaterally abandoning nuclear weapons and encouraging others to follow suit. This period saw the emergence of culture which encouraged the population to imagine the apocalypse, largely because the government discouraged direct representations of the end. People’s pre-existing perceptions, combined with news of real nuclear events and near misses, such as the American over-flights and accidents involving nuclear weapons, helped to exaggerated scares. In turn it produced a situation where many Britons did not trust politicians to peacefully possess nuclear weapons and ultimately contributed to the decline of deference towards the political class throughout the 1960s. When people attempted to win agency over the hegemonic political positions, such as involvement in the arms race, they did so through CND. This mainly middle-class movement was, like the reaction to a dog in outer space, a moment when the general population were able to shape the Cold War and its presentation. The early marches were covered with a mixture of bemusement, admiration and some vilification. Newspapers did not wholly accept Harold Macmillan’s attempt to manipulate public opinion against the movement using public

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institutions such as the BBC and Church of England.67 Moreover, the aim of total, if not unilateral, disarmament received tenuous approval across the political spectrum of newspapers despite an undercurrent of suspicion about the intellectuals and clergy who seemed to characterise the movement. When the marches were reported as the largest mass mobilisations since VE Day, it became impossible for the press to ignore the popularity of a position that demanded an end to the threat of total destruction. Armageddon was imagined throughout the period and Two Hours to Doom and Men of Destiny engaged with a moment in popular culture in which an emerging, more secular society prompted reconsiderations of the recurrent myth. The novels and the Cold War moments with which they engaged remained characterised by the obscuring of terms like peace. Their apocalypticism and their blurring of language situated them within a Cold War tradition which had emerged from the predominance of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four as the definitive Cold War text. The myths in these novels and more allegorical science fiction suggest a desire not simply to ignore the international situation but to engage with it through escapist means. Through these early years of CND’s existence it became the largest mass movement in modern Britain and, whilst most people might have disagreed with their unilateralist approach, many still disapproved of the overall existence of nuclear weapons. Therefore several newspapers, which might otherwise have condemned such mass protests expressed a more ambiguous attitude towards CND.

CHAPTER 8 `

THE GREATEST STORY OF OUR LIFETIME': THE SUCCESSES AND THE LIMITATIONS OF SOVIET IDEOLOGY

By the late 1950s the Soviet Union’s propaganda regularly claimed that its technology would soon surpass that of the capitalist nations. They had launched the first space craft in 1957 and were perceived by many to be making more consumer goods available to the Soviet population. The perception of Soviet advancement extended to some of the key NATO policy planners who believed that the Soviets’ economic dynamism might bring greater growth than that of the West.1 This chapter explores British popular perceptions of Soviet advancement which emerged during the early 1960s especially around the Soviets’ advancement in space which solidified in 1961 when Yuri Gagarin made the first successful space flight. Britain’s increased openness towards the Soviets coincided with attempts to improve diplomatic relations using a series of trading exhibitions, scholarly and other cultural exchanges. 1961 saw the realisation of the ‘Agreement on Relations in the Scientific, Technological, Educational and Cultural Fields’ made in 1959. Britain held a trade exhibition in Moscow with a reciprocal Soviet exhibition held in London in June. These cultural exchanges allowed Britons to glimpse Soviet technology and to confirm or question the Soviet Union’s representation of their own nation. However, the year became characterised by contrasts in the British

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depiction of the Cold War led by developments in international politics. Whilst Britons could appreciate the Soviet depiction of itself as modern it soon became apparent through the closure of the Berlin border that the lack of ‘freedom’ in the communist system showed that the Soviets were opposed to many important democratic values. In British public culture the narrative of the communists as leaders in modernity was soon supplanted by the return of the idea of the Soviet threat.

Modernity and Declinist Narratives Space exploration remained the key area in which the Soviets were depicted as most technologically advanced. Following Yuri Gagarin making the first successful space flight on 12 April 1961 the Daily Mirror’s double front page pictured the cosmonaut in his space suit with the by-line ‘Today the Mirror celebrates the greatest story of our lifetime . . . the greatest story of the century.’2 The first orbit of earth became seen as a great story of human achievement; that it was made by a Soviet was not a problem for the British press. The Daily Express ‘salute[d] the comrades’ and expressed hope that this new adventurism meant that ‘many of the concerns and rivalries that trouble men still will inevitably wither away’.3 As at the onset of the space age in 1957, space exploration captured the imagination of many people and the editors of newspapers who believed that it could create a real peace between competing nations. The British became immediately fascinated with Gagarin and outerspace was not always depicted as a division in the Cold War. A narrative of space travel had long been present in Britain and in the 1950s the popular juvenile comic the Eagle had featured a British spaceman in its strip Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future with the BBC screening the children’s television programme Mikki the Martian from 1958 to 1962, which was a puppet show created by the ventriloquist Ray Allen.4 The BBC had also screened the American science fiction drama Men into Space in July 1960 and it was reshown in June 1961 following the manned space flights. Following Gagarin’s flight the Daily Mirror’s celebrity gossip columnist Rex North reported that he had visited the Russian embassy for a celebratory vodka, only to discover that there was no party and to be told by the third secretary Yuri Loginov that ‘You British seem more excited about the whole thing than we are’5 This excitement among

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Britons linked space to other symbols of modernity. Lambretta ran an advert picturing two people speeding away from Earth towards the moon on one of their mopeds. They were followed by a Soviet space craft.6 The advert declared their bikes ‘Out of this World’. Companies like Lambretta, whose image was built on youth and being modern, used the thrill and excitement evoked by the space age to sell their product. The celebration of the Space Age often became associated with Britain’s burgeoning consumer and youth culture. Marjorie Proops, the Mirror’s columnist, asked ‘Why couldn’t a girl have donned a natty Space-suit and whipped off into space to become the first human to go into orbit?’7 She concluded that going into orbit would be a handy way for a woman to get away from her husband. Proops and some readers connected the Cold War space race to domestic cultural changes. However, these changes were not always well received: ‘Flabbergasted’ of Exeter wrote ‘a woman’s natty space suit would need to have high heels, a built-in powder compact and goodness knows what else! . . . Please leave Space research to level-headed MEN.’8 Whilst this reader might have attempted to echo Proops’ humour they

Figure 8.1

Lambretta, Daily Mail, 13 April 1961.

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showed that space accentuated some peoples’ gendered assumptions about society with science seen as a male sphere. Later when the Soviets claimed that they would soon launch the first female space flight, Mrs G. Taylor of Preston wrote ‘Having reached the grand old age of thirty one and having nothing much to do with my spare time, I would be pleased to volunteer as Britain’s first space woman. I have only one condition – that they bring me back in time to make my husband’s tea!’9 Joviality accompanied much coverage of the space race – yet the application of gendered values to outer-space meant that many Britons detached the issue from the Cold War. Gagarin became a figure with whom many Britons could associate. The Mirror, along with several other newspapers, printed photographs of his family and the official life story, which the Soviets had prepared and distributed.10 The Daily Mail’s opinion column described Gagarin as ‘a human creature like the rest of us, with a heart, a brain – a soul’.11 This positive attitude towards Gagarin continued with an examination of Soviet family life. The paper declared ‘Spaceman Yuri is also typical of thousands of Russians . . . stolid in appearance, a devoted family man. A man like Nikita Khrushchev. Of and from the earth.’ Such descriptions of Gagarin both as a ‘typical’ Russian and a family man who undertook heroic feats contributed towards the making of the heroic image of him that later lead to ‘Yurimania’ when he visited Britain. The image was reinforced with a close up of Gagarin’s face which was captioned ‘The Lindbergh look’ and associated Gagarin with earlier aviation pioneers – but also as an individual whose achievements negated their dubious politics. As with other newspapers the Mail hoped that the flight would encourage renewed peace efforts and its editorial stated, ‘[t]his is a turning point in history, and it could mark a new and better point of departure for human nature. Let us try to make it so.’ Mrs Shirley Turner wrote to the Mirror stating that ‘To me, a mother, the event was humanised by the fact that he has a two year old daughter called Elena.’12 In early 1961 peace was seen as possible and the British press was happy to promote the Soviet Union as a vital part of the process. The family values that Lynne Segal argues were a key part of re-making postwar British masculinity helped newspaper readers to associate with Gagarin and allowed them to see beyond the Cold War.13 At once, therefore, the British familiarised the cosmonaut: he was a normal human being, a family man who was similar

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to many Britons. Certain areas of the press began to use the figure of Gagarin to represent all Soviet people. Gagarin’s flight provided British television viewers with their first ever live footage of the Soviet Union. A British camera crew were in Moscow in order to transmit from the forthcoming Mayday parade, but they arranged an earlier linkup to cover Gagarin’s welcome at Moscow airport. Peter Black reviewed the transmission in the Daily Mail and declared that ‘hereafter everything we think about the Russians will inevitably be coloured in some way by what we saw on this first direct look.’14 The uniqueness of this achievement might be tempered considering that recorded footage of Moscow had been shown in newsreel clips since the mid-1950s, some of which were discussed in Chapter 3, but the images do show a desire to learn about the Soviet people. The broadcast included shots of ‘ordinary’ Soviets. Black’s report contained elements of the reporter confirming his preconceptions as he described the ‘discouragingly drab’ clothes and the ‘air of un-resting propaganda’ but he also attempted to humanise the Cold War Other as he found an ‘enormous innocent capacity for affection and fun’. The Gagarin moment was turning into a real encounter with the Soviet Union. Sometimes the press presented the flight as a Soviet propaganda tool. The Observer stated that ‘Major Gagarin’s flight has no military significance [. . .] It is a political propaganda advantage which the Russian leaders are extracting from these feats.’15 As the British press reported Moscow’s celebrations of Gagarin’s flight, the Daily Mail added that this was the return of the ‘personality cult’ and hinted that the televised celebrations were possibly choreographed, stating ‘it was organised. It was spontaneous. It was formal. It was a shambles.’16 Gagarin was said to have been presented to the Russian people as ‘a popular hero “just like us”’. Areas of the British press suspected that Soviet achievements often had an ulterior motive of demonstrating the superiority of communism. This viewpoint extended to the British ambassador in Moscow, Sir Frank Roberts, who noted that ‘from the prestige point of view, these scientific feats serve [Khrushchev] in the same way that military victories have served other dictatorial regimes’.17 Roberts commented that there was a general impression among both the Soviet population and the British press that, [E]ven if the space programme was only made possible by the diversion of resources from other purposes at the expense of the

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Soviet consumer, the successes attained are nevertheless symbolic of the educational and technological level now attained in the Soviet and that this will lead inevitably to an abundance of consumer goods before long. Outer-space, therefore, was tied to the competition to out-produce the other side and the advancements were seen as a precursor to the creation of a consumer society. The space success also confirmed the view held among many, even within the diplomatic community, that the Soviet Union was advancing faster than the West. The British population were not wholly convinced about the usefulness of space exploration. Mrs J. S. from Havant suggested that humankind should ‘send into orbit that exalted little band of world leaders who have taken it upon themselves to be the arbiters of our destiny’.18 Her opinion suggested weariness with the Cold War and a desire for a meaningful peace. Other Mirror readers also associated space with humanity. Following the first American space flight by Alan Shepard on 5 May, T. Teyton wrote ‘what a pity that the vast amount of money spent on space travel is not used in trying to civilise people on this planet. Assuming there is life on other planets what do we have to offer them? Only insanity, disease, greed, warmongering and hypocrisy.’19 Teyton’s view of ‘civilising’ the planet appeared more universal than the imperialist connotations of the concept. Like J. S. she or he described the world negatively and suggested that international politics and the space race were harming humankind because of the misallocation of resources. Similarly, Mrs M. Howard of Bolton asked ‘Am I the only person to think that we, the peoples of this world, must be out of our senses to allow our governments to spend millions of our money on flying into space yet rely on voluntary donations for research into a cure for cancer?’20 Likewise, E.A.G. stated, ‘[p]utting a man in space was such a great feat. I am now looking forward to an even greater achievement: flush toilets, running water and bathrooms for everyone.’21 Many such criticisms were not directly about the Soviet space programme – but emphasised some of the everyday gains still to be attained in both Britain and the USSR. Other readers – and not just of the conservative press – felt that Britain needed to keep pace with the superpowers. J. W. Robinson from H.M.S. Puma, wrote to the Daily Mirror ‘It makes me sad to see

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Great Britain lagging so far behind America and Russia in space exploration. There is no doubt of our scientists’ ability to put a Briton into space all we lack is money.’22 The Soviets’ manned space flight allowed Britons to question the purpose of space exploration. However, they also compared their nation to the Soviet Union. The space launches, combined with Britain’s comparative failure to keep up with the Soviets and the Americans, were soon followed by two reciprocal trade fairs which allowed the British to compare themselves to the communist nation. Whilst the British fair consisted mainly of industrial goods for sale, the Soviets showcased their spacecraft as well as an idealised home. As I have argued elsewhere, these exhibitions allowed both countries to project an idealised self-image to the other in an attempt to appear friendly,23 not only to the officials of the country but also to make either political system appear benign. Cultural and technological exhibitions became another arena in which the Soviets could reinforce these popular perceptions of their progress. The association between technological and consumer advancement became a key element that British observers explored. Amidst excitement over the space race, some newspapers tied Britain’s failure to launch its own spacecraft to a broader sense of decline. C. P. Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’ lectures had questioned Britain’s educational priorities prompting a raft of literature, which situated the late 1950s and early 1960s as a moment where modernisers – often from the left – claimed that British decline was caused by the persistence of upper class rule.24 Michael Shanks’s book The Stagnant Society, which was published later that year, characterised a broader sense that Britain was losing industrial competitiveness, especially when compared to the Eastern Bloc.25 Many newspaper articles and letters from readers were symptomatic of broader anxieties about British industry’s competitiveness and of comparative national decline.26 Writing to the Daily Express before Gagarin’s flight, Barbara Goodings criticised Britain’s absence from the space race. She urged the newspaper to ‘get the government and the people to wake up to the idea of space research for prestige and profit. The government is too preoccupied with helping other countries with the taxpayers’ money, and the man in the street thinks of nothing but sport.’27 Goodings’s letter reveals that space exploration was sometimes associated with national prestige and that Britain was perceived to be failing to keep up with the ‘superpowers’.

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Narratives around British participation in the space race as vital for national prestige featured in newspapers of the left and right. An Express opinion column situated outer-space as a new frontier and as the centre of Russian and American national pride, stating that ‘a nation without pride in itself is a nation in decline’.28 The column implied that if Britain fell behind, her international decline would become more obvious. The narrative of decline was not confined to conservative newspapers: the Daily Mirror criticised the government, warning that if Britain failed to invest in science its ‘education will limp far behind the challenge of the Space Age’.29 Newspapers later reported Britain’s limited proposals to launch satellites ‘using U.S. rockets’,30 and an argument from Lord Hailsham, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, that an independent programme would ‘be a waste of scientific manpower and resources’.31 Science and technology, therefore, shaped the political debate. Space became linked to broader British perceptions of national prestige; Britain’s modest uses of space revealed that she was falling behind the advances of the Soviets and Americans. The narrative of comparative decline, manifested itself in the perceived failure to keep up with the superpowers in terms of scientific advancement. Science and educational policy became an important political issue between 1959 and 1964 with Snow’s intervention opening a debate that became an important attack on the government by Labour. As Guy Ortalano has noted, this perception of failure to modernise into a technocratic nation became central to declinist arguments.32 Labour’s policy document Signposts for the Sixties published in 1961 decried the failure to use planning to modernise the British economy and claimed that, the failure of so much of our industry to modernise itself is the reluctance of British businessmen to invest in research and development and the refusal of the government to make good this deficiency. In the application of science to industry we face formidable competition, not only from the communist bloc but also from the United States, Germany and Japan.33 For the Labour Party, the apparent failure to maintain a scientific lead was a result of poor government planning and allowed other nations, including those of the Eastern Bloc, to advance quicker than Britain.

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This determination to modernise, which was outlined in Signposts, marked the start of Labour’s opinion poll lead, which, as the historian of the 1960s Mark Donnelly notes, they maintained until they won the 1964 general election.34 Perceptions of national decline, with science as a key indicator, were also closely linked to the Cold War. In a debate on science and education on 10 July, Labour MPs anticipated the forthcoming Soviet exhibition in London and criticised the Conservative government for failing to adopt similar techniques to the Soviets in order to advance British science and technology. Thomas Peart, Labour MP for Workington, emphasised the need to modernise: ‘We have no time to lose. We are losing the scientific race in the world. We have no time for complacency or for inertia which are revealed already in Government policy [. . .] We must have a change.’35 The challenge that the Soviet Union exemplified was therefore used to compare the British position with the rest of the world. As the debate continued MPs made frequent reference to the Soviet advancement in science and particularly their lead in the space race. Peart highlighted Britain’s relative failure in the application of nuclear power to shipping: This week, we shall see at Earl’s Court an exhibition of the achievements of Soviet science. I wish the exhibition well. Undoubtedly, there will be a model of the nuclear-propelled icebreaker ‘Lenin’ at that exhibition. It is a strange irony of history that, in 1698, Peter the Great should have come to Greenwich and, after staying in England for three months, should have taken back with him 500 British engineers, artificers, surgeons, artisans and – I am glad to say – artillerymen.36 Peart’s speech highlighted Britain’s apparent decline compared to Russia, which he perceived to be pulling ahead, despite having previously relied on British technology. In doing this Peart evoked the side of British national identity which was built on pride around its naval advancement. He suggested that Soviet gains in this field challenged Britain’s assumed predominance and that Britain’s failure to invest in science was contributing to comparative national decline. Peart identified the area of blame: ‘We still have the concept of an elite society and we are still not developing all the abilities and talents of which our

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people are capable.’37 The criticism was defined by class and the failure of the government to train a broad range of people for science and industry, focussing instead on educating a small proportion of the population. The Daily Express portrayed the Soviet advance as sudden, stating ‘[n]ot much more than a generation ago the Russians were thought of as peasants with smocks, jack-boots and beards. Even 20 years ago the Russians were derided as a technically backward people.’38 Having relied on stereotypes of an undeveloped society the newspaper attributed recent advances to the Soviet education programme, claiming ‘the Russians instituted a crash programme of education at all levels’. When compared to Britain’s relative failure to keep pace, the Express stated: It would be intolerable if this country, which for so long led the world in science and discovery, were to exclude herself from this thrilling chapter in human history. More scientists and teachers are needed. The facilities and rewards must be provided for them. New technical universities are needed. Let them be built. The Express depicted a relative decline in Britain’s technical education. The calls for modernisation were not just part of Labour party rhetoric; they were tied to national prestige and space was one of the areas where Britain’s failures became pronounced.

Yuri Gagarin in Britain By the time of the Soviet Exhibition in July Gagarin’s popularity among the British population had only increased and the British government ensured that it benefitted from his popularity. Many organisations – from the Royal Society of Chartered Surveyors to the collection of fellow-travelling societies – wanted to honour him.39 Invitations were sent by several fellow-travelling friendship societies and peace organisations. The government responded by encouraging its approved organisations to invite the cosmonaut. These included the trade fair organisers Industrial and Trade Fairs Ltd (ITF) and the semi-official GBUSSR Association, which had replaced the British Council’s Soviet Relations Committee in 1959 in order to better facilitate informal

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contacts and visits between citizens of both nations.40 The governments preferred organisations competed with the unofficial and communistsympathising organisations in order to lead the public conversation on relations and exchanges with the Soviet Union. A Foreign Office memo suggested that the Soviets were able to exploit the visit for propaganda by choosing whether to accept an officially approved offer or one from an undesirable organisation. If the latter were the case the memo stated that the government’s ‘principles would require [them] to have nothing to do with him officially while most of the people of this country would probably acclaim him as a hero’.41 An official visit was ruled out because it might ‘rub the noses of the Americans in their comparative failure in the space race so far’. However, the government recognised the need to provide leadership on Gagarin’s visit in order to prevent a Soviet propaganda coup and so that its favoured cultural groups could increase their status in comparison to the communist front organisations. The British government ensured that it would gain maximum benefit from the Gagarin visit and sought to minimise the Soviets’ ability to exploit the trip for propaganda. The offer of official hospitality was used to ensure that Gagarin only accepted the invitation from ITF. Gagarin’s visit required the government to balance between international and domestic considerations and to participate in the hegemonic struggle between organisations that supported communism and those that sought to reduce its influence. Gagarin arrived on 11 July 1961 and was treated like a conquering hero. His visit to the Soviet exhibition attracted huge crowds who rushed to get a sight of him. The warmth that was extended towards Russia following his flight was redoubled as people clamoured to glimpse the cosmonaut. Celebrations transcended the national barrier and also the Cold War division. The Daily Mirror reported that ‘[t]he people of London gave a roaring welcome to Space hero Yuri Gagarin.’ Inside they demanded that Harold Macmillan ‘Make him Sir Yuri’.42 As Gagarin mingled with the great and good, from the Prime Minister to the Queen, the press reported the impressions from those who had met and, in the case of a 23-year-old dental nurse, Olivia Brayden, ran up kissed him as he entered his car. Brayden’s photograph featured on several newspaper covers which reported her saying ‘he’s the most kissable man in the universe. I’m just mad about him.’43 Such a reaction from members of the British public shows that Gagarin had attained a

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status that was only then becoming common for pop-stars. Contemporary commentators noted the aspects which drew most attention in coverage of Gagarin’s visit, with Michael Frayn commenting that the Mirror was an example of the kind of coverage that had ‘taken on an embarrassingly sexual overtone’.44 Gagarin’s image in the British press had changed from family man to sex symbol. Several of Britain’s allies were worried by the reaction of the British people to Gagarin. The American embassy expressed its concerns that, following Gagarin’s extraordinary welcome, ‘Khrushchev and the Soviet leaders’ might gain ‘the impression that the British people are more concerned with friendly exchanges with the Soviet Union than they are over the serious Berlin situation and Khrushchev’s recent threatening speeches.’45 The German embassy noted that ‘the average German finds it alarming that the British, who are supposed to be reserved and politically mature, should rave over a Bolshevik on a propaganda mission, even if he is a hero.’46 However, this was a somewhat schizophrenic moment in Britain’s Cold War and, whilst some newspapers expressed warmth towards the Soviet Union or declared Russia part of a shared humanity, international tensions often shared the same pages of newspapers. The Guardian’s announcement of Gagarin’s visit, for example, was adjacent to a report on the Berlin ‘deadlock’ and the Soviet veto of a British UN resolution over the sovereignty of Kuwait.47 The government argued that their hospitality was appropriate but the British ambassador, Frank Roberts, wrote ‘I had not quite expected the hysteria of the British crowds’, who he suggested behaved ‘exactly as they had towards Colonel Lindburgh’. In response to the critics Roberts continued ‘I remind them that crowds in Britain or elsewhere give this kind of reception to jazz crooners like Liberace.’48 The warmth of Gagarin’s reception suggests that many Britons saw beyond the Cold War and celebrated his achievement with the domesticated image that the Soviets had created following his flight and that the British press had repeated. He was seen as someone who had advanced humankind.

The Building of the Berlin Wall Whilst the first half of 1961 had seen some expressions of popular enthusiasm towards the Soviet Union, the Berlin crisis loomed. Once the

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East Germans and Soviets began to close the border between East and West Berlin on 13 August the British press reacted by emphasising the freedom that they believed the West represented in contrast to the dramatic actions in Germany. As East and West confronted each other over Berlin the Mirror’s Cassandra reported the crisis as ‘the greatest game of bluff of the century’. He employed a familiar trope – the game – to represent the Cold War. However, rather than the chess metaphor that often characterised spy thrillers, Cassandra depicted the Cold War as ‘Russian Roulette’.49 The crisis took place against increased tensions in Cuba but also as more Soviet and American space flights were made. Cassandra’s column described Gherman Titov’s 24-hour orbit as being ‘deliberately timed to intimidate the West and to hearten and encourage the Communist world to new acts of aggression’. He depicted two separate worlds which were unequivocally in conflict. Often, however, some of the blame for the crisis was placed on Western leaders. In a plea to restart negotiations the Mirror asked ‘what CONSTRUCTIVE proposals to improve the situation have the West made? Answer: NONE’.50 Attitudes towards East Germany and the Soviet Union changed throughout 1961. In early August the Daily Mail printed a letter from four readers who stated, ‘East Germany exists whether we like it or not. The sensible action is to be prepared to offer some form of recognition to East Germany in return for a more sensible arrangement on Berlin itself.’51 This attitude appeared pragmatic considering the approach of the British and American governments whose primary aim was reuniting Germany under liberal-democratic government. The letter suggested that some Britons favoured a conciliatory approach rather than what many people perceived as an obstructive path set out by Western governments. Revisionist scholarship suggests that Harold Macmillan did favour a negotiated outcome, albeit one strengthened by Western military presence, and that he pressured the Americans to follow this path.52 The government was therefore more attuned with this area of public opinion than many recognised at the time. The press was sometimes critical of the divisive rhetoric that punctuated the public debate on Berlin. Reviewing an extended special of the BBC current affairs programme Panorama on 31 July, the Daily Mail’s Peter Black said that the ‘commentary was too subjective’ with the line: ‘out of the night of Communism and into the daylight of

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freedom’ being deemed particularly contentious.53 The broadcast did use divisive rhetoric at a time when the press generally hoped for a more humane solution. Host Richard Dimbleby stood at an imaginary line through Berlin’s Potsdammer Platz and declared ‘On this side a man dare not speak his mind. On this side man is free.’54 The programme, which featured vox pops from Americans and refugees in West Germany as well as a studio discussion in Bristol, reinforced the bipolar nature of the Cold War as Dimbleby described the Berlin border as ‘where the two worlds meet’. However, other areas of the press presented the West as being ready to react to communist aggression with some stressing broader concerns about a repeat of the first Berlin crisis of 1948–9. The Daily Express printed stories about an increase of Western troops in Germany and ‘Full-scale economic sanctions’ which would be ‘slapped on the East Germans if there [was] any interference with the West’s access routes to Berlin’.55 Claims of a potential new Soviet blockade were strengthened with the publication of a message from ‘diplomatic sources in Moscow’ who claimed that Khrushchev had told Italy’s Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani ‘that if the West tries a new Berlin airlift the planes would be shot down’. Such articles encouraged readers to recall Soviet behaviour under Stalin and to believe that another blockade was likely. Early in the crisis the rhetoric of ‘freedom’ was used more by politicians than by journalists. The Daily Express reported comments made by Edward Heath, the Lord Privy Seal, that the Berlin crisis was ‘a test of will between the Communist world and the Western world’ and that the West must defend the West Berliners’ ‘free way of life’.56 Heath stressed his belief in the bipolar division of the world and steered the public conversation towards opposing ways of life, with the West being represented by ‘freedom’. On 4 August Harold Macmillan appeared on TV and said of the people of West Berlin, ‘They have built their lives in freedom under Western protection. And they depend on us.’57 Sometimes the press did not follow this lead. For instance when reporting on Horst Hetzar, an East German judge, who sought refuge in West Berlin, the press reported that he had ‘fled’ but words such as freedom, whilst sometimes mentioned in the body of the reports, were rarely included in the headlines.58 ‘Freedom’ emerged as the language of political rhetoric used to describe the Berlin crisis before the press consistently used it to describe the division between the communist countries and the West.

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Before the Berlin border was closed, the British press did not always follow the sometimes inflammatory rhetoric of MPs. Some newspapers used more conciliatory language. A Daily Mirror opinion column demanded that both sides ‘Calm down. Get together. And lift the world from this terrible – and unnecessary – shadow of war over Berlin.’59 The sentiment was echoed by the Daily Mail whose opinion column demanded ‘let us try to strike a balance on Berlin, that deadly dispute which is reaching a perilous deadlock’.60 Whilst both papers favoured a resolution they stressed the danger of war that a prolonged crisis might bring and therefore contributed to anxieties over the escalation of the conflict by leaders of either East or West. Nevertheless, as the crisis reached its climax, newspapers began to echo the language of politicians with several press outlets emphasising Britain’s role in the crisis. The Daily Mirror referred to the British garrison in Berlin as a ‘“front line” outpost’ immediately evoking a sense of British greatness that was associated with empire.61 The article continued ‘[t]heir weapons: small arms, mortars, heavy machine-guns – and twelve centurion tanks. Hardly an effective fire-brigade if the Cold War hotted up. More of a stirrup pump.’ The stirrup-pump metaphor emerged once more and demonstrated the difference between a war against Nazism and a nuclear conflict which conventional troops seemed ill-prepared to wage. The Mirror reminded its readers of the danger of nuclear conflict. The escalation of the Berlin crisis prompted the press to return to the rhetoric of freedom, against slavery. When it became apparent that the East Germans were going to close the border the Daily Mail made clear the world division: ‘Reds plan to close road to freedom’.62 Whilst the crisis had simmered, this kind of language had been the preserve of politicians. Once the communists appeared to be taking aggressive action, however, the press narrative turned fully against them. On the day of the closure the Daily Mirror printed a photograph of a woman with her belongings and what the paper claimed was a baby in a pram attempting to cross the border.63 The headline ‘Robbed of Freedom’ reinforced the Cold War divide. But it was the human element within the image and the story that readers could relate to. The next day the newspaper reported that ‘Red Tanks Halt Rush to be Free’.64 The newspaper’s editorial drew comparisons to the world wars, commenting that ‘This new German crisis can still follow the same terrible road as in 1914 and 1939.’65 The crisis prompted an immediate return to

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anti-communism and the West held up the value of ‘freedom’ to stress its opposition to the Soviets. A Michael Cummings cartoon in the Daily Express depicted Khrushchev as the gaoler of the East German people. The Soviet leader stood in front of the Kremlin, which was by then well established as a metonym of the Soviet Union, clutching two astronauts. An iron ring surrounded the tower, with the words ‘The Communist Paradise’ emblazoned across it; crowds of people flooded out of an exit gate that was closing. Khrushchev says ‘Why I’m so pleased with you, Gagarin and Titov, is that you actually wanted to come back to us!’ The cartoon drew on an older Cold War iconography evoking the iron curtain and an all-controlling Soviet leader. The strength of the image visualised the prison metaphor and the freedom that newspapers depicted the West as representing loomed in the foreground. Furthermore, the strength and immediacy of the image removed the more nuanced representation of the German situation that the accompanying articles had created. The narrative of ‘freedom’ framed the crisis as it became volatile. The Daily Mail reported West Berliners chanting ‘Freiheit’ at 1:30am on the night of the closure.66 Emmwood, the newspaper’s cartoonist, drew a monolithic Khrushchev towering over two people and the Brandenburg Gate. The people were chained to a ball emblazed with a hammer and sickle. A quote: ‘Freedom for all in Twenty Years’ Time’ was attributed to the Soviet leader and the tag line ‘. . . and I just want to make sure you’re here to enjoy it’ re-emphasised the prison metaphor that had emerged around East Berlin. The simplicity of the cartoon returned the view of the Soviet Bloc to having a single all-powerful dictator. But it was the suppression of freedom that most forcefully emerged from the cartoon. Whilst reports about people seeking refuge in the West had characterised the narrative before the closure, now the stories were framed as ‘escapes’ to ‘freedom’. As the ways to leave East Berlin were being reduced (although the border was not yet completely sealed), the inventive techniques that East Germans used to enter West Berlin became news. On 14 August the Daily Mail reported that ‘More than 150 East Berliners swam to freedom today’.67 However, the headline ‘Father Swims to Freedom with child on his back’ brought the emotion of the family to the forefront of the crisis. The focus on family life allowed readers to imagine that these were people like them who

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sought a better future. The article featured another interview with a 49-year-old German who had been ferried across the Teltow Canal by a student. The man was reported as saying, ‘Life was not so bad in the East that we would not have stayed.’ Therefore the message from the newspaper was that the denial of ‘freedom’ was the motivating factor for many ‘escapees’. Freedom, however, was rarely defined in the press; it was assumed that everyone understood what the term meant and desired it. The border closure gave the British press a reason to use prison as a metaphor for communism which showed the ideology at its most totalitarian. This rhetorical trope relied on an earlier association of communism with slavery and the ‘Iron Curtain’, which had become obvious in 1956 after Khrushchev’s ‘secret’ speech and during the Hungarian revolution. But the border’s closure soon provided a physical representation of the metaphor. The Daily Mail’s John Dickie reinforced the prison metaphor by reporting the border as a ‘barbed-wire cage thrown round East Berlin’.68 The Mirror’s headline described East Berlin as held ‘in a grip of steel’, whilst Cassandra described the East German leader Walter Ulbricht as having ‘slammed the door of his Communist prison that led to West Berlin and Freedom’.69 This stark language used both freedom and the imprisonment metaphor to emphasise the division between democracy and what was now more frequently presented as totalitarian communism. Cassandra expanded the rhetoric of totalitarianism by suggesting that Khrushchev’s apparent swings in temperament were ‘a pathological curiosity reminiscent of Hitler’s paranoiac rages’. This comparison both of Khrushchev to Hitler and the German situation to the onset of war once again raised the spectre of a third world war caused by what Cassandra presented as a totalitarian state. The prison metaphor that Cassandra and other newspapers used was an important part of depicting the Soviet Union within this paradigm. Communism was depicted not only as imprisoning people but as threatening the whole world. The narrative of imprisonment was extended to newspapers’ coverage of refugees. Often the press evoked sympathy for those who sought a better life. The Daily Mail’s Rhona Churchill visited the Marienfelde refugee camp in West Berlin and ethnographically reported how she could ‘only gaze and marvel. For here were long queues of people like me.’70 Churchill’s statement encouraged readers to see similarities to their own lives within the German situation. She engaged with British

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images of domesticity, saying of the refugees that ‘most of them were so house-proud they even did the breakfast washing up before they left’. The lengthy article echoed some of the earlier reports which prompted readers to conclude that ‘freedom’ was the motivating factor with Churchill saying ‘None had to leave. None was persecuted. None was hungry. None was a failure seeking greener grass.’ Her explanation brought an element of intertextuality to her report: ‘All gave slightly different reasons but over all hung the very real shadow of Big Brother’. This statement recalled Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and in doing so returned the British representation of the Eastern Bloc to the totalitarian way in which the East was commonly represented. However, this was a big contrast to the way in which the Soviet Union had been portrayed earlier in the year. One way to make the division of Berlin more understandable was to depict how a similar partition might affect London. This tactic followed similar ways that newspapers tried to familiarise their readers with aspects of the Cold War such as nuclear weapons.71 The Daily Express described the closure of the Brandenburg Gate saying, ‘It was as though London’s Admiralty Arch was the focal point with troops and police spread out on either side stretching to St. Paul’s and Hyde Park.72 The Daily Mirror printed a two-page map of its imagined division through London. The map showed a line dividing London from Barnet in the North to Bromley in the South, with Hampstead and Islington on separate sides. The paper described how ‘East Londoners would be cut off from the bright lights. In “divided” London as in Berlin today, the East sector contains the old business centre and the industrial suburbs. The big cinemas, theatres and concert halls are in the West half.’ This British comparison encouraged readers to empathise with the Berliners because they could imagine something similar happening in their own locality. Amidst the pro-Western narrative which emphasised ‘freedom’ some of the popular responses were unsympathetic towards the Germans. The Foreign Office’s A. D. Wilson had noted following Gagarin’s visit that, ‘there is in this country a great deal of goodwill towards the Russians as people – almost certainly more than there is towards the Germans East or West’.73 Despite the Cold War having been a feature of British life for nearly a decade the scars left by two twentieth-century wars against Germany appeared to be greater than the Soviet threat. Following the American Vice President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration that Berliners

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were the West’s greatest ally, the Daily Mirror printed a letter signed ‘Ex-serviceman’ which disagreed with Wilson’s impression: ‘Perhaps the Vice-President has forgotten that not so many years ago the people of this country stood alone to protect the free world – America included – from the threat of these Germans’.74 Whilst the USSR was generally condemned, some areas of British society found it hard to express sympathy for the plight of the Germans. The mixed feelings towards Germany became clear in late August when the 84th Panzer battalion arrived in Pembrokeshire for live ammunition training. A Pathe´ newsreel showed the Panzers arriving in Wales. The soldiers were shown walking the streets with residents waving from windows and drinking in a local pub and the newsreader stated that ‘most of the people were glad to see them’.75 Such images showed viewers a welcoming atmosphere from Britons to their NATO ally. A Daily Mail reader, Denis Knight, wrote ‘we have invited our old enemies the German panzer regiments to train [. . .] Is there any reason why should not invite our old allies the Russians [. . .]?’76 He continued that having the Germans, Russians and Americans all training in Britain ‘might generate enough common sense to punch a hole in the stuffy atmosphere of NATO and the Warsaw pact [. . .].’ Knight’s humorous solution to the Cold War blurred the positions of ally and enemy with both Germany’s and the USSR’s wartime positions taking precedence over Cold War roles. Letters to the Daily Mirror, however, tended to oppose the German army training in Wales. E. T. Johns wrote ‘surely the almost firm welcome given them by the people of Pembroke is a bit silly’.77 That many Britons still thought in terms of World War II rather than the Cold War meant that visits by the German army were contentious. As the crisis progressed Mrs A. Wilson wrote to the Mail that she had seen German people whilst on holiday in Italy and claimed that their response was: ‘“Let the other countries worry – we will be alright.”’78 This antipathy towards Germany from sections of the British population suggested that perceptions of the Cold War were coloured by memories of World War II and that the former enemy was often seen as more of a threat than the Soviets. An iconography of the Berlin Wall was soon developed. In the 1960s the Wall became part of the British representation of both the Cold War and communism with spy thrillers and their cinematic versions such as Len Deighton’s Funeral in Berlin and John le Carre´’s The Spy Who Came in

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From the Cold using the wall as one of the key signifiers of the Soviet threat.79 One of the earliest examples of the wall’s iconography was the photograph of the East German border guard Conrad Schumann jumping to the West across the barbed wire of the Berlin border. It was reprinted throughout the West and in many British newspapers including the Daily Mirror.80 The image became one of the key symbols of divided Berlin and Schumann became a minor celebrity with his image remaining the focus of tourist memorabilia into the twenty-first century (Figure 8.2). Reports of nine more East German police who made similar individual dashes to West Berlin have not had the longevity in the popular imagination, because of the power of the image to create symbolism. The Mirror reported this story, quoting one of the policemen saying ‘“More of us would follow if they had the chance.”’81 This report, therefore, reinforced the association of totalitarianism and communism. The Berlin Wall became one of the key symbols that the British used to depict Eastern barbarity and to emphasise that their own system was superior. The wall moment saw the return of the monolithic representation of communism. The news of the closure of the Berlin border intensified the fear of war among some newspaper readers. Miss G. H. wrote to the Daily Mirror: I am fifteen and I want a future. So I suggest that the leaders of the great powers keep their tempers when negotiating and either ‘share and share alike’ ill-fated Berlin or make it a free city. Their present attitude can only lead to a complete deadlock or devastating war.82 The printing of a youth’s letter had a similar affect to one printed in the Daily Herald at the onset of the hydrogen bomb era: it evoked a sense of innocence and gave a voice to those whose future appeared threatened by nuclear war. Another reader wrote: I am a frightened woman, living in dread of another war. There won’t be much of the world left if nuclear bombs are dropped but think what a paradise on earth we could have with the money they cost spent for the good of humanity.83 The newspapers’ selections of letters by youth and a woman attempted to present the conciliatory message as a representative opinion. These letters cemented underlying assumptions that women were more caring

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Schumann T-shirt on sale in Berlin 2016, credit: Dr Jameson

and had an anti-war instinct that world leaders should listen to. For the female writers of such letters it was one way of finding a voice that could reach a broad readership. The emergence of a Cold War flashpoint rekindled previous fears over the nuclear question. These fears coalesced around criticisms of the world’s leaders with many people suggesting that leaders were adopting a careless attitude towards war and were out of touch with the British public.

Damn You England The heightening of the Berlin Crisis prompted a high-profile indictment of England. John Osborne, whose 1956 play Look Back in Anger had earned him a reputation as the archetype of British literature’s ‘angry

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young men’, penned an open letter, which was published in the Tribune before being picked up by most of the mainstream media.84 Osborne criticised the British establishment and claimed that it had brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. He directed his venom towards the country’s political leaders: There is murder in my brain, and I carry a knife in the heart for every one of you. Macmillan, and you Gaitskell, you particularly [. . .] I would willingly watch you all die for the West, if only I could keep my own miniscule portion of it, you could all go ahead and die for Berlin, for democracy, to keep out the red hordes or whatever you like.85 Osborne’s violent language was a challenge to the British political system and had the potential to situate him alongside others such as communists who stood outside the accepted range of opinion. The letter continued by explaining how Osborne saw his ‘hatred’ as a product of his British upbringing and what he saw as the warlike nature of Britain: ‘You have instructed me in my hatred for 30 years. You have perfected it, and made it the blunt, obsolete instrument it is now.’ He turned the nation’s story on itself: he accepted he was made in the image of imperial Britain but focussed his anger on the persistence of the class system. Osborne used the Berlin crisis to challenge British deference. The press reported the letter as an anti-British rant. Initially the Daily Express and Daily Mail coverage of the letter was quite matter of fact. Both printed extracts with the comments limited to saying that the letter was ‘extraordinary’ and linking it to the release of Osborne’s play Luther, with the Mail drawing a parallel between Osborne and the character Luther because ‘both suggest a tortured, tormented soul’.86 The Mirror appeared most outraged by Osborne with Hugh Curnow describing his letter as ‘utter tripe’ before commenting ‘The British way of life – whatever its faults – has not done John Osborne too badly.’87 Osborne’s letter was written in Valbonne, a French holiday resort. Curnow commented that he had been there last month and remembered smelling ‘the scent of jasmin [sic] in the air. This is where Osborne sat last night, smelling only the blood of the world under his out of point nose.’ Osborne’s letter continued to attract ire for several days. The Daily

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Mail claimed that the letter read ‘like that of a betrayed lover’ saying his comments were ‘hysterical, incoherent and easy to shrug off as the ranting of an exhibitionist’.88 However the newspaper appeared to understand how Osborne could have made these comments because he ‘voiced a feeling that goes deep into the hearts of men that live under a nuclear shadow’. They saw Osborne’s letter in the context of nuclear anxiety and the feelings of helplessness at continued nuclear crises. The press commotion around the letter underlined the process that whilst examining the Eastern enemy some Britons began to examine their nation and some, like Osborne, did not like what they saw. Osborne’s letter prompted responses from members of the public. Supportive correspondents included Marjorie Dent who wrote to the Daily Mail ‘most mothers I know agree with it [. . .] I too wish to God that all the statesmen of the world would get blown up if it meant the end of the bomb and the fear of our children’s destruction.’89 Osborne’s role as an anti-nuclear campaigner therefore helped those anxious about a potential nuclear war to voice their opinion. K. G. King called the letter ‘a much needed attack on our tinpot grouse-hunting politicians handling of the Berlin crisis’. King criticised Macmillan’s apparent lackadaisical attitude during the Berlin crisis which at one point had featured the Daily Express printing pictures of him hunting with the accompanying headline ‘Crisis? What Crisis?’90 King claimed that Osborne ‘expresses so correctly the feelings of the younger generation’.91 The support for Osborne reflects the questioning of the ruling class in Britain that became more fully formed as an attack on deference as the 1960s wore on. The Cold War was one of the issues around which this anger could be expressed. Of the letters disagreeing with Osborne, Desmond Allhusen praised his honesty, whilst Mrs B. Jackson commented ‘what a pitiful state John Osborne is in’. The Mirror’s selection was weighted against Osborne. Some were concise with H. Wood stating ‘I hope Osborne stays out of England’.92 A. T. P. Horn wrote that ‘Far from hating the English Mr. Osborne should be thanking them – for turning up to see his plays and thus providing him with the lolly to live in luxury.’ These writers opposed Osborne because they saw his letter as a direct attack on the British (although here, as often during the era, represented by the English) rather than on its leadership. This attitude contrasted with the praising of Osborne for his attack on deference which was expressed by those who agreed with him.

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Conclusion Throughout 1961 the way that the Soviet Union was presented and how Britons reacted to it varied as circumstances changed. The USSR’s continued success in the space race convinced many Britons that it was a modern society. As with the launch of Sputnik the successful manned space flight captured the imaginations of many Britons and prompted some celebration of the Soviet system. The Soviets were able to capitalise on the excitement that the launch generated by having Gagarin visit their London exhibition in July. The Soviets made the most of their success and the British people gave him a hero’s welcome which worried some of Britain’s Cold War allies. During the first seven months of the year many Britons perceived the Soviet Union as modern and their inquisitiveness was spurred. Comparisons of the Soviet Union with British international and industrial decline caused many to question whether the Soviet system was not after all the most advanced. However, the Soviet threat was soon evoked in the British media and the representation returned to the totalitarian vision of communism when the Berlin Wall began to be erected in the middle of August 1961. The language of the Cold War returned to that of the freedom of the West against the slavery of communism. However, even here people did not always accept the language of ‘freedom’ nor did they associate it wholly with the West. Part of the British population was beginning to challenge their ruling system and the morality of the Cold War was increasingly being questioned.

CHAPTER 9 VIEWING THE SOVIET UNION AT THE END OF KHRUSHCHEV'S RULE

Mid-October 1964 marked a change in British politics and the Cold War. Harold Wilson’s general election victory ended 14 years of Conservative government. The Labour victory was based on the promise of a technological revolution and to modernise society in terms of its social structure. The Berlin and Cuban crises had brought the Cold War close to outright conflict and politicians sought to ensure better international relations. Moreover in the Soviet Union the deposition of Khrushchev heralded a more conservative and less provocative form of government which helped to stabilise the Cold War. However, many Britons still retained a desire to encounter the East. This chapter argues that British producers of culture still attempted to make the Soviet Union familiar to their audiences at the period’s end. Moreover the changes that characterised Khrushchev’s rule meant that the monolithic depiction of Soviet communism began to lessen. The chapter examines Paul Winterton’s thriller The Ashes of Loda which was published pseudonymously as Andrew Garve in 1965. The novel reflects some of the changes in attitudes that had occurred since 1951 but hinted that brutality lurked below the modern Soviet exterior. Furthermore, several examples of British popular press and photojournalism, which continued to make anthropological examinations of everyday Soviet life, are used to demonstrate that the humanisation of the Soviets, which had emerged in British popular

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culture from the late 1950s, continued into the 1960s. Whilst political tensions still existed, the media increasingly tended to view the Cold War and the Soviet Union through a kind of kitsch lens which was also seen in some of the spy culture of the era. Throughout this book I have examined British representations of the Soviet Union alongside the conflict itself. The selected texts engage with the concept of the Soviet Union as the Other within the supposed bipolar divide of the Cold War. The influence of Edward Said, whose work has been applied to the Cold War by a number of scholars is evident throughout.1 Heonik Kwon has applied Said’s Orientalism to Southeast Asia: Orientalism in the bipolar era was an invented tradition. It drew upon the traditional, colonial-era politics of representation, but it reshaped the conceptual parameters of cultural differences and hierarchy for the purpose of creating a united front against the ‘common’ threat to the ‘American way of life’ in particular and to the ‘free world’ at large [. . .] The orientalism of this era departed from the previous European orientalism by transforming the latter’s binary vision into a more complex, multidimensional matrix of ‘us and them’. The result was a pragmatic political culture that was tolerant of cultural diversity within a defined moral and ideological unity and within a broad framework of social development in which the specific local cultural traditions and the general modernization of political and economic relations according to the American model were believed to be reconcilable.2 Kwon applies Said’s thesis to American Cold War culture and those nations in Europe, South America and Southeast Asia where the war of ideologies was fought. His application of Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger’s concept of an ‘invented tradition’ is important.3 British national identity was changing with the invention of a Commonwealth tradition which replaced the previous imperialist discourse. Chapter 5 discussed how the fortuitous association between the conquest of Everest and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation contributed towards a new idea of nationhood and this partially reflected the change as British culture assimilated the new Elizabethan age rhetoric by engaging with new

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media such as television, which screened rituals involving royalty, whilst the older imperial culture slowly dissipated. I have previously explored Britain’s relationship with the USSR during Khrushchev’s rule but this chapter focuses on the end of his era. Khrushchev claimed that his main success was the ability to remain alive after being deposed.4 He was referring to his ending of the irrational terrorising of the Bolshevik party and wider population (despite his own participation in the terror). Khrushchev, however, continued to suppress satellite and domestic unrest.5 J. A. S. Grenville sums up Khrushchev’s legacy as one of absolute leadership without terror: ‘Opponents no longer had to fear death, but a displeased Khrushchev could end their careers and demote or banish them. His enduring contribution was to dismantle the Stalinist terror regime and discredit it.’6 This view suggests that under Khrushchev much of the despotic nature of Stalin’s regime remained. The dismantling of the terror state revealed something of Khrushchev’s volatility. His attempts to lessen Cold War tensions and create a system which was capable of out-producing capitalism resulted in a number of contrasting depictions of Khrushchev, which frequently employed both irony and bewilderment. At times the British depicted Khrushchev as a reformer and antidote to Stalin, but he was also presented as a typical oppressive Soviet leader whose power relied on force. This contradictory presentation was enabled by his willingness to engage with and visit the West but also his frequent use of brinkmanship.7 Eric Hobsbawm suggests that Khrushchev’s erratic personality, combined with Western fears of Soviet technological advancement, exaggerated the threat of war in the early 1960s.8 Many creators of culture in Britain depicted Khrushchev’s attack on the cult of personality as insincere. A David Low cartoon suggested as much during Khrushchev’s visit to Britain in April 1956, making the explicit accusation by labelling him and Bulganin ‘Sensations of the Season’. The leader’s deposition consisted of a series of Communist Party members who accused him of creating his own cult.9 When his aggressive words were backed up by actions, such as in Budapest in 1956, it was easy for the British press to depict him as continuing Stalin’s brutality. The following encounters demonstrate the uneasy nature of Britain’s relationship with her Cold War opposite at the end of Khrushchev’s rule.

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The ‘Matrix of Us and Them’ in The Ashes of Loda The Ashes of Loda features a British journalist, Tim Quainton, who meets and falls in love with a Polish woman, Marya. Quainton’s work takes him to the Soviet Union but, before he departs, Marya ends the relationship because the Soviets had convicted her father in absentia of criminal activity. Whilst in the Soviet Union Quainton attempts to prove the father innocent but the novel turns into an escape thriller as it becomes clear that the Soviets do not want the British man to discover the truth. Quainton displays many of the ‘heroic’ characteristics that were frequently used to depict journalists and photographers. His intrepidness in breaching the iron curtain suggests adventure and is reminiscent of Clark’s notion of hypermasculinity. Quainton is more nuanced than Ian Fleming’s James Bond, who Jana Nittel argues is the epitome of this concept.10 Quainton’s attempts to prove his fiance´’s father innocent, contain several elements of hypermasculinity. However, it is Marya’s rejection that motivates Quainton; the narrative’s focus on winning the female fits within the concept of hypermasculinity. The main difference is his avoidance of violence. Whereas an almost erotic attachment to weaponry in the Bond series symbolises the hypermasculine atmosphere, Quainton avoids violence – often by hiding. He uses his cunning to avoid capture and to beat the Other in the Cold War game of which he has become part. This cunning forms the depiction of a modernised form of masculinity which co-exists alongside the previous form which focussed on brute strength and confrontation. Quainton can be situated between Lynne Segal’s two types of postwar masculinity. He is an aristocrat who seeks to promote truth and freedom, and therefore conforms to the ‘old wartime hero’ stereotype. Nevertheless, he supports his family and downplays his elite origins, allowing him simultaneously to become the ‘family man’.11 Quainton fits the pattern of masculinity defined as ‘intrepid’, ‘diffident’, ‘suave’ and ‘bluff’ by David Matless, Jonathan Oldfield and Adam Swain in their examination of academics travelling in Eastern Europe.12 Whilst Quainton is a journalist rather than an academic, in his meetings with various Eastern counterparts he displays many of these characteristics. At each meeting, it is obvious that although he can glimpse the East he never fully knows it. The irony of his inability to know the East, despite this being his job, highlights the binary nature of the world during this

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period. It suggests that despite the attempts at anthropological examination made by Westerners, through such excursions as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s in 1954, the presentation of the East remained closed and secretive. Quainton’s inability to know the East is visible throughout his encounters with it. Each time he is deceived. When meeting Marya’s father, Raczinski, he believes him to be a Polish man whose sense of national identity has suffered because of continuous Russian, German and then Soviet domination. The meeting shows a character with a sense of displacement and an apparent air of transparency: ‘As a former Pole,’ he said ‘I can forgive neither the Russians nor the Germans. The Nazis, of course, were unspeakable [. . .] But the Russians in their callous way, were hardly better – and we had them on our necks for much longer. Their imperialism goes back for generations [. . .] And in the last war, they were guilty of fearful crimes. At Katyn forest Stalin had ten thousand Polish officers murdered’ [. . .] ‘He’s been dead a long while’ Marya said. ‘And things have changed.’ Raczinski shook his head doubtfully. ‘I would like to think so . . . but the Russians still tyrannize over much of Eastern Europe.’13 The depiction of Eastern Europe in this passage makes it similar to the European colonies. Unlike Britain, however, which was decolonising by 1965, imperialism characterises this depiction of the postwar Soviet Union. Communism is an extension of Russian imperialism which the Polish nation has suffered for centuries. Therefore, enmity is directed not just towards communism, but also towards Russians in general. The passage can be read using Larry Wolff’s concept of a geographically ‘imagined’ Eastern Europe, which he argues was abandoned to the Soviet Union at Yalta only because it had been imagined as different but was now hidden by the ideological elements of the Cold War.14 Through Raczinski, Winterton begins to uncover an earlier image of Eastern Europe: as different but still dominated by the Russians. The claims of change appear superficial to Raczinski and both the reader and Quainton feel that he is right to be suspicious. To extend Kwon’s matrix through the iron curtain, it is possible to

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see the divisions between Eastern countries as well as between West and East. Quainton believed he knew the Other, yet Raczinski’s suicide letter reveals the truth: that he was actually a lapsed Soviet agent. This revelation changes Raczinski’s position on the matrix and Quainton confronts Marya with the reality that her identity had been false all along. Retrospectively, readers must apply a new ambiguity to the earlier meeting and question whether Raczinski was simply maintaining his cover story. His comment: ‘“I was coming to realise that freedom – Western Freedom was more than just an empty phrase,”’ suggests that the earlier monologue held some of the character’s reformed ideological outlook. These lines appear more representative of Raczinski’s real thoughts when we learn that the father had attempted to sever his contact with the Soviet agencies.15 They are now spoken by a Russian who had been a committed communist. However, it appears that he was able to speak the truth about the Soviet empire once he ceased to believe in the regime. For Quainton, the truth could not come directly from the Soviet character but had to be revealed via a letter. This use of a proxy suggests the division of understanding between East and West was difficult to breach. In Moscow Quainton encounters a Soviet bureaucrat, Pavlov. He feels that he knows the Soviet Union, its officials and its systems: ‘I typed out a formal request [. . .] and signed the letter over a special rubber stamp I’d had made. You don’t get anywhere in Russia without a special rubber stamp.’16 This seemingly flippant remark uncovers the barriers that the narrator believes exist for a Westerner in the East. Furthermore, it reveals a sense of ironic knowingness from the narrator who attempts to use his knowledge to beat the Soviets and speed up the bureaucratic system which was presented as alien to British culture. As with Edelman’s A Call on Kuprin, this meeting can be seen as a game with Quainton commenting: ‘A meeting with him could develop into a fencing match, and often it did, but if he ever became unpleasant it was only in the subtlest way.’17 This engagement with the game metaphor demonstrates the competition which existed between East and West and was common in presentations of the conflict. In the Evening Standard in 1960 Vicky depicted Eisenhower and Khrushchev using United Nations peace wreaths in a fencing match of rhetoric.18 The cartoon utilised the friendly spirit of the Olympics which were taking part in Rome, where fencers had competed in front of the Olympic flag with the rings being

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redrawn by Vicky as CND symbols. The engagement of the fencing metaphor reminds readers of the Cold War division. Moreover, it demonstrates the masculine nature of the conflict that was linked to sportsmanship and returns to ambiguity over the meanings of peace and war. Quainton expects this meeting to become a kind of controlled violence, a fencing match, which represents the Cold War itself. His expectation further demonstrates his assumed knowledge of the Other. At their next meeting knowledge of the Other becomes part of the game that is being played: ‘I guessed he’d had a report on me – and I was right.’19 Quainton attempts to outmanoeuvre the Soviets and assumes that he is beating them. The Soviets’ attempts to know the Westerner are also exposed. The concealment of knowledge becomes important as the plot progresses because Pavlov, as representative of the Soviets, vastly underestimates the Westerner’s ability to evade their attempts to kill him. Ultimately, the East’s attempts to know and beat the West are thwarted because, despite their extensive spy network, they know little about the other sphere. Quainton’s inability to know the East is revealed when his visit to the countryside is surprisingly approved. The encounters between Quainton and Pavlov’s agency continue to unfold similarly to the fencing match he had previously mentioned; they are set plays in which one side comes out on top. Quainton assumes his knowledge of the Soviets gives him an advantage over the drunken witness, Skaliga, at the Raczinski inquest, and the Soviet guide Korzhenko. However, in both cases the assumption is reversed as he discovers a Soviet agent and a man who is ordered to kill him respectively. The approval of the visit to the Ukrainian countryside is a trap and is intended to facilitate Quainton’s murder. His knowledge about the East and its methods becomes a mortally dangerous contradiction for Quainton as he is seduced by the Western desire to know it fully. Eventually Quainton meets a peasant called Scorbin and is greeted with the phrase ‘Tovarisch’.20 Scorbin’s use of comrade presents him as a loyal communist and Quainton accordingly extends his assumptions. The word comrade is also used later in the novel with more sinister overtones. As the police check passports on the train one says, “Dokumenti, comrade.” I loved that “comrade”. He shone his torch at me and gave me a long, hard look.’21 There are two meanings of the word comrade. When Scorbin uses it, in Russian, it is friendly and approachable. When used in English, however, whilst this is part of the

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narrator’s inconsistency, it is seen as threatening. When Quainton enters the peasants friend’s hut it becomes apparent that perhaps the use of the word was a display of outward conformity: ‘A few faded family photographs hung on the wall, around a large picture of Khrushchev. There was also a small ikon with a candle in front of it. The Greko family evidently believed in playing it both ways.’22 This act of defiance raises hopes that the Soviet population might soon push for their freedom. Winterton’s writing suggests that the regime had failed to change as much as Khrushchev claimed; a cult of personality still existed and the family were fearful enough to display the man’s portrait. Therefore, Winterton presents a Soviet Union which remained repressive despite Khrushchev’s reforms. Ultimately it suggests that the East remained ‘unknowable’. These two uses of the word comrade demonstrate the representation of the survival of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union despite Khrushchev’s rule being associated with reform. Meeting the peasants is perhaps the closest that Quainton comes to experiencing the true East and yet even here he fails because of his assumptions about loyalty. Moreover, Quainton is forced to reverse the situation by disguising his identity and stealing from the peasant in order to escape. Therefore, just as Quainton, as representative of the West, never really knows the East, so the various representatives of the East continually misread and never really know the West. Wolff’s argument about a long-term creation of knowledge concerning the Eastern sphere is useful here: the encounter between Quainton and various Soviets relies on the accumulated knowledge and long-held perception of the Other, as do the Soviet approaches to the Westerner. The official, Korzhenko, and the peasant, Skorbin, both underestimate Quainton’s cunningness. The only Eastern character who does not underestimate Quainton is Raczinski and he is disguised within the West and therefore knows it more fully. Geoffrey Bennett’s Death in the Russian Habit, published pseudonymously as Sea-lion, features a similar character. Paul Snell, the protagonist, is a bilingual halfRussian half-British son of an e´migre´; therefore, he also occupies this space on the matrix that is neither fully West nor East. Characters like Raczinski, Marya and Paul in popular culture obscured the Cold War binary system and support Marc Selverstone’s view that the representation of a ‘monolithic’ Eastern Bloc was less evident in Western culture by the mid-1960s than it was during the 1950s.

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Marya occupies the most ambiguous position on the ‘Matrix of us and them’. The reader believes she is Polish and yet her British upbringing makes her Western. When it is revealed that her father was Russian our perception does not change; she remains Western because she has not been brought up as a Russian or a communist. Kwon argues that communism was frequently perceived as a racial characteristic and created difference in Southeast Asian communities.23 Similarly, Winterton suggests that attributes of being communist might be inherited. Therefore, the position which Marya and her father occupy is akin to that of the noble savage which pervaded earlier orientalist discourse.24 This application of ambiguity to these two characters suggests that at the end of the Khrushchev era the binary divide was not as stark as might be assumed, and as Winterton himself had presented in Murder in Moscow in 1951.

After the Coup Reports of Khrushchev’s deposition on 15 October 1964 lacked the explosiveness of events such as the ascent to space; many reports repeated the official Soviet news release that he had retired. However, some newspapers were sceptical of the official story with the Guardian stating that ‘the failure to prepare the Soviet public for the announcement suggests a forced retirement’ and the Daily Mirror claiming ‘there were hints that his political opponents at last have won a round’.25 Any concerns about a return to Stalinism were allayed by the Kremlinologist, Edward Crankshaw, who wrote in the Observer that ‘even if the new Soviet leadership is feeling antagonistic towards their late leader it does not mean that they will immediately reverse all his policies and start threatening the West’.26 The coincidence with the British general election and the ongoing US presidential campaign meant that initial news of a change in the Soviet leadership competed with more pressing interests. When newspapers did cover Khrushchev’s fall there was no uniform way of reporting his legacy; he was generally presented as a reformer yet somebody who had many faults and who represented a system at odds with British values. At the end of the Khrushchev era, as at the beginning, some areas of British popular culture adopted an anthropological approach. The deposition coincided with a series of articles about the USSR in the conservative tabloid Daily Sketch. The articles were more in-depth than

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the tabloid’s usual news snippets. The journalist Sally Cline created a human interest story by covering issues such as love and work-life in the Soviet Union. The result was a romanticised observation which blended text with photojournalism. With a similar discourse to Ashes of Loda and Cartier-Bresson’s photography following Stalin’s death, the articles suggested that the iron curtain was being pulled aside to reveal all. In doing so, the news presented itself as the objective truth from a disinterested observer. The images helped to authenticate the text. Furthermore, the series would have confirmed pre-conceived truths about the Soviet Union for many of the nearly one million readers, but it might also have surprised many because of the apparent normality of her subjects.27 The first instalment juxtaposed the seeming normality of a wedding with the underlying Soviet system which Cline called a ‘paradox lost’.28 Her article used the term to depict the replacement of religion with Leninism and the regime’s ability to produce a spacecraft, but its inability to produce sufficient consumer goods. Moreover, Cline returns the British view of the Soviet Union to a dystopia, which recalled the Orwellian image which was so consistent throughout the era. The failure of utopia remained a central theme in the series, with emphasis on efforts to use traditional family units as a means to breed the next generation of Soviet citizens. Cline exemplified this approach by referring to a ‘Marriage Factory’ in her first article, thereby reinforcing the previous 50 years of Britain’s representations of the Soviet system as a command structure in all elements of society.29 Cline’s description of a Russian wedding was far from condemnatory and at times she praised the Bolsheviks’ apparent success in removing materialism, which she implicitly criticised in Britain. Her approach reveals an increasing feminist awareness: she praises the Soviets for giving women ‘complete economic security in their own right’.30 The article romanticises Soviet marriages by suggesting that people wed for love rather than social or economic interests. Depictions of apparent equality continued as the differences in marriage rituals were explained. Brides’ wedding speeches were portrayed as so common that attendees at the caviar and champagne ceremony commented that ‘once you’ve heard one bride speech, you’ve heard them all’.31 The focus on caviar and champagne at the reception might have challenged the perceptions of scarcity in the USSR. However, an oppositional reading might have questioned whether

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Cline was reporting what the Soviets wanted her to see and might have read the articles in a similar way to ‘fellow-traveller’ literature. Readers were presented with an image of an institution similar to the British one but in a way which also reversed and opposed many of the familiar cherished rituals. The article challenged British patriarchal tradition because elements of the gendered roles were shown to oppose what was expected and this further suggested an emasculation of the Soviet Union. The next day the series continued to familiarise Soviet life to the Sketch readership and focussed on courtship. Cline emphasised the differences between the Soviet Union and Britain, especially the absence of sex instruction manuals and sexualised imagery in advertisements in the USSR.32 Therefore, the article implicitly suggested the absence of liberation and consequently infantilised the Soviet people because of their assumed ignorance of sexual matters, which by 1964 the British had begun to put behind them.33 Once again the Soviet Union was depicted as simultaneously progressive and naive. Soviet women were presented as freer as and less objectified than under the capitalist system of the UK, which might present something of a challenge to readers of a Conservative-supporting tabloid. The Soviets, however, appear unable to appreciate their sexuality because of the system imposed on them by the all-powerful state. Readers might have felt a connection with the Soviets as the author examined common problems including where to go on dates. This emphasis on similarities with Britain encouraged an empathetic attitude. Moreover, the lessening of Cold War tensions meant that the USSR was more of a curiosity than a threat. This presentation suggests a less monolithic, or even a declining, communism with greater tolerance extended towards Russia; this is consistent with the view of the era as an extension of Kwon’s matrix: the Soviets now occupy a more benign space in the British imagination. The article humanised the Soviets by discussing how young couples might obtain a few moments alone, with Gorky Park suggested as the most popular dating venue and the Char-oplane allowing them space where ‘there are no families to interrupt [. . .], no militiamen to move them on, and for their brief spin in the air they are free to laugh and love as in the back row of the cinema’. This statement reveals an innocence and connection with Western readers who might have sympathised with their humanised Soviet counterparts. Moreover, it suggests that state observation is omnipresent in Soviet life.

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The article revealed the differences in value systems and the fact that communism was not compatible with Western freedom. Finally the article suggests the system had not reached a state of totalitarian control that it desired. Similarly to Cartier-Bresson’s photograph of the militia men and women waiting for a tram, communism is depicted as being unable to hinder the most human of urges. People can evade the observation, just as Winston and Julia do in Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, rather than the arrest and torture that Orwell’s fictional couple undergo, the articles suggest that such moments are commonplace and that the state is losing in its attempt to control human nature. Sketch readers were again reminded of the Orwellian paradigm in Cline’s next article, which examined wages and the availability of goods. Cline commented that women retained the responsibility for housekeeping and collecting the children after work: ‘Men and Women may be equal in Russia but just as here the men seem to be more equal than women.’34 Cline addressed her public using an intertextual link to Orwell’s Animal Farm, reminding readers of the prism through which the Soviet Union had been viewed since the late 1940s. She gave readers the impression that Orwell’s view, which they were likely to have heard of even if they had not read the books, was chillingly prophetic as Picture Post had claimed in 1954.35 Cline’s reports offered a rare relief from the hyper-masculine paradigm which appeared to dominate much Cold War culture and which has been identified with defining the era. As with the invasion of Budapest, women began to find a voice in the Cold War. Cline appeared to advocate an international equality for men and women and she projected emerging Western values onto the Cold War itself. Notwithstanding this, women did create representations of the Cold war before this point. For instance, in 1958 a 21-year-old Anglo-American, Sally Belfrage, published her memoir of spending six months living in Moscow and provided readers with sympathetic descriptions of life in the Soviet Union.36 However, Cline’s work was significant because it provided a female view of a moment when the impressions that many Britons had of the Cold War were changing. The articles allowed a woman to acquire agency over the representation of the conflict and Cline’s conciliatory approach contrasts with much of the male-produced culture. Furthermore, the publication of this benign curiosity in the conservative Daily Sketch indicates changes in the British domestic situation as well as a general lessening of tensions at the end of the Khrushchev era.

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Newspapers continued to depict a Soviet Union which had a more humane face than under Stalin’s rule. The reduction of Cold War tensions led to less sensationalised reportage of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union was referred to, it rarely posed the same threat to Western existence as at the outset of the era. In October 1964 the newly launched Sun, then a broadsheet with much more serious content than it contains in the 2010s, ran a fashion photoshoot in divided Berlin. It described the images as ‘the first fashion pictures ever taken against the Berlin wall’.37 Photographs of a model against the Brandenburg Gate, with a guard at Checkpoint Charlie, and against an expanse of the wall with a man wearing a dinner jacket, would have reminded readers of the existence of the Cold War and made a connection with the Bond series of movies, which had by 1964 achieved mass popularity with the release of Goldfinger in September.38 The allusion to James Bond captured the intrigue and frivolous sensation with which the conflict was now frequently treated in popular culture. The photographs also helped to reinforce the Berlin Wall as a symbol of the Cold War. The wall, however, already represented the division between East and West and its meaning did not need explaining. The presence of mass-produced British fashions is a symbol of Western values and demonstrated the freedom to hold such a shoot on the Western side. Susan Reid argues that consumption and fashion became defining characteristics of femininity in the Soviet Union and that Western observers sought to identify a ‘universal feminine’.39 This depiction from outside the bloc suggests that the projection of Western values further emphasised the difference in gender codes and cultures. Where the East can be seen, it appears monotonous and empty. The article signifies much about the East by way of its opposition to the West, but it also gently satirises the Cold War by creating a kitsch image of the symbols of division. As with Cline’s material, the fashion shoot brings the Cold War into a more feminine sphere by raising interest in more domestic issues that might be seen in their 1960s context as female-orientated.

Conclusion During Nikita Khrushchev’s rule British representations of the Soviet Union changed according to the raising and lowering of the temperature of the Cold War. Whilst he was often seen as a reformer, an image of

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brutality was never far away. As the era progressed, the sense of Cold War bipolarity became less obvious. Application of the ‘matrix of us and them’ to British culture adds clarity to some of the positions which existed in Britain, but which were also expanded across the iron curtain to explore the way in which differing points were also occupied by the Cold War Other. The matrix reflected a change in British traditions and a reassertion of identity in opposition to the Soviet Union. Throughout Khrushchev’s rule there were a number of fluctuations in depictions of the Soviet Union but, as the end of the period approached, Selverstone’s argument, that the previous monolithic presentation of world communism was lessened, carries weight. However, no new consistent image of anti-communism took its place. The state had influence upon culture for example via the Information Research Department briefings or influence upon the BBC but there was also unintentional propaganda. It utilised audiences’ pre-existing assumptions and therefore representations were formed because popular culture acted as a web of interrelated texts, which covered the full ideological spectrum. Much Western popular culture therefore represented an inherent set of ideologies and values against which the Soviet Union was judged. Very often, as in the case of Sally Cline, this was in spite of attempts to appear objective. Frequently presentations of the East utilised the West’s own set of signs, both verbal and visual, which invoked totalitarianism. This signification is most notable with the use of terms which emerged from George Orwell’s writing, which seemed to be a common register to report the communist bloc to the point of being cliche´d. Often, however, this kind of language was used in a flippant or humorous manner and this suggests that, as the era progressed – and away from flashpoints like the Cuban Missile Crisis – the East was viewed as radically different but not as a massive threat to Britain. Throughout Khrushchev’s rule an ethnographic approach was employed by novelists, journalists and photographers and helped to both demystify and mystify the Soviets. This investigative approach is reflected in the plot for Winterton’s The Ashes of Loda. In part this reflected a desire by the West to gain knowledge of the Other and a quest for the truth about what was commonly seen as a propaganda war waged by both sides. Reporters often stated their objectivity, but encouraged the reader to question the presentation. Frequently, the existence of

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guides was mentioned to tell the reader that they were reporting what they were allowed to see. This contrasts with earlier reportage which was overtly sympathetic and often distorted, most famously by George Bernard Shaw, the Webbs and also by Winterton himself.40 One major effect of this approach was the continued representation of alterity between the Soviet Union and Great Britain. These encounters, however, could never be anything more than an abstraction. This generalisation is visible in the narrative of The Ashes Of Loda, in which the Russian characters are obscured and frequently deceitful or distant. Yet even here the late Khrushchev era is viewed with ambiguity. Russian characters are not uniform and are recognisably human; they do not wish to destroy the West and the Cold War is often far from their minds. By the mid-1960s the British presentation of the conflict tended to depict a human if under-developed Soviet population. There was an increasing feminisation of the presentation of both the Other and the conflict, which shifted the emphasis away from hypermasculinity. Moreover, as the Sun’s Berlin Wall fashion shoot and Sally Cline’s writing reveals, there were now attempts to subvert the dominant maleness and present a counter-hegemony which was linked to increasing female involvement in British culture. The ‘normalisation’ of the Cold War (to borrow a phrase from Mark Smith) meant that it was seen increasingly through an everyday prism, with elements of kitsch, and this allowed areas which might traditionally have been seen as feminine to enter narratives of the conflict.41

CONCLUSION

Britain’s Cold War has examined a range of British public culture to ascertain the diversity of attitudes towards Eastern Europe, communism and the Cold War between 1951 and 1965. The encounters took place within fiction and non-fiction and most were directed towards a mass audience which contributed towards a climate of opinion about the Cold War and communism. Attitudes surrounding the Cold War were not just about the East or the conflict itself but involved Briton’s ideas about what it means to be male or female; religious or atheist; a social democrat, conservative or humanitarian. Cold War moments were frequently elucidated and made sense of through these features of everyday life. Long-term attitudes are difficult to ascertain but it is clear that the beginning of the period revealed a mixture of anti-communism and those who reserved judgement. By 1965 tensions were lessening and there was more of a tendency to seek to understand the Soviet Union, but this remained laced with a mixture of anti-Soviet and anti-communist feeling. Throughout the era, however, journalists, photographers and novelists attempted to create glimpses and encounters with the Soviet Union as a way of knowing the Cold War Other, which often revealed as much about British ideology as they did about the USSR. Perceptions of the Cold War and Soviet Union were rarely as sharply defined as is often believed. Whilst communists and Russians were by no means popular in Britain it took a long time for the enmity, which organisations such as the Information Research Department disseminated, to become a predominant view and even then there were frequent outpourings of support for Russia or her system of planning.

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In part, this ambiguity resulted from the British political system, which throughout the early Cold War was firmly connected to a form of welfare-based social democracy centring on a belief in planning as a means to improve society. Harriet Jones has suggested that the Conservative acceptance of social-welfarism and willingness to compromise with trade unions was to a large extent caused by fears that to challenge this consensus would encourage support for communism.1 Therefore, throughout the period, the Cold War had an often invisible effect on everyday society and culture. This book has argued that whilst the Cold War was not an ever-present concern for Britons, there were regular reminders of it from a number of media, and people who discussed the conflict at periods of heightened tension or sensationalism and made judgements about the various actors in the conflict. Whilst many Britons accepted the need for the Cold War to be fought, a sizable proportion was opposed to the idea of a bipolar world which was increasingly threatened with nuclear weapons. The majority, even among this group, remained resolutely anti-communist in their outlook but many retained a belief that state intervention and planning could improve the lives of the population. The domestic experience of the Cold War was closely tied to postwar changes in society. In particular, the renewed attempts by Anglican congregations to connect with British national identity are visible in the early period. Questions over the morality of nuclear weapons appeared to divide religious figures, as modernisers and traditionalists fought a similar battle in the church itself. Some views were obviously beyond the pale. Nevertheless, the church’s association with the state meant that a liberal approach was taken to those, like Hewlett Johnson, who were close to the Soviet Union, and they were allowed to retain their positions whilst receiving criticism from clergy and media alike. By the time CND emerged in 1957 it was not unusual for individual clergy to oppose the official support for nuclear weapons. In part, opposition to the church’s official nuclear policy was an attempt by individual clergymen to maintain Christianity’s position as a guardian of British moral values and it followed from the belief by many of the movement’s participants that unilateralism was a morally strong position. The period revealed an apocalyptic anxiety which emerged at points of heightened fears of a war or wonderment at technological creation

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such as an orbiting spacecraft. Apocalypticism was two-fold. Firstly, it emerged from a national identity which was rooted in traditional Christian beliefs and very often even accepted the reality of nuclear war provided it would prevent communist domination. Secondly, apocalypticism represented a departure from traditional Christian identity and the formation of secular apocalypse narratives. These myths emerged through early twentieth century fictional imaginings of total destruction such as H. G. Wells’ nuclear disaster novel The World Set Free and the destructive shocks of two world wars, followed by the apparent threat of nuclear Armageddon during the Cold War.2 Frequently the secular apocalypse myth manifested itself in science fiction or nuclear disaster novels and films. Occasionally, however, public expressions of the myth were visible, and groups such as CND formed which opposed either form of apocalypse, and fought against the fatalism which world leaders seemingly espoused. Therefore, the turmoil that characterised World War II loomed in the memories of many during the 1950s and 1960s contributing towards the prevalence of apocalypticism during the Cold War. Many apocalypse myths were visible in science fiction but George Orwell’s dystopias bridged the gap between high and popular culture and were broadcast on television, radio and abridged in newspapers. The Cold War became characterised by Orwell’s terminology, which named and described long-held political practices. One of Orwell’s central paradoxical terms peace acquired new definitions and in print media frequently became associated with the enemy. Orwell’s phraseology became common in the press when describing the Soviet Union and allusions were often drawn in cartoons. Whilst Rubin and others have argued that Western governments intervened in order to ensure that Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four were widely disseminated and headed the list of Western literary classics, the effects of the novels’ domination of the literary scene has been less researched. Throughout the Cold War Orwell’s language became a common intertextual reference in the printed press which referred to the Soviet Union and therefore readers were encouraged to judge communism as a similar dystopia. Readers’ reactions to Orwell’s work and his positon within British school curricula deserve greater attention from scholars. The Cold War was a multi-media conflict which changed the everyday terminology that Britons used.

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The conflict between tradition and modernity became more visible during this era, especially as the consequences of nuclear war were imagined through fiction and film. This antagonism was most evident when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. Fear of an uncertain future led to expressions of alarm from readers of newspapers who reverted to long-held myths such as apocalypticism and anxieties about a scientific establishment which was not aware of the consequences of its potentially dangerous experiments. Anxiety, however, existed alongside many people’s celebration of the Soviets’ technological advancement as a human-wide endeavour which would bring benefits to all. As part of the emergence of the consumerist society many people and media celebrated the launch as a symbol of modernity. Many people perceived Britain to be falling behind in the quest for modernity and they compared their own country to the Soviet Union. When Yuri Gagarin made the first space flight in 1961 many Britons found the achievement a reason to question a perceived lack of science funding which had prevented Britain from keeping up with the superpowers. Whilst Selverstone has argued that Western culture predominantly presented communism as a monolithic entity, my book has shown that at certain moments the ideology was not universally believed to be a threat to the British way of life. However, few groups would wholeheartedly endorse the Soviet Union with politicians, authors, newspapers and their audiences preferring to promote the potential of British social democracy instead. Occasionally successes, such as great Soviet technological advances, were held up by some as examples of the potential of a planned society. Furthermore, the ambiguous relationship with communism supports Kynaston’s arguments that planning was seen, even by Conservatives, as necessary and that there was a broader belief that the system was helping the Soviet Union to become more technologically advanced.3 Whilst the realities of Soviet life were frequently different, many British people and institutions projected domestic hopes for the planned society on to the Eastern Bloc, which was perceived to be making great strides through a technological revolution. Notwithstanding this, it should be noted that there was a near-universal rejection of communism in mainstream culture which was heavily influenced by the idea of communism as a God which had failed. Even when various groups such as Keep Left or the disarmament movements attempted to steer a course away from

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alliance with the USA, it was for a morally superior Britain to stand above superpower conflicts and act as a third force in the world through what is now termed ‘soft power’. The Cold War occurred as Britain’s international role was changing. This change has previously been credited with affecting the way in which British culture was co-ordinated in order to prevent the spread of communism during decolonisation.4 British national identity was changing, not just as a result of decolonisation but because of the way World War II had affected the population and a new social system had emerged. Postwar changes in social and political relations meant there were attempts to rapidly remake national identity in terms of the new welfarist paradigm, but also in a way which stressed the continuity of tradition and some resistance to the emergence of Americanised popular culture. Questions over nuclear armaments and space travel coincided with changes in national identity as tradition and modernity conflicted with fears for the very existence of the nation. Moreover, conflicts between Britain’s modern and traditionalist faces fed into some of the Cold War episodes such as the onset of the thermonuclear era in 1954. Movements such as CND encapsulated these conflicts and the attitude of making sure that ‘there will always be an England’ continued in the press presentation of the movement as mainly middle-England and almost conservative, which continued through the first few Aldermaston marches. This association with middle-England occurred despite healthy Scottish and Welsh groups. Britain’s changing international role was frequently reflected through popular literature. Paul Winterton’s Murder in Moscow and The Ashes of Loda both featured British protagonists who relied on American allies to progress the plot and prevent the Soviets from winning. Stephen KingHall’s Men of Destiny showed that Britain was powerless in a world controlled by superpower relations and that a brash American upstart could bring destruction upon the British way of life as easily as the USSR. Peter Bryant’s Two Hours to Doom features no British characters and takes place completely outside Britain, despite the author’s nationality. These novels and the Cold War fed into the ongoing debates about British identity. A progressive form of Britishness was pitted against the old society which was dominated by the ideals of the upper class and white, heterosexual men.

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Women played a more active role in the British Cold War than is commonly recognised. Shifting gender positions reflected the changing position of women in British society, which began before this period but became more obvious following a sense of insecurity in the masculine psyche which was exacerbated by the Suez debacle as imperialist assumptions were seemingly challenged. The simultaneous invasion of Budapest revealed women playing a direct part in the conflict and led to publications from several British women who had now rejected communism but who made a large contribution towards reporting the revolution and whose stories confirmed many suspicions about their former political beliefs. Women’s opinions were sought and heard by newspapers through vox pops and letters that they wrote. Sometimes they claimed to offer a ‘feminine’ perspective. However, women’s participation in the conflict was often tied into domestic perceptions of women as focussed on the domestic sphere; this was visible through the role that fashion had begun to play in reinforcing the liberal system and by the Daily Sketch sending Sally Cline to give a ‘woman’s view’ on the Soviet Union in 1965. Previously women’s involvement with the Cold War was often confined to being a cheerleader for communism or in a more supportive domestic role. Some woman had been depicted as spies such as the Soviet agent Rosa Klebb in from Russia with Love (although in the film she had left the Soviet spy agency), but as the change in society’s perception of women occurred there was more scope for engagement with this intellectual and international conflict.5 Cold War fiction like Maurice Edelman’s A Call on Kuprin reflected this renewed masculine uncertainty and new masculinities emerged, which the protagonists in Andrew Garve’s Murder in Moscow and The Ashes of Loda assumed. These novels went some way to reflecting a more nuanced masculinity, which lacked the security of earlier periods and suggests the emergence of more domesticated male stereotypes as Segal has identified. Some of the novels did feature female characters who played an active role in the Cold War, for example the translator, Tanya, in Men of Destiny, who attempts to bring about nuclear conflict. A future study might include the fiction of Jon Bryan, whose novel The Man Who Came Back is referred to briefly in Chapter 5. Bryan portrayed women in a more active Cold War role while remaining within traditional gender stereotypes; for example, they are more calculating than the male characters who rely on strength. This might appear surprising at first

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until one learns that Bryan was a pseudonym for the crime and romance novelist Josephine Delves-Broughton and that the author was in fact female. Attitudes towards Russia do not appear to have hardened and there appears to be much continuity with earlier perceptions of Eastern Europe and Russia as imagined entities. Whilst Wolff suggests that the Cold War merely disguised pre-existing assumptions about the area east of the iron curtain, sometimes it did not even do that and a number of areas of culture suggest that this earlier view of an uncivilised Other was frequently recycled. Encounters such as Henri Cartier-Bresson’s visit in 1954, however, might have challenged some readers’ assumptions about the Russians by portraying them as similar in many respects. Several readers wrote to Picture Post arguing that their expressions of ‘apathy and lack of happiness’ confirmed what was already known about the Soviet Union.6 Therefore, some opinions were difficult to change, especially through such an ephemeral yet apparently unquestionable source as the photographic set. The uprising in Budapest of 1956 was another episode when enmity was to be expected and was duly expressed by the British population. Here, however, the expressions of support towards Hungarian refugees suggested that the Other was not as feared and all-pervasive as might otherwise be assumed. This perhaps is a result of a demystification process that emerged following Stalin’s death and accelerated until the suppression of the uprising. This book has sought to present the Cold War not as a single line of continuity but as a number of moments where interest or tensions were raised in the conflict with the Eastern Bloc. As such I have sought to emphasise the difference between ephemeral and fleeting moments, which might be termed a glimpse, and more in-depth moments when an encounter can be said to have occurred across the iron curtain. These encounters might only have occurred for an individual such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, but there were also moments when mass culture extended these encounters to the broader population, such as when presenting Hungary in 1956. By viewing the Cold War as a series of glimpses and encounters mediated through cultural texts, a much more nuanced picture emerges than when viewing the conflict simply as one period of direct ideological and geo-political opposition which lasted from 1945 to 1991. These encounters reveal that populations

CONCLUSION

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and individuals were often much more diverse than is revealed by studying official viewpoints alone. Future research projects might make use of this tool to view the Cold War and examine a greater range of moments and encounters than a study of this length permits. Some research has already been made into visits to the Eastern Bloc and this could usefully be extended. Over the coming years I intend to expand my research into official and unofficial journeys that Westerners made behind the Iron Curtain and how far they helped to inform broader social attitudes towards the Eastern Bloc. From Khrushchev’s deposition in 1965 relations between the two power blocs, whilst not necessarily friendly, became less antagonistic. The nuclear test ban treaty enacted by Khrushchev in 1963 had already eased tensions but the new Soviet leadership consolidated its power and the Cold War became less volatile. British public culture reflected this change, prompting Lawrence Wittner to suggest that the lessening of tensions reduced support for disarmament movements.7 During the early Cold War the British population did not always uncritically accept the expansive and monolithic image of communism with which they were often presented. Scepticism towards the press and the actions of governments was common. The air of mystery about the Eastern Bloc meant that many of the British population wanted to know more about the Cold War other. When Britons looked through the Iron Curtain they saw Big Brother, but they also saw a population who were quite like them.

NOTES

Introduction 1. Vicky, Meet the Russians (London: 1953), v. 2. Ibid., 2. 3. Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: 2000); Hugh Wilford, The CIA the British Left and The Cold War: Calling The Tune? (Abingdon: 2003). 4. John Jenks, British Propaganda and News Media in The Cold War (Edinburgh: 2003); Simona Tobia, ‘Europe Americanized?’ Cold War History, 11, 1 (2011): 1–7; Linda Risso, Propaganda and Intelligence in the Cold War: The NATO Information Service (Abingdon: 2014); Richard Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: 2006); Scott Lucas, Freedom’s War: The American Crusade Against the Soviet Union (New York: 1999). 5. Andrew N. Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture and the Cold War (Oxford: 2012). 6. Alan Nadel, Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism and the Atomic Age (Durham, NC: 1995); Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: 1994 [1985]). 7. Robert Hewison, In Anger: British Culture in The Cold War 1945– 1960 (Oxford: 1981); Fred Inglis, The Cruel Peace: Everyday Life and The Cold War (London: 1992); David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (Oxford: 2003); Politics and the Novel During the Cold War (London: 2009); Adam Piette, The Literary Cold War 1945 to Vietnam (Edinburgh: 2009). 8. Andrew Hammond, British Fiction and the Cold War (Basingstoke: 2013); Tony Shaw, British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus (London: 2001); Jonathan Hogg, British Nuclear Culture: Official and Unofficial Narratives (London: 2016).

NOTES TO PAGES 3 – 9

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9. Marc Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain and International Communism 1945– 1950 (London: 2009), 73. 10. Ibid., 195– 9. 11. David Kynaston, Austerity Britain 1945 – 51 (London: 2007); Family Britain 1951 – 57 (London: 2009); Modernity Britain 1957 – 62 (London: 2015); Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had it so Good (London: 2007); White Heat (London: 2009). 12. Brian Harrison, Seeking A Role: The United Kingdom 1951 –1970 (Oxford: 2009). 13. On the ‘progressive sixties’ case see Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c. 1958 – c.1974 (Oxford: 1998); the sceptical case is put by Dominic Sandbrook, White Heat; a more nuanced argument blending excitement about the modern with anxieties about loss of stature is made by Mark Donnelly, Sixties Britain (London: 2005); the case for secularisation is made by Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (Oxford: 2007); the extent of secularisation is disputed by Grace Davie, Religion in Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging (London: 1994); Callum Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularism (London: 2001) suggests a 1950s evangelical revival occurred but that secularisation emerged from the early 1960s. 14. Andrew Hammond, Cold War Literature: Writing the Global Conflict (Abingdon: 2006), 10; see also Hammond, British Fiction, which includes much femaleauthored Cold War literature. 15. Suzanne Clark, Cold Warriors: Manliness on Trial in the Rhetoric of the West (Carbondale: 2000). 16. Shaw, British Cinema, 2 – 3. 17. Lorenzo DiTommaso, ‘At the Edge of Tomorrow: Apocalypticism and Science Fiction’, in Karolyn Kinane & Michael Ryan (eds), End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity (Jefferson: 2009); Dianne Kirby, ‘Ecclesiastical McCarthyism: Cold War Repression in the Church of England’, Contemporary British History, 19, 2 (2005), 188. 18. For example Arthur Bradley & Andrew Tate, The New Atheist Novel: Fiction, Philosophy and Polemic after 9 11 (London: 2010); Ann Keniston & Jeanne Quinn (eds), Literature After 9 11 (London: 2010). 19. Elizabeth Rosen, Apocalyptic Transformation: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination (London: 2008), xix. 20. Anne C. Rehill, The Apocalypse is Everywhere: A Popular History of America’s Favourite Nightmare (Santa Barbara: 2010), 103– 4. 21. Ibid., 104. 22. Rosen, Apocalyptic Transformation, xviii. 23. Caute, Dancer, 472 – 7. 24. John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (London: 2008 [2007]), 3 – 4.

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25. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: 2008 [1949]); Nevil Shute, On the Beach (London: 1957). 26. John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids (London: 1951). 27. The War Game, dir. Peter Watkins (BBC: 1965). 28. John Berger, Ways of Seeing (London: 1972). 29. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: 2005), 36– 59. 30. David Caute, The Fellow Travellers (London: 1973). 31. Picture Post, 26 February 1955, 7. 32. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, 4. 33. Mike Cole, ‘A Plethora of Suitable Enemies: British Racism at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32, 9 (2009) 1679; Jon Fox, Laura Morosanu & Esszter Szilassy, ‘The Racialization of New European Migration to The UK’, Sociology, 46, 4 (2012), 1 – 16. 34. See ‘Racist incidents feared to be linked to Brexit result’, The Guardian, 26 June 2016. 35. Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: How The Kremlin Menaces Both Russia and the West (London: 2008). 36. Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers (London: 1980). 37. Malia, Russia Under Western Eyes, 7. 38. Michael Warner, Publics and Counterpublics (New York: 2002), 14 – 16. 39. Malia, Russia Under Western Eyes, 295 – 312. 40. Wilford, Calling the Tune?. 41. Michael Paris, ‘Red Menace! Russia and British Juvenile Fiction’, Contemporary British History, 19, 2 (2005), 118 – 19. 42. Patrick Wright, Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War (Oxford: 2007); Patrick Wright, Passport to Peking: A Very British Mission to Mao’s China (Oxford: 2010). 43. Mass Observation Online Archive, ‘Report On Middle Class Attitudes to Russians and Americans’, July 1948, MO3015, 3. 44. Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London: 2002), 135–6. 45. Mass Observation Online Archive, ‘Panel on Attitudes to Daily Newspapers’, July 1947, MO2557. 46. ‘Russians and Americans’ MO3015, 22. 47. ‘Russians and Americans’ MO3015, 23. 48. ‘Russians and Americans’ MO3015, 19 – 20. 49. Edward Said, Orientalism (London: 2003 [1978]). 50. Robert Hariman & John Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture and Liberal Democracy (Chicago: 2007), 26. 51. Warner, Publics, 14. 52. Ibid., 16. 53. Shaw, British Cinema, 91 – 114. 54. Tony Shaw, ‘The Popular Press and The Early Cold War,’ History, 83, 269 (2002), 68.

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55. Chris Horrie, Tabloid Nation: From the Birth of the Daily Mirror to the Death of the Tabloid (London: 2003), 98. 56. Adrian Bingham, Family Newspapers, 23. 57. Brian Jamison (ed.), Scotland and the Cold War (Dunfermline: 2003); Christopher R. Hill, ‘Nations of Peace: Nuclear Disarmament and the Making of National Identity in Scotland and Wales’, Twentieth Century British History, 27: 1 (2016), 26– 50; Martin Johnes, ‘Wales and the Cold War’, Llafur, 10: 4 (2011). 58. See Jenks, British Propaganda; Andrew Defty, Britain, America and AntiCommunist Propaganda 1945 – 53: The Information Research Department (Abingdon: 2004); Rubin, Archives of Authority; Philip M. Taylor, British Propaganda in the Twentieth Century: Selling Democracy (Edinburgh: 1999). 59. Peter Hennessy, The Secret State (London: 2002), 2 – 3.

Chapter 1 Between West and East: Fellow-Travellers and British Culture in the Early Cold War 1. Marc Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain, and International Communism, 1945– 1950 (London: 2009). 2. London Illustrated News, 15 December 1951, 1004. 3. Paul Winterton, A Student in Russia (Manchester: 1928); Malia, Russia with Open Eyes (London: 1937). 4. Winterton, Report on Russia (London: 1945), v. 5. Ibid., 37– 9. 6. ‘Keep Left’, New Statesman (May 1947), 30– 47. 7. David Kynaston, Austerity Britain 1945– 51 (London: 2007), 222 – 3. 8. John Butler, The Red Dean of Canterbury: The Public and Private Faces of Hewlett Johnson (London: 2011); David Ayes, ‘Hewlett Johnson: Britain’s Red Dean and the Cold War.’ In Philip Muehlenbeck ed., Religion and the Cold War: A Global Perspective (Nashville: 2012) 65 – 87; Dianne Kirby, ‘Ecclesiastical McCarthyism: Cold War Repression in the Church of England’, Contemporary British History (2005), 19:2, 187– 203. 9. John Butler, The Red Dean 1; Dianne Kirby ‘Ecclesiastical McCarthyism’, 188. 10. David Caute, The Fellow-Travellers (London: 1973), 242. 11. Robert Service, Comrades: Communism: A World History (London: 2007), 207. 12. Patrick Wright, Iron Curtain: From Stage to Cold War (Oxford: 2007), 283– 291. 13. Viscount Hailsham, HL Deb, 15 July 1952 vol. 177 cc.1116– 64, 1149. 14. Arthur Koestler, Darkness At Noon (London: 1941); George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (London: 1938); Paul Winterton, Inquest on an Ally (London: 1948). 15. Paul Winterton, Inquest; Report. 16. Marc Selverstone, Monolith, 2.

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17. Victor Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom: The Personal and Political Life of a Soviet Official (London: 1947). See also John Fleming, The Anti-communist Manifestoes: Four Books that shaped the Cold War (New York: 2009), 179– 268. 18. Butler, Red Dean, 177– 8. 19. Daily Express, 1 March 1949, 3. 20. Hailsham, HL Deb, 15 July 1952, vol 177, col 1149. 21. Andrew Thorpe, ‘Stalinism and British Politics’, The Historical Association, 83, 272 (2002), 625. 22. Heavens Above!, dir. Ray and John Boulting (Romulus Films: 1963). 23. Malcolm Muggeridge ‘Russia Revisited’, published Nicholas Flynn (ed.), Malcolm Muggeridge: Time and Eternity (London: 2010). 24. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (London: 1871); John le Carre´, The Looking Glass War (London: 1965). 25. Richard H. S. Crossman (ed.), The God That Failed (New York: 1949). 26. Francis S. Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: 1999), 65– 6. 27. David Caute, Isaac and Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic (New Haven: 2013). 28. Isaac Deutscher, ‘The Ex-communist’s Conscience.’ The Reporter 1950 reprinted Heretics and Renegades and Other Essays (London: 1955), 9– 22, 15. 29. Caute, Fellow-Travellers, 7. 30. Hewlett Johnson, The Socialist Sixth of The World (London: 1939); Butler, The Red Dean, 80. 31. Daily Mirror, 15 March 1949, 12. 32. Winterton, Inquest, 9. 33. Garve, Total Eclipse!: Foreign Correspondents in Moscow Reduced to Yes Men (London: 1945); Quoted by Winterton in a letter to Sir Walter Layton, 5 November 1944, TNA/371/43337.7567; reprinted in R. B. Cockett, ‘‘‘In Wartime Every Objective Reporter Should Be Shot”: The Experience of British Press Correspondents in Moscow, 1941– 5’, Journal of Contemporary History, 23, 4 (1988), 515. 34. Selverstone, Monolith, 32. 35. David Matless, Jonathan Oldfield & Adam Swain, ‘Geographically Touring the Eastern Bloc: British Geography, Travel Cultures and the Cold War’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (2008), 356. 36. Callum G. Brown, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800 – 2000 (Abingdon: 2nd edn 2009), 170; Kynaston, Austerity Britain, p. 242; Kynaston, Family Britain 1951 – 57 (London: 2009), 531 – 7; Brian Harrison, Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1951 – 1970 (Oxford: 2009), 339 – 42. 37. News Review, 30 October 1947, 22– 4. 38. News Review, 6 November 1947, 23. 39. Daily Mail, 24 June 1950, 1. 40. Harrison, Seeking a Role, 343.

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41. Monique Scheer, ‘Catholic Piety in the Early Cold War Years, or, How the Virgin Mary Protected the West from Communism’, in Annette Vowinckel, Marcus M. Payk, & Thomas Lindenburger (eds), Cold War Cultures: Perspectives on Eastern and Western European Societies (Oxford: 2012), 130. 42. Kirby, ‘Ecclesiastical McCarthyism’, 188 – 9; Andy Croft, ‘Betrayed Spring: The Labour Government and British Literary Culture’, in Jim Fyrth (ed.), Labours Promised Land? Culture and Society In Labour Britain 1945– 51 (London: 1995), 216. 43. Garve, Murder In Moscow (London: 1951), 7. 44. Hewlett Johnson, The Socialist Sixth of the World (London: 1939), 22. 45. Garve, Murder In Moscow, 7 – 8. 46. For example see Freda Utley, The Dream We Lost: Soviet Russia Then and Now (New York: 1940), 5; cited in Gidon Cohen, ‘Political Religion and British Communism’, Twentieth Century Communism, 2 (2010), 198. 47. Cohen, ‘Political Religion’, 200. 48. Ibid., 201. 49. Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 340– 1. 50. John Jenks, British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War (London: 2006), 33– 4. 51. Garve, Murder In Moscow, 21. 52. Kevin Morgan, Gidon Cohen & Andrew Flinn, Communists and British Society 1920– 1991 (London: 2007), 185. 53. Thomas Lineham, Communism in Britain, 1920 – 39: From the Cradle to the Grave (Manchester: 2007), 84 – 5. 54. Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940 – 2000 (London: 2002), 121– 36, 149– 50. 55. See Kynaston, Austerity Britain, 270– 7, 376 – 7; Leif Jerram, Streetlife: The Untold Story of Europe’s Twentieth Century (Oxford: 2011), 293– 4, 302. 56. Steve Parsons, ‘British Communist Party School Teachers in the 1940s and 1950s’, Science and Society, 61, 1 (1997), 46 – 67; Sarah Mills, ‘Be Prepared: Communism and the Politics of Scouting in 1950s Britain’, Contemporary British History, 25, 3 (2011), 429 – 50. 57. Lord Vansittart HL Deb, 29 March 1950, vol 166, cols607 – 61; Literature on American McCarthyism is extensive; see for example Ted Morgan, Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth Century America (New York: 2004). 58. Steve Parsons, ‘British “McCarthyism” and the intellectuals’, in Jim Fyrth, ed., Labours Promised Land?: Culture and Society In Labour Britain 1945– 51 (London: 1995,) 224– 46, 225. 59. High Treason, Dir Ray Boulting (Peacemaker Pictures: 1951). 60. Hewison, In Anger, 30. 61. Rubin, Archives of Authority, 33. 62. Hugh Wilford, Calling the Tune? The CIA, the British Left and The Cold War (Abingdon: 2003), 3.

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63. Phillip Deery, ‘The Dove Flies East: Whitehall, Warsaw and the 1950 World Peace Congress’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 48, 4 (2002), 448– 68, 450. 64. Deery ‘Dove’ 457. 65. Manchester Guardian, 2 November 1950, 6. 66. Manchester Guardian, 7 November 1950, 10. 67. Manchester Guardian, 10 November 1950, 5. 68. David Low, Exodus from Sheffiled’ Daily Herald, 14 November 1950, Available at https://archive.cartoons.ac.uk/GetMultimedia.ashx?db ¼ Catalog&type¼ default&fname¼LSE7821.jpg 69. Sheffield Telegraph, 1950, cited in Christopher Mayhew, A War of Words: A Cold War Witness (London: 1998), 80– 1. 70. The Listener, 1134, 23 November 1950, 580. 71. Clement Attlee, HC Deb, 9 November 1950, vol 480, col 1099. 72. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: 2008 [1949]), 225. 73. Deutscher, ‘“1984” – The Mysticism of Cruelty’ (1954) reprinted Heretic and Renegades, 35 –50, 35; Tony Shaw, ‘“Some Writers are More Equal Than Others”: George Orwell the State and Cold War Privilege’, Cold War History, 4, 1 (2003) 143–70. 74. Rubin, Archives of Authority, 44 – 5. 75. Ibid., 11. 76. TNA CAB/128/18-14 Conclusions of a Meeting of the Cabinet, 6 September, 1950. 77. ‘Comment: The Red Carpet’, Daily Mail, 10 November 1950, 1. 78. Weston Ullrich, ‘Preventing “Peace”: The British Government and the Second World Peace Congress’, Cold War History, 11, 3 (2011), 350. 79. Daily Mail, 16 November 1950, 2. 80. Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London: 2002), 133–6. 81. Daily Herald, 14 November 1950, 4. 82. Walter Hixson, Parting The Curtain: Propaganda, Culture, and The Cold War 1945– 1961 (New York: 1997). 83. James Ede, HC Deb, 14 November 1950, vol 480, col 1685. 84. Peter Salisbury, ‘Giles’s Cold War: How Fleet Street’s Favourite Cartoonist Saw The Conflict’, Media History, 12, 2 (2006), 169. 85. David Low, ‘Peace, Imperfect Peace’, Herald, 1 November 1950, Available at https://archive.cartoons.ac.uk/GetMultimedia.ashx?db¼Catalog&type¼ default&fname ¼ LSE7816.jpg; George Orwell, Animal Farm: A Fairy Story (London: 1945); Tony Shaw, Hollywood’s Cold War (Edinburgh: 2007), 72– 7. 86. Quoted, Manchester Guardian, 2 November 1950, 5. 87. Shaw, ‘Some Writers Are More Equal Than Others’, 146. 88. Herald, 14 November 1950, 4. 89. Roy Greenslade, Press Gang, 30. 90. Ibid., 61.

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249

91. W. Scott Lucas, ‘Beyond Freedom, beyond control, beyond the Cold War: approaches to American culture and the state-private network’, Intelligence and National Security, 18, 2 (2003), 56– 7. 92. Andrew Roth, ‘Obituary: Melvin Lasky’ The Guardian, 22 May 2004; Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (London: 2007), 223. 93. Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in The United Kingdom (Oxford: 1979), 74– 6. 94. Chris Horrie, Tabloid Nation: From the Birth of the Daily Mirror to the Death of the Tabloid (London: 2003), 75. 95. Selverstone, Monolith, 131. 96. Mass Observation Online Archive, ‘Report on Middle Class Attitudes to Russians and Americans’, MO3015, July 1948, 21, 23. 97. George H. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937–1975, Volume 1 1937– 1964 (New York: 1975), 192, 206, 223, 226. 98. Garve, Murder In Moscow, 30 – 1. 99. ‘Russians and Americans’ MO3015, 2. 100. Giora Goodman, ‘The British Government and the Challenge of McCarthyism in the Early Cold War’, Journal of Cold Studies, 12, 1 (2010), 62– 97; Kirby ‘Ecclesiastical McCarthyism’; Sarah Mills, ‘Be Prepared: Communism and the Politics of Scouting’, Contemporary British History, 25, 3 (2011), 429– 50; Jim Phillips, ‘Labour and the Cold War: The TGWU and the politics of Anticommunism, 1945– 1955’, Labour History Review, 64, 1 (1999), 44– 61; John Jenks, British Propaganda. 101. Garve, Murder In Moscow, 29. 102. Ibid., 34. 103. Ibid., 38. 104. Ibid., 39. 105. Mathew C. Ehrlich, ‘Studying the Journalist in Popular Culture’, The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture Journal, 1 (2009), 9. 106. Garve, Murder In Moscow, 28 – 9. 107. Jopi Nyman, Men Alone: Masculinity, Individualism, and Hard-Boiled Fiction (Amsterdam: 1997), 4. 108. Ibid., 359. 109. Suzanne Clark, Cold Warriors: Manliness on Trial in the Rhetoric of the West (Carbondale: 2000), 3.

Chapter 2 ‘No Defence Against the H-bomb’: British Society and H-bomb Consciousness in 1954 1. Janet Morgan (ed.), The Backbench Diaries of Richard Crossman (London: 1981), 303. 2. Daily Herald, 25 March 1954, 1.

250

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3. On worldwide media coverage see Courier-Mail, 8 April 1954, 4; Los Angeles Times 8 April 1954, 8. 4. Churchill, HC Deb, 16 August 1945, vol 418, cols 78 – 81. 5. John Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy 1954– 65 (Oxford: 1995), 34– 7. 6. Ibid., 85– 6. 7. Matthew Grant, After The Bomb: Civil Defence and Nuclear War in Britain 1945– 68 (Basingstoke: 2010), 43– 5. 8. Kate Hudson, CND: Now More Than Ever (London: 2005), 38. 9. Richard Taylor, Against The Bomb: The British Peace Movement 1958 – 65 (Oxford: 1988), 6; Dianne Kirby, ‘Responses Within the Anglican Church to Nuclear Weapons 1945 – 1961’, Journal of Church and State, 37. 3 (1995), 614. 10. Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (London: 2004), 50– 2. 11. Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940 – 2000 (London: 2002) 15– 16; Bennedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: 2006); Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (London: 1991), 71– 8. 12. Jeff Hughes, ‘What is British nuclear culture?’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45. 4 (2012), 495–518; Jonathan Hogg, ‘”The Family that Feared Tomorrow”’ British nuclear culture and individual experience in the late 1950s’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45. 4 (2012), 535–49; Jodi Burkett, ‘Re-defining British morality: “Britishness” and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 1958–68’, Twentieth Century British History, 21 (2010), 184–205; Cristoph Laucht, Elemental Germans: Klaus Fuchs, Rudolf Peirerls and the Making of British Nuclear Culture 1939–59 (Basingstoke: 2012). 13. Hugh Berrington, ‘British Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons’, in Marsh, Catherine & Colin Fraser (eds), Public Opinion and Nuclear Weapons (Basingstoke: 1989) 22; Gerard De Groot, The Bomb: A Life (London: 2004), 232. 14. David Kynaston, Family Britain 1951 – 57 (London: 2009), 471– 2; Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had it So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to The Beatles (London: 2005), 259. 15. Mathew Grant, ‘Civil Defence and the Nuclear Deterrent 1954 – 1968: Strategic Imperative and Political Expediency’, in his The British Way in Cold Warfare: Intelligence Diplomacy and the Bomb 1945– 75 (London: 2009), 53. 16. W. Scott Lucas, ‘Beyond Freedom, Beyond Control: Approaches to Culture and the State-Private Network in the Cold War’, in Giles Scott-Smith & Hans Krabbendam (eds), The Cultural Cold War In Western Europe 1945 –60 (London: 2003), 40– 57. 17. Grant, After the Bomb, 4, 30 – 2. 18. Brian Harrison, Seeking A Role: The United Kingdom 1951 –1970 (Oxford: 2009), 98. 19. See Daily Mail, 7 April 1954, 1.

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251

20. Manchester Guardian, 17 March 1954, 1; Daily Express, 17 March 1954, 1; Daily Mail, 17 March 1954, 3; Daily Mail 23 March 1954, 1; Manchester Guardian 24 March 1954, 6. 21. George Orwell, ‘You and the Atomic Bomb’, Tribune, 19 October 1945; John Hersey, Hiroshima (London: 1946). 22. Daily Express, 30 March 1954, 4; Daily Express, 31 March 1954, 4; Daily Express, 1 April 1954, 4; Light Programme 21 – 22 March 1954. 23. Daily Express, 31 March 1954, 4. 24. Daily Mirror, 2 April 1954, 16. 25. Adrian Bingham, ‘”The Monster”? The British Popular Press and Nuclear Culture 1945– early 1960s’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45 (2012), 617–618. 26. Attlee HC Deb, 5 April 1954, vol 526, cols 36– 43. 27. Morgan (ed.), Crossman 305 – 7. 28. Churchill, HC Deb, 30 March 1954, vol 525, cols 1840– 1842; Daily Express, 31 March 1954, 1. 29. Manchester Guardian, 17 April 1954, 4. 30. Weight, Patriots, 223. 31. John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids (London: 1951); John & Ray Boulting (dirs.), Seven Days to Noon (Charter Film: 1951). 32. Daily Mail, 26 March 1954, 1. 33. Daily Mail, 31 March 1954, 4. 34. Daily Mail, 2 April 1954, 1. 35. Daily Mail, 25 March 1954, 4. 36. Daily Mail, 29 March 1954, 4. 37. News Chronicle, 1 April 1954, 4. 38. Panorama, BBC Broadcast, 13 April 1954; ‘Man’s Peril’, BBC Home Service, 23 December 1954. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, ‘A Statement on Nuclear Weapons’, 9 July 1955. 39. Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity: From Dickens to Dad’s Army (Manchester: 1997), 4, 15, 16. 40. Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 259. 41. George H. Gallup (ed.), The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937– 75, Volume One 1937– 1965 (New York: 1975), 320. 42. Berrington, ‘British Public Opinion’, 28 – 34. 43. Daily Mirror, 3 April 1954, 2. 44. Daily Herald, 13 April 1954, 4. 45. Bingham, ‘The Monster’. 46. Hogg, ‘The family that feared tomorrow’, 547– 8. 47. Nick Tiratsoo, Reconstruction, Affluence and Labour Politics: Coventry 1945– 60 (London: 1990), 92. 48. Matthew Grant, After The Bomb, 33 – 4. 49. Ibid., 74. 50. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 April 1954, 1.

252 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

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56 – 60

Grant, After The Bomb, 44 – 64. Angus Calder, The Myth of The Blitz (London: 1991), 249– 50. Daily Mail, 8 April 1954, 1. Ibid., 5. Grant, After The Bomb 77. TNA CAB 128/27, C (54) 229 ‘Civil Defence’ 15 April 1954. News Chronicle, 10 April 1954, 4. TNA CAB 129/72, C (54) 389 ‘Fall Out.’ MOD. 9 December 1954, cited in Geoff Hughes, ‘The Strath Report: Britain Confronts The H-Bomb, 1954– 1955’, History and Technology, 19 (2003), 262. News Chronicle, 8 April 1954, 2. Matthew Grant, ‘“Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure”: Citizenship, Participation, and Cultural Change in Cold War Recruitment Propaganda 1949– 54’, Twentieth Century British History, 22 (2011), 52 –78. Daily Mirror, 8 April 1954, 2, 4. Bingham, ‘The Monster’, 614– 16. Daily Herald, 8 April 1954, 4. Weight, Patriots, 57. Daily Herald, 29 May 1954, 4. Modern Record Centre, University of Warwick (MRC), MSS.24/3/1/4, Arthur Edmonds to Mayor of Coventry, 7 April 1954. MRC MSS.24/3/1/13, John Becker, Bernie & Guy Yates to Sydney Stringer, 8 April 1954. ‘European Prize’, Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe, 14 October 1955, Doc 420. MRC MSS.24/3/1/14, Anon. To the Town Mayor of Coventry, 8 April 1954. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 5 April 1954, 5. Jeanne Kaczka-Valliere & Andrew Rigby, ‘Coventry – Memorializing Peace and Reconciliation’, Peace and Change, 33.4 (2008), 585. Kirby, ‘Church and Nuclear Weapons’; Lawrence Wittner, The Struggle Against the Bomb: Volume Two, Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954– 1970 (Stanford: 1997), 15. MRC MSS.24/3/1/16, Rev. J. J. Ambrose to The Chairman, Coventry City Council, 8 April 1954. For example, MRC MSS.24/3/1/71, Florence Howarth, Bury Fellowship of Reconciliation to Stringer, 14 April 1954; MSS.24/3/1/6, Rev. Donald W. Pipe to Stringer, 5 April 1954; MSS.24/3/1/95, E. L. Jenkinson, Southend Group, Peace Pledge Union to Stringer 6 May 1954. Lawrence Wittner, One World or None: The Struggle Against the Bomb, Volume one (Stanford: 1993) 86, 327– 8. Peace News, 28 May 1954, 4. Peace News 23 April 1954, 1. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 April 1954, 1. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 7 April 1954, 1.

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253

80. Ibid., 10. 81. Peter Mandler, The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (London: 2006), 196 – 204. 82. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 8 April 1954, 12. 83. Ibid., 12. 84. Nick Tiratsoo, Coventry 1945– 60, 93. 85. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 10 April 1954, 8. 86. John Betjeman ‘Coming Home’, BBC Home Service, 25 February 1943. 87. MRC MSS.24/3/1/23, W.A. Scott to Lord Mayor Cresswell, 9 April 1954. 88. The Battle of Britain, dir. Frank Capra (Office of War Information, 1943); Calder, Blitz, 244 – 250. 89. Weight, Patriots, 196– 7. 90. MRC MSS.24/3/1/94, M. Baynham, Coventry British Soviet Friendship Society, to Stringer, 15 April 1954. 91. Gallup, Opinion Polls, 324. 92. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 28 May 1954, 1. 93. See MRC MSS.24/3/1/113 Ursula M. Massey to Stringer 31 May 1954; MSS.24/3/1/165/1-2 Coventry Trades Council to Stringer 4 June 1954; MSS.24/3/1/114 Wallasey Fighters for Peace and Proletarianism to Stringer, undated. 94. MRC MSS.24/3/1/116 A. J. Keen to Stringer, 31 May 1954. 95. News Chronicle, 31 May 1954, 4. 96. Daily Herald, 9 June 1954, 4; 10 June 1954, 4; 11 June 1954, 4. 97. Daily Herald, 14 June 1954, 4. 98. Grant, ‘Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure’, 63. 99. Crossman, HC Deb, 5 July 1954, vol 529, cols 1832 –65. 100. Edelman, HC Deb, 3 June 1954, vol 528, cols 1457– 62. 101. ‘Civil Defence and The H-Bomb’, Peace News, 11 June 1954. 102. Peace News, 7 May 1954, 1. 103. Daily Mirror, 1 June 1954, 4. 104. Bingham, ‘The Monster’, 623. 105. See Daily Mirror, 2 March 1954, 14; Daily Express 16 March 1954, 7; Grant, ‘Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure.’ 106. Tiratsoo, Coventry 1945– 60, 48. 107. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 31 May 1954, 6. 108. Daily Herald, 31 May 1954, 1. 109. Sonya O. Rose, Which People’s War: National Identity and Citizenship in Wartime Britain 1939– 1945 (Oxford: 2003), 20. 110. Grant, ‘Civil Defence Gives Meaning to Your Leisure’. 111. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 1 June 1954, 5. 112. See Paul Winterton, Inquest on an Ally (London: 1948); Tony Shaw ‘British Popular Press and the Early Cold War’. 113. Stephen King-Hall, The Communist Conspiracy (London: 1953), p. xii. 114. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 3 June 1954, 2.

254

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68 –76

115. News Chronicle, 31 May 1954, 1. 116. MRC MSS.24/3/2/17, Anon. to ‘Yellow Belly’ Undated. 117. Twinning was part of the Cold War system of reconciliation and forging alliances, see Nick Clarke., ‘Town Twinning in Cold War Britain: (Dis)continuities in Twentieth Century Municipal Internationalism’, Contemporary British History, 24: 2 (2010). It was also linked to municipal exchanges that I will revisit in future research projects. 118. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 27 October 1954, 13. 119. Crossman, HC Deb, 5 July 1954, vol 529, cols 1858– 1859; Kaczka-Valliere & Rigby, ‘Coventry’, 582– 3. 120. Tiratsoo, Coventry 1945 – 60, 93. 121. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, Journalists and the Public: Newsroom Culture, Letters to the Editor and Democracy (Cresskill: 2007), 65. 122. Coventry Evening Telegraph, 3 June 1954, 12. 123. Wahl-Jorgenson, Newsroom Culture, 47 – 48. 124. MRC MSS.24/3/1/155 Mrs Sybil Mathews to The Chairman, Civil Defence Committee, Coventry. 1 June 1954. 125. Gallup, Opinion Polls, 325. 126. See TNA HO 322/136 ‘Civil Defence: City of Coventry’ Order by the Home Secretary, 24 July 1954. 127. TNA CAB 134/940 HDC (55) 3 ‘The Defence implications of Fall-Out from a Hydrogen Bomb. Report by a Group of Officials’, 8 March 1955.

Chapter 3

‘The Iron Curtain is Melting Away’: Encounters with ‘The Thaw’

1. Ilya Ehrenburg, The Thaw (London: 1955). 2. Denis Kozlov, ‘Introduction’, in Denis Kozlov and Eleonory Gilburd (eds), The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s (Toronto: 2013), 3. 3. Life, 7 February 1955; Der Stern, 20 February 1955; Paris-Match, 17 January 1955. 4. For example, Picture Post, 10 September 1955. 5. Robert Hariman & John Lucaites, No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture and Liberal Democracy (Chicago: 2007), 27. 6. Henri Cartier-Bresson, About Russia (London: 1974). 7. Patrik Aker, ‘Photography, Objectivity and the Modern Newspaper’, Journalism Studies, 13, 2 (2011), 8. 8. Peter Conrad, ‘The Big Picture: Henri Cartier-Bresson in 1950s Moscow’, The Observer, 24 April 2011. 9. Clemont Cheroux, Henri Cartier-Bresson (London: 2008), 75. 10. Picture Post, 22 January 1955, 46. 11. For details of the trip see Cheroux, Henri Cartier-Bresson, 71 – 5. 12. Picture Post, 22 January 1955, 46.

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255

13. Picture Post, 5 February 1955, 30 – 4. 14. Ibid., 5. 15. Len Deighton., The IPCRESS file (London: 1962); The IPCRESS file, dir. Sidney J. Furie (Lowndes, 1965). 16. Marc Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain and International Communism 1945 – 1950 (London: 2009), 130. 17. David Kynaston, Austerity Britain 1945– 51 (London: 2007), 98. 18. Wright, Iron Curtain. 19. Clive Scott, The Spoken Image: Photography and Language (London: 1999), 63. 20. Suzanne Clark, Cold Warriors: Manliness on Trial in the Rhetoric of the West (Carbondale: 2000), 3. 21. Picture Post, 28 May 1955, 53 – 5. 22. Clark, Cold Warriors, 203. 23. Picture Post, 9 July 1955, 29 – 32. 24. Kynaston, Family Britain 1951 – 57 (London: 2009), 331– 2. 25. Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940 – 2000 (London: 2002), 225. 26. Beck, ‘Cultural Olympics’, 176 – 177; ‘England v. Hungary’, Pathe´ News, 30 November 1953. 27. Bobby Robson, ‘Football Focus’, Broadcast. BBC1 22 November 2003. 28. Sea-lion, Death in The Russian Habit (London: 1958). 29. TNA FO111/792/NS1801/1 H.A.F. Holler to Jellicoe, 11 February 1954. 30. TNA FO371/111792/NS1801/3 British embassy, Moscow to Foreign Office, 23 June 1954. 31. Picture Post, 20 August 1955, 17 – 20. 32. ‘Spartak 3 Wolves 0’, Pathe´ News, 11 August 1955, ID 539.48; Dynamo 3 Wolves 2, Pathe´ News, 18 August 1955. 33. ‘Volki in Moscow’ Pathe´ News, 15 August 1955, ID 537.21. 34. TNA FO418/97 Sir William Hayter to Mr Selwyn Lloyd, ‘Preliminary Comments on Khrushchev’s Speech’, 17 February 1956. 35. Sir William Hayter to Mr Selwyn Lloyd, ibid. 36. For the leak and full text of the speech see TNA FO418/97 ‘Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 24–25, 1956’; Observer, 10 June 1956; Roy Greenslade, Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits From Propaganda (London: 2003), 125–6. 37. William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (London: 2005 [2003]) 276. 38. Ibid., p. 358; Mark B. Smith, ‘Peaceful Co-existence at all Costs: Cold War Exchanges between Britain and the Soviet Union in 1956.’ Cold War History (2012), 12, 3, 537– 58. 39. Kynaston, Family Britain, 620. 40. Smith, ‘Peaceful Co-existence’, 543. 41. TNA FO371/122815/NS1052/124 Letchworth Council to Foreign Office, 28 February 1956.

256 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

NOTES

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89 –94

Picture Post, 14 April 1956, 3. Daily Mail, 9 April 1956, 1. Daily Mail, 10 April 1956, 1. Daily Herald, 12 April 1956, 4. Kynaston, Family Britain, 322. Julie Fromer, ‘“Deeply Indebted to the Tea-Plant”: Representations of English National Identity in Victorian Histories of Tea’, Victorian Literature and Culture, 36, 2 (2008), 533– 4. Daily Mail, 18 April 1956, 6. Daily Mail, 16 April 1956, 6. Daily Herald, 9 April 1956, 2. Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith, 195. Daily Mail, 17 April 1956, 6, especially letters by Anthony Barr and Richard Powell. Brian Harrison, Seeking A Role: The United Kingdom 1951 –1970 (Oxford: 2009), 103– 5. TNA FO371/122815/NS1052/132 ‘Resolutions Passed at the Meeting of the North Cheshire Circle of the Cantenian Association on the 16 January 1956.’ Daily Mail 18 April 1956, 6. Ibid. Ibid. (emphasis mine). Darren Lilleker, Against the Cold War: The History and Political Traditions of Pro-Sovietism in the British Labour Party 1945– 89 (London: 2004), 2 – 3. Gill Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of intelligence (Abingdon: 2007), 80 – 6. Taubman, Khrushchev, 357. Daily Herald, 10 April 1956, 4. George H. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937– 1975, Volume One 1937– 1964 (New York: 1975), 365, 376. Smith, ‘Peaceful Coexistence at all Costs’, 543. Gallup, Great Britain, 376. Daily Mirror, 13 October 1956, 1. Peter Beck, ‘Britain and The Cold War’s ‘Cultural Olympics’: Responding to the Political Drive of Soviet Sport, 1945– 58’, Contemporary British History, 19, 2 (2005), 180. TNA PREM11/1242 ‘Shoplifting Charge Against Mme. Nina Ponomarava. David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (Oxford: 2003), 473. TNA FO371/122983, British Soviet Friendship Society to Eden, 23 September 1956. TNA DPP/2583, Pampel to DPP, 24 September 1956. TNA DPP/2583, Rendle to DPP, 27 September 1956. TNA HO291/239, Edith and Lewis Christer to Home Secretary, 22 September 1956.

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257

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

TNA DPP2/2583 Normal N. Pampel to DPP, 24 September 1956. TNA DPP2/2583 G. J. Greenfield to DPP, 21 September 1956. TNA DPP2/2583, Theobald Matthew to Greenfield, 24 September 1956. TNA/HO291/239 Millichip to Queen Elizabeth II, 1 October 1956. TNA DPP/2583, anon to DPP, undated. TNA DPP/2583, Lesley Shaw, 5 September 1956. TNA HO291/239, G. Parker to Newspapers’ Proprietors Association ‘Principle’, 22 September 1956. 80. Daily Mirror, 15 October 1956, 6. 81. Picture Post, 15 September. 1956, 42 – 3. 82. Daily Sketch, 13 October 1956, 1.

Chapter 4 ‘When are the British Coming to Help Us?’: British Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Budapest, 1956 1. Charles Gati, Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest, and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt (Redwood, CA: 2006). 2. Chris Horrie, Tabloid Nation: From the Birth of the Daily Mirror to the Death of the Tabloid (London: 2003), 103. 3. Mark Bryant, ‘Cry Hungary!’ History Today, 56, 10 (October 2006), 56 – 7. 4. Daily Mirror, 23 October 1956, 1; Richard Crossman, Daily Mirror, 23 October 1956, 6. 5. Daily Mirror, 24 October 1956, 24. 6. Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius, ‘1956 in The Cartoonist’s Gaze’, Third Text, 20, 2 (2006), 193– 4. 7. New Statesman, July – December 1956, 24 November 1956, 658. 8. Daily Mirror, 27 October 1956, 20. 9. Daily Sketch, 25 October 1956, 2. 10. Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino, Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: 2001); Gordon Martel, ‘The Meaning of Power: Rethinking the Decline and Fall of Great Britain’, The International History Review, 13, 4 (1991), 692– 3. 11. Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had it so good: A History of Britain from Suez to The Beatles (London: 2005), 75. 12. Brian Harrison, Seeking a Role: The United Kingdom 1951 – 1970 (Oxford: 2009), 105– 106. 13. Marc Selverstone, Constructing the Monolith: The United States, Great Britain and International Communism 1945– 1950 (London: 2009), 125. 14. New Statesman, 27 October 1956, 1. 15. Daily Herald, 30 October 1956, 4. 16. George Orwell, Preface to Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm, p. viii, cited Harrison, Seeking a Role, 89. 17. Daily Mail, 30 October 1956, 6.

258

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18. Daily Mail, 30 October 1956, 6. 19. TNA FO371/122378/NH10110/191/147-8 Joseph Szoo to Anthony Eden, 27 October 1956. 20. TNA FO371/122391/NH10110/49, Kimheller to Eden, 13 November 1956. 21. TNA FO371/122378/NH10110/191/190-1, Boldus to Eden, 27 October 1956. 22. TNA FO371/122390/NH10110/554/18-20, E Abraham to Allan Noble, 28 October 1956. 23. TNA FO371/122390/NH10110/554/23, Noble to Abraham, 19 November 1956. 24. Suzanne Clark, Cold Warriors: Manliness on Trial in the Rhetoric of the West (Carbondale: 2000), 2 – 3. 25. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: 2008 [1949]), 6. 26. Andrew Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture and the Cold War (Oxford: 2012), 24. 27. One of the few female photographers who travelled to Hungary in 1956 was the American Dickey Chapelle (Georgette Louise Meyer), who made the journey in early December. She was arrested and imprisoned in Budapest. 28. Picture Post, 26 November 1956, 54. 29. Brian McNair, ‘Journalists at War’, Journalism Practice, 5, 4 (2011), 492– 4. 30. Ester Balazs & Phil Casoar, ‘An emblematic picture of the Hungarian 1956 Revolution: Photojournalism during the Hungarian Revolution’, Europe-Asia Studies, 58, 8 (2006), 1241–60. 31. Time, LXIX, 1, 7 (January 1957). 32. Picture Post, 12 November 1956. 33. Quoted A. M. Kirov, ‘Soviet Military Intervention in Hungary, 1956’, in Jeno Gyorkei, & Miklos Horvath (eds), 1956: Soviet Military Intervention in Hungary (Budapest: 1999), 180– 181. 34. Illustrated London News, 15 December 1956, 1023; ‘News Diary’, The Listener, 13 December 1956, 992– 3. 35. ‘Cry Hungary’, Picture Post 1956, cited in Bryant ‘Cry Hungary!’. 36. Daily Mirror, 9 November 1956, 2. 37. TNA FO371122396/NH10110/711/57 Roberts to Heath, 11 November 1956. 38. High Treason, Dir Ray Boulting (Peacemaker Pictures, 1951). 39. Glyn Powell, ‘Turning Off the Power: The Electrical Trades Union and the Anti-Communist Crusade 1957– 61’, Contemporary British History (2004), 18, 2, 1– 26. 40. TNA FO371/122385/NH10110/406/7, Lucas Tooth to Doods-Parker, 1 November 1956. 41. TNA FO371/122385/NH10110/406/9, Dodds-Parker to Lucas Tooth, 9 November 1956. 42. TNA FO371/122391/NH10110/12-14, William Smith to Eden, 9 November 1956.

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259

43. TNA FO371/122391/NH10110/17 T. Brimelow to Smith, 23 November 1956. 44. TNA FO371/122386/NH10110/453/72-3 Hosegood to Foreign Office, 8 November 1956. 45. Manchester Guardian, 7 November 1956, 8. 46. Manchester Guardian, 9 November 1956, 4. 47. Richard Baxell, Unlikely Warriors: The Extraordinary Story of the Britons Who Fought in the Spanish Civil War (London: 2012). 48. TNA FO371/122404/NH10110/938/38-39 Fuller to Eden, 14 December 1956. 49. TNA FO371/122396/NH10110/712/62 K Younger to Dodds-Parker, 20 November 1956. 50. TNA FO371/122396/NH10110/712/64 Dodds-Parker to Younger, 23 November 1956. 51. Daily Mirror, 12 November 1956, 18. 52. Daily Mirror, 10 November 1956, 7. 53. Ibid. 54. John Butler, The Red Dean: The Public and Private Faces of Hewlett Johnson (London: 2011), 179; 206– 9. 55. The Times, 13 November 1956, 5. 56. Daily Mail, 14 November 1956, 6. 57. Daily Mirror, 16 November 1956, 4. 58. The Times, 14 November 1956, 6. 59. Daily Mirror, 19 November 1956, 3. 60. Butler, Red Dean, 206– 209. 61. Daily Sketch, 29 October 1956, 2. 62. Picture Post, 26 November 1956, 54. 63. Ibid. 64. TNA FO371/122393/NH10110/626/74-6, United Council of British Churches to Selwyn Lloyd, 15 November 1956. 65. TNA FO361/122394/NH10110/655/65 Bishop of Peterborough to Foreign Office, 15 November 1956. 66. TNA FO371/122396/NH10110/727/173-4 D.C. Hennessy to Dodds-Parker, 21 November 1956. 67. New Statesman, 17 November 1956, 625. 68. Daily Mirror, 20 November 1956, 4. 69. New Statesman, 24 November 1956, 668. 70. John Callaghan, Cold War, Crisis and Conflict: The CPGB 1951– 68 (London: 2003), 17. 71. Ibid., 40 – 1. 72. Peter Fryer, Hungarian Tragedy and Other Writings on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (London: 1997 [1956]). 73. Ibid., 13.

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74. Terry Brotherstone, ‘1956 and The Crisis in The Communist Party of Great Britain: Four Witnesses.’ Critique 35.2 (2007), 197. 75. Edith Bone, Seven Years Solitary (London: 1957). 76. ‘Dr Edith Bone Released From Budapest After Seven Years in Gaol’, British Pathe´, 15 November 1956. 77. Seven Years Solitary, BBC Home Service, 15 June 1958; Brainwashing, BBC TV, 7 June 1958. 78. Dora Scarlett, Window Onto Hungary (Bradford: 1959). 79. Dora Scarlett, ‘A Bureau in Hungary’, The New Reasoner, 7 (Winter 1958–59), 55. 80. Manchester Guardian, 12 November 1956, 1. 81. Liverpool Echo, 12 November 1956, 1. 82. Liverpool Daily Post, 14 November 1956, 1. 83. Daily Mirror, 27 November 1956, 2. 84. Ibid., 3. 85. Daily Herald, 20 November 1954, 4. 86. Daily Herald, 31 October 1956, 5; Daily Herald, 8 November 1956, 6. 87. Daily Herald, 16 November 1956, 2; Daily Herald, 17 November 1956, 4. 88. TNA FO371122709/GP22/241 British Embassy Vienna to Foreign Office. 89. Daily Mail, 7 November 1956, 6. 90. Daily Mail, 8 November 1956, 6. 91. Daily Mail, 13 November 1956, 9. 92. Daily Sketch, 2 November 1956, 12. 93. Daily Sketch, 9 November 1956, 1. 94. Daily Herald 15 November 1956. 95. TNA FO371/122378/NH10110/191/208, Arkosi to Eden, 2 November 1956. 96. TNA FO371/122391/NH10110/67-70 Weachta to Eden, 30 November 1956. 97. TNA FO371/122391/NH10110/90-93, Wernersbach to the Queen, 5 November 1956. 98. Vicky, Daily Mirror, 21 December 1956, available at https://archive.cartoons.ac. uk/GetMultimedia.ashx?db¼Catalog&type¼default&fname ¼ VY0797.jpg. 99. Daily Mirror, 21 December 1956, 9. 100. Daily Mirror, 24 December 1956, 7. 101. Chris Horrie, Tabloid Nation, 44 – 6. 102. Smith, ‘Peaceful Coexistence at all Costs’, 546. 103. ‘The Soviet Crime in Hungary’, New Statesman, 10 November 1956, 573.

Chapter 5 ‘Russia Wins Space Race’: The British Press and the Launch of Sputnik, October 1957 1. Paul Dickson, Sputnik: The Shock of the Century (New York: 2001). 2. Dominick Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles (London: 2005), 219.

NOTES

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128 –134

261

3. News Chronicle, 5 October 1957, 1; also Daily Herald, 5 October 1957, 1. 4. Daily Mirror, 9 October 1957. 5. James Curran & Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: The Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain, 7th edn (Abingdon: 2010), 86 – 7. 6. Daily Mirror, 11 October 1957, 1. 7. Martin Conboy, The Press and Popular Culture (London: 2002), 132–3. 8. John Agar, Science and Spectacle: The Work of Jodrell Bank in Postwar British Culture (Abingdon: 2013), 75– 6. 9. Glen O’Hara, ‘“Dynamic, Exciting, Thrilling Change”: the Wilson Governments Economic Policies, 1964 – 70’, Contemporary British History, 20, 3 (2006), 383 – 402. 10. Tony Shaw, ‘Martyrs, Miracles and Martians: Religion and Cold War Cinematic Propaganda in the 1950s’, in Dianne Kirby (ed.), Religion and the Cold War (Basingstoke: 2003), 214 – 17. 11. Daily Herald, 5 October 1957, 4. 12. Daily Herald, 11 October 1957, 6. 13. Brian Harrison, Seeking A Role: The United Kingdom 1951 –1970 (Oxford: 2009), 341. 14. Lorenzo DiTomasso, ‘At the Edge of Tomorrow: Apocalypticism and Science Fiction’, in Karolyn Kinane and Michael Ryan (eds), End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity (Jefferson: 2009), 221 – 41, 223. 15. Adrian Smith, ‘The Fall and Fall of the Third Daily Herald 1930– 1964’, in Peter Catterall, Colin Seymour-Ure, and Adrian Smith (eds), Northcliffe’s Legacy: Aspects of the British Popular Press, 1896 – 1996 (Basingstoke: 2000), 169– 200, 182. 16. Daily Mail, 6 October 1957, 1. 17. Daily Mail, 8 October, 1957, 5. 18. Matthew Brezezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and The Rivalries That Ignited The Space Age (London: 2007), 273– 4. 19. Daily Herald, 7 October 1957, 1. 20. Daily Mail, 7 October 1957, 6. 21. Daily Herald, 14 October 1957, 7. 22. Andrew N. Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture and the Cold War (Oxford: 2012), 34. 23. Daily Herald, 14 October 1957, 7. 24. Around The World In 80 Days, dir. Michael Anderson (20th Century Fox, 1956). 25. The Times, 10 October 1957, 6. 26. Bill Yenne, Guinness: The 250 Year Quest for the Perfect Pint (London: 2007), 97–8. 27. The Quatermass Xperiment, dir. Val Guest (Hammer: 1955). 28. Daily Herald, 14 – 19 October 1957. 29. News Chronicle, 8 October 1957, 1. 30. Daily Mirror, 8 October 1957, 1.

262

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134 –143

31. Daily Mirror, 9 October 1957, 11. 32. Chris Horrie, Tabloid Nation: From the Birth of the Daily Mirror to the Death of the Tabloid (London: 2003), 73. 33. Roy Greenslade, Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits From Propaganda (London: 2003), 368. 34. Kaitlynn Mendes, ‘Framing Feminism: News Coverage of the Women’s Movement in British and American Newspapers 1968– 1982’, Social Movement Studies 10, 1 (2011), 90. 35. Daily Herald, 19 October 1957, 3. 36. Guardian, 4 November 1957, 9. 37. Daily Mirror, 5 November 1957, 7. 38. ‘The Warning From Space’, New Statesman, 12 October 1957. 39. Darren Lilleker, Against the Cold War: The History and Political Traditions of Pro- Sovietism in the British Labour Party 1945 – 89 (London: 2004), 2. 40. Daily Sketch, 5 November 1957, 3. 41. George. H. Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937– 1975 Vol I (New York: 1975), 435. 42. News Chronicle, 5 October 1957, 6. 43. News Chronicle, 10 October 1957, 6. 44. Daily Herald, 4 November 1957, 1; Daily Sketch, 4 November 1957, 1. 45. Daily Herald, 7 December 1957, 1; Daily Sketch 7 December 1957. 46. News Chronicle, 6 December 1957, 1. 47. Daily Herald, 4 November 1957, 1; Daily Herald, 5 November 1957, 1. 48. Daily Mail, 4 November 1957, 1; Daily Sketch, 4 November 1957, 1. 49. Guardian, 4 November 1957, 1. 50. Daily Mirror, 5 November 1957, 18. 51. Colin Seymour-Ure, ‘Northcliffe’s Legacy’ in Peter Catterall, Colin Seymour-Ure and Adrian Smith (eds). Northcliffe’s Legacy: Aspects of the British Popular Press 1896–1996 (Basingstoke: 2000), 16. 52. Daily Herald, 4 November 1957, 1. 53. Daily Mail, 4 November 1957, 6. 54. Peter Hansen, ‘Coronation Everest: the Empire and Commonwealth in the “Second Elizabethan Age”’, in Stuard Ward (ed.), British Culture and the Decline of Empire (Manchester: 2001), 66; see also Roy Greenslade, Press Gang, 84 – 5. 55. Daily Herald, 6 November 1957, 9. 56. Daily Mirror, 5 November 1957, 4. 57. Ibid., 18; on Laika’s death and Soviet news updates see Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising, 246; Cadbury, Space Race, 170. 58. Daily Mirror, 7 November 1957, 11. 59. Claire Molloy, Media and Animals (Houndsmills, 2011), 31. 60. Daily Mirror, 8 November 1957, 18. 61. Daily Mirror, 12 November 1957, 12 –13. 62. Daily Mirror, 13 November 1957, 4. 63. Claire Molloy, Media and Animals, 6.

NOTES 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

TO PAGES

143 –152

263

Daily Herald, 6 November 1957, 4. Daily Mail, 7 November 1957, 6. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Weight, Patriots, 223; Kynaston, Family Britain, 532– 7; Harrison, Seeking a Role, 342. Guardian, 6 November 1957, 8. Ibid. Morris Goran, ‘The Literati Revolt Against Science’, Philosophy of Science, 7, 3 (1940), 379– 84; C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (London: 1945). Goran, ‘Literati Revolt’ 381. Guy Ortolano, The Two Cultures Controversy: Science, Literature, and Cultural Politics in Postwar Britain (Cambridge: 2009).

Chapter 6 The Thriller and the Cold War 1. Michael Dening, Cover Stories: Narrative and Ideology in the British Spy Thriller (London: 1987), 2. 2. Andrew Hammond, British Fiction and the Cold War (Basingstoke: 2013), 82– 115; Alan Burton, Historical Dictionary of British Spy Fiction (London: 2016). 3. For previous explorations of spy fiction and masculinity see Brian Baker, ‘“You’re quite a gourmet aren’t you Palmer?” Masculinity and Food in the Spy Fiction of Len Deighton’, The Yearbook of English Studies, 42 (2012), 30– 48. 4. Hammond, British Fiction, 68; See also Sam Goodman, British Spy Fiction and the End of Empire (Abingdon: 2016). 5. Burton, Spy Fiction, 10 – 11. 6. Alan Moorhead, The Traitors: The Double Lives of Fuchs, Pontecorvo, and Nunn May (London, 1952); The Traitors, BBC Light Programme, 9 – 23 September 1952 (three episodes). 7. The Goon Show, BBC Home Service, 28 September 1954. 8. Brainwashing, BBC TV, 5 June 1958. 9. A Call on Kuprin, Broadcast BBC TV, 18 –25 June 1961 (two episodes). 10. Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (London: 1979), 156. 11. Len Deighton, Funeral In Berlin (London: 1964); Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana (London: 1958). 12. Len Deighton, Berlin Game (London: 1983); Len Deighton, Mexico Set (London: 1984); Len Deighton, London Match (London: 1985). 13. Kevin Brooks, ‘Life is Not a Game: Re-working the Metaphor in Richard Ford’s Fiction’, Journal of Popular Culture, 42, 5 (2009), 843.

264

NOTES

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152 –163

14. Jopi Nyman, Men: Alone: Masculinity, Individualism, and Hard-Boiled Fiction (Amsterdam: 1997), 112. 15. Edelman, Kuprin, 9. 16. Quoted J. A. Harriss, ‘War By Other Means’, The American Spectator (March 2009), 72– 4, 73. 17. Daniel Johnson, White Knight And Red Queen: How the Cold War Was Fought On the Chessboard (London: 2007). 18. Ibid., 21. 19. Russell Davies and Liz Ottoway, Vicky (London: 1987), 39– 40. 20. Vicky, ‘Berlin Chess Tournament’, Evening Standard, 28 November 1958. 21. Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: 1993), 165– 6. 22. Malcolm Gee, ‘Vicky The Britisher’, Visual Culture in Britain, 13, 2 (2012), 199– 200. 23. Weight, Patriots, 211; Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain From Suez to The Beatles (London: 2005), 41. 24. Suzanne Clark, Cold Warriors: Manliness on Trial in the Rhetoric of the West (Carbondale: 2000), 3. 25. John le Carre´, Call for the Dead (London: 1961); John Le Carre´, A Murder of Quality (London: 1962) The latter novel also features a flawed character who is blackmailed because of a previous conviction for homosexuality. 26. Brian Baker, Masculinity in Fiction and Film: Representing Men in Popular Genres 1945– 2000 (London: 2008 [2006]), 32. 27. Edelman, Kuprin, 68. 28. Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (London: 1997), 21. 29. Clark, Cold Warriors, 5. 30. John Bryan, The Man Who Came Back (London: 1958). 31. Edelman, Kuprin, 103. 32. Heonik Kwon, The Other Cold War (New York: 2010), 79. 33. Bryan, Man, 141. 34. Edelman, Kuprin, 107. 35. Ibid., 112. 36. Lynne Segal, Slow Motion, 21. 37. Edelman, Kuprin, 113 – 14. 38. Baker, Masculinity in Fiction and Film, 40. 39. Alan Nadel, Containment Culture: American Narratives, Postmodernism, and the Atomic Age (Durham, NC: 1995), 6, 34. 40. Segal, Slow Motion, 17. 41. Edelman, Kuprin, 116. 42. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Study in the Banality of Evil (London: 1994 [1963]). 43. Edelman, Kuprin, 122. 44. Ibid., 124.

NOTES

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163 –175

265

45. Leif Jerram, Streetlife: The Untold History of Europe’s Twentieth Century (Oxford: 2011), 267– 309. 46. Edelman, Kuprin. 270– 1. 47. Ibid., 174. 48. David Caute, Politics and the Novel During the Cold War (London: 2010), 95–7. 49. Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (London: 1994 [1961]). 50. Edelman, Kuprin, 177 – 8. 51. Segal, Slow Motion, 21. 52. Edelman, Kuprin, 11. 53. Nyman, Men Alone, 3 –4 54. Thomas J. Price, ‘Spy Stories: Espionage and The Public in the Twentieth Century’, The Journal of Popular Culture, 30, 3 (1996), 83. 55. Graham Greene, Havana. 56. Edelman, Kurprin, 14. 57. Ibid., 18. 58. Ibid., 20. 59. Baker, Masculinity in Fiction and Film, 30. 60. Edelman, Kuprin, 32. 61. Ibid., 17. 62. Dr Strangelove: Or I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. dir. Stanley Kubrick (Columbia Pictures: 1964). 63. Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy (New York: 1984). 64. Henri Myrttinen, ‘Disarming Masculinities’, Disarmament Forum: Women, Men, Peace and security, 4 (2003), 37. 65. Edelman, Kuprin, 34. 66. Ibid., 37. 67. Ibid., 98. 68. Christopher Preble, John F. Kennedy and the Missile Gap (DeKalb: 2004). 69. Edelman, Kuprin, 232. 70. Ibid., 261. 71. Ibid., 264.

Chapter 7 Nuclear Anxieties and Popular Culture 1. Quoted in John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War (London: 2005), 64– 5; William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (London: 2003 [2005]), xix. 2. Ibid., 66. 3. Ibid., 70. 4. The bomb failed to cause a nuclear reaction but did explode making a large crater and an even bigger impact in the media. 5. Eric Schlosser, Command and Control (London: 2013). 6. J. B. Priestley, ‘Russia, The Atom and The West’, New Statesman, 2 November 1957, 556.

266

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175 –179

7. Jodi Burkett, ‘Re-defining British Morality: “Britishness” and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 1958– 68’, Twentieth Century British History, 21, 2 (2010), 184– 205. 8. See Hammond, British Fiction and the Cold War (Basingstoke: 2013), 59. 9. Nevil Shute, On The Beach (Thirsk: 2000 [1957]). 10. Kate Hudson, CND Now more than Ever: The Story of a Peace Movement (London: 2005), 51– 2; On The Beach, dir. Stanley Kramer (United Artists: 1959). 11. David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy during the Cold War (Oxford: 2003), 30. 12. The Interval: King-Hall Remembers, BBC Home Service, 7 August 1961– 14 September 1961 (6 episodes). 13. Stephen King-Hall, The Communist Conspiracy (London: 1953); Defence in The Nuclear Age (London: 1958); Common Sense in Defence (London: 1960); E. R. Thompson, ‘Hall (William) Stephen Richard King, Baron King-Hall (1893 – 1966), rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: 2004). 14. Richard Weight, Patriots: National Identity in Britain 1940 – 2000 (London: 2002), 287. 15. Thomas C. Schelling, ‘Meteors, Mischief and War’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, XVI, 7 (1960), 292. 16. Dan Lindley, ‘What I Learned Since I Stopped Worrying and Studied the Movie: A Teaching Guide to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove’, Political Science and Politics (September 2001), 666; The Observer, 13 November 1960, 21. 17. Steven Morrison, ‘“Are the Russians involved Sir?” The British Dimension of Dr. Strangelove’, Cultural Politics, 4, 3 (2008), 376. 18. Dominic Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain From Suez to The Beatles (London: 2005), 259. 19. Daily Mirror, 8 April 1958, 2. 20. Sandbrook, Never Had It So Good, 254– 7. 21. Mirror, 7 April 1958, 4. 22. Daily Herald, 7 April 1958, 2. 23. The initial questioning of Chilton in Adrian Bingham, ‘“The monster”? The British popular press and nuclear culture, 1945-early 1960s’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45, 4 (2012), 613; Paul Chilton, ‘Nukespeak: nuclear language, culture and propaganda’, in Crispin Aubrey, Chilton (ed.), Nukespeak: The Media and the Bomb (London: 1982), 94 – 112. 24. Peter Hennessy, The Secret State: Whitehall and The Cold War (London: 2003), 1. 25. Daily Sketch, 3 April 1958, 2. 26. Daily Sketch, 5 April 1958, p. 1; Daily Sketch, 7 April 1958, 16. 27. News Chronicle, 7 April 1958, 1, 5. 28. News Chronicle, 9 April 1958, 4. 29. Burkett, ‘Re-defining British Morality’, 188, 196. 30. News Chronicle, 5 April 1958, 1, 3. 31. Daily Mail, 7 April 1958, 4.

NOTES

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179 –191

267

32. Nancy Mitford (ed.), Noblesse Oblige: An Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy (London: 1956). 33. Daily Mail, 8 April 1958, p. 1. 34. March to Aldermaston, dir. Lindsay Anderson (Contemporary Films, 1959); Colin Gardiner, Karel Reisz (Manchester: 2006), 91 – 2. 35. Mainly For Women, BBC TV, 26 November 1959. 36. Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca: 1999 [2002]), 53– 5. 37. Daily Sketch, 19 April 1960, 20. 38. Daily Mirror 19 April 1960, 6. 39. Helge Nowak, ‘Britain, Britishness and the Blitz: Public Images, Attitudes and Visions in the Time of War’, in Barbara Korte and Ralf Schneider (eds), War and The Cultural Construction of Identities in Britain (Amsterdam: 2002), 241–61. 40. Peter Bryant, Two Hours to Doom (London: 1958), 35– 6. 41. Ibid., 189– 90. 42. Stephen King-Hall, Men of Destiny (London: 1960), 173. 43. Ibid., 92. 44. ‘Men of Destiny,’ King-Hall National Newsletter, 26 November 1958, 1410. 45. King-Hall, Destiny, 17. 46. Ibid., 107. 47. Ibid., 119. 48. Bryant, Two Hours, 55. 49. Morrison, ‘Are the Russians involved?’, 386. 50. King-Hall, Destiny, 12. 51. Heonik Kwon, The Other Cold War (New York: 2010), 6. 52. Bryant, Two Hours, 69 – 70. 53. Elizabeth Rosen, Apocalyptic Transformation: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination (London: 2008), xviii. 54. Hudson, CND, 51. 55. Mary Kaldor, The Imaginary War: Understanding the East – West Conflict (Oxford: 1990), 109, 114. 56. Andrew N. Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture and the Cold War (Oxford: 2012), 8. 57. Isaac Deutscher, ‘1984 – The Mysticism of Cruelty’, Heretics and Renegades and Other Essays (London: 1955). 35. 58. Ibid. 49– 50. 59. News Chronicle, 10 April 1958, 1. 60. John Wyndham, Day of the Triffids (London: 1951). 61. The War Game, dir. Peter Watkins (BBC: 1965). 62. Lorenzo DiTommaso, ‘At the Edge of Tomorrow: Apocalypticism and Science Fiction’, in Karolyn Kinane & Michael Ryan (eds), End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity (Jefferson: 2009), 224. 63. On the ‘banning’ see Mike Wayne, ‘Failing the Public: The BBC, The War Game and Revisionist History’, Journal of Contemporary History, 42, 4 (2007),

268

64. 65. 66. 67.

NOTES

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191 – 201

627– 37; James Chapman, ‘The BBC and the Censorship of The War Game (1965)’, Journal of Contemporary History, 41, 1 (2006), 75– 94. Bryant, Two Hours, 24. DiTommaso, ‘At the Edge of Tomorrow’, 223. Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore, ‘Civil War’, The Complete Beyond the Fringe (London: 1987), 81. TNA PREM 11/2778, ‘Harold Macmillan to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’, 24 March 1958, cited Lawrence Wittner, ‘A Hot Day at the PRO’, Peace and Change, 26, 2 (2001), 244.

Chapter 8 ‘The Greatest Story of Our Lifetime’: The Successes and the Limitations of Soviet Ideology 1. Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, NATO and Western Perceptions of the Soviet Bloc (Abingdon: 2014), 80. 2. Daily Mirror, 13 April 1961, 32. 3. Daily Express, 13 April 1961, 10. 4. See James Chapman, ‘Onward Christian Spaceman: Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future as British Cultural History’, Visual Culture in Britain (2008), 9, 1, 55– 79; Mikki the Martian: A Visitor from Outer Space, BBC TV. 5. Daily Mirror, 13 April 1961, 9. 6. Daily Mail, 13 April 1961, 3. 7. Ibid., 11. 8. Daily Mirror, 17 April 1961, 11. 9. Daily Mirror, 16 May 1961, 23. 10. See Daily Mirror, 13 April 1961; Daily Mail, 13 April 1961; Daily Express, 13 April 1961. 11. Daily Mail, 13 April 1961, 1. 12. Daily Mirror, 18 April 1961, 6. 13. Segal, Slow Motion, 21. 14. BBC TV, 14 April 1961; Daily Mail, 15 April 1961, 8. 15. Observer, 16 April 1961, 4. 16. Daily Mail, 16 April 1961, 5. 17. TNA FO371/159695/NS2311/14/ No. 24/1777/28/4, Sir Frank Roberts to Lord Home, 28 April 1961. 18. Daily Mirror, 15 April 1961, 4. 19. Daily Mirror, 20 May 1961, 6. 20. Daily Mirror, 9 May 1961, 23. 21. Daily Mirror, 19 April 1961, 8; cf. Daily Mail, 28 April 1961, 8. 22. Daily Mirror, 11 May 1961, 8. 23. Nicholas Barnett, ‘Way of Life Propaganda? The Anglo-Soviet Exhibitions of 1961’, Journal of Cold War Studies (forthcoming). 24. Snow, Two Cultures; Also Kynaston, Dice, 152 – 3.

NOTES 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52.

53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

TO PAGES

201 – 209

269

Shanks, Stagnant Society; see also Kynaston, Dice, 121 – 56. See Kynaston, Dice, 122 – 56. Daily Express, 10 April 1961, 6. Daily Express, 12 April 1961, 10. Daily Mirror, 4 April 1961, 2. Daily Express, 19 April 1961, 1. Daily Express, 27 April 1961, 1. Ortalano, Two Cultures Controversy, 12 – 17. The Labour Party, Signposts for the Sixties (London: 1961), 14. Mark Donnelly, Sixties Britain: Culture, Society and Politics (Abingdon: 2003) 73. Peart, HC Deb, 10 July 1961, vol 644, cols 43 – 163, 47. Peart, HC Deb, 10 July 1961, vol 644, cols 43 – 163, 53. Peart, HC Deb, 10 July 1961, vol 644, cols 43 – 163, 60. Daily Express, 13 April 1961, 10. See TNA FO371/159606/NS2311/12, letters dated 21 April, 5h May and 11 May 1961. The RCS consulted with the government who said they would not prevent the society from honouring him, but later withdrew their proposal. TNA FO371/159606/NS2311/27 ‘Invitation to Major Gagarin to Visit Britain’, 3 May 1961. TNA FO371/159606, ibid. Daily Mirror, 12 July 1961, 1– 3. Daily Mirror, 13 July 1961, 32’; cf. Daily Express, 13 July 1961, 1. Guardian, 17 July 1961, 7. TNA FO371/159606/NS2311/36 F. Roberts to Foreign Office, 15 July 1961. TNA FO371/159606/NS2311/39 682, Bonn to Foreign Office, 15 July 1961. Guardian, 8 July 1961; cf ‘Daily Mirror, 8 July 1961, 1. TNA FO371/159606/NS2311/39 F. Roberts to A.D. Wilson 26 July 1961. Daily Mirror, 7 August 1961, 5. Daily Mirror, 9 August 1961, 2. Daily Mail 7 August 1961, 6. Toshihiko Aono., ‘“It Is Not Easy for the United States to Carry the Whole Load”: Anglo-American Relations during the Berlin Crisis, 1961– 62, Diplomatic History, 34, 2 (2010), 325– 56; Kitty Newman, Macmillan, Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis 1958 – 60 (Abingdon: 2007). Daily Mail, 1 August 1961, 3. ‘Panorama goes to Berlin’, BBC TV, 31 July 1961. Daily Express, 7 August 1961, 2. Heath, HC Deb, 31 July 1961, vol 645, cols 951 –1101; Daily Express, 1 August 1961, 4. ‘Talk by the Prime Minister’, BBC TV, 4 August 1961. Daily Mirror, 10 August 1961, 4; Daily Mail, 10 August 1961, 2. Daily Mirror 7 August 1961, 2. Daily Mail, 8 August 1961, 1.

270 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

NOTES

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209 –220

Daily Mirror, 9 August 1961, 9. Daily Mail, 12 August 1961, 2. Ibid., 1. Daily Mirror, 14 August 1961, 1. Ibid., 2. Daily Mail, 14 August1961, 1. Ibid., 2. Ibid., 2 Daily Mirror, 14 August 1961, 1; Daily Mirror, 14 August 1962, 6. Daily Mail, 15 August 1961, 6. Adrian Bingham, ‘“The Monster”? The British Popular Press and Nuclear Culture 1945-early 1960s’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 45, 4 (2012), 616– 18. Daily Express, 14 August 1961, 2. TNA FO371/159606/NS2311/34 D. Wilson to F. Roberts 21 July 1961. Daily Mirror, 25 August 1961. ‘S. Wales. Panzers Welcomed’, British Pathe´, 31 August 1961. Daily Mail, 15 August 1961, 6. Daily Mirror, 30 August 1961, 4. Daily Mail, 31 August 1961, 6. Len Deighton, Funeral in Berlin (London: 1966); John le Carre´, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (London: 1963). Daily Mirror 17 August 1961, 1. Daily Mirror, 18 August 1961, 4. Ibid. Ibid. On the ‘Angry Young Men’ see Alice Ferrebe, Literature of the 1950s: Good, Brave Causes (Edinburgh: 2012), 19 – 76. John Osborne, ‘Damn You England’, Tribune, 18 August 1961. Daily Express, 18 August 1961, 7; Daily Mail, 18 August 1961, 1. Daily Mirror, 18 August 1961, 9. Daily Mail, 19 August 1961, 1. Daily Mail, 21 August 1961, 6. ‘Crisis? What Crisis?, Daily Express, 15 August 1961, 1. Daily Mail, 21 August 1961, 6. Daily Mirror, 22 August 1961, 10.

Chapter 9

Viewing the Soviet Union at the End of Khrushchev’s Rule

1. Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in The Middlebrow Imagination (Berkeley: 2003); Andrew N. Rubin, Archives of Authority: Empire, Culture and the Cold War (Oxford: 2012).

NOTES

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220 –228

271

2. Heonik Kwon, The Other Cold War (New York: 2010), 78– 9. 3. Eric Hobsbawm and Terrance Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, (Cambridge University Press, 1992). 4. Robert Service, Comrades: Communism: A World History (London: 2007), 321. 5. In Tblisi opposition to Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1956 was suppressed by force. Later violence in Novocherkassk over rising prices in 1962 led to 23 people being killed, see William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (London: 2003 [2005]) 286– 7, 519– 23. Vladimir Kozlov, Mass Uprisings in The USSR: Protest and Rebellion in the Post-Stalin Years (London: 2002) sees the era as less stable than has previously been thought. 6. J. A. S. Grenville, A History of the World: From the 20th to the 21st Century (London: 2005), 481. 7. Aleksnadr Fursenko & Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an American Adversary (New York: 2007), 7. 8. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes 1914 –1991 (London: 1994), 242– 3. 9. Low, ‘Sensations of the Season’, The Manchester Guardian, 13 April 1956, 9; Taubman, Khrushchev, 11 – 12. 10. Jana Nittel, ‘Polarising Masculinities in a Cold War Discourse: Violence and the Male Body in Ian Fleming’s James Bond Series’, in Kathleen Starck (ed.), Between Fear and Freedom: Cultural Representations of the Cold War (NewcastleUpon-Tyne: 2010), 168. 11. Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (London: 1997), 21. 12. David Matless, David, Jonathan Oldfield, & Adam Swain, ‘Geographically Touring the Eastern Bloc: British Geography, Travel Cultures and the Cold War’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2008, 356. 13. Andrew Garve, The Ashes of Loda (London: 1964), 21 – 2. 14. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe, 370. 15. Garve, Loda, 131. 16. Ibid., 40 – 1. 17. Ibid., 41. 18. Vicky, Evening Standard, 10 September 1960. 19. Garve, Loda, 69. 20. Ibid., 91. 21. Ibid., 101. 22. Ibid., 93. 23. Kwon, The Other Cold War, 40 –2. 24. Ibid., 3. 25. Guardian, 16 October 1964, 1; Daily Mirror, 16 October 1964, 3. 26. The Observer, 18 October 1964, 11. 27. Roy Greenslade, Press Gang: How Newspapers Make Profits from Propaganda (London: 2004), 106, 171, 220, Greenslade puts the Sketch’s readership was 1.3 million in 1957, in 1960 they were over 1 million, but by 1970 this figure was 800,000.

272

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228 –241

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Daily Sketch, 19 October 1964, 10– 11. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Harrison, Seeking A Role, 234– 7. Daily Sketch, 21 October 1965, 8. Picture Post, 8 January. 1955, 38– 9. Sally Belfrage, A Room in Moscow (London: 1958). Sun, 19 October 1964, 12. Goldfinger, dir. Guy Hamilton (Eon: 1964). Susan Reid, ‘Gender and The Destalinisation of Consumer Taste in The Soviet Union Under Khrushchev’, in Emma Casey & Lydia Martens (eds), Gender and Consumption: Domestic Cultures and the Commercialisation of Everyday Life (Aldershot: 2007), 55. 40. George Bernard Shaw, Look you Boob . . . What Bernard Shaw Told the Americans about Russia! (London: 1931); Beatrice & Sydney Webb, The Soviet Union: A New Civilisation? (London: 1936); Paul Winterton, A Student in Russia (Manchester: 1928); Russia with Open Eyes (London: 1937). 41. Smith, ‘Peaceful Coexistence at all Costs’.

Conclusion 1. Harriett Jones, ‘The impact of the Cold War’ in Paul Addison and Harriett Jones (eds), A Companion to Contemporary Britain 1939 – 2000 (London: 2005), 23– 41, 24– 6. 2. H. G. Wells, The World Set Free (London: 1914). 3. Kynaston, Austerity Britain (London: 2007), 238; Family Britain (London: 2007), 616. 4. Paul Lashmar & James Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War 1948– 77 (Stroud: 1998). 5. From Russia With Love, dir Terrance Young (Eon: 1963). Many of television’s female spies of the 1960s were spying for Britain see Rosie White, Violent Femmes: Women as Spies in Popular Culture (Abingdon: 2007). 6. Picture Post, 26 February 1956, 7. 7. Lawrence Wittner, Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of The World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford: 2009), 111.

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INDEX

9/11 see 11 September 2001 11 September 2001, terrorist attacks, 6 Abbott, George, 150 Adenauer, Konrad, 155 aid funds, 105– 6, 111, 121– 2 Aldermaston (Marches), 177– 80, 238 Allen, Ray, 196 Anderson, Lindsay, 179 – 80 Animal Farm (George Orwell), 35, 37 – 8, 77, 230, 236 anti-Americanism, 4, 131 anti-communism, 2, 5, 14– 15, 18, 22– 6, 30, 32– 3, 37, 40, 63 – 4, 69, 71, 100– 5, 111, 120, 125, 147, 210, 232, 234 anti-feminist views, 134–5 apocalypticism, 3 – 4, 5 – 9, 18, 48, 51– 3, 59, 70, 72, 127, 129, 132, 185– 8, 191– 4, 235 – 7 Arendt, Hannah, 162 Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), 132 Arsenal (Football Club), 85 Ashes of Loda, The (Paul Winterton), 18, 27, 52, 214, 119, 222–7, 228, 232, 233, 238, 239 Attlee, Clement, 35, 37, 48, 51, 53, 62, 70 Auxiliary Fire Service, 66

balance of power, 137– 8, 156, 167 ballet, 1, 8, 92–5 Barber, Frank, 178– 9 Barber, Noel, 105, 120 Barker, Dudley, 64 Battle of Britain, The (film, 1943), 62 Belfrage, Sally, 230 Beloff, Max, 34 Belsky, Margaret, 124 Benn, Tony see Wedgewood-Benn, Anthony Bennett, Geoffrey (Sea-lion), 85, 226 Berger, John, 9 Berlin, 10, 23, 32, 50, 151, 155, 156, 183, 196, 206– 15, 215 – 18, 219, 231 Berlin Wall, 20, 205– 15, 231, 233 Betjeman, John, 61 –2 Bevan, Nye, 91 Beyond the Fringe, 192– 3 Bible, 6, 8, 117 Blitz Myth, 49, 50, 56, 58, 62, 64, 67– 9, 71, 72, 181 Blunt, Anthony, 148 Bolshevik Coup, October 1917 see Russian Revolution Bolshoi Ballet, 1, 8, 92– 4, 141 Bond, James (film and novel franchise), 16, 42, 222, 231 Bone, Edith, 119–20, 150 Boulting, Ned, 25, 52

286

BRITAIN'S COLD WAR

Boulting, Ray, 25, 33, 52 Bravo (nuclear test), 47, 49, 50, 54, 174 Brexit see European Referendum (2016) British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 32, 38, 49, 50, 139, 143, 150, 176, 180, 185, 191, 194, 196, 207, 232 British Council of Churches, 117– 18 British Crime Writers Association, 22 British decolonisation, 8, 96, 223, 238 British imperialism, 4, 16, 126, 156, 200, 223, 239 British national identity, 2, 46, 48, 52, 53, 58, 60, 61, 67, 71, 93, 117, 122, 125, 154, 156, 159, 181, 182, 185, 203, 220, 223, 235, 236, 238 British Peace Committee, 27, 33, 35 British Trade Exhibition, Moscow (1961), 195 British-Soviet Friendship Society, 93 Brockway, Fenner, 48 Bryan, John, 157, 159, 239– 40 Bryant, Peter, 6, 18, 19, 175, 176, 177, 182, 186, 188– 92, 238 Bulganin, Nikolai, 88, 89, 101, 102, 167, 221 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 176 Burgess, Guy, 148, 161 Bush, George W., 6 C&A Modes, 92, 95 Cairncross, John, 148 A Call for the Dead (John le Carre´), 157 A Call on Kuprin (Maurice Edelman), 20, 130, 141, 149– 72 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), 19, 29, 48, 66, 71, 175– 81, 186, 193, 194, 225, 235, 236, 238 Capa, Robert, 80 Cardiff, 120 Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 11, 19, 28, 73– 84, 97, 223, 228, 230, 240 Cassandra, 51, 57, 66, 96, 116, 118, 140, 142, 143, 178, 181, 207, 211

Castle (thermonuclear tests), 47 Catch-22 (Joseph Heller), 164 Catholic Action, 34 Catholic Young Men’s Society of Great Britain, 118 Checkpoint Charlie, 231 chess, 1, 150– 5, 160, 161, 162, 164, 170, 172, 207 Christianity, 4 – 6, 8, 23 – 5, 29 – 31, 48, 51– 3, 59, 67, 117, 118, 129, 142, 144 –6, 179, 192, 235– 6 Church of England, 22 – 4, 27, 194 Churchill, Rhona, 122, 211– 12 Churchill, Winston, 48, 51, 53, 69, 167 Chuter Ede, James, 37 Civil Defence, 18, 47, 192 – 3 Civil Defence Act (1948), 56 Clarke, Arthur C., 132 class, 20, 38, 63, 85, 89, 92, 96, 139, 143, 149, 150, 152, 154, 156, 157, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 170, 172, 174, 179, 193, 201, 204, 216, 217, 236, 238 Cline, Sally, 228 – 31, 232, 233, 239 Cold War as a game, 20, 150, 151-6, 162, 163, 164 ,170, 172, 173, 207, 222, 224, 225 lexicon, 3, 84, 101, 117 women’s active role in, 1, 5, 81, 82, 106– 11, 119, 120, 134, 135, 179, 180, 214, 227 –31, 239 Collins, John (anti-nuclear campaigner), 29 communism, 11, 12, 14, 19, 20, 22–4, 28–9, 49, 59, 61, 69, 80, 86, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 100, 102, 104, 106, 107, 112, 117–26, 127, 129, 131, 136, 143, 144, 161, 166, 199, 205, 207, 218, 220, 223, 227, 229, 230, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239 depicted as religion, 22, 23, 25 – 6, 30 – 1, 34, 120 depicted as monolithic, 3, 21– 2, 38, 40, 77, 214, 219, 232, 237, 241 ex-Communists, 25, 26, 31, 118, 121

INDEX in fiction, 30– 3, 41 – 6, 187 –8, 219, 222– 7, 236 infiltration of trade unions, 112 prison metaphor, 210 –14 communist book shops, 120 Communist Conspiracy, The (Stephen King-Hall), 68 Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), 5, 10– 11, 26– 7, 32 – 4, 86 – 7, 99, 100, 112, 118– 21, 124, 126, 221 Comparative Decline see decline Connor, William see Cassandra Conservative Party, 2, 123– 4, 137, 203, 219, 229, 235, 237 Conservative Party, same as Bolsheviks, 123– 4 consumerism, 151, 195, 197, 200, 201, 228, 237 coronation of Elizabeth Windsor, 139 Cossack imagery, 96 Council of Europe, European Prize, 58 Coventry, 18, 26, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55– 72, 149 Cathedral, 50, 56, 59, 67, 72 City Council, 47, 48, 50, 64, 66 Crankshaw, Edward, 227 Crossman, Richard, 26, 47, 51, 64, 65, 69, 100, 120 Cuban Missile Crisis, 11, 89, 177, 232 Cudlipp, Percy, 57 Cummings, Michael, 210 Cyprus, 95, 101 Cyrankiewicz, Joesf, 102 Czechoslovakia, 32, 39, 96 Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, 196 Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham), 9, 52, 190 DDR see German Democratic Republic de Gaulle, Charles, 155 Death in the Russian Habit (Geoffrey Bennett), 85, 87, 226 ‘decisive moment’, the, 80 decline, 3, 19, 90, 96, 104, 122, 124, 130, 137, 139, 147, 155, 166, 171, 193, 196, 201, 202, 203, 204, 218

287

Deighton, Len, 16, 77, 151, 156, 213 detective fiction, 22, 41, 149, 159 deterrence, 48, 51, 53, 58, 70, 174, 177, 181, 182– 6, 187, 189, 190 Deutscher, Isaac, 26, 35, 187 – 8 Dewey, John, 10 Dick Barton – Special Agent, 150 Dimbleby, Richard, 208 Dodds-Parker, Douglas, 112, 113, 145 doublethink, 35, 108, 115, 163 Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick), 167, 171, 177, 181, 184, 193 Durham University, 116 Dynamo Moscow, 85 – 6 dystopia, 7, 9, 146, 188, 228, 236 Eagle, The, 196 Edelman, Maurice, 20, 28, 66, 130, 147, 149 – 53, 156 – 7, 161, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 171, 172, 173, 224, 239 Eden, Anthony, 105, 123, 124 education, 1, 77, 195, 200– 4 Ehrenburg, Ilya, 27, 73 Einstein, Albert, 53 Eisenhower, Dwight, 53, 128, 155, 167, 174, 224 Electrical Trade Union, 112 Emmwood, 210 Encounter (journal), 38 encounters as a way of seeing, 1, 4, 9– 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 27, 28, 30, 33, 37, 59, 63, 73 – 98, 219, 221, 223 – 6, 233, 234, 240– 1 England, football team, 84, 105, 150 Esten, Jack, 108–9, 111 European Referendum (2016), 12 European Service, 34 explorers, 139 – 40 Fail Safe (1964), 184 family, 20, 157, 159, 163, 164, 171, 172, 198, 206, 210, 222, 226, 228 fellow-travellers, 11, 21 – 46, 204, 229 Fisher, Geoffrey, 27

288

BRITAIN'S COLD WAR

Fleming, Ian, 16, 42, 149, 151, 222 football, 84, 85, 86, 105, 150 Football Association (FA), 85 freedom, 1, 8, 10, 20, 24, 27, 32, 36, 38, 49, 90, 91, 93, 97, 99 –101, 104, 106– 9, 111, 115, 116, 117, 121, 124– 7, 137, 146, 157, 163, 185, 196, 207 – 12, 218, 222, 224, 226, 230– 1 From Russia With Love (novel, Ian Fleming and film), 239 Fryer, Peter, 19, 118– 20 Funeral in Berlin (Len Deighton), 151, 156, 213 Gagarin, Yuri, 195, 196, 198– 9, 201, 204– 6, 210, 212, 218, 237 Gaitskell, Hugh, 178, 216 Garve, Andrew see Winterton, Paul GB-USSR Association, 204 General Election (1964), 219, 227 German Democratic Republic (GDR, DDR), 59 Giles, Carl, 37 glimpses, as a way of seeing, 4, 9– 16, 20, 29, 30, 43, 44, 73, 75, 76, 80, 86, 87, 97, 120, 153, 195, 205, 222, 234, 240 God That Failed, The (Richard Crossman), 26, 120 Goldfinger (1964), 231 Gomulka Wladislav, 101, 102 Goon Show, The, 150 Gorky Park, 229 Graham, Billy (Evangelist Priest), 6 Greene, Graham, 151, 165 Grouse Hunting, 217 Guinness, 132– 3 Hayter, William, 87– 8 Heath, Edward, 111, 208 Hersey, John, 50, 179 Hetherington, Tim, 108 High Treason (1951), 33, 112 Hillary, Edmond, 139 Hiroshima (John Hersey), 50, 179 Hitler, Adolf, 211

Hollywood, 14, 19 homosexuality, depictions of, 32, 84, 148, 149, 156, 161, 163 House Un-American Activities Committee, 33 Howard, Richard, 59 humanitarianism, 20, 100, 105, 111, 125, 234 humour, 5, 37, 53, 141, 181, 193, 198 Hungarian Liberty Movement, 105 Hungarian Tragedy, The (Peter Fryer), 19, 119 Hungarian Uprising (1956), 2, 19, 99– 126 Hungarian Workers Party, 99, 114 Hungary, 84, 92, 99 – 126, 144, 150, 240 Hungary, football team, 84, 150 Hyde, Douglas, 31 Hydrogen Bomb National Campaign, 48, 66 hypermasculinity, 5, 44, 45, 46, 80, 106, 108, 156, 222, 233 I Chose Freedom (Victor Kravchenko), 24 Illingworth, Leslie, 122, 139– 40 Industrial and Trade Fairs Ltd, 204 – 5 Information Research Department (IRD), 14, 34, 35, 38, 232, 243 Inquest on an Ally (Paul Winterton), 24 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, 166 Iron Curtain, 3, 67, 73, 81, 84, 87, 89, 99, 136, 210, 211, 222, 224, 228 232, 240 – 1 Johnson, Hewlett, 5, 18, 22 – 33, 34, 37, 116 –18, 235 Johnson, Lyndon B., 212 Kaganovich, Lazar, 101, 102 Kapitza, Peter, 130 Keep Left, 23, 237 Kennedy, John F., 171 Kenya, 101 Khrushchev, Nikita, 2, 81, 93, 100– 3, 106, 114– 16, 121, 123, 127, 136,

INDEX 139, 141, 155, 167, 174, 176, 180, 198, 199, 206, 208, 210, 211, 224– 5, 226, 230, 231, 232 233, 241 deposition of (1964), 2, 18, 226– 8, 241 ‘Secret’ Speech (1956), 73, 87 – 8, 99 visit to Britain, 87– 92 King-Hall, Stephen, 6, 9, 18, 19, 68, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185– 90, 238 Kipling, Rudyard, 155 Koester, Arthur, 24 – 5 Korean War, 8, 25, 32, 48, 151 Korolev, Sergei, 130 Kravchenko, Victor, 24 – 5 Kremlin, The, 43, 68, 86 – 7, 111, 131, 145, 210 Krylenko, Nikolai, 153 Kubrick, Stanley, 19, 67– 8, 171, 177, 181, 193 Labour Party, 2, 14, 17, 18, 20, 23, 26, 32, 34, 36, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 91, 100, 113, 116, 121, 123, 129, 149, 151, 178, 202, 203, 204, 219 Laika (dog), 127, 138 –46 Lambretta, 197 le Carre´, John, 16, 26, 149, 155, 157, 213 Le Grande Illusion (1938), 180 Leavis, F. R., 145 left-wing Anti-Communism, 23, 24, 26, 33, 37, 91, 104– 5, 115, 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 143, 147 Lenin, Vladimir Illyich, 7, 77, 86, 87, 115, 141, 228 Les Lettres Francaises, 24 Letchworth Urban District Council, 88– 9 Lewis, C. S., 145 Liberace, 206 Liverpool, 121 London, 8, 17, 50, 58, 86, 94, 105, 120, 125, 162, 180, 195, 203, 205, 212, 218

289

Looking Glass War, The (John le Carre´) 26, 155 Lord Hailsham, 25, 202 Low, David, 34, 37, 221 Lucas Tooth, Sir Hugh, 112 Lucky Dragon (boat), 48, 50, 55 Lumet, Stanley, 184 Maclean, Donald, 148, 161 Macmillan, Harold, 128, 155, 193, 205, 207, 208, 216, 217 Mainly for Women, 180 Malaysian War of Independence, 32, 95 Malenkov, Gregori, 53, 174 Malik, Jacob, 116 Man Who Came Back, The (John Bryan), 157, 159, 239 Manicheanism, 4, 6, 23, 46, 96, 192 March to Aldermaston (Lindsay Anderson), 179– 80 Marshall Plan, 23 Marx, Karl, 14, 107, 115, 141, 154 Marxism, 7, 24, 26, 86, 124, 139 masculinity, 5, 20, 22, 28, 42, 44, 45, 46, 80, 82, 84, 97, 106, 108, 110, 112, 113, 120, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 222, 225, 230, 233, 239 family man image, 163, 198, 222 war hero image, 113, 157, 159, 222 Mass Observation, 14, 15, 39, 40, 41, 42 Maxwell Fyfe, David, 58 Mayhew, Christopher, 34 McCarthyism, 24, 33, 41, 45 Mcleod, Alison, 119 McWhirter, Norris, 179 McWhirter, Ross, 179 Meet the Russians (Vicky), 1 memory, 8, 17, 49, 58, 62, 64, 69, 72, 105, 181 Men into Space, 196 Men of Destiny (Stephen King-Hall), 18, 175, 182– 4, 191, 194, 238, 239 Middlesex County Council, 32 migration, 12, 16 militarism, 5, 49, 61, 87, 169 Mitford, Nancy, 179

290

BRITAIN'S COLD WAR

modernity, 3, 4, 13, 19, 20, 49, 62, 79, 89, 127, 128, 136, 142, 146, 156, 196, 197, 201, 202, 203, 204, 219, 220, 222, 235, 237, 238 Molotov, 101, 102 monolithic perceptions of Eastern Bloc, 3, 18, 21, 22, 24, 31, 33, 38, 39, 40, 43, 45, 77, 78, 90, 103, 104, 126, 146, 155, 210, 214, 220, 226, 229, 232, 237, 241 Morgan, Charles, 52 Moscow, 75 – 87, 152, 157, 165, 171, 195, 199, 224, 229–30 motherhood, 55, 78, 95, 97, 109, 110, 122, 198, 217 Muggeridge, Malcolm, 25 A Murder of Quality (John le Carre´), 157 Murder in Moscow (Paul Winterton), 18, 21– 3, 25 – 7, 31, 34, 40 – 6, 227, 238, 239 Murder Through The Looking Glass see Murder in Moscow Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) see deterrence Nagy, Imre, 101, 102, 103, 106 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 95 National Union of Mineworkers, 121 Nazism (communism compared), 46, 77, 104, 112, 223 neo-conservatism, 13 New Left, 119, 120 newspaper readerships, 5, 9, 16, 17, 36, 38, 39, 46, 53, 60, 64, 73, 86, 89, 100, 108, 121, 129, 131, 132, 134, 136, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 147, 178, 179, 215, 229 Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949), 9, 35, 36, 107, 141, 187, 194, 212, 230, 236 Noble, Allan, 105– 6 North Cheshire Cantenian Associastion, 90 Northern Ireland, 8 nuclear anxieties, 8, 9, 18, 48– 72, 134, 137– 8, 174 – 94, 209, 212, 214– 17, 235– 9

nuclear weapons, 9, 18, 19, 20, 47 – 72, 130, 134, 169, 172, 174– 94 Olympic Games, 84, 92, 224 On the Beach (Neville Shute), 9, 175, 191 Orwell, George (Eric Blair), 9, 16, 24, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 50, 52, 77, 104, 184, 194, 212, 228, 230, 236 Orwell, language in popular culture, 35, 107, 115, 163, 187– 8, 230, 236 Osborne, John, 215– 17 Our Man in Havana (Graham Greene), 151, 165 Panorama, 207 – 8 Pathe´ News, 84, 86, 87, 120, 213 patriarchy, 5, 169, 172, 229 peace, 24, 25, 50 – 1, 55, 58, 63, 66, 69, 71, 74, 94, 124, 130, 134, 136, 137, 167, 174, 196, 198, 200, 204, 224 – 6 campaigns, 27 33 – 8, 59, 64, 176 – 181, 204 changes in meaning, 34 – 8, 225, 236, 185– 92, 194 representation in fiction, 25, 35, 45 – 6, 107, 166, 170, 181–92, 236 Peace Pledge Union, 59, 63 Peaceful Co-existence, 2, 127, 176 Pearce, Brian, 119 Peart, Thomas, 203– 4 Pedrazzini, Jean-Pierre, 108, 120 Pembrokeshire, 213 Philby, Kim, 148 Phillips, Peter, 132 Philpott, Trevor, 108 photography, 9, 10, 11, 17, 19, 28, 66, 73– 87, 96, 97, 99 –100, 108 – 11, 113, 125, 126, 138, 140, 148, 177, 198, 205, 209, 214, 219, 222, 226, 228, 230– 4, 240 photojournalism, 74 – 87, 99 – 100, 126, 219, 228 Picasso, Pablo, 37 Poland, 96, 99 – 104, 121

INDEX Ponomareva, Nina, 92– 7 Priestley, J. B., 175 Proops, Marjorie, 197– 8, 134– 5 Quatermass Xperiment, The (1955), 132 racism, 12, 227 radiation poisoning, 48, 55, 175, 192 Ra´kosi, Ma´tya´s, 99 readers’ letters, 13, 14, 17, 36, 37, 47, 55, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 89, 90, 117, 118, 134, 136, 143– 5, 179, 189, 201, 207, 213– 15, 217, 239 Red Fascism, 77 Red Square, Moscow, 87 refugees, 116, 117, 118, 121, 122, 125, 208, 210, 211, 212, 240 religion, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 13, 20, 22– 35, 45, 46, 51, 52, 59, 60, 72, 117, 118, 127, 128, 129, 130, 142, 144, 145, 179, 228, 234, 235 Report on Russia (Paul Winterton), 24 Roberts, Frank, 199 – 200, 206 Robins, Denise, 141– 2 Robson, Bobby, 84 – 5 Rockefeller, Nelson D., 171 Royal Society of Chartered Surveyors, 204 RSPCA, 139 Russell, Bertrand, 53 A Russian Journal (John Steinbeck), 80 Russian Revolution (1917), 115, 135, 154 satire, 22, 102 Scarlett, Dora, 120 Schelling, Thomas, 177 Schumann, Conrad, 214– 15 science, 3–5, 52, 127–9, 131, 132–8, 142, 145–6, 198, 202–4 science fiction, 7, 9, 52, 132– 8, 147, 190– 1, 194, 196, 236, 237 Scott, Ian, 103 Sea-lion see Bennet, Geoffrey Sellers, Peter, 25, 150 Shanks, Michael, 201 Shaw, George Bernard, 233

291

Sheffield Peace Congress (1950), 18, 33– 41, 46 Shostakovich, Dimitry, 37 Shute, Neville (novelist), 9, 175 Signposts for the Sixties (Labour Party), 202–3 Snow, C. P., 145, 201 Social-Democracy, 5, 13, 14, 20, 23, 33, 61, 121, 125, 126, 136, 147, 234, 235, 237 Socialist Sixth of The World, The (Hewlett Johnson), 27, 30 Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, 27 Soviet Exhibition, London (1961), 195 –6, 203, 204 –6 Soviet people, humanisation of, 198, 199, 196, 200, 206, 219 – 20, 229 Soviet society, militarisation of, 87 Soviet Union (USSR), 2 – 3, 5, 14, 17, 18, 20, 22– 3 25– 8, 30, 32, 35, 37– 8, 48, 73 – 92, 94, 96– 7, 127, 130– 2, 136, 137, 149, 153, 155, 156, 167, 178, 180, 181, 185, 186, 188, 191 – 5, 199 – 203, 207, 210 – 12, 218, 219, 235 children, 77, 78, 79, 81 in fiction, 28 – 33, 34, 40 – 4, 85, 151– 2, 157– 67, 170– 2, 181 – 94, 213 – 14, 222 – 7, 239 as peasants, 1, 76, 79, 204, 225, 226 perceived as repressive, 10, 19, 20, 92, 99 – 126, 138 – 47, 206 – 15, 219, 221 perception of technological advancement, 19, 89, 127, 128, 131, 135, 138, 162, 218, 237 perception of threat, 15, 18, 21, 24, 32, 39, 68, 76, 95, 98, 131, 167, 170– 1, 196, 218, 231 Soviet people, 1– 2, 11, 15, 73– 84, 86 – 7, 95 – 6, 195, 198– 200, 206, 219– 20, 227 – 30, 233, 237, 240 space exploration, 5, 19, 20, 25, 29, 35, 89, 127– 47, 196– 206, 207, 218, 227, 228, 236, 237, 238 Spanish Civil War, 24

292

BRITAIN'S COLD WAR

Spartak Moscow, 86 Sprod, George, 53, 54 Sputnik, 125– 38, 172, 175, 218, 237 Sputnik 2, 138– 46 Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The (John le Carre´), 213–14 Stagnant Society, The (Shanks), 201 Stalin, 2, 7, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 27, 37, 45, 73, 74, 75, 77, 86, 87, 89, 91, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 115, 116, 136, 140, 153, 171, 208, 221, 223, 228, 231, 240 Stalingrad, 50, 59, 69 Stalinism, 19, 26, 88, 106, 114, 115, 119, 121, 136, 141, 221, 227 state-private networks, 49, 138 Steinbeck, John, 80 Stockholm Peace Petition, 34 Stopford, Robert, 118 Strath Report (1955), 70 Stringer, Sidney, 50, 56, 58, 59, 62–3, 68– 9 Studio E, 150 Suez Crisis, 85, 90, 92, 100, 104, 105, 106, 111, 117, 124, 125, 156– 7, 239 taxation, 90 Tennyson, Alfred, 61– 2 Thaw, the Cold War period, 73 – 98, 99, 114, 126 Thaw, The (Ilya Ehrenburg), 73 thermonuclear weapons, 47 – 72, 130, 238 Titov, Gherman, 207, 210 totalitarianism, 25, 35, 43, 46, 91, 104, 107, 162, 211, 214, 226, 232 Trades Union Congress, 121, 122 Trevor, Elleston, 50 Two Hours to Doom (Peter Bryant), 18, 19, 175, 177, 181– 94, 238

United States of America (USA), 8, 21, 25, 40, 41, 44 – 5, 47, 74, 131, 153, 161, 175, 179, 181, 184, 185, 187, 189, 191, 192, 238 USSR see Soviet Union utopianism, 8, 33, 136, 228 Vansittart, Robert, 32, 33 Vassall, John, 148, 161 Vicky see Weisz, Vicky War Game, The (Peter Watkins), 152 Warsaw Pact, 99, 106, 126, 213 Watkins, Peter, 191 Webb, Beatrice, 25, 233 Webb, Sydney, 25, 233 Wedgewood-Benn, Anthony, 48 Weisz, Vicky (cartoonist), 1, 19, 65, 66, 67, 87, 100, 101– 3, 106, 107–16, 123, 124, 125, 126, 153 –6, 167, 168, 169, 224, 225 Wells, H. G., 236 Wilson, Harold, 213, 219 Windscale Nuclear Facility, 174 Windsor, Elizabeth, 93, 95, 124, 139, 148, 205, 220 Winterton, Paul (novelist, journalist, aka Andrew Garve), 18, 21 –5, 27– 33, 41 –3, 46, 219, 223, 226, 227, 233, 238 Wolverhampton Wanderers (Football Club), 85 – 7 World Set Free, The (H. G. Wells), 236 Wyndham, John, 9, 52, 190 xenophobia, 12 Younger, Kenneth, 113 Zinoviev Letter (1924, fraudulent), 91