THE BRITISH CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT ELECTED IN MAY 1979 had, by August 1980, taken three decisions in respect of nuclear weapons and civil defence which in portent had had few peacetime parallels. These decisions naturally had a technical as well as a political dimension yet, until at least the spring of 1981, the involvement of the British scientific community in public discussion of the underlying issues remained negligible. No similar decisions could be taken, or even contemplated, in the United States without provoking a response both substantial and professional from American scientists. How does one explain the attitude, or lack of it, in this context of their British counterparts? Why, when these decisions were announced, did British scientists behave, or appear to behave, as political eunuchs? Are there no matters which rouse them to political involvement? Or are they perhaps more politically effective precisely because they pursue a low-profile course? These questions are important and it is worth trying to answer them. Before attempting to do so, however, it will be helpful both to identify the British decisions of 1979–80 referred to above, and also to outline such reaction to them on the part of the British technical community as had, in fact, occurred by the spring of 1981.
Review of An International Scientific Community: Asian Scholars in the United States