End of Empire and the Bomb
Britain, Malaya and Nuclear Weapons, 1956–57
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11943479 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matthew Jones (0000-0002-9272-5687, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 351-383 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0308-6534 • E-ISSN: 1743-9329 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03086534.2022.2116148 |
| OpenAlex | W4293313210 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
This article focuses on the repercussions of remarks made by Duncan Sandys, the British Minister of Defence, at a press conference held in Canberra in August 1957 which suggested that British nuclear weapons were going to be deployed to airbases in Malaya. Against the background of the negotiations that had led to the Anglo-Malayan defence agreement, and with Malaya on the cusp of independence, an intense debate took place between Whitehall officials over whether and what form of assurances over consultation should be given to Malaya’s new leaders over the deployment of nuclear weapons and the use of Malayan bases. Besides examining why and how such assurances were issued, this article seeks to demonstrate the tensions produced by British defence policy in South East Asia during this period, which was increasingly rooted in alliance obligations to SEATO and the consequent projection of nuclear capabilities, as they began to conflict with the political imperative to bolster the post-independence United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) Alliance government in Malaya. It also brings forward some of the links and connections that can be made between nuclear issues and the dynamics of decolonisation
Alliance · Economic history · Government (linguistics · Independence (probability theory · Negotiation · Nuclear weapon · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Studies and History · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Public Administration
After Hiroshima
Britain, Australia and the Bomb
Only as Dust in the Face of the Wind
Up the Garden Path? Britain's Nuclear History in the Far East, 1954–1962
The imperial factor in British strategies from Attlee to Macmillan, 1945–63
The Central African Federation and Britain's Post-War Nuclear Programme
A political H‐Bomb’
The 1957 Sandys white paper
The Radford Bombshell
British Defence Policy East of Suez, 1947–68
Great Britain, the United States, and Consultation Over Use of the Atomic Bomb, 1950–1954
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |