How to Prepare for Nuclear War
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2023
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With Putin's war in Ukraine raging on, the threat of a nuclear conflict feels as real as ever. But since the Iron Curtain fell, our understanding of what to do in the event of a nuclear strike has waned. In this episode, we look to the past to discover the extraordinary things that the British government have done to prepare the nation for nuclear war. What plans did they put in place, and would they have worked if the missiles had started flying? Dan is joined by Julie McDowall, an expert on the the nuclear threat and author of Attack Warning Red! How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War, to shed some light on the unnerving history of nuclear preparation.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everybody, welcome to Dance Know's History Hit. I've got one of my favorite guests |
| 0:05.0 | back on the podcast now, the atomic hobo herself, the social, media and podcasting phenomenon. |
| 0:12.7 | That is Julie McDowell. She's a journalist specializing in the nuclear threat. She's |
| 0:18.4 | just written a book called Attack Warning Red, how Britain prepared for nuclear war. She |
| 0:22.2 | hosts the atomic hobo podcast. She said to talk to us about all the extraordinary things |
| 0:26.2 | that governments tried to do to ameliorate the effects of a gigantic nuclear strike. Spoiler |
| 0:31.1 | alert, it was all totally pointless, but governments have got a plan. That's what they're there |
| 0:35.4 | to do. It is chilling and scary and fascinating and sometimes even funny, and it's particularly |
| 0:41.5 | pointed now that nuclear saber rattling is back on the agenda, following Vladimir Putin's |
| 0:47.0 | invasion of Ukraine. This is not a podcast for the squeamish, folks. This is not a podcast |
| 0:53.4 | of her feeling anxious generally in life. There's not a lot of optimism here. Nuclear war |
| 0:58.3 | is pretty awful and there's not much she can do about it. But the good news is that |
| 1:02.5 | Julie McDowell is a brilliant communicator and journalist and you're going to find this |
| 1:07.0 | fascinating. Enjoy. |
| 1:09.7 | He might have hit the target bomb, dropped off, he'll go sheep, start, gaze, the king, |
| 1:14.5 | go black, quaint, unity, till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one |
| 1:20.1 | another in a game. And look off and the subtle has cleared the tower. |
| 1:26.2 | Julie, so good to have you back on the pod. Oh, thank you for invading me, Dan. You've gone |
| 1:30.3 | from strength to strength. You're now the world's leading nuclear war influencer, which |
| 1:34.5 | is a strange and wonderful thing. That's right. This all started when I was a three-year-old |
| 1:40.3 | when I saw the nuclear war film Threads on the BBC. So I couldn't have imagined back then |
| 1:44.8 | as a tiny three-year-old that this would lead to a career. And sadly, of course, these |
... |
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