TRANSCRIPT 🔗
00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, welcome to Conversations. My guest today is Elizabeth Tynan. Now it's fair to say Elizabeth has been obsessed with a certain topic and that's the British atomic testing that took place in Australia between 1952 and 1963 and she's written three books now. The previous books were called Atomic Thunder, The Secret of Emu Field and her latest book, which is so well researched and written in such depth, It's called Nuclear Archipelago, The Secrets, Power and the Biggest Atomic Blast in Australia. Elizabeth, you said I can call you Liz, that's okay? Yes, it is. Good morning. How are you?
00:00:37
Speaker 2: I'm very well, Cornsy. How are you?
00:00:39
Speaker 1: I'm great. I'm a bit scared reading your book, to be quite honest. We've all forgotten about those British atomic tests in Australia, haven't we? And why has it been such a passion of yours?
00:00:50
Speaker 2: Well, that's quite a story. I was a journalist. And I at one time worked as Sydney correspondent for New Scientist magazine. And I did different kinds of journalism, but over time I specialised in science. And after I had left New Scientist and joined academia, I was casting around for a suitable topic for my PhD. And I wanted it to be related to my interests in science journalism. Long story short, I got access to the personal archive of my new scientist mentor, Ian Anderson, who had sadly passed away young. And I discovered that he had done very important investigative work around the nuclear tests in Australia. And I got deeper and deeper into it. And then it grabbed me and didn't let go. I discovered a real passion. In my undergraduate degree, I had studied a major in modern history. And so I had a built-in interest in history anyway. I had a lot of interest in science and particularly in physics. And this topic was so interesting. It had so many aspects to it. It wasn't just the science, it was also the politics, it was the journalism, it was the spies, it was the political intrigue, it was the many Indigenous aspects to the story. There is so much. And it was also largely unknown. And being a nosy type, that is a journalist, I couldn't help but want to find out more.
00:02:44
Speaker 1: And so.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: One thing led to another. I did my PhD on aspects of the nuclear tests and that naturally led on to a book and then another and now another. So, yes, I have been captured by it for about, oh, it's about 22 or 23 years now.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: Now, your day job is you're a professor in graduate research at the James Cook University in Townsville. But it seems to me you would have spent so much time on these three books. How did it interweave with your day job? Did it?
00:03:19
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes. So I'm a researcher at the university and I teach, and these days I teach mostly postgrads. And my university has been very supportive. And although I have to say I spend an awful lot of weekends and public holidays and recreational leave... All of it, actually, in the past 10 years, the three books I've written in 10 years, I have given up pretty much my free time to do it. But my employer has been very supportive. So I'm very grateful for that. But yes, it is a lot. And it takes a lot of time. And I think if you've seen the books, you can see how much detail there is in them. And that all takes a lot of time. And it's all the checking and all of that too. I'm fortunate to have an excellent publisher who provides professional help with editing and proofreading and so on. And that all goes to help as well. But yeah, it's big. It's a lot.
00:04:25
Speaker 1: So this is the third book. If I use the word trilogy, does it write books about the nuclear testing?
00:04:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, that name fits, I think.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: Well, tell us about why this one is different, nuclear... We here, we in South Australia, we know all about Maralinga, of course. I hadn't really known about Emu Field, and I certainly didn't know about the Montebello Islands because that's a French name.
00:04:53
Speaker 2: Well, there's your answer. You didn't really know about the Montebello Islands. You didn't know about Emu Field either. My first book was very much focused on Maralinga because my PhD had been. And then it became... very apparent to me as I was working particularly on Atomic Thunder, the Maralinga story, that there was quite a bit still to be known about Emu Field. And the subtitle of that book was Britain's Forgotten Atomic Tests in Australia because they occurred years before the Maralinga test. And they had been overshadowed by Maralinga. And then as I was working on EMU Field, I thought I should go for the hat trick at this point because not many people know about Montebello either. And as I started to delve into the Montebello story, I recognised just how much there was to know about it that was quite separate to the other sites and the things that went on. You know, of course, there's some overlap. Some of the characters are the same. But the tests were quite different in many ways. They had unique characteristics. There was still so much to learn. And, of course, the big thing that drew me was the fact that at Montebello, that's where the largest explosion ever conducted in Australia by a long way was held. And I wanted to know what that was. you know, why they had to have such a large test. What was the science behind that? And so I was, you know, as I said before, I'm naturally nosy. And so I wanted to find out what that was all about. And so my difficulty always is to contain how much I write. These are, you know, fairly lengthy books. And my publisher constantly says, you know, don't go over the limit. Well, that's actually quite difficult.
00:07:03
Speaker 1: Is the limit 80,000 words? That seems to be a limit that is imposed on most budding authors.
00:07:11
Speaker 2: 90,000 is the limit. And that was the limit given for Atomic Thunder. And when I submitted it, it was actually
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more like 115,000. It was brought down a bit in the editing process. But for Nuclear Archipelago, 90,000 to 100,000 was given as quite a generous range. And I think I just snuck slightly over the 100,000 mark. And that was really hard to keep it down because there is so much to say.
00:07:40
Speaker 1: So when you started on this project, was there political resistance?
00:07:45
Speaker 2: You know, I've never encountered any overt political resistance. However, there is indirect resistance, if I can put it that way, in that particularly in the case of the British government, archives and to a small degree the Australian archives but the British archives are where the real problem you know the obstacles can be because and it's not the fault of the archives the British archives are absolutely marvellous it's the British government and they put severe restrictions on what can be released to the public in terms of the original files from these tests and you In fact, when I was working on the EMU Field Book, I visited London twice during 2018, two separate occasions, about six months apart, and was getting as many files as I could for the EMU Field Book. And then while I was in London the second time, I put in some Freedom of Information requests because I could see that there were some files that were in the archives but not currently available. And so I put in some requests for those files. And a very short time after that, all files were withdrawn from public view. All files pertaining to the British nuclear tests were withdrawn from public view. I always wondered whether it was because of my request. Fortunately, I had got enough information that I could move forward. But it's only in quite recent times, the past couple of years, I guess, that some of those files have been restored, but not all. And in fact, there are some very important files that are not available and it's a constant source of frustration. They're retained by the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Defence is an immovable object.
00:09:34
Speaker 1: Did you get investigated or interrogated by MI5? I don't even know what the intelligence service is these days. One of those, MI5 or MI6, were you approached by them?
00:09:45
Speaker 2: Not knowingly, no.
00:09:49
Speaker 1: Fair enough. Well, we need to take a break. Elizabeth Tynan, Liz, is my guest. Her latest book on the British atomic testing in Australia is called Nuclear Archive. Secrets, Power and the Biggest Atomic Blast in Australia. Back shortly, folks. Welcome back, everybody. My guest on conversation is Professor Liz Tynan. She is a professor in graduate research at the James Cook University and But her passion is an investigation and the uncovering, I suppose, of the secrets of the British nuclear testing in Australia, which happened way back in, some of us will remember, 1952 up to 1963. So you've done all your research. You've gone to London and you've been frustrated because some of the files have been withdrawn. So what is the intention of the book? Is it to expose these secrets?
00:10:45
Speaker 2: Well, I guess the intention is to set the record straight, to create a foundation of understanding for what happened there. And I should hasten to add that I'm not the only one who writes about this. There was an excellent book that came out a few years ago called Operation Hurricane by my dear colleague, Paul Grace. And that is a really excellent book about the very first test. I wanted to extend the investigation to the second series of tests at Montebello called Operation Mosaic, which is still very mysterious and probably unknown to most people. And so I just think that, you know, significant historical events like this need to be laid out for people so that they can see what happened, they can understand the extent of the activities around Mosaic those you know the tests so that was my aim really to establish what happened and why and to place it into the continuum of Australian history where I think it deserves a very prominent place I think the British nuclear tests are very important to this country and so that's my aim really is to ensure that they are given their proper place.
00:12:07
Speaker 1: Important in as much that they were valuable or important that we realise just how much the British exploited us and how subservient we were, particularly a politician like Sir Robert Menzies. Can you explore that suggestion?
00:12:26
Speaker 2: Well, I think the latter in that case. I think that it is actually a very interesting aspect of this story, the so-called nuclear colonialism aspect of it, which places it into a larger frame than just what exactly happened with the tests. You know, the tests themselves are certainly interesting and important. But more importantly, I think, is what it says about Australia as a sovereign nation and Australia's image of itself in relation to the rest of the world, and particularly in relation to its former colonisers. and what that might mean for Australian identity and sovereignty. I think that there's quite a bit to be unpacked about that. Certainly in relation to Robert Menzies, I think that's really interesting. He was well known as an Anglophile, someone who was very, you know, open in his allegiance to the mother country and the fact that he felt very close to that country. Now, I don't think that explains, however, why he said yes to the British nuclear test in Australia. I think that there are actually much more pragmatic reasons for that. But his anglophilia gave a ready-made patriotic sort of narrative that helped him to sell the idea to, well, He didn't sell it initially because it was very secret to start with, but over time where he needed to persuade not only his colleagues but also the Australian public, he had that ready-made patriotic narrative, which worked for a while. It didn't work for the entire time. But really, underneath all of that, there were three reasons why he said yes, or we
can certainly speculate on fairly firm ground, First of all, it was not that long after the end of the Second World War and the sudden rise of nuclear weapons, which were demonstrated so devastatingly at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. And he wanted to shore up Australian security. And so being on side with the British hopefully would do that. The second reason was that Australia had large reserves of uranium, the raw material for nuclear weapons, and he wanted to have markets available for those resources. And this was a way of smoothing the way for those sort of trade discussions. And thirdly, he wanted Australia to be nuclear armed and powered as well. And... The Americans and the British didn't. And so it didn't happen. But that was certainly on his mind. And he did make some fairly ineffectual moves for Australia to be nuclear armed. He believed, I think, that by cooperating with the British, the British would share their knowledge. they were never going to share their knowledge with Australia there is no way that they were going to share their knowledge with Australia not just on their own behalf but also because America did not trust Australian security and America certainly did not want there to be another nuclear power and and certainly not Australia so that was never going to happen however these were the kind of pragmatic reasons that Robert Menzies had for wanting to agree to these tests.
00:16:20
Speaker 1: There's almost this impression of the arrogant British aristocracy looking down on the Australians in the Antipodes. Is that thread throughout those discussions or that relationship?
00:16:32
Speaker 2: It comes through loud and clear, Cornelius. Yeah, you read some of these documents and you can... Just to give you one example, a senior member of Churchill's government was a fellow called Lord Cherwell, who was actually a physicist as well as a Tory politician. And he was a close friend of Winston Churchill. And Churchill came back to power in October of 1951. And when it became apparent that the uranium issue was going to require some high level discussion and that Lord Cherwell was likely to have to travel to Australia to hold those discussions. Cherwell had an extensive correspondence with Churchill and I have seen their correspondence in a specialised archive in the UK at Oxford University. And he said to Churchill, I'm going to have to go to Canberra. And in the handwritten in the margin is Oh, no, how terrible, you know, or words to that effect that it was, oh, you know, are you really going to have to deal with these Australians on this issue? You know, how terrible you're going to have to make that trip. So that was just one little moment. There were many moments like that. Among the documents for this latest book I've seen is a whole bunch of them that says we must not tell the Australians exactly what this is. We need to have a cover story. We need to ensure that they don't know exactly what this is. So there was a.
00:18:14
Speaker 1: Lot of intent. They're going to drop a bomb on Australia, even though it's remote. the three different sides and not tell us what the outcome could be. Yes. They wanted to keep that secret.
00:18:28
Speaker 2: Yes, they did. And they got very upset and angry when finally, belatedly, the Australian government in 1955 decided to set up an atomic weapons test safety committee. And they were quite concerned about that because that was the first time, you know, That was the first time the Australian government made any moves to have any say in what happened.
00:18:54
Speaker 1: And these were in places where there was population. There was Indigenous populations.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Yes, certainly the South Australian tests. Yes, yes. Absolutely appalling.
00:19:05
Speaker 1: Yes. We'll come back to Montebello Islands after the break. My guest is Elizabeth Tynan. Her latest book is called Nuclear Archipelago, The Secret's Power on the Biggest Atomic Blast in Australia on the Montebello Islands, which I've never heard of before, to be quite frank. Back after the break. Welcome back to Conversations, everybody. If you've just tuned in, it's a really interesting discussion with my guest today who is Professor Elizabeth Tynan, or Professor Liz, I think she doesn't mind being called, the third of her books about the British atomic testing in Australia is called Nuclear Archipelago, about the atomic blasts on the Montebello Islands. Now, I have to say, Liz, I hadn't heard of the Montebello Islands. It sounds exotic. and it sounds French. Can you tell us about them, please?
00:19:54
Speaker 2: Okay, it's actually, they were named by French explorer, but it's an Italian name rather than French. And it's named after the Battle of Montebello in the early 1800s. But it was a French explorer, Nicolas Baudin, who came out around that time, soon after the Battle of Montebello, actually, and decided it was all too barren and terrible. But he did manage to name the island group, and he also named a couple of the islands within the group. So Tramui Island and Hermite Island have French names. Most of the other, and there are, you know, a lot of islands there, some of them tiny, 174 islands or so. only a small proportion of them are actually named. Other than the French names, most of the islands have British names.
00:20:47
Speaker 1: And where are they?
00:20:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, so off the Pilbara Coast, out in the Indian Ocean, about just over 100 kilometres off the coast. In fact, they were once part of Australia. There was a vast continental shelf that jutted out into the Indian Ocean. And these islands were the high points on that shelf. And then sea level rose, you know, 8,000 years ago, and they left just the islands there. But they were inhabited by Indigenous people before they were cut off from the mainland. So there are caves there that are of great interest to archaeologists that have a great deal of heritage value on the island.
00:21:33
Speaker 1: So how high are they? Because it sounds like it's a mountain. Oh, no.
00:21:38
Speaker 2: Well, their literal name does mean beautiful mountain in Italian, but no, they're very low lying. I can't just remember. Hermite Island has the highest peak and it's only, I may get this wrong, I want to say 18 metres, but that's where they had the command post. The British built their command post on the highest hill, which happened to be on Hermite Island.
00:22:04
Speaker 1: And there'd been Australians there. You talk about one gentleman had a mother of pearl industry. In one respect, it almost sounds exotic, but then when you describe how barren it is and then the hurricanes and the cyclones, it doesn't sound a good place to live. So what's the reality of it?
00:22:24
Speaker 2: There's virtually no water source these days there, so... And... although they're in the tropics, they don't look like how you would imagine tropical islands would look. So they don't have swaying palms. The vegetation is quite low and scrubby. It's a very exposed place. There are lots of cyclones that come through. But you know what? They're absolutely beautiful. I think they're lovely. These sort of limestone coves and this olive green vegetation. And there are beautiful little wallabies that you see bounding around and the most amazing bird life and crystal clear aquamarine tropical water. Very, very beautiful. But people, yes, people did try and set up, you know, a pearling industry there, for example, but it was not a success. And the house built by the guy who tried to do that was blown away by a cyclone and So it's, you know, there's been pearling there. There's been, you know, hunting of sea turtles, that kind of thing. But it's not an easy place to be, to live. And the British found it very, very difficult. And they had to bring all their own water and they had to build all the infrastructure that were needed for the tests.
00:23:56
Speaker 1: You've been there, obviously, by the sounds of it.
00:23:58
Speaker 2: Yes, I have, yes.
00:23:59
Speaker 1: So how did you get there and how long did you stay or how long could you stay?
00:24:04
Speaker 2: It's a very long way from Townsville where I live. So I flew to Perth and then up to Karratha and from there I joined my colleagues and we got on a boat, a charter boat, that travelled about eight hours out to sea. And we stayed there for four days. Now, the ground zeros, there are two ground zeros. There were three bombs let off there, but the first one was in the hull of a ship, but the other two were on land. And the two ground zeros are still very, very radioactive. And you're only allowed to, well, you are advised to spend no more than one hour at each of the ground zeros. And because we had a scintillometer with us and we knew how radioactive it was, we were very careful to stick to that limit.
00:24:55
Speaker 1: So this is 70 years later and there's still evidence of significant radioactive pollution, I guess, contamination.
00:25:05
Speaker 2: In 170,000 years from now, it will still be there. So we're talking very long timescales. Once you let this radiation loose into the environment... it doesn't disappear quickly. So the main nuclear fuel in these weapons was plutonium-239, which has a half-life of 24,000 years. And so that radiation is there for the foreseeable future.
00:25:36
Speaker 1: So there was a British, when I say, I'm going to say garrison, was there a British garrison on the island that actually lived on the islands?
00:25:42
Speaker 2: No. Okay, so most of the troops lived on the flotilla of Royal Navy or Australian Navy vessels that were there. However, there were some tented camps on particularly a couple of the islands. So the troops stayed there, I suppose, for months. They certainly didn't stay there for years.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:07
Speaker 2: So it was temporary accommodation mostly.
00:26:09
Speaker 1: So that was after the blast as well?
00:26:12
Speaker 2: So after the blast, they skedaddled pretty quickly. The British got out of there pretty quickly and basically left a mess for the Australians to take care of. So after Hurricane, the first one in 1952, they were gone within a couple of weeks, I suppose, and didn't look back.
00:26:30
Speaker 1: So has there been any investigation or research into the adverse health effects of any of those who were there at the time of that?
00:26:40
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:26:41
Speaker 1: So.
00:26:42
Speaker 2: Very little, actually. So most of the troops present for the entirety of the nuclear test series in Australia were British. And there were something like 25,000 British troops, if you spread them over the three sites and over the years. And there have been some investigations nowhere near enough. And in fact, very flawed, according to people who campaign for justice over there, flawed investigations that were skewed in favour of the government. But the more recent ones do certainly show a signal of increased incidence of certain kinds of cancers in people who are present. So there have not been, to my knowledge, any similar epidemiological studies done on Australian personnel who were present.
00:27:40
Speaker 1: That just opens the door to more discussion. They've done that about the sites at Maralinga, have they not? They've researched the adverse impact on Indigenous people and Australian personnel who were there.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: Only marginally, yes. So there has been some. There were some inconclusive investigations into the health effects of on Aboriginal people around the Maralinga and Emu Field sites. But the problem there was that there was not any, what we call baseline data. So the health status of Indigenous people in those areas was unknown. And so therefore you don't have anything to compare it with when you look at new data. And so that has long been an issue. There have been bits and pieces of investigation, but the Royal
Commission held in the mid-1980s did not have the capacity to investigate the health effects of any population. So there's still a lot of gaps in our understanding of exactly what happened.
00:28:50
Speaker 1: My guest is Elizabeth Tyne and Liz, Professor Liz. Her latest book, it's the third in a trilogy of the British atomic testing in Australia. It's called Nuclear Archipelago. It's scary, of course, but you get angry that the arrogance of the Brits, they can just come and drop a bomb on Australia. It's a bit like when the French were doing it in the South Pacific as well. So back after the break. I'm talking today on conversations with Professor Liz Tynan from James Cook University in Townsville. It's fair to say the British nuclear testing in Australia is her passion. Liz, has that passion ever gotten away from you? Has it ever taken its own course? path that you lost control of?
00:29:32
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, there are certainly times at the end of a long day or when I'm very jet lagged in the when i just think what what on earth am i doing here but uh but no i i do find it fascinating and i find it important as well and um and when i finish a book i feel a bit bereft actually because i i feel as though i need to keep going um so yes it's um It's a fascinating area for me anyway.
00:30:01
Speaker 1: The average Australian does not understand the damage that these blasts can wreak. When we talk about what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and these bombs that were tested are far greater even. You talk about in one segment about the temperatures reached and you talk about 100 million degrees. I mean, that's beyond comprehension. So how much bigger were these blasts compared to the ones that ended World War II.
00:30:32
Speaker 2: Okay, so 100 million, that's for a thermonuclear weapon, a hydrogen weapon, and they achieved those temperatures by using a fission weapon as the trigger, which then causes the fusion reactions. So in Australia, there were no hydrogen weapons, so therefore those temperatures were not necessary for the weapons detonated here. However... the Mosaic series in 1956 at Montebello, they were kind of a, I called them a way station on the path to the British hydrogen weapon that was later tested in the Pacific. And so they were what was known as boosted fission weapons, which means they were your basic atomic weapon, a fission weapon, but with some light elements added as a boost to see whether fusion would occur. And so this was an attempt by the British to maximise what they called the yield, the explosive power of the bomb on a shoestring. They were always doing everything on a shoestring, so they were trying to do this cheaply and quickly, and they wanted to see what would happen if they adopted this method hybrid style, I suppose, of weapon. And they kind of knew that they would not be pursuing this. They did this more as a physics experiment rather than an attempt to create a real weapon.
00:32:06
Speaker 1: So an experiment to lay waste to this part of the world that they didn't really care about.
00:32:14
Speaker 2: Precisely. These were physics experiments that did huge damage. And, of course, Mosaic G2 in June of 1956 was deposited a huge amount of radioactivity across the continent all the way through to the east coast of Australia, to Queensland. And so, yeah. And they went, yay, we did it. You know, what a great experiment. And then they walked away from it.
00:32:39
Speaker 1: So can we compare the strength of the weapons donated here to those in Japan?
00:32:46
Speaker 2: Yes. So Hiroshima, the.
00:32:50
Speaker 2: The weapon dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. The Operation Hurricane, which was detonated in 1952, the very first one at Montebello and the first for the British, was 25 kilotons, so significantly bigger than Hiroshima. But G2, Mosaic G2, was at least four times the size of Hiroshima and I think quite a bit bigger than that. The evidence is still there. Not entirely decisive, but it could have been six times the size. Now, when you think of Hiroshima, that killed, Hiroshima and Nagasaki together killed about 200,000 people. So you get an idea of the strength of these weapons.
00:33:31
Speaker 1: So you talk about the, I don't know whether it's here in the Montebello Islands, but you talk about those who witnessed the Indigenous people. They talk about a black cloud. Did we have these, do we have those sort of effects at Montebello? No.
00:33:47
Speaker 2: So the black mist was a feature of one of the tests at Emu Field in South Australia that caused immense harm, illness and death to Indigenous people at various settlements in South Australia. And that was caused by a specific meteorological condition that was present for that test. We don't have precisely that same condition present for the Montebello test, but we do have fallout that travelled and there was a miner with Geiger counters at Marble Bar about 400 kilometres away from Montebello inland Western Australia who picked up very very high readings and he phoned through to the British authorities at a little place called Onslow on the Western Australian coast and told them and one way or another in a report sent back to London that that information got into the media. And so people thought that there had been a nuclear accident, that G2 was an accident. And in fact, the Australian government had been going around saying that this second one, G2, would be smaller than the first one, G1, which was in May of 56 and was 15 kilotons, the same size as Hiroshima. And suddenly it was apparently very much bigger than And so that's why there was this thought that it was a nuclear accident. And there was quite a bit of panic in the Australian government.
00:35:23
Speaker 1: Just imagine how they would have reacted. You've got this old bloke in Marble Bar. You think of Chips Trafford, don't you? And he's ringing the British government and saying, come on, you blokes. How
seriously would they have taken him?
00:35:39
Speaker 2: It's very hard to know what they thought, except they did act upon it, so they must have taken it seriously. He was a government employee.
00:35:51
Speaker 1: He wasn't some down-and-out miner at Narborough?
00:35:54
Speaker 2: No, no, he wasn't.
00:35:57
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it's amusing or not, but it's certainly interesting, the story about the radioactive Land Rover. Can you tell us about the radioactive Land Rover?
00:36:05
Speaker 2: Oh, this is a mystery. So... This was a Land Rover that was used when the British authorities went back a year or so after a hurricane to do some monitoring of the site. And the Land Rover got very, very radioactive. And it found its way down to Fremantle. They seem to have lost track of it. And there was an urban myth that grew up that it was buried at that site. And the strength of this myth was such that there was a bit of an investigation and an attempt to, you know, see if they could find it. But they've never been able to find it. So it's not clear where that vehicle ended up.
00:36:55
Speaker 1: The mystery of the missing radioactive Land Rover. Liz... It's like it's 60 or 70 years ago now. What do you hope? What do you hope for your books? What outcome do you hope?
00:37:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would like Australians to have, you know, more knowledge about what happened. I'd like this information to go into schools, actually. I think it would be good for children to find out more about this history. I think it's, you know, the more we... the more we know, the more informed we are, the more we can influence the political process in Australia, I think, and we can perhaps call for more oversight and more accountability and more transparency in government. If, you know, the government is entering into security and weapons R & D arrangements with other countries, I think, you know, we as the population need to be asking more questions. And when we know about what happened in the past, maybe that can help us better prepare for whatever is to come.
00:38:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, but who listens? The world's never been more tenuous since World War II, I don't think. And there seems to be a proliferation of these weapons and more countries are developing them. Who's going to listen to, you know, your concerns?
00:38:30
Speaker 2: I still think, and I do understand that point of view, but I still think that it's better to have knowledge than not have knowledge. And I think certainly there are politicians who do listen. I know that because they read my books and tell me about it. And I know that there are at least some people listening and one would hope that eventually some of that knowledge will seep through into the decision-making process.
00:39:00
Speaker 1: In the investigation that was forthcoming after the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and they came much later, maybe 70 odd years later, there were still survivors who could give evidence and witness. Have you been able to track down anyone who was able to give you an eyewitness account of what happened in any of those three sites?
00:39:27
Speaker 2: I have met quite a few of the veterans and also some indigenous people or their descendants and yes I have spoken to quite a few of them I have in fact given talks to British Nuclear Veterans Association meetings about this And I've stayed in the home of one of the veterans in the UK and got to know he and his wife very well and heard their stories. So, yes, I have got to know them. I know the toll that it's taken on individuals. And, you know, it's severe. It's really heartbreaking. Some of the stories you hear, it's really terrible.
00:40:13
Speaker 1: You finish the book in the last paragraph by saying, Australia gave away its territory too cheaply back in the days when it still felt the tight ties of colonialism. By the time the British scientists and military personnel boarded their ships, turned their gaze wistfully homeward and departed the Montebello Islands, it was too late. The damage had been done. Can that damage ever be repaired?
00:40:39
Speaker 2: Not really, no. No, it really is too late.
00:40:43
Speaker 1: All right. So if you had one wish for this book, Nuclear Archipelago, I think we probably talked about it before. Just reiterate what it would be.
00:40:51
Speaker 2: That as many people as possible read it and understand and gain a better picture of all of Australian history, not just the obvious things, but sometimes the hidden things are just as important.
00:41:06
Speaker 1: Well, Peter Garrett gave it a big rap, an excoriating examination. Nuclear politics, atomic colonialism. And shameful cover-up, a definite must-read. But of course he would say that, wouldn't he? Peter Garrett, we love him. Liz, all the best with it. Thanks so much for your time.
00:41:24
Speaker 2: Nice to talk to you.
00:41:25
Speaker 1: My guest today was Professor Elizabeth Tynan. Her book is called Nuclear Archipelago, Secrets, Power and the Biggest Atomic Blast in Australia. Thank you so much for joining us.