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Defence and conflict

Visiting the secret state: Margaret Thatcher and Intelligence

An early task of any new Prime Minister is to familiarise themselves with the UK's intelligence agencies – the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the Security Service (MI5). Yet, for all the interest they may have …

What’s the Context? The decision to build a British atomic bomb, 8 January 1947

A 1947 decision of the Attlee Government led to the develop of an independent atomic weapon for the UKemnt

We’ve got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs. We’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it. “This thing” as British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin put it, was the Atomic Bomb. Bevin was quoted …

What’s the Context? Occupying Powers sign Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin, 3 September 1971

The most that we can say is that we have made the best of a bad bargain, not that we have got a fair deal (Prime Minister Edward Heath, 1 September 1971) Fifty years ago, Ambassadors representing the 4 Occupying …

What's the Context? Signature of the Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941

The principles set out in the Atlantic Charter eighty years ago remain key to the global vision shared by the UK and US. But its terms also contained the roots of  international tensions that persist today: for example in relation …

What’s the context? 25 June 1950: outbreak of the Korean War

Ernest Bevin an elderly Prime Minister posing for a picture in front of a book case

The outbreak of the Korean War on 25 June 1950 caught Western governments by surprise, despite warning signs. Western strategists had assumed that North Korea was a Soviet puppet, and that no one wanted a war.

Forward or backward looking? The Treaty of Versailles

Cartoon: At the Peace Table. Treaty of Versailles. Clemenceau says, "Take your seats, gentlemen!" The food and chairs look dangerous, and there are handcuffs on the table, worried and suspicious German delegates.

German anger at the Treaty of Versailles between the wars is well known. Hitler, in his rise to power, exploited this deep resentment. So how did such a contentious document come into existence and why was it signed?