'Britain Carries Out Second H-Test, Explosion even bigger than the first one,' the Manchester Guardian reported on Saturday, 1 June 1957. It was the lead news item. The story that followed was datelined 'Aboard HMS Alert', Alert being the frigate which housed the representatives of the British press corps invited to see for themselves that Britain, as befitted the third great power in the world, had attained thermonuclear status. According to Reuters, 'a great multi-coloured fireball above the central Pacific heralded Britain's second hydrogen bomb test' off the Malden Islands.

LRB 22 October 1992 | PDF Download