Clouds of Secrecy

Cole, L.A.. 1988. Clouds of Secrecy The Army s Germ Warfare Tests over Populated Areas, Bowman and Littlefield, Totowa, NJ. 

While Porton provided employment and job security for many in the vicinity, it had traditionally, and through the generations, been viewed with great suspicion. As in the case of Maddison, its cloud of secrecy turned into a ready-made canvas onto which local people projected their most deep-seated existential fears. The tragedy amplified these fears into a collective sense of unease that found vocal expression in media interviews, local council meetings, and detailed petitions to the authorities here, however, they were read not as justified matters of concern for citizens, but as the machinations of some as yet unknown form of propaganda or communist agitation . At times, senior Whitehall officials showed a form of paranoia reminiscent of their counterparts in Moscow. 

BBC Inside Out, Clouds of Secrecy (2006) National Research Council 1997 also Academy of Medical Sciences 1999. 

Hammond, Carter 2002, pp. qif whereas the US National Research Council cautiously suggested that the substances were probably harmless and have probably caused no human illness , the UK Academy of Medical Sciences concluded that there was no danger to health for the British population. The Cambridge immunologist Peter Lachmann, founding President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, later admitted that the panel he had chaired had neither seen nor looked for all the evidence BBC Inside Out Documentary series, Clouds of Secrecy (2006). 

The submarine telephone cable application was the justification for the commercial PE plant, but in fact—with the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939—almost all the 4000 t of PE produced between 1939 and 1945 was used to insulate high-frequency radar cables. Commercial distribution of PE in the UK was suspended, secrecy was imposed, whilst PE was used to produce insulation for the coaxial cables of radar sets. Airborne radar, possible because of the compact cables available now with PE insulation, proved to be a critical advantage in the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic, helping British supply ships to avoid German submarines. German Admiral Karl Donitz told Adolf Hitler in May 1943 What is now decisive is that enemy aircraft have been equipped with a new location apparatus. .. which enables them to detect submarines and to attack them unexpectedly in low cloud, bad visibility or at night [10]. 

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