Pressing the nuclear button [video 2 min 55 sec]
In a corner of Wiltshire - deep underneath the Cotswolds - is a network of tunnels and rooms that would have housed the British government in the 1960s in the event of a nuclear attack.
The dark and dusty underground complex near Corsham has remained relatively untouched since the height of the Cold War.
But if the crucial moment had come - would ministers have pressed the UK's nuclear button?
Here, historian Professor Peter Hennessy tours the Corsham bunker for Radio 4 - and finds out if the former Labour Defence Secretary Denis Healey, and the late Prime Minister Sir James Callaghan, would have retaliated in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack.
Read entire article at BBC News
The dark and dusty underground complex near Corsham has remained relatively untouched since the height of the Cold War.
But if the crucial moment had come - would ministers have pressed the UK's nuclear button?
Here, historian Professor Peter Hennessy tours the Corsham bunker for Radio 4 - and finds out if the former Labour Defence Secretary Denis Healey, and the late Prime Minister Sir James Callaghan, would have retaliated in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack.