Lord Roger Sherfield (Roger Makins) spent most of his career in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, serving as Ambassador to the United States from 1953-1956. He was Chairman of UK Atomic Energy Commission from 1960-1964. He starts the interview by recalling an unsuccessful meeting between Niels Bohr and Winston Churchill in London regarding the question of dissemination of nuclear information. He provides his reaction to Hiroshima and insights into British thinking about the advisability of using the bomb. He describes immediate post-war considerations concerning U.S.-British collaboration and information sharing on nuclear matters. After Congress made clear its desire to protect the American monopoly in the field, the British decided to pursue a full-scale weapons program. Others aspects of the issue, such as espionage, and their possible effects on U.S.-U.K. collaboration are also discussed. Lord Sherfield gives his views about the Baruch Plan and the difficulties it faced, largely resulting from the conditions of the Cold War. He discusses other significant events including the effect of the Klaus Fuchs episode and British reactions to Trumans intimation that he might use nuclear weapons in Korea. He closes by recalling being in Moscow at the apex of the Cuban missile crisis and witnessing Khrushchev attend the opera and engage in a long conversation with the bass (an American) backstage despite the evident tensions of the crisis.
![Interview with Roger Sherfield, 1986 [4]](https://bpldcassets.blob.core.windows.net/derivatives/metadata/commonwealth-oai:1j92j704n/image_thumbnail_300.jpg)
![War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Roger Sherfield, 1986 [4]](https://bpldcassets.blob.core.windows.net/derivatives/metadata/commonwealth-oai:x346hj51r/image_thumbnail_300.jpg)
