BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:'Winston's Gestapo': Churchill\, the Royal Society and scientific 
 secrecy before the Bomb - Jeff Hughes (University of Manchester)
DTSTART:20151105T163000Z
DTEND:20151105T180000Z
UID:TALK61105@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Marta Halina
DESCRIPTION:In the summer of 1945\, a number of leading British scientists
  were invited to attend the 220th anniversary celebrations of the Soviet A
 cademy of Sciences in Moscow. The Royal Society quickly assumed responsibi
 lity for the organisation of the junket\, turning it into a semi-diplomati
 c mission intended both to build scientific links with Britain's still-val
 ued wartime ally and to strengthen its own position in relation to the Bri
 tish government as it began to frame a project for postwar institutional r
 enewal. On the eve of the delegation's departure\, the travel visas of eig
 ht of the scientists were suddenly cancelled for contrived reasons. The or
 der came directly from Churchill who\, in the last days of his caretaker g
 overnment\, misled Parliament about the reason for the scientists' treatme
 nt. Excavating this episode\, the paper will reveal what lay behind the ba
 n and explore its ramifications: for government\, from high-level inter-al
 lied politics to MI6 and the DSIR\; for the Royal Society\, whose Officers
  were embarrassingly compromised\; and for the scientists themselves\, for
  whom 'Winston's Gestapo' was a paradoxical and potent focus for debate ab
 out secrecy\, freedom\, and the values and governance of science as it shi
 fted from war to an uneasy peace.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR