The Strangelove effect

BBC Magazine Monitor publishes, as their first item of the new year, 100 things which we did not know last year. Extracted mostly from their own reporting it is a list of the things we learned which were either hidden from view or just forgotten about over time.

Think back for a minute. Do you recall that whenever James Bond, in whatever 007 movie you wish to refer, was dealing with the humanity-destroying weapon of whatever sinister master-mind formed the Bond antagonist?

You might recall that, in 007's world, the fictional weapon had various lock-outs and mechanisms preventing it from being armed by... well, anybody except the person with all the right codes. And, you probably thought it was pretty cool. A bit silly, but cool. The real thing would be far more difficult.

Maybe.

One of the things I had obviously missed was this little bit of information.

Newsnight has discovered that until early days of Blair government the RAF's nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock.

There was no other security on the Bomb itself.

While American and Russian weapons were protected by tamper-proof combination locks which could only be released if the correct code was transmitted, Britain relied on a simpler technology.

It's not like there wasn't an effort to bring the nukes up to a safer standard.

The British military resisted Whitehall proposals to fit bombs with Permissive Action Links - or PALs - which would prevent them being armed unless the right code was sent.

You can watch the procedure here.