The aim of this book is to set the 1957 Windscale accident in its historical context in the immediate post-war period and the early days of the Cold War, to describe the event and its consequences and to evaluate it from the vantage point of 1990.Britain's atomic bomb; Windscale's origins; after Hurricane; the ninth anneal; damage assessment and damage control; the Penney Inquiry and the first white paper; three more white papers; causes - an accident waiting to happen; appraisals and reappraisals; postscript.