ABSTRACT
On 15 September 1961 the UK emphasised to the Russians that their rejection of an immediate ban on atmospheric testing as proposed by Macmillan and Kennedy was a missed opportunity, and that the UK regarded the US decision to resume underground testing as fully justified. Macmillan set out the formal UK position on the Soviet resumption in a statement on 31 October to the House of Commons. This was to shape UK thinking and public utterances for the next six months. It laid out very frankly the conflicting pressures facing HMG and Macmillan personally. The Soviet resumption of testing increased the pressure to test within the US and UK, and inside the Kennedy Administration the advocates of testing were emboldened. London too was aware that the Russians were working very hard on an anti-missile missile. In the UK, the pressures to test were of a different sort. AWRE had developed a new implosion principle called Super Octopus.
