ABSTRACT
In August 1949 Sir John Cockcroft arrived in South Africa as a guest of the CSIR. His visit had been on the cards for some time but the date was very much dependent upon the presence in the country of Basil Schonland and recent events had required him to be elsewhere. Ostensibly, Cockcroft was there to lecture to South African universities on the general subject of atomic energy, but the real reason was related much more fundamentally to South Africa’s reserves of uranium. The stimulus for the visit had come from a decision of the British and American governments, made public in a press release from Shell Mex House in London on 11 June. Its very terseness indicated its importance: the USA and the UK were interested in the production of uranium from South African goldbearing ore; no more, no less [1]. Cockcroft was the obvious man to discuss the subject with the South African government because his path to them would be carefully cleared by Schonland.
