ABSTRACT
Entering office just months after Heath had decided to pursue “Super Antelope” – or Chevaline as it would be codenamed – to improve the penetration capability of Polaris, the Harold Wilson government decided not to reveal the project. The plan to disclose the programme through the Defence White Paper formulated in the last weeks of the Heath government was scrapped. A second election in 1974 would see Labour again victorious, and on a platform of renouncing “any intention of moving towards a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons”. Wilson went to some lengths to keep Chevaline secret, seeking to avoid allegations that Labour was flaunting its “no new generation” manifesto commitments. By the mid-1970s Chevaline’s development work included activities – such as nuclear testing and construction – that were difficult, if not impossible, to hide completely from public view. Journalists continued to sleuth the government’s secretive nuclear weapons work. The ambiguity created by the government’s lack of response to continual allegations of improvement from the press and others, would contribute to Polaris improvement attaining “open secret” status amongst the informed public by the late 1970s.
