“He had always had a naive faith in ‘secrets,’ ” concludes C. P. Snow. “He had been told by the best authorities that this ‘secret’ wasn’t keepable and that the Soviets would soon have the bomb themselves. Perhaps, with one of his surges of romantic optimism, he deluded himself into not believing it. He was only too conscious that British power, and his own, was now just a vestige. So long as the Americans and British had the bomb in sole possession, he could feel that that power hadn’t altogether slipped away. It is a sad story.”2017
