While visiting visiting the National Museum of Scotland for the major computer gaming exhibition, I also checked out Cold War Scotland - a free display exploring the impact of this 40-year global nuclear stand-off. Scots played an active role in the eerie conflict, as soldiers within intelligence services and as part of voluntary civil defence organisations. The gallery explains how Scotland’s unique landscape provided a useful base for military preparations and research. Visitors can browse the exhibition until the end of January, 2025.
Today we can freely roam around Eas tourists and - until Brexit - we had the right and work in many countries. None of this was possible in the eastern half of the continent until the Cold War finally began to thaw in the early 90s. The landmark event was the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, 1989. I was just about to turn 18 and watched with great interest as the old regimes collapsed in several Soviet satellite states. Had I actually been East German, I would probably have been part of the last generation to face compulsory military service in the communist times. In the aftermath of WW2, tensions had risen between the USA and USSR. Alliances were formed and although the ideologically opposed superpowers did not directly declare war on each other, they supported violent conflicts in other territories around the world. The Korean War was the first major flare-up and around 1100 British personnel were killed in this theatre. Located geographically between the belligerents, Scotland was close enough to the Soviet Union to serve as a useful listening post. Many Scots soldiers were posted to bases in West Germany - a country that faced the eastern bloc. The American military established footholds in Scotland and the deep waters of the Clyde estuary (with airports and industrial facilities nearby) offered a prime location for the US Navy. In 1961,they set up shop on Holy Loch (near Dunoon) which had been used as a British submarine base during WW2. The arrival of American personnel in a sparsely populated part of the country boosted the local economy and changed the way of life in this corner of Argyll. Up in Angus, the US Navy established a listening station at the old RAF Edzell base to track Soviet military radio signals. This operation wasn’t stood down until 1997. The Royal Navy also had a presence on the Clyde. Faslane was home to nuclear hardware such as submarines and the controversial Trident missiles. A peace camp was set up outside the site boundaries in 1982 and is still in existence today, making it the longest continually occupied protest community in the world. At the height of the Cold War, Civil Defence depots were often located in out of the way places and the motorcycle pictured below was kept at Lochgilphead to enable speedy communications should an emergency arise. A national four-minute warning strategy was primed to give the public instructions in the event of an incoming nuclear attack. It wasn’t abandoned until 1992. In a strange parallel, atomic energy was touted as a clean and efficient alternative to fossil fuels. Construction began on a new power station at Chapelcross in Dumfriesshire. It produced nuclear power between 1959 and 2004 and is currently undergoing a lengthy decommissioning process, with final site clearance planned for the 2090s! Dounreay in Caithness hosted a similar generating complex and this led to the population of Thurso trebling to 9000. Russian factory ships were regular visitors to Scotland’s northern and western ports, purchasing fishing catches to be processed.
The implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 signalled the end of the Cold War. Many structures survive around Scotland and the Secret Bunker near Crail (Fife) is now a major tourist attraction. Had nuclear war broken out, key government figures would have run Scotland from the underground chambers. This all seems like another world nowadays, but the threat was very real while it lasted. An informative little exhibition that is worth checking out.
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