An older historiography, heavily dependent on British scientific intellectuals’ published works and their political involvement in scientific organisations, maintained that the well-known British social-relations-of-science movement of the 1930s and early 1940s had been effectively curtailed by the onset of the cold war. This paper argues that a very different picture emerges when the BBC’s substantial early postwar science-related programming is taken into account. In the wake of Hiroshima and amidst East-West ideological rivalry, BBC radio was arguably the principal medium through which the British public (and overseas listeners) became exposed to competing scientific intellectuals’ views concerning the place of science in the early atomic era. Scientific intellectuals, often speaking alongside contemporaries from other disciplines, discussed and debated crucial issues in ways not appearing in the print media. Their importance became even more pronounced with the 1946 inauguration of BBC radio’s elite Third Programme, whose remit was to ‘be of the highest possible cultural level, devoted to…serious documentary, educational broadcasting, and the deeper investigation of the news.’

Three particularly salient strands of BBC radio science are addressed in this paper. Firstly, amongst the 120 radio talks’ and discussion programmes concerning atomic energy in this period were many which transcended factual content and reflected speakers’ personal views and beliefs. Important examples of the latter include a sharp exchange in 1948 between the British atomic physicist P.M.S. Blackett and the U.S. representative to the UNAEC, concerning Blackett’s highly-controversial opposition to Western atomic energy control policy; and Bertrand Russell’s famous 1954 ‘Man’s Peril’ talk which sparked the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Secondly, are key debates between scientific intellectuals on rival cold war ideologies; these include J.D. Bernal versus Michael Polanyi on Soviet scientific planning, and J.B.S. Haldane versus C.D. Darlington on the political ramifications of Lysenkoism. A final strand concerns BBC programmes which addressed cold war issues obliquely; a particularly illuminating example is the 1948 epic series ‘Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians’ where historians of science and scientific popularisers invoked, not Victorian, but contemporary liberal intellectual values, acting as counterweights to their leftist colleagues’ influence. Also taken up in this category are programme series like the immensely-popular ‘Brains Trust’, which helped secure the postwar fame of British science popularisers like Jacob Bronowski.