Beneath the City Streets: A Private Inquiry into Government Preparations for National Emergency

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Revised and expanded edition published by Panther Books / Granada Publishing Limited, 1979. First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, The Penguin Press 1970. Revised edition published by Penguin Books Ltd 1972. [rear cover blurb:] 'How does the modern State plan for survival? Any prudent government must anticipate the twin threats of external attack and internal revolution. But the machinery of protection of the State for the people can become the means of guarding an unpopular power clique against legitimate dissent. Contingency plans, normally unpublished and secret, show the citizen, as no other evidence can, what is the reality of the State. The paranoia of power can be read in the concrete of the bunkers, the radio towers, the food stores and the dispersed centres of government. In this latest revision of Peter Laurie’s classic book on civil emergencies, up-to-date details of the British State’s protective armour are compared with what one can deduce are the actual threats to Britain’s civilian population. Recent alterations in the world balance of power, the possibilities of the latest military technologies and the new secrecy with which contingency plans are shrouded make the questions raised in "Beneath The City Streets" more important than ever.' Beneath the City Streets - Front Cover Author Biography Also by Peter Laurie Title Page Printer's Imprint Acknowledgment CONTENTS Introduction 1. Civil defence: pre-nuclear history 2. What the H-bomb does to people, houses and other things 3. The Third World War 4. Revolution 5. British civil defence and the H-bomb 6. Recovery from a nuclear war 7. Government citadels in Britain 8. Secret sites 9. The impact of latent nuclear war on democracy Appendices Appendix A Appendix B Index Publisher's Press Notices Rear Cover