I seriously investigated the charge of “nuking the Maralinga people,” which is new to me. Full marks for the most novel and original false charge against Winston Churchill I’ve heard since—oh, three days ago, when someone accused him of castrating people.

The Churchill Documents and comment from scholars inform this subject. I carefully read your link and others on Australians who witnessed early nuclear tests. (Contrary to your link’s snide references to Australia’s wartime sacrifices for the “motherland,” they were made for Australia too. Australians overwhelmingly approved of and honored those sacrifices, and still do today.)

(1) You can’t have nuclear weapons without testing whether they work. (2) Australian permission for testing in the uninhabited Monte Bello islands was sought in 1950 by Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee. (3) Churchill had replaced him when the tests occurred: two on the islands in 1952, two in the Great Victoria Desert in 1953.

Moral considerations were definitely considered, but involved wildlife, not people. On 21 May 1952 Lt. Col. Lipton (Lab., Lambeth Central) questioned Churchill over the destruction of animal life on the Monte Bellos. Churchill replied:

The report of a recent special survey showing that there is very little animal or bird life on Monte Bello Islands was one of the factors in the choice of the site for the test of the United Kingdom atomic weapon. I should add, however, that an expedition which went to the islands fifty years ago reported that giant rats, wild cats, and wallabies were seen, and these may have caused the Hon. Member some anxiety. However the officer who explored the islands recently says that he found only some lizards, two sea eagles and what looked like a canary sitting on a perch.

Emrys Hughes (Lab., South Ayshire) was not amused: “There are still civilized people in this country,” he responded, “who are interested in bird and animal life.” This finally produced a mention of humans—by Churchill: “Certainly I think everything should be done to avoid the destruction of bid life and animal life and also of human life.” Churchill may been referring to his well-known belief that the bomb’s apocalyptic nature might discourage its use.

(4) Churchill had left office by 1956 when the next tests occurred, on the Monte Bellos and Australian mainland. These did produce fall-out exposure for some people (the numbers are uncertain). The buck does stop with the Prime Minister, but the PM was Eden; Churchill was over a year retired. (5) Therefore, Churchill did not “nuke the Maralinga people.” (6) This does not excuse the moral imperative, although massive deserts and uninhabited islands are obviously the best places for nuclear testing. (7) Sixty years later, some Australian ex-military personnel who witnessed the original tests developed cancer, but their opinions were divided as to how they contracted it.

(8) Among the results of the tests was the nuclear umbrella Britain and America provided Australia, as much as anywhere else, considering the proximity of two expansionist communist states. (9) Reason prevailed. The Soviet Union’s last nuclear test was in 1990, the UK’s in 1991, the USA’s in 1992, France’s and China’s in 1996. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 placed a de facto moratorium on testing, above or below ground. The moratorium has since been violated ten times by India (twice), Pakistan (twice) and North Korea (six times).