Finger on the nuclear button

Within days of coming to power, Gordon Brown had to make a decision with potentially massive consequences for Britain and the world.

Would he, in the event of a surprise nuclear attack in which he was killed before he could react, want Britain's last line of defence - a lone Trident submarine on patrol somewhere under the Atlantic - to retaliate?

Brown wrote his answer to that question four times, in long-hand, in the form of letters addressed to the Royal Navy submarine commanders who, we must all hope, will never be required to read one of them.

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