Arguments pro and contra the European laboratory in the participating countries

This chapter looks at how the decisions to participate in CERN, the European high energy particle physics laboratory founded in the 1950s, were made by certain participating countries, namely the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany. The idea of a united Europe was given high priority in France, Italy and Germany, all of which lacked accelerators and lagged behind the United Kingdom (UK), with its 400MeV Liverpool synchrocyclotron, in nuclear physics research. The UK thus remained as observer only until CERN was officially founded in September 1954. The French were particularly anxious to gain national prestige by influencing the development of the organization. All agreed that from the political point of view, developed science guarantees a high level of war technology. (UK)