One argument I imagine is that CSWAG is different, because CSWAG were professional scientists, not historians like Mercer.

That's half right. It's not that CSWAG were scientists, I don't care about that. Their book is a primary source; their biases are certainly proper questions. I don't think it was unduly biased, but if it was it wouldn't bother me the way Mercer does. I'm not invested in proving or disproving the theory of the knock-out blow from the air; that battle was fought long before I was born.

The problem is the idea that Mercer is a reliable historian. By infiltrating CND with the aim of exposing it he's inserting himself into the story he's researching. That is not history. He was clearly determined to prove his preconceived ideas about CND and the peace movement. This leads him into a distorted view of history (as discussed elsewhere) and I'm not going to trust him one bit. All historians have biases. But I still believe in objectivity as an ideal to be striven for and Mercer evidently does not. (Also, he keeps doing this kind of thing.)

It's odd, for example, that you are so ready to denounce the CSWAG book as propaganda, but are quite unconcerned about possible (by which I mean, glaringly obvious) ideological biases in works which support your way of thinking, i.e. Mercer.

Ideological biases are precisely what the facts debunk. I'm not "denouncing the CSWAG book as propaganda", Haldane calls the entire class of one-sided books "propaganda". That's his word. Bernal who set up CSWAG was openly Marxist, which - if Mercer's backers make his book "ideological bias" - must similarly have the same effect on that report. Can you have it two ways? Ignore Mercer as "ideologically biased" but not do the same for CSWAG? One argument I imagine is that CSWAG is different, because CSWAG were professional scientists, not historians like Mercer.

Thanks for the long quote from Kendall but (a) a page reference would do, as I've read it already and have it right here (well, a copy of a chunk of it) and (b) I'm not sure what it has to do with anything? I asked for a source for your statement that the commercial gas mask tested by the CSAWG had no particulate filter, only a charcoal adsorber. There's nothing in the passage you quote about that. In fact, practically none of your lengthy comment addresses anything I say -- for example, on Noel Baker and disarmament.

I have read Ceadel's chapter, and most of the novels he cites, as part of my thesis research (Invasion From the Air is one of my favourites, it's probably the perfect knock-out blow novel). It's a good article. As I said before (or maybe it was in the other thread), I agree with you, up to a point. I agree that there were many confused, misleading, exaggerated, even lying claims made in the interwar period about the danger of bombing. But I disagree vehemently about the reasons -- it was all shades of gray, not black and white -- and I can't understand why you are so caught up in proving that it was lying communist propaganda (etc). And yes, I note you say you are not. Several times. But everything else you write seems to contradict this, and it's clear I'm not the only person who thinks so. It's odd, for example, that you are so ready to denounce the CSWAG book as propaganda, but are quite unconcerned about possible (by which I mean, glaringly obvious) ideological biases in works which support your way of thinking, i.e. Mercer.

I'm nearly at the same point as Alan and Chris, to be honest.

the full entry (not quoted) refuted Irving and helped to cost him his case.

If I were to write a book called The Protection afforded by Hospitals and simply gave a one-sided account of situations in which people die in a single example of a hospital, and excluded any discussion of the benefits and those who are saved, it would be propaganda despite being "literally correct". This is the "worst form" because it's the most sneaky when applied to a subject where there is a lack of official published information. It is unbalanced.