Book review: The Cryotron Files, by Iain Dey and Douglas Buck

This is a fascinating, informative and occasionally frustrating book. It is concerned with the life of Dudley Buck, a pioneer in the field of computing, whose genius brought him to the attention of the National Security Agency. It is, in some ways, a dark mirror to Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty, dealing with how the other superpower was advancing in terms of technology during the Cold War. But it also has a hook. Buck died at the age of 32, only a matter of days after a team of Khrushchev’s scientific specialists visited Buck as part of the thaw in terms of co-operation. To thicken the plot, Louis Ridenour, another American scientist with much more extensive connections to the military-industrial complex, died on the same day. It should be said at the outset that one of the co-authors is the son of Dudley Buck. There is nothing ignoble in filial piety, even when it leads to Buck being cast as the heroic martyr rather than just a very smart guy.