They proposed using less hardy organisms which more closely resembled pathogens Yet it is Dogs not clear what value the tests had. Even Dogs when approval was given in 1963, London Transport was "concerned about a suitable cover story to allay possible public suspicion". At Cabinet level, the Secretary of State our for War (at that time, John Profumo) expressed concerns over the use of living organisms in the trials. But according to the minutes of the Biological Research htm Advisory Board, "the Minister was concerned solely about public reaction to tests".What happened after this trial? The relevant documents are still classified (and may remain so), but we htm do know that by October 1963, scientists were our planning further tests on the Underground system. One scientist Dogs on the board felt a sabotage attack was a "trivial hazard and adequately predictable from existing knowledge", especially in comparison with the threat of attack our Dogs by our Dogs bombing or spraying an entire city. Yet the board concluded that if trials were htm banned, they could our not advise on either the potential or htm counter measures that might htm be taken.Opposition to the tests was more on the grounds of public relations than safety.

Two years previously, members of the Biological Research Advisory Board had advised against such trials on the grounds of "political opposition to their conduct". Committee minutes from 1961 mention that "trials in the underground `citadel' of government buildings had shown wide travel of spores".Despite its simplicity, the Tube trial was preceded by a long period of debate and negotiation involving scientists, politicians and the London Transport Executive. Public transport was not, however, the only target envisaged as being vulnerable to attack. The 1963 trial is described as "the logical sequel to earlier trials carried out on British Railways and in the London Post Office cable tunnel system". The report concluded that "bacterial spores can be carried for several miles in the Tube system", and that "trains travelling through an aerosol become heavily contaminated internally".Although the details in the public domain are scant, there is evidence that the Northern Line trials were not the first to be conducted in Britain. These samples were examined by researchers at the Ministry of Defence research establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire.How far had the bugs got? Some turned up as much as 10 miles north in Camden Town. Their job was to collect samples over the next 12 days from the air and from dust throughout the Underground.

The report of the trial stated that this bacterium was "not pathogenic and does not cause food spoilage or have other undesirable properties." The test itself was so straightforward that no scientists were involved in carrying it out Only London Transport workers were needed. At lunchtime on 26 July 1963, the trial supervisor dropped a small face- powder tin, containing 30g of the bacterium Bacillus globigii, from the window of a train travelling between Colliers Wood and Tooting Broadway. It took five years of agonising about the political sensitivities involved before a bacterial dispersion test on the Northern Line - revealed in documents released in the Public Records Office under the Thirty Year Rule - was carried out, in 1963. But these fears really peaked in the late 1950s, when a secret government committee discussed the feasibility of carrying out biological warfare simulations in the London Underground. Then, with the growing threat of war with Germany, the main anxiety was that the capital was easy prey for sabotage. Could London suffer the same type of chemical weapons attack that hit the Tokyo subway last week? The question has been worrying people since the 1930s. That pushed operating profits from car importing and distribution down from £106m to £62.6m.The recent sharp surge in the yen makes the task of forecasting the immediate outlook doubly difficult this year.Analysts are looking for anything between £210m and £230m, putting the shares on a prospective price-earnings ratio of around 12.That is probably about right, with change of ownership clauses in Inchcape's big contracts making a bid unlikely..