FOR those with an eye for an April Fool this morning, the tale of a chicken-powered nuclear bomb appears too good to be true.

But civil servants at the National Archives said the secret plans were disclosed on April 1 purely by coincidence after a long battle to have them declassified in time for the opening of an exhibition at the National Archives, formerly the Public Record Office, in Kew tomorrow.

Professor Peter Hennessy, the curator of the Secret State exhibition, said: “It is not an April Fool. These documents have come straight from the archives at Aldermaston. Why and how would we forge them?” According to the plans, the seven-tonne Blue Peacock bomb, with half the explosive force of the device that destroyed Nagasaki, was designed to stop the Red Army advancing across West Germany during the height of the Cold War.

Wrestling with the problem of how to keep the landmine at the correct temperature when buried underground, nuclear physicists at the Aldermaston nuclear research station in Berkshire proposed that live chickens would generate enough heat to ensure that the device could remain operational when buried for seven days. The birds were to be placed inside the casing of the bomb, given seed to keep them alive and prevented from pecking at the wiring.

The landmine would then be remotely detonated by retreating soldiers.

Tom O’Leary, head of education and interpretation at the National Archives, said: “It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not. The Civil Service does not do jokes. The reputation of the National Archives would be damaged if we made this up.”

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