A happily-married man, he risked being caught and labelled a sexual deviant. Wheeler might well have asked himself what on earth he was doing. ON THE MORNING OF WEDNESDAY JANUARY 7 1953, atomic physicist John Archibald Wheeler stood on his toes on the lavatory seat of a Pullman sleeper train to Washington DC and peered over into the next door cubicle at another man doing his business. President Eisenhower was furious - and confessed himself frightened - and Vice-President Richard Nixon was not alone in thinking it was the work of a Soviet agent.
It's one of the most gripping stories in my latest book Two Minutes to Midnight - the day John Archibald Wheeler, a key figure in the H-Bomb project, lost a vital Top Secret paper on a sleeper train.
