Gold Coast (which became Ghana on independence from the United Kingdom in 1957) from 1952 to 1966, set Africa ablaze with his vision of a new industrial and scientific age. At the heart of his dream was to be the huge Volta River dam, generating enough power to transform West Africa into an industrialised utopia and focal point of post-colonial Pan-Africanism. At first, it was hoped the U.K. would help to finance the project, but after the Suez Crisis of 1956, interest was lost. Later, after meeting U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, American backing for the project materialised. A scheme was finally drawn up offering Kaiser Aluminum favourable conditions (including the smelting of aluminium imported from outside Ghana) and the dam was opened to great fanfare in January 1966. Weeks later, in February 1966, while Nkrumah was on a state visit to North Vietnam and China, his government was overthrown in a military coup (possibly CIA backed), and evidence of massive corruption and debt was revealed. As of 1992, for many Ghanaians the promised benefits of the project were still unrealised. Contributors Al Haji Futa, Ghanaian negotiating team Kojo Botsio, Minister of Education 1951–57 Sqn Ldr Clen Sowu, Assistant Exhibition Officer 1956; Rawlings Government 1982–85 Kwesi Lamptey, Opposition MP 1951–57 James Moxon, Public Relations Spokesman, Volta River Project Komla Gbedemah, Minister of Finance 1957–61 Ron Sullivan, lawyer for Kaiser Aluminum on Volta Project 1959–79 Lloyd Cutler, lawyer for Kaiser Aluminum on Volta Project J. Burke Knapp, Senior Vice President, World Bank 1956–78 Prof. Akilagpa Sawyerr, Vice Chancellor, University of Ghana 1985–92 Bill Mahoney, US Ambassador to Ghana 1962–65 George Ball, Under-Secretary of State in Kennedy administration 1961–66 Dr. Jonathan Frimpong-Ansah, Deputy Governor, Ghana Central Bank 1965–68 Louis Casely-Hayford, dam engineer 1966 John Stockwell, CIA officer in West Africa during coup Divine Tetteh, school teacher, resettlement village J. G. A. Renner, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources 1982–86 Part 6. 'A Is for Atom' This final episode, originally broadcast on 16 July 1992, is named after a 1953 General Electric promotional film called A Is for Atom. The episode gives an insight into the history of nuclear power. In the 1950s, scientists and politicians thought they could create a different world with a limitless source of nuclear energy. But things started to go wrong. Scientists in America and the Soviet Union were duped into building dozens of