Macmillan flew to Washington, DC, for talks on 25 October. He had concerns that the disastrous 10 October Windscale fire might prove a stumbling block in negotiations, as it might reflect badly on British expertise and provide ammunition for opponents of closer co-operation with the British. He ordered extra copies of the report into the fire to be destroyed and for the printers to destroy their type. He immediately sensed how shaken the Americans had been by Sputnik, which placed the Eisenhower administration under great public pressure to act on the deployment of IRBMs by a shocked and distraught nation.