Top leaders including Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill, as well as most leading scientists and politicians of all parties were determined that Britain should have its own bomb. Their motives included national defence and a dream of a civil programme for nuclear power. They also felt that a British voice should be as powerful as any in international debate. Attlee set up a cabinet sub-committee, the Gen 75 Committee (known informally by Attlee as the "Atomic Bomb Committee"), on 10 August 1945 to examine the feasibility of an independent British nuclear weapons programme. The Chiefs of Staff Committee considered the issue of nuclear weapons in July 1946, and recommended that Britain acquire them. The Chief of the Air Staff Lord Tedder, officially requested an atomic bomb on 9 August 1946. The Chiefs of Staff estimated that 200 bombs would be required by 1957. A nuclear reactor and plutonium-processing facility was approved by the Gen 75 committee on 18 December 1945 "with the highest urgency and importance".