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The people in the long run are going to do more
to promote peace than our government.
Indeed, I think that people want peace so much
that one of these days government better
get out of the way and let them have it.
Dwight Eisenhower, 1959In the name of God, let us abolish nuclear weapons.
New Abolitionist CovenantWe are the curators of life on earth,
standing at a crossroads in time.
We must awake from our false sense of security
and commit ourselves to using democracy constructively
to save the human species.
Helen CaldicottWe reject violence completely,
because the structural violence caused by this decision
to place these missiles or to continue the arms race
on both sides is violence.
Petra KellyTo end the danger of nuclear war the nations must
not merely freeze nuclear weapons but abolish them.
Randall ForsbergWe must protest if we are to survive.
Protest is the only realistic form of civil defense.
E. P. Thompson
In April 1954 India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru led the
non-aligned nations
in criticizing the US H-bomb tests in the
Pacific.
He also encouraged Norman Cousins to persuade Albert Schweitzer
to alert the world
to the dangers of nuclear weapons and their testing.
In the summer
of 1957 Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach about the survivors
of a nuclear war was published, and Republican Senator Wayne Morse
of Oregon
introduced a resolution to halt nuclear tests because
of
their radiation hazards but also as the first step toward disarmament
and peace.
On July 15, 1955 the Mainau Declaration signed by 52 Nobel
Laureates warned humanity,
"All nations must come to the
decision to renounce force as a final resort of policy.
If they
are not prepared to do this, they will cease to exist."1
On May 15, 1957 Dr. Linus Pauling referred to Schweitzer's appeal
when he spoke at Washington University in St. Louis, arguing that
no human being should be sacrificed to a project that could kill
hundreds of millions.
Two other professors, Barry Commoner and
Edward Condon,
helped Pauling write a petition that garnered signatures
from 2,000 scientists by June,
when it was released to the press
and sent to the White House.
Pauling had won a Nobel Prize for
Chemistry; but he gave up his administrative
position at Cal Tech
in 1958 to write the book No More War! that warned
against the harmful effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons
testing.
In the Preface, he wrote
We shall enter upon the continuing period of peace,
a period when there will be no more war,
when disputes between nations will be settled
by the application of man’s power of reason, by international law.
It is the development of great nuclear weapons
that requires that war be given up, for all time.
The forces that can destroy the world must not be used.2
Pauling described what hydrogen bombs would do to major cities
and predicted
that the fallout from testing could result in a
million seriously defective children
and about two million embryonic
and neonatal deaths.
He proposed a World Peace Research Organization
and sent 1500 copies
of the book to influential people, including
every member of Congress.
In July 1957 Bertrand
Russell had initiated the Pugwash conference
that brought
together scientists from both sides of the Cold War.
This was
so successful that it became the first of a series of conferences.
On January 15, 1958 Pauling handed United
Nations Secretary-General
Dag Hammarskjold a petition signed
by 9,235 scientists,
including 37 Nobel Laureates, urging an international
agreement to stop testing.
Inspired by Dr. King
and the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956 and the
Catholic Workers
and War Resisters who had refused to take shelter
during civil
defense drills in New York, some activists formed
the Committee
for Non-Violent Action (CNVA).
On August 12, 1957 they held vigils
at the office
of the Atomic Energy Commission in Las Vegas, Nevada.
When they tried to enter the gates of the atomic test site at
Camp Mercury,
they were arrested for trespassing.
After they received
suspended sentences, they returned to a prayer vigil
at the test
site and saw the extraordinary light of the first test in a series.
The next spring Albert Bigelow and four Quakers sailed the Golden
Rule
into the Pacific test zone near the Eniwetok atoll, where
H-bomb tests were planned.
They defied a court injunction twice,
were arrested, and went to jail.
Hearing of their trial, Earle
Reynolds sailed his Phoenix
into the test zone and spent
two days in jail.
In the summer of 1959 CNVA activists organized
civil disobedience
in Omaha at the Strategic Air Command (SAC)
base.
Others held a vigil to protest the germ warfare at Fort
Detrick in Maryland,
and the Polaris submarine was picketed in
Connecticut.
For ten months starting in December 1960 a walk for
peace traversed
from San Francisco to the east coast through Europe
and on to Moscow.
Also in 1957 the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy
(SANE) was founded;
the name was suggested by psychologist Erich
Fromm, and the main organizers were
long-time executive secretary
of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)
Clarence Pickett
and the United World Federalist (UWF)
Norman Cousins, editor of Saturday Review.
Unitarian minister Homer Jack became coordinator.
After Sputnik was launched on October 4, their full-page advertisement
in the New York Times warned people,
"We are facing
a danger unlike any danger that has ever existed."3
The ad
was then run in many local papers, and 25,000 reprints were distributed.
SANE ran a series of effective ads including one which said "Dr.
Spock is worried,"
featuring the famous pediatrician Benjamin
Spock,
whose book Baby and Child Care was extraordinarily
influential.
Within a year SANE had 25,000 members in 130 chapters.
On May 19, 1958 Madison Square Garden in New York was filled with
20,000 supporters.
In July President Eisenhower offered to stop
nuclear testing on October 31 for one year
provided that the Soviet
Union also refrained from testing during this moratorium,
though
the US did conduct a series of tests in October.
In 1959 negotiations
for a test ban bogged down at Geneva, because the Soviets
feared
that on-site inspections by the United States would be used for
spying.
The Student Peace Union was started at the University of Chicago
by CNVA activist Kenneth Calkins, and they adopted the logo
of
the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) based on the
semaphore
signs for N and D in a circle that became the universally
recognized peace symbol.
After tensions in Germany over the building of the Berlin wall
in August 1961,
the Soviets resumed nuclear testing on September
1.
Two weeks later the United States began testing underground,
but in April 1962 the United States resumed testing in the atmosphere.
The effort to stop nuclear testing was greatly enhanced by the
actions
of Women Strike for Peace (WSP), starting in the fall
of 1961.
In 1963 SANE urged its members to write to the Senate
and White House,
and 18,000 letters were sent asking for an end
to nuclear testing.
Norman Cousins consulted with Secretary of
State Dean Rusk
and flew to Moscow to talk with Soviet premier
Khrushchev about a test ban treaty.
After Cousins returned and
advised President Kennedy that the Russians would respond
favorably
to a diplomatic initiative, Kennedy included the proposal in his
speech
at the American University in June, 1963.
By the end of
July the partial test ban treaty had been signed by the two superpowers.
However, the French continued to test nuclear weapons in the
South Pacific.
Between 1972 and 1974 Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior
made a
series
of voyages to the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls
in order to disrupt the tests.
After French gendarmes beat Greenpeace
crew member David McTaggart
on the Vega, the outrage to
the publicity was so vociferous that the
French decided to move
their tests underground also.
Greenpeace has continued with many
creative actions to protest nuclear weapons.
In July 1985 when
France was about to resume nuclear testing, its secret agents
bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, killing
a crew member.
Rainbow Warrior II returned to Moruroa and
was seized by the French.
Greenpeace's Nuclear Free Seas campaign
started in 1987 and got results
four years later when Britain,
Russia, and the United States all
withdrew their nuclear weapons
from on board surface ships.
In 1995 the French seized the Rainbow
Warrior II and arrested the crew prior
to more testing, but
international outrage persuaded
them to stop testing there after
January 1996.
That year several Greenpeace executive directors
were arrested
in Tianamen Square for protesting China's nuclear
testing.
Since 2000 Greenpeace has been protesting the testing
of the US ballistic missile
defense (BMD) tests at Vandenberg
Air Force Base and the Kwajalein atoll.
Nonviolent protests began at the underground
nuclear test site
at Mercury, Nevada in 1981.
Numbers of those getting arrested
were small until 1986,
when 775 protested, and 154 were arrested.
From then until 1994 there were 536 American Peace Test demonstrations
at the Nevada test site with a total of 37,488 participants with
15,740 arrests.
After 1994 the American Peace Test disbanded,
but the faith-based
Nevada Desert Experience (NDE) continued to
protest every year.
Demonstrations against nuclear power plants in western Europe
began in France and West Germany in 1971.
Protests increased,
and in February 1975 a major breakthrough
for the anti-nuclear
movement occurred in Wyhl of southwestern Germany.
When construction
of the power plant was about to begin, several hundred
local activists
(farmers, housewives, merchants, and students) held a
press conference at the construction site and sat down in front of the bulldozers.
Police cleared the area by using water cannons and by arresting
people.
Nevertheless, some local people stayed there overnight,
and they returned
the next week with 28,000 supporters from all
over Germany and from Alsace in France.
People occupied the land
for over a year and operated
a school to educate people on nuclear
issues.
They agreed to leave when a panel of judges was established,
and in 1977 the panel ruled against the plant.
During the summer of 1976 the construction site for a nuclear
power plant
at Seabrook, New Hampshire was occupied by 180 people,
and the following April more than 2,000 members of the Clamshell
Alliance
marched onto the site where construction had begun.
On
the first of May 1,414 people were arrested at the Seabrook site.
The Clams were well organized into affinity groups of 10-20 people
who were trained in nonviolence and practiced consensus decision-making.
They attempted to avoid a hierarchical and authoritarian leadership
structure
by letting every person in each group and each group
within the whole participate in the process.
Of those arrested,
more than half refused to pay bail
and stayed in custody for two
weeks.
The example of the Clamshell Alliance stimulated a more active
resistance
in California to the almost completed Diablo Canyon
nuclear reactors.
The Movement for a New Society (MNS) from Philadelphia
had influenced
the Clamshell, and David Hartsough, who
had also
worked for civil rights in the South,
brought their nonviolence
tactics, affinity group structure,
and consensus processes to
California, persuading the
American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC) board to support the
Diablo Canyon action in order to develop
the nonviolent movement.
In June 1977 the Abalone Alliance was
formed.
The Mothers For Peace had filed as interveners in 1973
and were glad to see the effort mobilizing.
Nonviolence was strictly
adhered to when 47 people
were arrested for trespassing on August
7, 1977.
One year later 5,000 people rallied, and 487 occupiers
and blockaders
were arrested for their civil disobedience.
By the time fuel-loading was due to begin in September 1981
a nonviolence
handbook had been published to educate new activists
on the processes;
numerous affinity groups were prepared from
all over California;
and the direct action was extended for two
weeks with more than 1900 arrests.
Shortly after the action, numerous
errors were discovered
in the plans and buildings of the plant,
and two years later
the plant was still not close to becoming
operational.
Although a minor earthquake fault was found near
the plant, it eventually did go on-line.
For many people, including myself, the experience at Diablo
Canyon in the encampment,
the nonviolence training, the affinity
group friendship, feminist awareness,
the consensus processes,
the arrest, and the time
together in jail were deeply moving and
inspiring.
The Nonviolence Code, which was agreed to by every
affinity group, was as follows:
1. Our attitude will be one of openness, friendliness,
and respect towards all people we encounter.
2. We will use no violence, verbal or physical, toward any person.
3. We will not damage any property.
4. We will not bring or use any drugs or alcohol
other than for medical purposes.
5. We will not run.
6. We will carry no weapons.
These Nonviolence Guidelines were adopted by various direct
actions in California
sponsored by the Livermore Action Group,
the Vandenberg Action Coalition, and others.
At Diablo Canyon in 1981 strong solidarity was achieved on
refusing to pay any money
for bail or fines and also on refusing
to accept probation.
Most people were released after four days
for time served, but over five hundred people
became defendants
represented by Richard Frischman using the necessity argument -
that
people had to act out of a moral necessity in order to prevent
a greater harm or danger.
This defense of necessity has been used
by many anti-nuclear activists
in order to challenge these evils
through the judicial process.
During my week in jail I got to know the white-haired "Berkeley
Bob" Schneider,
who had won the Silver Star in World War
II and later became known as "Eldred."
He told me that this Diablo
action was so fantastic that he wanted to help organize
the same
thing at the Livermore Laboratory in northern California,
where
research for nuclear weapons is conducted.
I agreed that the danger
of nuclear weapons is even greater than that of nuclear power.
In February 1982 the Livermore Action Group had their first action,
and on June 21 of that year 1,400 blockaders, including Daniel
Ellsberg,
disrupted business as usual at the lab and were arrested.
That same month 1,691 blockaded the United Nations offices
of
the nuclear weapons powers, and nearly a million people
marched
in the streets of New York for an end to the nuclear arms race.
In June 1978 the United Nations held its First Special Session
on Disarmament,
and a coalition called the Mobilization for Survival
(MfS)
sponsored a rally of 20,000 protesters.
That year hundreds
of people had been arrested over a period of eight months
at
Rocky
Flats, Colorado, where the plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs
are manufactured.
The next year 15,000 people participated in the demonstrations
at Rocky Flats.
In April 1979 at Groton, Connecticut, more than
3,000 people demonstrated,
and over 200 people blockaded the launching
of the first Trident submarine, the Ohio.
On September 9, 1980 Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Dean
Hammer, Elmer Maas,
Carl Kabat, Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush, and
John Schuchardt of the "Plowshares Eight"
entered a
General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and hammered
on Mark 12A nuclear warheads (a first-strike weapon for the MX
missile).
During their trial they were not allowed to present
evidence on international law
or the defense of necessity but
were convicted of burglary, conspiracy,
and criminal mischief
and were sentenced to five to ten years in prison.
They were defended
by Ramsey Clark and others, and their appeals took ten years.
Their trial is depicted in the movie In the King of Prussia
with Martin Sheen
playing the judge and the defendants playing
themselves.
Their disarmament action was followed by many other
plowshare actions at
General Dynamics Electric Boatyard at Groton,
Connecticut,
protesting the Trident submarines, and at other facilities
where nuclear weapons
are developed or at missile silos, ELF (Extremely
Low Frequency) towers
used for communication during a nuclear
war, or at military bases.
Starting in 1984 some judges began
to allow juries to hear expert evidence
based on justification
by necessity and to uphold international law.
As of 1986 seventeen
of these disarmament actions had taken place with some
sentences as long as 12 years, and by the year 2001 there had been 68 plowshares
actions involving 150 individuals, many of whom committed more
than one action.
The average sentences have been between one and
two years.
In October 2002 three Dominican sisters hammered on
a Minuteman missile silo
near Greeley, Colorado; after a trial
they were sentenced to 41, 33, and 30 months,
a $3,080 fine, and
three years probation.
Plowshares actions have also taken place
in Australia,
Germany, Holland, Sweden, England, and Ireland.
The conversion of two Catholic bishops, Matthiesen in Amarillo,
Texas
and Hunthausen of Seattle, was stimulated by personal contact
with individuals arrested for civil disobedience.
Matthiesen urged
workers to quit Pantex, where nuclear weapons are assembled, and
Hunthausen refused to pay part of his federal income tax to protest
military spending.
Jim and Shelley Douglass, who influenced Bishop
Hunthausen in Washington,
organized a group called Ground Zero,
which began protesting Trident submarines
in 1975 and, starting
in 1983, the white train carrying nuclear weapons.
Their dual
focus in their nonviolent civil disobedience campaign
is Christ's
kingdom of God and international law.
The Los Angeles Catholic Workers, who operate a free soup kitchen
on skid row to
feed about 800 people a day, have been active in
civil disobedience for several years
protesting nuclear weapons
businesses in southern California
and also other wars since then.
Following in Dorothy Day's tradition, Jeff Dietrich, Catherine
Morris,
and others have been arrested many times.
The planned flight testing of the MX missile at Vandenberg
Air Force Base
on the central coast of California brought protesters
from
all over the state in January and March of 1983.
About 200
were arrested and banned from the base in the first action.
Many
of these people returned in March and were joined by hundreds
more
who stayed in jail a week in solidarity for equal sentences;
in this second action 777 were arrested.
Congress had delayed
some of the MX missile funds,
which were to be voted on again
in May.
That month Jim Wallis of the Sojourners led 242 Christians
into the halls
of the US Congress to pray; they were arrested
for an illegal demonstration.
On June 17 the first MX missile
flight test was delayed for several days
at Vandenberg as forty
protesters were arrested on the base.
The Vandenberg Action Coalition
is just one of the many activist groups
that have sprung up around
the world.
Since the missile flights are targeted at the Marshall
Islands, these protests
are connected to the efforts of Pacific
Islanders for a nuclear-free Pacific.
The first flight test of the MX missile seems to have been
scheduled to coincide
with the first annual International Day
of Nuclear Disarmament on June 20, 1983
organized by the Livermore
Action Group (LAG) of Berkeley.
On that day legal rallies and
nonviolent civil disobedience
occurred in over fifty locations
across the United States.
At Livermore alone 1,066 people were
arrested.
Most of them refused to be arraigned because they would
not accept probation;
after a week the judge relented on the probation.
The objectives of this action were to further the causes of global
nuclear disarmament,
demilitarization and nonintervention, equitable
distribution of wealth and resources
within and among nations,
and a sustainable relationship
between the human race and the
planet.
The aim was to "protest, halt, and disrupt the design,
production, transport,
and deployment of nuclear weapons worldwide
for at least one working day."
In August 1981 some women in England organized a march from
Cardiff
to the US Air Force base at Greenham Common 125 miles
away
in order to protest the planned deployment of 96 cruise missiles
there.
Because it flies low so as not to be picked up by radar,
the cruise missile is considered a first-strike weapon rather
than a deterrent.
The marchers arrived at Greenham Common on September
5.
The media had ignored the march; so four women chained themselves
to the main gate.
Many decided to stay and set up a peace camp
on base property;
they were soon joined by others.
On January
20, 1982 the nearby town of Newbury threatened to evict them;
but they decided to remain and wanted to encourage the Labour
party,
which was currently considering unilateral disarmament.
That year it became a peace camp for women only.
The evictions
began in May 1982; but those arrested were soon replaced
by others
as they had a decentralized social structure.
Following the example
of the US Women's Pentagon Action
they issued a call to surround
the base.
On December 12, 1982 more than 30,000 women did exactly
that,
and the next day about 2,000 women were arrested for blockading
the base.
On New Year's Day 1983 forty-four women climbed over
the fence
and danced on a partially built missile silo.
The women named the seven gates of the
Greenham Common base after the colors of the rainbow.
Inspired by the encirclement,
many towns and cities formed Greenham groups and
supported the
peace camp by raising money, spreading publicity,
and arranging
child care and transportation.
Local affinity groups were able
to initiate their own actions and be independent
while still being
part of the movement.
After the cruise missiles were deployed
in November 1983, a group of women
decided to file a lawsuit in
New York against President Reagan;
the court denied them a hearing,
but the effort
created an extensive network in the United States.
Another independent action that was opposed by many in the camp
was when London Greenham groups brought blankets to the fences.
In December 1983 about 40,000 women came to Greenham Common
with
mirrors to reflect back the reality of the base to those inside.
During a ten-day action in September 1984 about 10,000 women
camped at the base.
That month British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher announced that
she would get rid of the camp, and after
that evictions occurred almost every day.
Military by-laws were
imposed in April 1985, making trespass a criminal offense
with
a possible fine of 100 pounds or 28 days in prison.
The US Air
Force even "zapped" women with microwaves of ultrasound
that silently interfered with brainwave patterns, causing headaches,
drowsiness, loss of memory, and even worse symptoms.
On December
12, 1985, the sixth anniversary of the NATO decision to
deploy cruise missiles, actions were carried out in home areas as well
as at the base.
Cruisewatch monitored the 44 deployments that
occurred at the base between 1984
and 1988 so that missiles could
not be deployed outside the base in secret.
The women believed
that these convoys were enough to cause the Soviet Union
to go
on nuclear alert because an exercise could not be distinguished
from a real threat.
In 1987 women at the camp debated who could
call themselves "Greenham women,"
some believing that
only those at the camp should do so.
All these and many other
decisions were made by using consensus process.
In her articles Gwyn Kirk described the feminist and nonviolent
practices
of the Greenham women, whom she believed practice nonviolence
as a way of life.
She described the six principles as assertiveness
(challenging the police, politicians, judges, and the military),
enjoyment (celebrating and affirming life with power, creativity
and imagination),
openness (making the business of war public
and having clear communication),
support and preparation (providing
for the needs of the blockaders),
flexibility of tactics (responding
to new situations and
being creatively unpredictable to keep up
the pressure), and
resistance (maintaining the protest despite
harassment, prosecution, and persecution).
The values she observed
that the experience at Greenham Common used and taught
are personal
responsibility (not being victims and initiating actions),
diversity
(the variety of people and overcoming racism),
a decentralized
network (friendly groups providing emotional support),
nonhierarchical
decision-making (feminist and consensus processes),
communication,
coordination, and continuity (by personal contacts), and flexibility.
Many women at Greenham Common found that their experience was
transformative,
and the peace camp there lasted until the year
2000.
Inspired by their example, many other peace camps sprang
up in such places as
Cosimo in Sicily, Seneca in New York, Puget
Sound, Savannah River, St. Paul,
and in Holland and Australia.
At the Seneca Women's Peace Camp the attributes of responsibility,
self-discipline,
cooperation, and struggle were emphasized,
and
the consensus process was closely followed.
In West Germany the anti-nuclear and ecology movements
grew
into a full-fledged political party - the Greens.
They managed to
combine direct action protests with electoral politics,
and in
March 1983 the Green Party won 27 seats in the national Parliament.
As their most articulate spokesperson in English, Petra Kelly
pointed out that
one of their main concerns was the US deployment
of Pershing II and cruise missiles
in western Europe that was
scheduled to begin in December 1983.
Kelly argued that nonviolent
action and parliamentary democracy are complementary, writing,
Nonviolent opposition in no way diminishes
or undermines representative democracy;
in fact, it strengthens and stabilizes it.
The will of the electorate is not expressed simply by
putting one’s mark on a political blank cheque every four years.4
Petra Kelly believed that the Greens must demonstrate how to
resolve conflicts
by not treating adversaries as enemies but as
people
who need to be liberated from their slavery to violence.
Practically every violent action results in violence in return.
Thus violent revolutions usually only change the personnel at
the top,
but the system of violence remains.
Like Gandhi, she
recommended not cooperating
with the violent elements in the social
system.
The anti-nuclear movement is active throughout western Europe,
while in eastern Europe during the Cold War
it primarily operated
through official organizations.
In the Netherlands the No Cruise
Missiles Committee organized massive rallies
with 400,000 people
in Amsterdam in November 1981
and 550,000 in The Hague in October
1983.
An anti-missile petition was signed in 1985 by 3.75 million
Dutch citizens.
In England more than a dozen peace camps were
established,
Greenham Common being the most well-known.
European
Nuclear Disarmament (END) under the leadership
of E. P. Thompson
grew quickly in a few years.
The nonviolent direct action portion of the anti-nuclear movement
emphasizes
the egalitarian methods of shifting roles and leadership
positions
so that many people can develop leadership skills.
Most
protesters shy away from the word "leader,"
preferring
the role names of facilitator or spokesperson.
Feminist awareness
and consensus process attempt to be sensitive
to every person's
feelings, and the effort is always to keep
a sense of group unity
by resolving dissension.
Yet every person and each group is considered
autonomous.
One group or even one person in a group can block
consensus
if there is an ethical objection to an action.
Actually
it is a moral responsibility to protest
an immoral action which
may affect the group.
This is in reality the basis of civil disobedience
toward a society
which is allowing immoral actions.
As with Gandhi,
people in the nonviolent movement feel
that the means is as important
as the end.
Therefore a great emphasis is placed on the purity
of the process.
When affinity groups of five to twenty people
all agree on something,
and when a spokes-council of representatives
from those groups
all achieve a unanimous decision involving hundreds
of people,
the moral and spiritual power of the resulting action
can be awesome.
Through this process of alternating spokes-council
and affinity group meetings,
goals are determined, strategies
and tactics develop and change,
and virtually every decision important
to the group is made
in such a way that every individual can influence
the result.
The Great Peace March of 1986 showed how many peace groups
made a transition
from the top-down organization that typifies
political campaigns of "leaders" to a more
democratic
movement that is shaped by all the active participants.
Initiated
by the former campaign manager, David Mixner, the publicity failed
to produce
the 5,000 marchers and funding support the staff of
one hundred expected.
The march began from Los Angeles on March
first with about 1,200 marching.
The lack of organization resulted
in numerous problems, and on March 14
Mixner announced that the
March was broke, had failed,
and people might as well go home.
At Barstow in the Mojave Desert about 400 people decided that
they would continue and appealed for assistance.
Renamed the Great
Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament,
on March 28 they continued
walking as a reformed
democratic organization on the move - Peace
City.
They found support along the way, and by the time they reached
Washington DC
on November 15 they were about 800 strong.
Those
who persisted found that they had the most challenging
and memorable
experiences of their lives.
Other protests of nuclear weapons continued to occur throughout
the 1980s.
For example, Pax Christi sponsored a protest of the
Trident II submarine base at King's Bay, Georgia on May 6, 1989.
After a short rally 54 people were given traffic citations
for
blocking the road into the main gate.
Then twenty of us were arrested
on the federal property of the base
for stepping over a designated
line on the sidewalk outside the fence of the base
and were later
charged with a federal petty offense.
When the Berlin wall came
down seven months later,
I was still in prison for having a trial
in that action;
but it was clear that the direct actions protesting
nuclear weapons were diminishing
as the Soviet Union collapsed
and was transformed by the end of the Cold War.
At the same time as the nonviolent direct action movement was
growing,
a nation-wide campaign in the United States for serious
nuclear arms control developed
a ground-swell of support through
the bilateral nuclear weapons freeze proposal.
The Freeze was
conceived in the summer of 1979 when the
American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC) proposed a "Nuclear Moratorium,"
and
arms-control scholar Randall Forsberg, who had done research
for
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI),
wrote the essay "Confining the Military to Defense as a Route
to Disarmament"
in which she suggested that both the USA
and USSR
stop producing nuclear weapons as a first step.
This
idea struck a chord with leaders in the peace movement when she
spoke
at the Mobilization for Survival annual convention in September.
Encouraged by them, she wrote up her proposal
in a four-page "Call
to Halt the Arms Race."
The following paragraph from that
document was to become the basis
of Freeze resolutions all around
the country:
To improve national and international security,
the United States and the Soviet Union
should stop the nuclear arms race.
Specifically, they should adopt a mutual freeze
on the testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons
and of missiles and new aircraft
designed primarily to deliver nuclear weapons.
This is an essential, verifiable first step
toward lessening the risk of nuclear war
and reducing the nuclear arsenals.5
The AFSC distributed 5,000 copies, and endorsements soon came
in from
Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC), FOR, WILPF, Pax Christi
USA,
and the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy.
Republican Senator Mark Hatfield introduced in the US Senate
an amendment to the
SALT II treaty calling for a Freeze, and in
January 1980 a conference
of about 30 peace groups endorsed Forsberg's
Freeze proposal.
The Freeze resolution was placed on the ballot
in 62 cities and towns in Massachusetts,
and in November it passed
in all but three;
the Freeze even passed in 30 where Reagan also
won.
More than 300 peace activists met at Georgetown University
in March 1981
and set up committees to work for a nuclear weapons
freeze.
Forsberg's Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies
(IDDS) became a clearinghouse
for information until the national
Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC)
established an office in
St. Louis in December 1981.
That year Freeze resolutions were
endorsed by the legislatures of Massachusetts,
Oregon, New York,
Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota,
Vermont, Wisconsin, Kansas, Iowa,
and Maryland.
In November 300,000 West Germans demonstrated against
nuclear weapons in Bonn,
and the Women's Pentagon Action involved
about 1,300 women in civil disobedience.
In February 1982 Jonathan
Schell published a detailed analysis of the consequences
of a
nuclear war in The New Yorker magazine, and his book
The
Fate of the Earth came out in April and became a best-seller.
Senators Ted Kennedy and Hatfield introduced a Freeze resolution
in March 1982
and immediately attracted 25 co-sponsors in the
Senate
and 125 in the House of Representatives.
Although 60-85%
of the American people favored a Freeze,
pressure against it from
two thousand corporate lobbyists led to its narrow defeat
in the
House of Representatives on August 5 by a vote of 204 to 202.
However, in the 1982
elections Nuclear Freeze Initiatives were passed by the people
in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, North
Dakota, Oregon,
Rhode Island, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Washington
DC, and Dade County.
For the first time in history as many as
18 million people
voted on the issue of nuclear weapons; 60% of
them voted for the Freeze
even though President Reagan opposed
it.
In seventy Congressional races where the Freeze was a key
issue,
pro-Freeze candidates won in 64% of them.
On May 4, 1983
the US House of Representatives
passed a non-binding Freeze resolution
278-149.
A bilateral nuclear weapons freeze that is verifiable was a
fair proposal at that time
because the Soviet Union had just recently
caught up
to parity with the United States in military power.
Yet the Reagan Administration was attempting to forge ahead to
military superiority again
by developing and deploying new first-strike
weapons such as
the Trident II, MX, Pershing II, and cruise missiles,
which actually had been approved
by President Carter in December
1979, shortly before the Russians invaded Afghanistan.
A complete Freeze would also be a comprehensive test ban and would
be easier
to verify than SALT I or II, according to Herbert Scoville,
former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Common sense told people that the arms race
had to be stopped
before it could be reversed.
The Freeze campaign became a national, mainstream issue, and
much of the effort
behind it came from professional organizations
such as the
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR),
which
was led for four years by Dr. Helen Caldicott.
In her care for
children's health as a pediatrician and as a native of Australia
in the south Pacific, where many nuclear tests occurred,
Caldicott
became aware of the medical dangers from radioactivity
and had
worked to end French nuclear testing there.
Her lectures, films,
and books on nuclear madness
stirred thousands of anti-nuclear
activists.
In 1979 she organized a symposium of experts on the
subject of
"The Medical Consequences of Nuclear War"
which addressed
large audiences in major cities across the United
States.
A short film showing the highlights of the symposium called
"The Last Epidemic"
was shown by peace groups and Freeze
advocates to thousands of small groups.
Another short film of
one of Caldicott's moving lectures on the nuclear arms issue,
"If You Love this Planet," won an Academy Award in 1983.
Caldicott is not afraid to use strong and deep emotions of
concern for the survival
of our human civilization in order to
stir her listeners to action.
She considers this issue of human
survival to be the ultimate issue of all time.
In 1980 she started
the Women's Party for Survival with the symbol for it being a
baby.
Later her driving force turned this into the many groups
that sprang up
around the country called Women's Action for Nuclear
Disarmament (WAND).
Her work also stimulated the forming of the
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW),
and in the fall of 1982 they presented a television program
that was shown
uncensored in both the Soviet Union and
the United States.
Three Soviet physicians and three American
physicians all agreed that the only cure
for nuclear war was prevention
and the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In 2002 Dr. Caldicott
published The New Nuclear Danger, warning about the revived
military industrial complex under George W. Bush,
and that year
she founded the Nuclear Policy Research Institute in California.
An indication of how widespread and diverse the peace movement
had become
can be seen by the various professional organizations
that sprang up so rapidly.
They included Educators for Social
Responsibility, Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy,
High Technology
Professionals for Peace, Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control,
Union of Concerned Scientists, Business Executives for National
Security,
Architects for Social Responsibility, Social Workers
for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament,
Union of Concerned Psychoanalysts
and Psychotherapists, Artists for Survival,
Nurses for Social
Responsibility, and many others.
Religious and church groups became
more active than ever.
The US Catholic bishops, the World Council
of Churches, the United Presbyterian Church,
the Episcopal House
of Bishops, the United Methodist Council of Bishops,
the National
Council of Churches of Christ in the US that includes
thirty Protestant
denominations, and many other churches,
including the Lutherans
in East Germany, made strong criticisms of the nuclear arms race.
Even though polls showed that three-quarters of the American
people favored freezing
the testing, production, and deployment
of nuclear weapons, half-hearted support
by Democratic Presidential
candidates and Republican victories in 1984 and 1988
delayed the
cessation of the nuclear arms race.
Even after the end of the
Cold War and major reductions in military spending by Russia
and
the other former Soviet republics, American politicians still
refused to reduce
US nuclear arsenals and weapon technology that
would have provided a valuable "peace dividend."
Yet
even stopping the accelerated arms race by leveling it off
helped
to bring about the economic prosperity of the late 1990s.
In 1986
the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC) merged with SANE
to
become SANE/Freeze, and in 1993 the name was changed to Peace
Action.
As of 2005 Peace Action was still actively working on
many peace issues including abolishing nuclear weapons.
In July 1996 the World Court ruled that the
threat or use of
nuclear weapons would violate international law.
In May 1995 the
Abolition 2000 statement was initiated,
and 400 organizations
signed on.
In 1997 a treaty was drafted for the abolition of nuclear
weapons,
and it was introduced into the UN General Assembly.
In
1998 Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Helmut Schmidt, and Pierre
Trudeau
were some of the 120 leaders from 48 countries
who issued
an appeal to abolish nuclear weapons.
By the year 2000 the Abolition
2000 campaign had more than two thousand groups,
and the petition
had been signed by 13.4 million people.
In 2002 Dr. Caldicott published The New Nuclear Danger,
warning about
the revived military industrial complex under George
W. Bush,
and that year she founded the Nuclear Policy Research
Institute.
She described how the Clinton administration had greatly
increased arms sales
to other countries, and she noted that despite
the end of the Cold War
it was the first administration since
Eisenhower
that did not negotiate a major arms control treaty.
Under George W. Bush the Department of Energy embarked on the
nuclear Stockpile Stewardship and Management (SS&M) program
that would cost more than $5 billion per year.
Since the Cold
War was long over and the US had no enemies for which
these new
weapons were needed, she wondered what could be
the motivations
of the tremendous project.
The explanations she found were the
enriching of weapons makers,
rival competition between the air
force, army, navy, and marines,
donations to politicians by weapons
manufacturers, and giving the
United States a huge arsenal to
enforce its corporate globalization.
Caldicott was concerned because the new Bush administration withdrew
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty so that it could
go forward
with its Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) or National
Missile Defense (NMD) system
that had been promoted for years
by the new Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
She noted that
both President Putin of Russia and the Chinese arms control ambassador
warned the United States that this acceleration of the arms race
would stop the process of nuclear disarmament.
Policy statements
have made clear that in its drive for world domination
the Bush
administration is intent on gaining military supremacy in space.
Representative Dennis Kucinich has proposed a bill
to prohibit
the weaponization of outer space.
Caldicott also warned about
the radioactive depleted uranium (DU)
that was used in Iraq in
1991, Bosnia in 1994 and 1995,
Kosovo in 1999, and Afghanistan
in 2001 and 2002.
She discovered that already at least five Italian
soldiers
who fought in Bosnia had died of leukemia.
Caldicott
reviewed the records of the warmongering advisors
influencing
Bush's foreign policy - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell,
Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and others.
At
the beginning of her book she contrasted these horrifying dangers
with the vision
of a wise president leading the world toward disarmament
and peaceful recovery.
Randall Forsberg was appointed by President Clinton to the
Advisory Committee
of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
and she continued to work diligently for nuclear disarmament.
She noted that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003
flagrantly violated
US and international laws.
At the same time the United States
was justifying its invasion with the erroneous
contention that
Iraq still had remnants of chemical weapons,
the US was blocking
and undermining treaties that would verify
the reduction of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons.
Forsberg has pointed out that
in 2001 Russia proposed reducing its arsenal
of ten thousand nuclear
weapons to 1,500 with verification of their dismantling;
but President
George W. Bush refused this offer and in May 2002 signed
the Strategic
Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) that merely put thousands
of
weapons on reserve instead of dismantling them.
The limits do
not take effect for ten years, at which time the treaty expires.
Bush made the US the only country to block the implementation
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The Bush administration
has also blocked verification of the ban on biological weapons
with the excuse that they would expose the secrets of the biotech
companies.
The US has refused to ban weapons in space,
and is the only country
developing such weapons.
President Bush also announced that the
US was withdrawing from
the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty,
which had been in effect since 1968.
In 2004 the Bush administration
began deployment of Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD)
even though
the system has failed most of its tests.
According to Forsberg,
the Bush team reversed the policy aimed at getting North Korea
to end its testing and export of missiles with a range of more
than two hundred miles,
and China will not negotiate on fissile
material unless
the US is willing to discuss its program for weapons
in space.
Information from the nuclear-posture review has leaked
out
indicating that the Bush administration is threatening to
use nuclear weapons
against several countries including Cuba,
Syria, and Iran.
Forsberg believes that these Bush policies are
more likely to foster
the spread of weapons of mass destruction
than the reverse.
1. No More War! by Linus Pauling p. 223.
2. Ibid., p. vii.
3. The American Peace Movement by Charles Chatfield, p.
105.
4. "Women and Ecology" in Women on War, p. 312.
5. "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race - Proposal for a Mutual
U.S. Soviet Nuclear
Weapons Freeze," Bulletin of Peace
Proposals, Vol. 12, No. 4 (1981).
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