Many people also argue that it may be necessary to commit a lesser crime in order to prevent the greater one of nuclear war. The police, local authorities and even the state can act illegally or at least stretch the law in ways never intended. The whole legal versus illegal debate is not a simple matter of the authorities (legal) against the demonstrators (illegal). There was strong support for the Committee of 100 among CND members but some of the leadership refused to accept any illegal activities. The authorities began to arrest and imprison the organisers (including the 89-year-old philosopher Bertrand Russell). In September, 1,300 were arrested in Trafalgar Square and 350 at Holy Loch in Scotland where the UK nuclear submarines armed with US-loaned Polaris nuclear missile were based. In February 1961 4,000 protesters sat down outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall. In 1960 the Committee of 100, led by the philosopher Bertrand Russell, was set up to organise mass civil disobedience. Supporters of non-violent direct action (NVDA) wanted the campaign to include mass civil disobedience actions such as sit-ins and blockades. There had also been internal arguments about whether it was ever legitimate to break the law. When Harold Wilson won the 1964 Election, the new Labour Government simply ignored anti-nuclear feeling and continued with the previous Conservative Government’s nuclear policy. Many CND supporters were Labour Party members and when CND’s unilateral line gained majority backing within the Party, it provoked a violent reaction from the leadership. Problems and solutionsĭuring these years, CND faced significant political challenges. But protests continued, particularly in Scotland where British nuclear-armed submarines were now based. CND continued but as a much smaller movement. A smaller CNDįrom the mid-1960s, nuclear issues were increasingly replaced as the subject of mass popular protest by anger over the United States’ war on Vietnam. International tension relaxed as the immediate threat of nuclear war faded away and CND numbers began to dwindle. For the first time the multilateral approach seemed to be working. The next year a ban on nuclear testing in the atmosphere was agreed between the US, Soviet Union and Britain. The Soviet missiles were taken out of Cuba and shortly afterwards US missiles already based in Turkey were quietly removed. The first telephone hot-line was set up between Washington and Moscow so the leaders could talk directly to each other. This very nearly provoked a nuclear war and although the Soviet Union pulled back at the last moment, both sides had been severely frightened. In 1962 the Soviet Union was discovered to be installing nuclear missiles in Cuba, only 90 miles from the Florida coast. (As an example, negotiations for a treaty to halt the spread of nuclear weapons began in 1958 but the final agreement was not reached until 1968). All attempts to control, let alone reverse the process broke down repeatedly. The US, Soviet Union and Britain, (and later France and China), were building ever more nuclear weapons. Multilateral disarmament – simultaneously by negotiations between countries – was clearly not working, although CND also strongly supported the goal of global abolition. CND’s advocacy of unilateral nuclear disarmament – the proposal that Britain should take the initiative and get rid of its own nuclear weapons, irrespective of the actions of others – caught the imagination of many. In the early years membership increased rapidly. Labour Party members and trade unionists were overwhelmingly sympathetic as were people who had been involved in earlier anti-bomb campaigns organised by the British Peace Committee or the Direct Action Committee. The Society of Friends (Quakers) was very supportive, as well as a wide range of academics, journalists, writers, actors and musicians.
#Atomic bomb fun facts full
There were scientists, more aware than anyone else of the full extent of the dangers which nuclear weapons represented, along with religious leaders such as Canon John Collins of St Paul’s Cathedral, concerned to resist the moral evil which nuclear weapons represented. From the outset people from all sections of society got involved. Shortly afterwards at Easter the first Aldermaston March attracted a good deal of attention and the CND symbol appeared everywhere. In the 1950s Europe was gripped by a very real fear of nuclear conflict and, building on the work of earlier anti-war movements, CND was launched with a massive public meeting in London in February 1958.
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