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The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It opposes military action that may result in the use of
nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: * Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nuclear ...
, chemical or biological weapons and the building of
nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
stations in the UK. CND began in November 1957 when a committee was formed, including
Canon John Collins Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...
as chairman,
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
as president and
Peggy Duff Peggy Duff (8 February 1910 – 16 April 1981) was a British political activist who started off her career with a protest against the treatment of German prisoners of war in Britain after the Second World War. She was principally known for her c ...
as organising secretary. The committee organised CND's first public meeting at
Methodist Central Hall, Westminster The Methodist Central Hall (also known as Central Hall Westminster) is a multi-purpose venue in the City of Westminster, London, serving primarily as a Methodist church and a conference centre. The building, which is a tourist attraction, also ho ...
, on 17 February 1958. Since then, CND has periodically been at the forefront of the
peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...
in the UK. It claims to be
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
's largest single-issue peace campaign. Between 1958 and 1965 it organised the
Aldermaston March The Aldermaston marches were anti-nuclear weapons demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s, taking place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of fifty- ...
, which was held over the
Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...
weekend from the Atomic Weapons Establishment near
Aldermaston Aldermaston is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basingstoke ...
to
Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...
,
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.


Campaigns

CND's current strategic objectives are: * The elimination of British nuclear weapons and global abolition of nuclear weapons. It campaigns for the cancellation of the Trident programme by the British government and against the deployment of nuclear weapons in Britain. * The abolition of
weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to numerous individuals or cause great damage to artificial structures (e.g., buildings), natura ...
, in particular chemical and biological weapons. CND also wants a ban on the manufacture, testing and use of depleted
uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
weapons. * A nuclear-free, less militarised and more secure Europe. It supports the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It opposes US military bases and nuclear weapons in Europe and British membership of NATO. * The closure of the
nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
industry. In recent years CND has extended its campaigns to include opposition to US and British policy in the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
, rather as it broadened its anti-nuclear campaigns in the 1960s to include opposition to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
. In collaboration with the Stop the War Coalition and the
Muslim Association of Britain The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) is a British Sunni Muslim organisation founded in 1997. MAB has been well known for its participation in the protests opposing the Iraq War. More recently, it has been known for promoting Muslim partic ...
, CND has organised anti-war marches under the slogan "
Don't Attack Iraq The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), informally known simply as Stop the War, is a British group established on 21 September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, to campaign against what it believes are unjust wars. The Coalition has c ...
", including protests on 28 September 2002 and 15 February 2003. It also organised a vigil for the victims of the
2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...
. CND campaigns against the
Trident missile The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Originally developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation, the missile is armed with thermonucl ...
. In March 2007 it organised a rally in Parliament Square to coincide with the Commons motion to renew the weapons system. The rally was attended by over 1,000 people. It was addressed by Labour MPs
Jon Trickett Jon Hedley Trickett (born 2 July 1950) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hemsworth in West Yorkshire since a 1996 by-election. He was Shadow Lord President of the Council from 2016 to 2020 and s ...
, Emily Thornberry, John McDonnell,
Michael Meacher Michael Hugh Meacher (4 November 1939 – 21 October 2015) was a British politician who served as a government minister under Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Ol ...
,
Diane Abbott Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. A member of the Labour Party, she served in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn as Sh ...
and
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
who voted against the renewal of Trident, and
Elfyn Llwyd Elfyn Llwyd (born 26 September 1951) is a Welsh barrister and politician. He was a Member of Parliament, representing Meirionnydd Nant Conwy in the House of Commons from 1992 to 2010 and Dwyfor Meirionnydd from 2010 to 2015. Llwyd was Plaid Cy ...
of Plaid Cymru and Angus MacNeil of the
Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...
. In the House of Commons, 161 MPs (88 of them Labour) voted against the renewal of Trident and the Government motion was carried only with the support of Conservatives. In 2006 CND launched a campaign against nuclear power. Its membership, which had fallen to 32,000 from a peak of 110,000 in 1983, increased threefold after Prime Minister
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
made a commitment to nuclear energy.


Structure

CND is based in London and has national groups in Wales, Ireland and
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
, regional groups in Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, the East Midlands, Kent, London, Manchester, Merseyside, Mid Somerset, Norwich, South Cheshire and North Staffordshire, Southern England, South West England, Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex, Tyne and Wear, the West Midlands and Yorkshire, and local branches. There are five "specialist sections": Trade Union CND,
Christian CND Christian CND (CCND) is a 'Specialist Section' of CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and has existed since 1960. CCND is made up of individual Christians of various denominations who oppose nuclear weapons and who campaign for peace. The or ...
, Labour CND, Green CND and Ex-Services CND, which have rights of representation on the governing council. There are also parliamentary, youth and student groups.


History


The First Wave: 1957–1963

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was founded in 1957 in the wake of widespread fear of nuclear conflict and the effects of nuclear tests. In the early 1950s Britain had become the third atomic power, after the US and the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, and had recently tested an H-bomb. In November 1957 J. B. Priestley wrote an article for the ''
New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'' magazine, "Britain and the Nuclear Bombs", advocating
unilateral nuclear disarmament __NOTOC__ Unilateralism is any doctrine or agenda that supports one-sided action. Such action may be in disregard for other parties, or as an expression of a commitment toward a direction which other parties may find disagreeable. As a word, ''un ...
by Britain. In it he said:
In plain words: now that Britain has told the world she has the H-bomb she should announce as early as possible that she has done with it, that she proposes to reject, in all circumstances, nuclear warfare.
The article prompted many letters of support and at the end of the month the editor of the ''New Statesman'', Kingsley Martin, chaired a meeting in the rooms of
Canon John Collins Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...
in Amen Court to launch the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Collins was chosen as its chairman,
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
as its president and
Peggy Duff Peggy Duff (8 February 1910 – 16 April 1981) was a British political activist who started off her career with a protest against the treatment of German prisoners of war in Britain after the Second World War. She was principally known for her c ...
as its organising secretary. The other members of its executive committee were Martin, Priestley,
Ritchie Calder Peter Ritchie Calder, Baron Ritchie-Calder, (1906 – 1982) was a Scottish socialist writer, journalist and academic. Early life Peter Ritchie Calder was born on 1 July 1906 in Forfar, Angus, Scotland. Career Calder first worked as a journ ...
, journalist
James Cameron James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. A major figure in the post-New Hollywood era, he is considered one of the industry's most innovative filmmakers, regularly pushing the boundaries of cinematic capability w ...
, Howard Davies, Michael Foot, Arthur Goss, and Joseph Rotblat. The Campaign was launched at a public meeting at Central Hall, Westminster, on 17 February 1958, chaired by Collins and addressed by Michael Foot,
Stephen King-Hall William Stephen Richard King-Hall, Baron King-Hall of Headley (21 January 1893 – 2 June 1966) was a British naval officer, writer, politician and playwright who served as the member of parliament for Ormskirk from 1939 to 1945. Early life and ...
, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell and A. J. P. Taylor. It was attended by 5,000 people, a few hundred of whom demonstrated at Downing Street after the event.John Minnion and Philip Bolsover (eds), ''The CND Story'', Allison and Busby, 1983, The new organisation attracted considerable public interest and drew support from a range of interests, including scientists, religious leaders, academics, journalists, writers, actors and musicians. Its sponsors included John Arlott, Peggy Ashcroft, the Bishop of Birmingham Dr J. L. Wilson,
Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
, Viscount Chaplin,
Michael de la Bédoyère Count Michael Anthony Maurice de la Bédoyère (1900–1973) was an English writer, editor and journalist. Life He was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, and took a first in " Modern Greats" (PPE) at Campion Hall, Oxford University. His ...
, Bob Edwards, MP, Dame
Edith Evans Dame Edith Mary Evans, (8 February 1888 – 14 October 1976) was an English actress. She was best known for her work on the stage, but also appeared in films at the beginning and towards the end of her career. Between 1964 and 1968, she was no ...
, A.S.Frere,
Gerald Gardiner Gerald Austin Gardiner, Baron Gardiner, (30 May 1900 – 7 January 1990) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour politician, who served as Lord Chancellor, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain from 1964 United Kingdom general election, 1964 to ...
, QC,
Victor Gollancz Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing causes. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism, but he defined himself as a Christ ...
, Dr I. Grunfeld, E. M. Forster,
Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leadi ...
,
Patrick Heron Patrick Heron (30 January 1920 – 20 March 1999) was a British abstract and figurative artist, critic, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall. Heron was recognised as one of the leading painters of his generation. Influenced b ...
, Rev. Trevor Huddleston, Sir
Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesis. ...
, Edward Hyams, the Bishop of Llandaff Dr Glyn Simon,
Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing (; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British-Zimbabwean novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran, where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where she remain ...
, Sir Compton Mackenzie, the Very Rev George McLeod,
Miles Malleson William Miles Malleson (25 May 1888 – 15 March 1969) was an English actor and dramatist, particularly remembered for his appearances in British comedy films of the 1930s to 1960s. Towards the end of his career he also appeared in cameo roles i ...
, Denis Matthews, Sir
Francis Meynell Sir Francis Meredith Wilfrid Meynell (12 May 1891 – 10 July 1975) was a British poet and printer at The Nonesuch Press. Early career He was the son of the journalist and publisher Wilfrid Meynell and the poet Alice Meynell, a suffragist and ...
,
Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
, John Napper, Ben Nicholson, Sir
Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...
,
Flora Robson Dame Flora McKenzie Robson (28 March 19027 July 1984) was an English actress and star of the theatrical stage and cinema, particularly renowned for her performances in plays demanding dramatic and emotional intensity. Her range extended from q ...
, Michael Tippett, the cartoonist '
Vicky Vicky, Vicko, Vick, Vickie or Vicki is a feminine given name, often a hypocorism of Victoria. The feminine name Vicky in Greece comes from the name Vasiliki. Women * Family nickname of Victoria, Princess Royal (1840–1901), wife of German ...
', Professor
C. H. Waddington Conrad Hal Waddington (8 November 1905 – 26 September 1975) was a British developmental biologist, paleontologist, geneticist, embryologist and philosopher who laid the foundations for systems biology, epigenetics, and evolutionary developme ...
and
Barbara Wootton Barbara Wootton, Baroness Wootton of Abinger, CH (14 April 1897 – 11 July 1988) was a British sociologist and criminologist. She was the first of four women to be appointed as a life peer, entitled to serve in the House of Lords, under the ...
.Christopher Driver, ''The Disarmers: A Study in Protest'', Hodder and Stoughton, 1964 Other prominent founding members of CND were
Fenner Brockway Archibald Fenner Brockway, Baron Brockway (1 November 1888 – 28 April 1988) was a British socialist politician, humanist campaigner and anti-war activist. Early life and career Brockway was born to W. G. Brockway and Frances Elizabeth Abbey in ...
,
E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...
,
A. J. P. Taylor Alan John Percivale Taylor (25 March 1906 – 7 September 1990) was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his televis ...
, Anthony Greenwood, Jill Greenwood,
Lord Simon Lord Simon may refer to multiple peerages in the United Kingdom: Hereditary peers *Holders of the title Viscount Simon **John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon (1873–1954) ** John Gilbert Simon, 2nd Viscount Simon (1902–1993) **Jan David Simon, 3rd V ...
,
D. H. Pennington Donald Henshaw Pennington (15 June 1919 – 28 December 2007) was a historian of 17th-century England. He taught at Manchester and Oxford universities, becoming a tutor at Balliol College, Oxford in 1965. Donald was born in Marple, Greater Manche ...
, Eric Baker and
Dora Russell Dora, Countess Russell (née Black; 3 April 1894 – 31 May 1986) was a British author, a feminist and socialist campaigner, and the second wife of the philosopher Bertrand Russell. She was a campaigner for contraception and peace. She worked ...
. Organisations that had previously opposed British nuclear weapons supported CND, including the British Peace Committee, the
Direct Action Committee The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War or the Direct Action Committee (DAC) was a pacifist organisation formed "to assist the conducting of non-violent direct action to obtain the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons by ...
, the National Committee for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Tests and the
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
. In the same year, a branch of CND was also set in the
Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
by
John de Courcy Ireland John Evan de Courcy Ireland (19 October 1911 – 4 April 2006) was an Irish maritime historian and political activist. Biography de Courcy Ireland was born at Lucknow, India, son of British Army major de Courcy Ireland and Gabrielle (née Byro ...
, and his wife Beatrice, aiming to campaign for the Irish government to support international efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament and to keep Ireland free of nuclear power. Notable supporters of the Irish CND included Peadar O'Donnell,
Owen Sheehy-Skeffington Owen Lancelot Sheehy-Skeffington (19 May 1909 – 7 June 1970) was an Irish university lecturer and senator. The son of pacifists, feminists and socialists Francis and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, he was politically likeminded and as a member of t ...
and Hubert Butler. The formation of CND marked a significant change in the international peace movement, which from the late 1940s had been dominated by the
World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass d ...
(WPC), an anti-western organisation directed by the Soviet Communist Party. Because the WPC had a large budget and organised high-profile international conferences, the peace movement became identified with the communist cause. CND represented the growth of the unaligned peace movement and its detachment from the WPC. With a
general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
due in 1959, which Labour was widely expected to win, CND's founders envisaged a campaign by eminent individuals to secure a government that would adopt its policies: the unconditional renunciation of the use, production of or dependence upon nuclear weapons by Britain and the bringing about of a general disarmament convention; halting the flight of planes armed with nuclear weapons; ending nuclear testing; not proceeding with missile bases; and not providing nuclear weapons to any other country. In Easter 1958, CND, after some initial reluctance, supported a march from London to the
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research ...
at
Aldermaston Aldermaston is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basingstoke ...
(a distance of 52 miles), that had been organised by a small pacifist group, the Direct Action Committee. Thereafter, CND organised annual Easter marches from Aldermaston to London that became the main focus for supporters' activity. 60,000 people participated in the 1959 march and 150,000 in the 1961 and 1962 marches. The 1958 march was the subject of a documentary by Lindsay Anderson
''March to Aldermaston''
The symbol adopted by CND, designed for them in 1958 by
Gerald Holtom Gerald Herbert Holtom (20 January 1914 – 18 September 1985Westcott, Kathryn (20 March 2008"World's best-known protest symbol turns 50"'' BBC.co.uk (News)'' (Retrieved: 21 February 2010)) was a British artist and designer. In 1958, he designed ...
, became the international peace symbol. It is based on the
semaphore Semaphore (; ) is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arra ...
symbols for "N" (two flags held 45 degrees down on both sides, forming the triangle at the bottom) and "D" (two flags, one above the head and one at the feet, forming the vertical line) (for Nuclear Disarmament) within a circle. Holtom later said that it also represented "an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad," (although in that painting, ''The Third of May 1808'', the peasant is actually holding his hands ''upwards''). The CND symbol, the Aldermaston march, and the slogan "Ban the Bomb" became icons and part of the youth culture of the 1960s. CND's supporters were generally left of centre in politics. About three-quarters were Labour votersFrank Parkin, ''Middle Class Radicalism: The Social Bases of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament'', Manchester University Press, 1968, p. 39. and many of the early executive committee were Labour Party members. The ethos of CND at that time was described as "essentially that of middle-class radicalism". In the event, Labour lost the 1959 election, but it voted at its 1960 Conference for unilateral nuclear disarmament, which represented CND's greatest influence and coincided with the highest level of public support for its programme.April Carter, ''Direct Action and Liberal Democracy'', London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973, p. 64. The resolution was passed against the wishes of the party's leaders and
Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, h ...
promised to "fight, fight, and fight again" against the decision. The Campaign for Democratic Socialism was formed to organise in the constituencies and trades unions to have it overturned at the next conference, which duly occurred. Labour's failure to win the election and its rejection of unilateralism in 1961 upset CND's plans. From that date its prospects of success began to fade and it was said that it lacked any clear idea of how nuclear disarmament was to be implemented and that its demonstrations had become ends in themselves. The sociologist Frank Parkin said that, for many supporters, the question of implementation was of secondary importance anyway because, for them, involvement in the campaign was "an expressive activity in which the defence of principles was felt to have higher priority than 'getting things done'." He suggested CND's survival in the face of its failure was explained by the fact that it provided "a rallying point and symbol for radicals", which was more important for them than "its manifest function of attempting to change the government's nuclear weapons policy." Despite setbacks, it retained the support of a significant minority of the population and became a mass movement, with a network of autonomous branches and specialist groups and an increased participation in demonstrations until about 1963. In 1960 Bertrand Russell resigned from the Campaign in order to form the Committee of 100, which became, in effect, the
direct action Direct action originated as a political activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those actions that appeal to oth ...
wing of CND. Russell argued that direct action was necessary because the press was losing interest in CND and because the danger of nuclear war was so great that it was necessary to obstruct government preparations for it. In 1958 CND had cautiously accepted direct action as a possible method of campaigning, but, largely under the influence of its chairman, Canon Collins, the CND leadership opposed any sort of unlawful protest. The Committee of 100 was created as a separate organisation partly for that reason and partly because of personal animosity between Collins and Russell. Although the committee was supported by many in CND, it has been suggestedTaylor, R., ''Against the Bomb'', Oxford University Press, 1988. that the campaign against nuclear weapons was weakened by the friction between the two organisations. The Committee organised large sit-down demonstrations in London and at military bases. It later diversified into other political campaigns, including
Biafra Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo-populated form ...
, the
Vietnam war The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
and housing in the UK. It was dissolved in 1968. When direct action came to the fore again in the 1980s, it was generally accepted by the peace movement as a normal part of protest. CND's executive committee did not give its supporters a voice in the Campaign until 1961, when a national council was formed and until 1966 it had no formal membership. The relationship between supporters and leaders was unclear, as was the relationship between the executive and the local branches. The executive committee's lack of authority made possible the inclusion within CND of a wide range of views, but it resulted in lengthy internal discussions and the adoption of contradictory resolutions at conferences.Peers, Dave
"The impasse of CND"
''International Socialism'', No. 12, Spring 1963, pp. 6–11.
There was friction between the founders, who conceived of CND as a campaign by eminent individuals focused on the Labour Party, and CND's supporters (including the more radical members of the executive committee), who saw it as an extra-parliamentary mass movement. Collins was unpopular with many supporters because of his strictly constitutional approach and found himself increasingly out of sympathy with the direction the movement was taking. He resigned in 1964 and put his energies into the
International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace The International Confederation for Disarmament and Peace was an organisation formed by peace groups from western and non-aligned nations in 1963. As a result of confrontation between western and Soviet delegates at the 1962 World Congress for Pea ...
. The
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
in the Autumn of 1962, in which the United States blockaded a Soviet attempt to put nuclear missiles on Cuba, created widespread public anxiety about imminent nuclear war and CND organised demonstrations on the issue. But six months after the crisis, a Gallup Poll found that public concern about nuclear weapons had fallen to its lowest point since 1957, and there was a view (disputed by some CND supporters) that US President
John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
's success in facing down Soviet premier
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
turned the British public away from the idea of unilateral nuclear disarmament. On the 1963 Aldermaston march, a clandestine group calling itself
Spies for Peace Spies for Peace was a British group of anti-war activists associated with the Committee of 100 who publicized government preparations for rule after a nuclear war. In 1963 they broke into a secret government bunker, Regional Seat of Government N ...
distributed leaflets about a secret government establishment, RSG 6, that the march was passing. The people behind Spies for Peace remain unknown, except for
Nicholas Walter Nicolas Hardy Walter (22 November 1934 – 7 March 2000) was a British anarchist and atheist writer, speaker and activist. He was a member of the Committee of 100 and Spies for Peace, and wrote on topics of anarchism and humanism. Background ...
, a leading member of the Committee of 100. The leaflet said that RSG 6 was to be the local HQ for a military dictatorship after nuclear war. A large group left the march, against the wishes of the CND leadership, to demonstrate at RSG 6. Later, when the march reached London, there were disorderly demonstrations in which anarchists were prominent, quickly deprecated in the press and in parliament. In 1964 there was only a one-day march, partly because of the events of 1963 and partly because the logistics of the march, which had grown beyond all expectation, had exhausted the organisers. The Aldermaston March was resumed in 1965. Support for CND dwindled somewhat after the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, one of the things for which it had been campaigning. And from the mid-1960s the anti-war movement's preoccupation with the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
tended to eclipse concern about nuclear weapons but CND continued to campaign against both and the Easter marches continued to attract considerable support well into the 1970s. Although CND has never formally allied itself to any political party and has never been an election campaigning body, CND members and supporters have stood for election at various times on a nuclear disarmament ticket. The nearest CND has come to having an electoral arm was the Independent Nuclear Disarmament Election Campaign (INDEC) which stood candidates in a few local elections during the 1960s. INDEC was never endorsed by CND nationally and candidates were generally put up by local branches as a means of raising the profile of the nuclear threat.


The Second Wave: 1980–1983

In the 1980s, CND underwent a major revival in response to the resurgence of the Cold War. Wave after wave of new members joined as the result of a growing antinuclear movement, the strong motivation of its membership, and criticism of CND objectives by the Thatcher government. There was increasing tension between the superpowers following the deployment of SS20s in the Soviet Bloc countries, American Pershing missiles in Western Europe, and Britain's replacement of the
Polaris Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris ( Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an apparent magnitude that ...
armed submarine fleet with
Trident missile The Trident missile is a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV). Originally developed by Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation, the missile is armed with thermonucl ...
s. The
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
exercise Able Archer 83 also added to international tension. CND's membership soared; in the early 1980s it claimed 90,000 national members and a further 250,000 in local branches. "This made it one of the largest political organisations in Britain and probably the largest peace movement in the world (outside the state-sponsored movements of the communist bloc)." Public support for unilateralism reached its highest level since the 1960s.Caedel, Martin, "Britain's Nuclear Disarmers", in Laqueur, W., ''European Peace Movements and the Future of the Western Alliance'', Transaction Publishers, 1985, p. 233, In October 1981, 250,000 people joined an anti-nuclear demonstration in London. CND's demonstration on the eve of Cruise missile deployment in October 1983 was one of the largest in British history, with 300,000 taking part in London as three million protested across Europe.David Cortright, ''Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas'', Cambridge University Press, 2008
Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contemp ...
played a key cultural role in this period. The festival's long-term campaigning relationships have been with CND (1981–1990), Greenpeace (1992 onwards), and Oxfam (because of its campaigning against the arms trade), as well as the establishment of the Green Fields as a regular and expanding eco-feature of the festival (from 1984 on). The radical peace movement and the rise of the greens in Britain are interwoven at Glastonbury. The festival has offered these campaigns and groups space on-site to publicise and disseminate their ideas, and it has ploughed large sums of money from the festival profits into them, as well as other causes. June 1981 saw the first Glastonbury CND Festival, and over the 1980s as a decade Glastonbury raised around £1m for CND. The CND logo topped Glastonbury's pyramid stage, while publicity regularly proclaimed proudly: 'This Event is the most effective Anti-Nuclear Fund Raiser in Europe’. New sections were formed, including Ex-services CND, Green CND, Student CND, Tories Against Cruise and Trident (TACT), Trade Union CND, and Youth CND. More women than men supported CND. The campaign attracted supporters who opposed the Government's civil defence plans as outlined in an official booklet, ''
Protect and Survive ''Protect and Survive'' was a public information campaign on civil defence. Produced by the British government between 1974 and 1980, it intended to advise the public on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack. The campaign compris ...
''. This publication was ridiculed in a popular pamphlet, ''Protest and Survive'', by
E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...
, a leading anti-nuclear campaigner of the period. The British anti-nuclear movement at this time differed from that of the 1960s. Many groups sprang up independently of CND, some affiliating later. CND's previous objection to civil disobedience was dropped and it became a normal part of anti-nuclear protest. The women's movement had a strong influence, much of it emanating from the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, followed by Molesworth People's Peace Camp. A network of protesters, calling itself Cruise Watch, tracked and harassed
Cruise missile A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhe ...
s whenever they were carried on public roads. After a while, the missiles traveled only at night under police escort. At its 1982 conference, the Labour Party adopted a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. It lost the 1983 general election "in which, following the
Falklands war The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
, foreign policy was high on the agenda. Election defeats under, first, Michael Foot, then Neil Kinnock, led Labour to abandon the policy in the late 1980s." The re-election of a Conservative government in 1983 and the defeat of left-wing parties in continental Europe "made the deployment of Cruise missiles inevitable and the movement again began to lose steam."


Extent of support for CND policies


Membership

Until 1967, supporters joined local branches and there was no national membership. An academic study of CND gives the following membership figures from 1967 onwards:John Mattausch, ''A Commitment to Campaign: A Sociological Study of CND'', Manchester University Press, 1989 *1967: 1,500 *1968: 3,037 *1969: 2,173 *1970: 2,120 *1971: 2,047 *1972: 2,389 *1973: 2,367 *1974: 2,350 *1975: 2,536 *1976: 3,220 *1977: 2,168 *1978: 3,220 *1979: 4,287 *1980: 9,000 *1981: 20,000 *1982: 50,000 Under Joan Ruddock's chairmanship from 1981 to 1985, CND said its membership rose from 20,000 to 460,000. The BBC said that in 1985 CND had 110,000 members and in 2006, 32,000.Finlo Rohrer
"Whatever happened to CND?"
''BBC News Magazine'', 5 July 2006
The organisation reported a rapid increase in membership after
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
, a prominent member, became leader of the Labour Party in 2015. As of 2020, the UK Membership was around 35,000


Opinion polls

As it did not have a national membership until 1967, the strength of public support in its early days can be estimated only from the numbers of those attending demonstrations or expressing approval in opinion polls. Polls on a number of related issues have been taken over the past fifty years. *Between 1955 and 1962, between 19% and 33% of people in Britain expressed disapproval of the manufacture of nuclear weapons.W. P. Snyder, ''The Politics of British Defense Policy, 1945-1962'', Ohio University Press, 1964. *Public support for unilateralism in September 1982 was 31%, falling to 21% in January 1983, but it is hard to say whether this decline was a result of the contemporary propaganda campaign against CND or not. *Support for CND fell after the end of the Cold war. It had not succeeded in converting the British public to unilateralism and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union British nuclear weapons still have majority support. "Unilateral disarmament has always been opposed by a majority of the British public, with the level of support for unilateralism remaining steady at around one in four of the population."Andy Byrom, "British attitudes on nuclear weapons", ''Journal of Public Affairs'', 7: 71-77, 2007. *In 2005,
MORI Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India. Italian surname *Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress *Camilo Mori, Chilean painter * Cesare ...
conducted an opinion poll which asked about attitudes to Trident and the use of nuclear weapons. When asked whether the UK should replace Trident, without being told of the cost, 44% of respondents said "Yes" and 46% said "No". When asked the same question and told of the cost, the proportion saying "Yes" fell to 33% and the proportion saying "No" increased to 54%."British Attitudes to Nuclear Weapons"
*In the same poll,
MORI Mori is a Japanese and Italian surname, and also a Persian pet name for Morteza. It is also the name of two clans in Japan, and one clan in India. Italian surname *Barbara Mori, Uruguayan-Mexican actress *Camilo Mori, Chilean painter * Cesare ...
asked "Would you approve or disapprove of the UK using nuclear weapons against a country we are at war with?". 9% approved if that country did not have nuclear weapons, and 84% disapproved. 16% approved if that country had nuclear weapons but never used them, and 72% disapproved. 53% approved if that country used nuclear weapons against the UK, and 37% disapproved. *CND's policy of opposing American nuclear bases is said to be in tune with public opinion.James Hinton "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament", in Roger S. Powers, ''Protest, Power and Change'', Taylor and Francis, 1997, p. 63, On three occasions the Labour Party, when in opposition, has been significantly influenced by CND in the direction of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Between 1960 and 1961 it was official Party policy although the Labour leader
Hugh Gaitskell Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell (9 April 1906 – 18 January 1963) was a British politician who served as Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955 until his death in 1963. An economics lecturer and wartime civil servant, h ...
opposed the decision and succeeded in quickly reversing it. In 1980 long time CND supporter Michael Foot became Labour Party leader and in 1982 succeeded in changing official Labour policy in line with his views. After losing the 1983 and 1987 general elections Labour leader Neil Kinnock persuaded the party to abandon unilateralism in 1989. In 2015 another long time CND supporter, Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party, although the official Labour policy did not change in line with his views.


Organised opposition to CND

CND's growing support in the 1980s provoked opposition from several sources, including Peace Through Nato, the British Atlantic Committee (which received government funding), Women and Families for Defence (set up by Conservative journalist and later MP
Lady Olga Maitland Lady Helen Olga Hay (''née'' Maitland; born 23 May 1944), usually known as Lady Olga Maitland, is a British Conservative politician and journalist, formerly member of parliament for Sutton and Cheam. Family and education The daughter of Patr ...
to oppose the Greenham Common Peace Camp), the Conservative Party's Campaign for Defence and Multilateral Disarmament, the
Coalition for Peace through Security The Coalition for Peace Through Security (CPS) was a campaigning group founded in September 1981 and active in the UK throughout the early and mid-1980s. It strongly opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO as advocated by th ...
, the Foreign Affairs Research Institute, and The 61, a private sector intelligence agency. The British government also took direct steps to counter the influence of CND,
Secretary of State for Defence The secretary of state for defence, also referred to as the defence secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the business of the Ministry of Defence. The incumbent is a membe ...
Michael Heseltine setting up Defence Secretariat 19 "to explain to the public the facts about the Government's policy on deterrence and multilateral disarmament". The activities of anti-CND organisations are said to have included research, publication, mobilising public opinion, counter-demonstrations, working within the Churches, smears against CND leaders and spying. In an article on anti-CND groups,
Stephen Dorril Stephen Dorril (born 17 July 1955)Dorril, Stephen is a British academic, author, and journalist. He is a former senior lecturer in the journalism department of Huddersfield University and ex-director of the university's Oral History Unit. His ...
reported that in 1982
Eugene V. Rostow Eugene Victor Rostow (August 25, 1913 – November 25, 2002) was an American legal scholar and public servant. He was Dean of Yale Law School and served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson. In the ...
, Director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, became concerned about the growing unilateralist movement. According to Dorril, Rostow helped to initiate a propaganda exercise in Britain, "aimed at neutralising the efforts of CND. It would take three forms: mobilising public opinion, working within the Churches, and a 'dirty tricks' operation against the peace groups." One of the groups set up to carry out this work was the Coalition for Peace through Security (CPS), modelled on the US Coalition for Peace through Strength. The CPS was founded in 1981. Its main activists were
Julian Lewis Julian Murray Lewis (born 26 September 1951) is a British Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party politician serving as the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP), representing New Forest East (UK Parliament constit ...
, Edward Leigh and Francis Holihan. Amongst the activities of the CPS were commissioning Gallup polls which showed the levels of support for British possession of nuclear weapons, providing speakers at public meetings, highlighting the
left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
affiliations of leading CND figures and mounting counter-
demonstrations Demonstration may refer to: * Demonstration (acting), part of the Brechtian approach to acting * Demonstration (military), an attack or show of force on a front where a decision is not sought * Demonstration (political), a political rally or prote ...
against CND. These including haranguing CND marchers from the roof of the CPS's Whitehall office and flying a plane over a CND festival with a banner reading, "Help the Soviets, Support CND!"Wittner, L., ''The Struggle Against the Bomb'', Volume 3, Stanford University Press, 2003. The CPS attracted criticism for refusing to say where its funding came from while alleging that the anti-nuclear movement was funded by the Soviet Union.Bruce Kent, ''Undiscovered Ends'', pp. 179–181. Although the CPS called itself a grass-roots movement, it had no members and was financed by The 61, "a private sector operational intelligence agency" said by its founder,
Brian Crozier Brian Rossiter Crozier (4 August 1918, in Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland – 4 August 2012) was a historian, propagandist and journalist. He was also one of the central staff members of a secret propaganda department belonging to the UK Fo ...
, to be funded by "rich individuals and a few private companies". It is said to have also received funding from the Heritage Foundation. The CPS claimed that Bruce Kent, the general secretary of CND and a Catholic priest, was a supporter of IRA terrorism. Kent alleged in his autobiography that Francis Holihan spied on CND. Dorril claimed''The Lobster'', No. 3, 1984
/ref>
that Holihan had organised aerial propaganda, had entered CND offices under false pretences, and that CPS workers had joined CND in order to gain access to the Campaign's 1982 Annual Conference. When Bruce Kent went on a speaking tour of America, Holihan followed him around. Offensive material on Kent was sent to newspapers and radio stations, and demonstrations were organised against him with support from the College Republican Committee.


Allegations of communist influence and intelligence surveillance

Some of CND's opponents claimed that CND was a communist or Soviet-dominated organisation, a charge its supporters denied. In 1981, the Foreign Affairs Research Institute, which shared an office with the CPS, was said by ''Sanity'', the CND newspaper, to have published a booklet claiming that Russian money was being used by CND.
Lord Chalfont Alun Arthur Gwynne Jones, Baron Chalfont, (5 December 1919 – 10 January 2020) was a British Army officer, a British politician and an historian. Early life and military career Gwynne Jones was born in modest circumstances in Monmouthshire. ...
claimed that the Soviet Union was giving the European peace movement £100 million a year, to which Bruce Kent responded, "If they were, it was certainly not getting to our grotty little office in Finsbury Park." In the 1980s, the
Federation of Conservative Students The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) was the student organisation of the British Conservative Party from the late 1940s to 1986. It was created to act as a bridge between the student movement and the Conservative Party. It produced sever ...
(FCS) claimed that one of CND's elected officers, Dan Smith, was a communist. CND sued for defamation and the FCS settled on the second day of the trial, apologised and paid damages and costs. The British journalist Charles Moore reported a conversation he had with the Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky after the death of leading Labour politician Michael Foot. As editor of the newspaper ''
Tribune Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the ...
'', says Moore, Foot was regularly visited by KGB agents who identified themselves as diplomats and gave him money. "A leading supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Foot ... passed on what he knew about debates over nuclear weapons. In return, the KGB gave him drafts of articles encouraging British disarmament which he could then edit and publish, unattributed to their real source, in ''Tribune''." Foot had received libel damages from the ''Sunday Times'' for a similar claim made during his lifetime. The security service ( MI5) carried out surveillance of CND members it considered to be subversive and from the late 1960s until the mid-1970s it designated CND as subversive by virtue of its being "communist-controlled". Communists have played an active role in the organisation, and John Cox, its chairman from 1971 to 1977, was a member of the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPG ...
; but from the late 1970s, MI5 downgraded CND from "communist-controlled" to "communist-penetrated". In 1985, Cathy Massiter, an MI5 officer who had been responsible for the surveillance of CND from 1981 to 1983, resigned and made disclosures to a
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
''20/20 Vision'' programme, "MI5's Official Secrets". She said that her work was determined more by the political importance of CND than by any security threat posed by subversive elements within it. In 1983, she analysed telephone intercepts on John Cox that gave her access to conversations with Joan Ruddock and Bruce Kent. MI5 also placed a spy, Harry Newton, in the CND office. According to Massiter, Newton believed that CND was controlled by extreme left-wing activists and that Bruce Kent might be a crypto-communist, but Massiter found no evidence to support either opinion.Bateman, D.
"The Trouble With Harry: A memoir of Harry Newton, MI5 agent"
''Lobster'', Issue 28, December 1994. Accessed 3 November 2011.
On the basis of Ruddock's contacts, MI5 suspected her of being a communist sympathiser. Speaking in the House of Commons, Dale Campbell-Savours, MP, said:
it was felt within the service that officers were likely to be questioned about the true political affiliation of Mrs. Joan Ruddock, who became chair of CND in 1983. It was fully recognised by the service that she had no subversive affiliations and therefore should not be recorded under any of the usual subversive categories. In fact, she was recorded as a contact of a hostile intelligence service after giving an interview to a Soviet journalist based in London who was suspected of being a KGB intelligence officer. In Joan Ruddock's file, MI5 recorded special branch references to her movements—usually public meetings—and kept press cuttings and the products of mail and telephone intercepts obtained through active investigation of other targets, such as the Communist party and John Cox. There were police reports recording her appearances at demonstrations or public meetings. There were references to her also in reports from agents working, for example, in the Communist party. These would also appear in her file.
According to Stephen Dorril, at about the same time,
Special Branch Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence in Policing in the United Kingdom, British, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, ...
officers recruited an informant within CND, Stanley Bonnett, on the instructions of MI5. MI5 is also said to have suspected CND's treasurer,
Cathy Ashton Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, (born 20 March 1956), is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the Europe ...
, of being a communist sympathiser because she shared a house with a communist.Tom Mills, Tom Griffin and David Miller
"The Cold War on British Muslims"
, Spinwatch, 2011.
When Michael Heseltine became Secretary of State for Defence in 1983, Massiter was asked to provide information for Defence Secretariat 19 (DS19) about leading CND personnel but was instructed to include only information from published sources. Ruddock claims that DS19 released distorted information regarding her political party affiliations to the media and Conservative Party candidates. MI5 says that it does not now investigate this area. Anti-communist propagandist
Brian Crozier Brian Rossiter Crozier (4 August 1918, in Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland – 4 August 2012) was a historian, propagandist and journalist. He was also one of the central staff members of a secret propaganda department belonging to the UK Fo ...
, claimed in his book ''Free Agent: The Unseen War 1941–1991'' (Harper Collins, 1993) that one of his organizations, "The 61", infiltrated a mole into CND in 1979. In 1990, it was discovered in the archive of the
Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...
(the state security service of the former
German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
) that a member of CND's governing council,
Vic Allen Vic Allen (1923–2014) was a British communist, human rights activist, political prisoner, sociologist, historian, economist and emeritus professor at the University of Leeds who worked closely with British trade unions, and was considered a k ...
, had passed information to them about CND. This discovery was made public in a BBC TV programme in 1999, reviving debate about Soviet links to CND. Allen stood against Joan Ruddock for the leadership of CND in 1985, but was defeated. Ruddock responded to the Stasi revelations by saying that Allen "certainly had no influence on national CND, and as a pro-Soviet could never have succeeded to the chair," and that "CND was as opposed to Soviet nuclear weapons as Western ones."


Chairs of CND since 1958

*
Canon John Collins Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...
1958–1964 *
Olive Gibbs Olive Frances Gibbs, Deputy Lieutenant, DL (née Cox; 17 February 1918 – 28 September 1995) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour politician and anti-nuclear weapons campaigner. Gibbs entered Oxfordshire politics in 1953 and became the second ...
1964–1967 * Sheila Oakes 1967–1968 *
Malcolm Caldwell James Alexander Malcolm Caldwell (27 September 1931 – 23 December 1978) was a Scottish academic and a prolific Marxist writer. He was a consistent critic of American foreign policy, a campaigner for Asian communist and socialist movements a ...
1968–1970 *
April Carter April Carter (born 22 November 1937) was a British peace activist. She was a political lecturer at the universities of Lancaster, Somerville College, Oxford and Queensland, and was a Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institut ...
1970–1971 * John Cox 1971–1977 * Bruce Kent 1977–1979 * Hugh Jenkins 1979–1981 * Joan Ruddock 1981–1985 *
Paul Johns Paul Victor Johns is a former professional American football player who played wide receiver for four seasons for the Seattle Seahawks in the National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American foot ...
1985–1987 * Bruce Kent 1987–1990 * Marjorie Thompson 1990–1993 *
Janet Bloomfield Janet Elizabeth Bloomfield (née Hood; 10 October 1953 – 2 April 2007) was a British peace and disarmament campaigner who was chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) from 1993 to 1996. Biography Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staff ...
1993–1996 * David Knight 1996–2001 * Carol Naughton 2001–2003 * Kate Hudson 2003–2010 * Dave Webb 2010–2020 * Tom Unterrainer 2020–present


General Secretaries of CND since 1958

*
Peggy Duff Peggy Duff (8 February 1910 – 16 April 1981) was a British political activist who started off her career with a protest against the treatment of German prisoners of war in Britain after the Second World War. She was principally known for her c ...
1958–1967 * Dick Nettleton 1967–1973 * Dan Smith 1974–1975 * Duncan Rees 1976–1979 * Bruce Kent 1979–1985 *
Meg Beresford Meg Beresford (born 5 September 1937) was a British campaigner against nuclear weapons and general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1985 to 1990. An activist involved with the European Nuclear Disarmament (END) movement, she ...
1985–1990 *
Gary Lefley Gary Lefley (born 1954) was the general secretary for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) from 1990 to 1994. Born in Tottenham, he was educated at Tottenham Grammar School and the University of East Anglia where he joined the CPGB and me ...
, 1990–1994 The post was abolished in 1994, and reinstated in 2010. * Kate Hudson, 2010–


Archives

Much of National CND's historical archive is at the
London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...
and the Modern Records Centre at the
University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands (county), West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded i ...
. Records of local and regional groups are spread throughout the country in public and private collections.


See also

*
Anti-nuclear movement in the United Kingdom The anti-nuclear movement in the United Kingdom consists of groups who oppose nuclear technologies such as nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Many different groups and individuals have been involved in anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests ...
*
Anti-war An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
* Campaign Against Arms Trade *
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (NZ) Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (NZ) was co-founded in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1959 with the help of Elsie Locke and Mary Woodward. Mabel Hetherington, who belonged to an earlier generation of peace activists from England, was largely respon ...
*
Counterculture of the 1960s The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the Western world in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the civil rights mo ...
*
European Nuclear Disarmament European Nuclear Disarmament (END) was a Europe-wide movement for a "nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal” that put on annual European Nuclear Disarmament conventions from 1982 to 1991. Origins The founding statement of END was the Eur ...
*
European Peace Marches The European Peace Marches (EPM) arose from a Europe-wide network of initiatives within the Peace Movement. The Marches took place from 1978 to 1992, mobilizing large numbers of citizens especially in the early 1980s.Robert Surbrug''Beyond Vietn ...
* Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp *
Independent Nuclear Disarmament Election Committee The Independent Nuclear Disarmament Election Committee (INDEC) was a splinter group of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the United Kingdom. It was founded in April 1962 by CND members including Pat Arrowsmith and Vanessa Redgrave. T ...
*
Koeberg Alert The Koeberg Alert alliance is an anti-nuclear activist organisation which emerged from an earlier pressure group in Cape Town called "Stop Koeberg" in 1983. Both were intended to halt construction of the first nuclear power station in South Afri ...
* List of anti-war organizations *
List of peace activists This list of peace activists includes people who have proactively advocated diplomatic, philosophical, and non-military resolution of major territorial or ideological disputes through nonviolent means and methods. Peace activists usually work ...
* The Lucas Plan * Mike Cooley * Nuclear disarmament * Nuclear-Free Future Award * Nuclear-free zone * Nuclear Information Service *
Nuclear proliferation Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as " Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Wea ...
*
Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom In 1952, the United Kingdom became the third country (after the United States and the Soviet Union) to develop and test nuclear weapons, and is one of the five nuclear-weapon states under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ...
*
Peace movement A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world peac ...
* Peace symbols *
World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization with the self-described goals of advocating for universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass d ...
* Youth for Multilateral Disarmament (YMD)


References


Further reading

*Bradshaw, Ross, ''From Protest to Resistance'', A ''Peace News'' pamphlet (London: Mushroom Books, 1981), * Byrne, Paul. "The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament: the resilience of a protest group." ''Parliamentary Affairs'' 40.4 (1987): 517–535. * Byrne, Paul. ''Social Movements in Britain'' (London: Routledge, 1997), * Byrne, Paul. ''The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament'' (Croom Helm: London, 1988), * Driver, Christopher, ''The Disarmers: A Study in Protest'' (London:
Hodder and Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publisher ...
, 1964) * Kate Hudson, ''CND - Now More Than Ever: The Story of a Peace Movement'' (London: Vision Paperbacks, 2005), *Mattausch, John. ''A Commitment to Campaign: A Sociological Study of CND'' (Manchester University Press, 1989), * McKay, George.
'Subcultural innovations in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
, ''Peace Review'' 16(4) (2004): pp. 429–438. *McKay, George. ''Glastonbury: A Very English Fair'', chapter 6 'A green field far away: the politics of peace and ecology at the festival', section 'The CND festival' (London: Victor Gollancz, 2000), pp. 161–169. * Minnion, John, and Philip Bolsover (eds), ''The CND Story: The first 25 years of CND in the words of the people involved'' (London: Allison & Busby, 1983), * Nehring, Holger. ''Politics of Security: British and West German Protest Movements and the Early Cold War, 1945-1970'' (OUP Oxford, 2013). * Nehring, Holger. "Diverging perceptions of security: NATO and the protests against nuclear weapons", in Andreas Wenger, et al. (eds), ''Transforming NATO in the Cold War: Challenges beyond Deterrence in the 1960s'' (London: Routledge, 2006) * Nehring, Holger. "From Gentleman's Club to Folk Festival: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Manchester, 1958-63", ''North West Labour History Journal'', No. 26 (2001), pp. 18–28 * Nehring, Holger. "National Internationalists: British and West German Protests against Nuclear Weapons, the Politics of Transnational Communications and the Social History of the Cold War, 1957–1964", ''Contemporary European History'', 14, No. 4(2006) * Nehring, Holger. "Politics, Symbols and the Public Sphere: The Protests against Nuclear Weapons in Britain and West Germany, 1958-1963", ''Zeithistorische Forschungen'', 2, No. 2 (2005) * Nehring, Holger. "The British and West German Protests against Nuclear Weapons and the Cultures of the Cold War, 1957–64", ''Contemporary British History'', 19, No. 2 (2005) * Parkin, Frank, ''Middle-class radicalism: The Social Bases of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament'' (Manchester University Press, 1968) * Phythian, Mark. "CND's Cold War." ''Contemporary British History'' 15.3 (2001): 133–156. * Taylor, Richard, and Colin Pritchard, ''The Protest Makers: The British Nuclear Disarmament of 1958-1965, Twenty Years On'' (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980),


Primary sources

* Aulich, James. ''War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication'' (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007), * Clements, Ben. ''British Public Opinion on Foreign and Defence Policy: 1945-2017'' (Routledge, 2018). *
Peggy Duff Peggy Duff (8 February 1910 – 16 April 1981) was a British political activist who started off her career with a protest against the treatment of German prisoners of war in Britain after the Second World War. She was principally known for her c ...
, ''Left, Left, Left: A personal account of six protest campaigns 1945-65'' (London: Allison and Busby, 1971),


External links


Official media pages

*


News items

* * * *
CND membership surge gathers pace after Jeremy Corbyn election
''The Guardian''. Published 16 October 2015. Retrieved 10 January 2017.

''The Independent''. Published 29 January 2016. Retrieved 10 January 2017.


Historic


Catalogue of the CND archives
held at the
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

Catalogue of the West Midlands CND archives
held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
Catalogue of the Trade Union CND archives
held at the
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...
* - Report of the 1960 Aldermaston March
BBC Report of CND Protest in London 22 October 198320/20 Vision: ''MI5's Official Secrets''
(LSE Archives)

by Rip Bulkeley, Pete Goodwin, Ian Birchall, Peter Binns and Colin Sparks, ''International Socialism'' journal, 2:11, (Winter 1981) - a short Marxist history of CND
The Papers of Michael Ashburner
an archive collection strong in material on CND, held at Churchill Archives Centre


Other


A British Museum expert's view of the CND badge
{{DEFAULTSORT:Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament Anti–Iraq War groups Anti–nuclear weapons movement Glastonbury Festival Organisations based in the London Borough of Islington Organizations established in 1958 1958 establishments in the United Kingdom