The Nuclear Freeze campaign was a mass movement in the United States during the 1980s to secure an agreement between the U.S. and Soviet governments to halt the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons.
Background
The idea of simply halting key aspects of the nuclear arms race arose in the early stages of the Cold War. Probably the first suggestion of this kind, discussed in letters between US President
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
and Soviet Premier
Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин; – 24 February 1975) was a Soviet politician who served as Minister of Defense (1953–1955) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1955–1 ...
in the mid-1950s, called for a freeze on fissionable material. Concrete policy proposals began in the 1960s, with a formal proposal from the United States to the Soviet Union for a partial freeze on the number of offensive and defensive nuclear vehicles. However, the idea was rejected by the Soviet government, which feared that such a freeze would leave the Soviet Union in a position of strategic inferiority. In 1970, the US Senate passed a non-binding resolution calling for both superpowers to suspend further development of strategic nuclear weapons systems, both offensive and defensive, during negotiations for the
SALT I treaty.
Behind a surge of support for the Freeze idea in the 1980s lay growing public concerns about the outbreak of nuclear war. In the late 1970s, Soviet-American détente unraveled and the Cold War began to revive, with new conflicts emerging in Africa, Central America, and Afghanistan. That caused nuclear arms control agreements between the two superpowers, such as
SALT II
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds o ...
, to be jettisoned and each embarked on dangerous nuclear expansion programs. The Soviet government began to replace its older nuclear weapons with more accurate, intermediate-range SS-20 missiles, directly threatening Western Europe. For its part, the US government announced plans for a NATO nuclear buildup with an enhanced radiation weapon (the neutron bomb) and, after that venture collapsed thanks to public protest, with a new generation of intermediate-range nuclear weapons: cruise and Pershing II missiles.
Along with their escalation of the nuclear arms race, national leaders employed a particularly hardline rhetoric.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
, who had opposed every nuclear arms control agreement negotiated by his Democratic and Republican predecessors, had denounced the SALT II treaty as “an act of appeasement.” While scornful of previous attempts at arms limitations, and championing a massive US nuclear weapons buildup, he nevertheless proposed and commenced negotiations for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, (
START I
START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 De ...
), which his successor, George H. W. Bush, signed in 1991. In other nations, stridently hawkish leaders, such as Britain's
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
, also came to the fore. Soviet leadership relied increasingly on nuclear weapons to implement its vision of Soviet security.
Nuclear Freeze movement in the United States
Randall Forsberg and "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race"
The Nuclear Freeze movement was initiated by
Randall Forsberg
Dr. Randall Caroline Forsberg ( – ) led a lifetime of research and advocacy on ways to reduce the risk of war, minimize the burden of military spending, and promote democratic institutions. Her career started at the Stockholm International Peace ...
, a young American who worked at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and, then, returned to the United States to become the executive director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, a think tank that she had founded with the aim of reducing the risk of war and minimizing the burden of U.S. military spending. In 1979, she suggested to leading US peace organizations that they combine their efforts in support of a US-Soviet agreement to halt the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. When the peace groups, enthusiastic about her idea, urged her to write up a proposal along those lines, she produced the "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race” in 1980. That Nuclear Freeze proposal emphasized that the freeze would retain the existing nuclear parity between the United States and the Soviet Union, thereby opening the way for deep reductions in nuclear weapons or their elimination in the future. In April of that year, having secured the support of the
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Religious Society of Friends (''Quaker'') founded organization working for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world. AFSC was founded in 1917 as a combined effort by Am ...
, Clergy and Laity Concerned, and the
Fellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR or FOR) is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries. They are linked by affiliation to the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR).
...
, her Institute and these groups jointly published the “Call” and invited other peace organizations to endorse it.
The accessible goal set forth in the “Call” quickly became a popular rallying point. Its simplicity and moderation appealed to both peace activists and ordinary people concerned about the threats posed the nuclear arms race and nuclear war. Forsberg framed a Nuclear Freeze as a logical choice and pointed out that the United States and the Soviet Union already possessed more than 50,000 nuclear weapons and had plans to build 20,000 more. The memorandum also argued against the idea of deterrence by contending that adding more nuclear weapons to the world would only increase the chance of nuclear war. Additionally, Forsberg maintained that a nuclear weapons Freeze would result in substantial fiscal savings and detailed the social and economic benefits of various alternative domestic spending options.
After publication of the "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race," the Nuclear Freeze not only garnered the support of most American peace organizations but also was endorsed by numerous public leaders, intellectuals, and activists. Former public officials, such as George Ball, Clark Clifford, William Colby, Averell Harriman, and George Kennan, spoke out in favor of the idea. Support for the proposal also came from leading scientists, including Linus Pauling, Jerome Wiesner, Bernard Feld, and Carl Sagan.
In March 1981, riding a wave of growing public concern about the nuclear arms race, the first national conference of the Freeze movement convened at the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University.
Popular media
From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, growing public anxieties about nuclear war coincided with a boom in anti-nuclear publications and media. Literature calling attention to nuclear dangers, which had previously commanded a modest market, became abundant as authors worked to galvanize the Nuclear Freeze campaign and were inspired by it in turn.
Jonathan Schell
Jonathan Edward Schell (August 21, 1943 – March 25, 2014) was an American author and visiting fellow at Yale University, whose work primarily dealt with campaigning against nuclear weapons.
Personal
Schell was born in New York City on August 2 ...
, a prominent journalist, wrote a series of powerful antinuclear essays for ''The New Yorker'' that, in 1982, were turned into a best-selling book,
The Fate of the Earth
''The Fate of the Earth'' is a 1982 book by Jonathan Schell. Its description of the consequences of nuclear war "forces even the most reluctant person to confront the unthinkable: the destruction of humanity and possibly most life on Earth". T ...
. Becoming a cornerstone of the Nuclear Freeze campaign, it asserted in plain, direct language that nuclear war was more an extinction event than a proper war.
Schell rejected the notion of surviving a nuclear war, providing visceral depictions of its grim aftermath.
Ground Zero
In relation to nuclear explosions and other large bombs, ground zero (also called surface zero) is the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ''ground zero'' is the point on the ground ...
founder
Roger Molander Roger Carl Molander (November 20, 1940 – March 25, 2012) was an American government official and activist.
Life
Born in Perham, Minnesota, Molander grew up in Marinette, Wisconsin. He graduated with High Honors from University of Wisconsin&n ...
wrote a novel, ''Nuclear War: What's in it For You?'' It followed a fictional family after a hypothetical but possible nuclear war and explored the history of contemporary concerns regarding nuclear destruction. Both books were intentionally published at low prices to serve movement purposes. Two of the most prominent legislators backing the Freeze campaign, US Senators
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
(D-MA) and
Mark Hatfield
Mark Odom Hatfield (July 12, 1922 – August 7, 2011) was an American politician and educator from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served for 30 years as a United States senator from Oregon, and also as chairman of the Senate Appropr ...
(R-OR), published their own book, ''Freeze! How You Can Help Prevent Nuclear War'', that provided tools for readers to influence public policy and elections.
Helen Caldicott
Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate. She founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear we ...
, a prominent member of the Freeze movement, was the subject of two documentaries in the early 1980's: the Oscar nominated ''
Eight Minutes to Midnight: A Portrait of Dr. Helen Caldicott'' and ''
If You Love This Planet
''If You Love This Planet'' is a 1982 short documentary film recording a lecture given to SUNY Plattsburgh students by physician and anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The movie was directed by Te ...
''. ''If You Love This Planet'' won a
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
for Best Documentary (Short Subject).
Grassroots support
Initial efforts to advance the movement focused on alerting and educating the public at the local level. Activists distributed vast quantities of literature about the nuclear arms race and brought Freeze resolutions before a variety of organizations while securing signatures on Freeze petitions and placing Freeze referendums on town, city and state ballots around the country.
"
Think globally, act locally
The phrase "Think globally, act locally" or "Think global, act local" has been used in various contexts, including planning, environment, education, mathematics, business and the church. For many environmental activists, the phrase has been chang ...
" served as a motto of the campaign.
The movement placed a strong emphasis on grassroots education, thereby expanding the number of people supporting the campaign. On Veterans Day in 1981, the
Union of Concerned Scientists
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in the United States. The UCS membership includes many private citizens in addition to professional scientists. Anne Kapuscinski, Professor of Environmenta ...
held teach-ins in 150 schools, and in April of that year, Ground Zero mobilized a million Americans in high schools and colleges to circulate petitions, listen to debates, or watch films.
Through its efforts at the local level, the Nuclear Freeze movement attained considerable success. A Freeze resolution was first placed on the November 1980 election ballot in the towns of western Massachusetts. Thanks to the leadership of
Randy Kehler
Randy is a given name, popular in the United States and Canada. It is primarily a masculine name. It was originally derived from the names Randall, Randolf, Randolph, as well as Bertrand and Andrew, and may be a short form (hypocorism) of them ...
,
Frances Crowe
Frances Crowe (née Hyde; March 15, 1919 – August 27, 2019) was an American peace activist and pacifist from the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.
Early life
Frances Hyde was born in Carthage, Missouri on March 15, 1919. Growing up, she ...
, and other local activists, voters passed the resolution in 59 out of the 62 towns. In general, Freeze activism was stronger in Northern and Western states than in the more conservative South. Nevertheless, by mid-1982 it had taken root in three-quarters of the nation's Congressional districts.
In March 1982, 88 percent of the 180 Vermont town meetings voted to support a bilateral nuclear weapons freeze between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Furthermore, by November 1983, the Freeze had been endorsed by more than 370 city councils, 71 county councils, and by one or both houses of 23 state legislatures.
National impact
On June 12, 1982, the
largest peace rally in U.S. history was held concurrently with the Second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament, with approximately a million participants. Many major U.S. religious bodies, such as the National Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Presbyterian Church, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, and the Synagogue Council of America, endorsed the campaign. Hundreds of national organizations, many of which had never before taken a stand on national defense issues, came out in favor of the Freeze. They included the
American Association of School Administrators
The American Association of School Administrators (AASA), founded in 1865, is the professional organization for more than 14,000 educational leaders across the United States. AASA's members are chief executive officers and senior-level administrato ...
, the
American Association of University Women
The American Association of University Women (AAUW), officially founded in 1881, is a non-profit organization that advances equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. The organization has a nationwide network of 170,000 ...
, the
American Nurses Association
The American Nurses Association (ANA) is a 501(c)(6) professional organization to advance and protect the profession of nursing. It started in 1896 as the Nurses Associated Alumnae and was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911. It is ba ...
, the
American Pediatric Society
The American Pediatric Society (APS) is the first pediatric society established in North America. Created in 1888, the APS pursues a vision of an engaged, inclusive, and impactful community of pediatric thought leaders. The APS mission is to sha ...
, the
American Public Health Association,
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with ...
, the
National Council of La Raza
UnidosUS, formerly National Council of La Raza (NCLR) (La Raza), is the United States's largest Latino nonprofit advocacy organization. It advocates in favor of progressive public policy changes including immigration reform, a path to citizens ...
, the
National Education Association
The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college stude ...
, the
U.S. Conference of Mayors
The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) is the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. The cities are each represented by their mayors or other chief elected officials. The organization was founded i ...
, and the
Young Women's Christian Association
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
.
In 1982, when the Freeze campaign delivered its antinuclear petitions to the U.S. and Soviet missions to the United Nations, they contained the signatures of more than 2,300,000 Americans. Moreover, that fall, when Freeze referendums appeared on the ballot in 10 states, the District of Columbia, and 37 cities and counties around the nation, voters produced a victory to the Freeze campaign in nine of the states and in all but three localities. Covering about one-third of the U.S. electorate, this was the largest referendum on a single issue in U.S. history.
Patrick Caddell
Patrick Hayward Caddell (May 19, 1950 – February 16, 2019) was an American public opinion pollster and a political film consultant who served in the Carter administration. He worked for Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern ...
, one of the nation's leading pollsters, reported in October 1983 that the Freeze campaign was “the most significant citizens’ movement of the last century. . . . In sheer numbers the freeze movement is awesome,” for there existed “no comparable national cause or combination of causes . . . that can match . . . the legions that have been activated.”
In March 1982, a plan to introduce a Freeze resolution in Congress was announced by Senators Kennedy and Hatfield.
The following May, the Democratically controlled House of Representatives passed a Freeze resolution by a vote of 278 to 149. In 1984, the Freeze was backed by all the major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination and became part of the Democratic Party's presidential campaign platform.
Parallels in global activism
During these same years, anti-nuclear activism also swept through most other parts of the world. West European groups, pulled together by an
Appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament (END), geared up to oppose the deployment of the new generation of devastating Euromissiles: the cruise and Pershing II missiles from NATO and the SS-20s from the Soviet Union. This revival skyrocketed into mass protest after 1980, largely thanks to the advent of the Reagan administration and its hawkish pronouncements. END was soon coordinating a huge antinuclear campaign in Europe. Groups like the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucle ...
(in Britain), the Interchurch Peace Council (in the Netherlands), church organizations and the new
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...
(in West Germany), and No to Nuclear Weapons (in Norway and Denmark) mushroomed into mass movements that held vast demonstrations. Antinuclear movements staged the largest protest rallies in the history of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, while other Pacific Island nations drew together into a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement. In the fall of 1983, an estimated five million people took part in antinuclear demonstrations. Even in Communist nations, smaller-scale antinuclear movements and demonstrations began to appear, despite harassment and repression by the authorities.
Although the U.S. and overseas movements usually overlapped in their anxieties, methods, and goals, the American movement, at least on the surface, was more moderate. A Nuclear Freeze, after all, centered on a bilateral agreement that would merely halt the nuclear arms race. By contrast, many of the overseas movements called for unilateral disarmament initiatives by the nuclear powers. Nevertheless, in practice, both focused their efforts on opposing nuclear weapons buildups and shared the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world.
Leaders of these movements recognized that, if their campaigns were to be successful, collaboration among the world's antinuclear organizations was a necessity. When Forsberg officially launched the Nuclear Freeze campaign, an International Task Force was formed to serve as the overseas representative of the American campaign. The International Task Force first focused on lobbying for passage of a Freeze resolution at the United Nations. Two somewhat different Freeze resolutions came before the UN General Assembly―one sponsored by Mexico and Sweden and the other by India. Despite opposition by the U.S. government, the General Assembly passed both resolutions by significant margins. Naturally, the UN votes contributed to the mounting political pressure on the United States and Soviet Union to halt the nuclear arms race.
Criticism
General
A key argument against the nuclear freeze movement was that it was an action that would leave the Soviet Union in a state of superiority. Polls show that while a majority of the public supported the freeze, they "did not support freezing a Soviet advantage in place".
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
said the movement was "understandable, but in the view of many nuclear experts, the solution is impractical and unwise".
McGeorge Bundy
McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Founda ...
(a critic of the Reagan administration) said "the issues were far too complicated to be resolved by a bilateral freeze, which was a dubious notion in any case".
Resistance on the political right
The neo-conservative
''Commentary'' published an article claiming that there was “not the slightest doubt that this motley crowd is manipulated by a handful of scoundrels instructed directly from Moscow.” ''
Human Events
''Human Events'' is an American conservative political news and analysis website. Founded in 1944 as a print newspaper, ''Human Events'' became a digital-only publication in 2013.
''Human Events'' takes its name from the first sentence of the Un ...
'', which billed itself as “the national conservative weekly,” published numerous attacks upon antinuclear activists, including: “How Far Left Is Manipulating U.S. Nuclear `Freeze’ Movement.” In May 1982, the
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presiden ...
distributed a “Backgrounder” on “Moscow and the Peace Offensive” that called for a massive campaign to block the growth of the antinuclear movement in the United States and abroad. Meanwhile, the College Republicans distributed posters that, across a picture of Soviet troops in Red Square, plastered a headline proclaiming: “The Soviet Union Needs You! Support a U.S. `Nuclear Freeze.’”
The Christian Right also fiercely opposed the antinuclear campaign. Having long associated nuclear war with the Last Judgment, Biblical prophecy enthusiasts had no intention of interfering with what they considered the divine will. The
Rev. Jerry Falwell, the nation’s most popular evangelical preacher and a confidant of President Reagan, confidently described the approaching
nuclear holocaust
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear Armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes globally widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenar ...
in a 1980 pamphlet, ''Armageddon and the Coming War with Russia''. “Blood shall flow in the streets up to the bridles of the horses,” he assured an interviewer in 1981. Of course, this did not pose a problem for the faithful, for “if you are saved, you will never go through one hour, not one moment of the Tribulation.” As fundamentalism grew more political in the 1980s, its proponents saw in Reagan's nuclear buildup the working out of God's alleged plan. Groups like the
Moral Majority
Moral Majority was an American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in ...
began distributing “moral report cards,” rating members of Congress on their support for military measures.
James Robison, the pre-millennialist television preacher who delivered an invocation at the 1984 GOP national convention, warned: “Any teaching of peace prior to
hrist’sreturn is heresy. . . . It’s against the Word of God; it’s Antichrist.”
Falwell's Moral Majority movement frequently denounced the Freeze movement. In a lengthy fundraising letter of June 17, 1982, Falwell promised “a major campaign’ against “the `freeze-niks.’” They were “hysterically singing Russia’s favorite song,” he maintained, “and the Russians are loving it!” Beginning in the spring of 1983, he placed full-page newspaper ads in the ''New York Times'', the ''Washington Post'', and more than 70 other newspapers, assailing “the `freeze-niks,’ `ultra-libs,’ and `unilateral disarmers’” and exhorting “patriotic, God-fearing Americans to speak up” for military defense. He also aired a one-hour, prime-time TV special attacking the Freeze and used his weekly Sunday morning sermons, broadcast over 400 television stations around the country, to condemn the antinuclear campaign. The Nuclear Freeze, he said, led to “slavery for our children.”
Ronald Reagan administration
To the Reagan administration, the rise of the Nuclear Freeze movement represented a political challenge. As the White House communications director recalled: “There was a widespread view in the administration that the Freeze was a dagger pointed at the heart of the administration’s defense program.”
Robert McFarlane
Robert Carl "Bud" McFarlane (July 12, 1937 – May 12, 2022) was an American Marine Corps officer who served as National Security Advisor to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1985. Within the Reagan administration, McFarlane was a leading ar ...
, Reagan's national security adviser, observed that “we took it as a serious movement that could undermine congressional support” for the administration's nuclear weapons buildup and potentially “a serious partisan political threat that could affect the election in `84.”
After Senators Kennedy and Hatfield introduced the Freeze resolution into Congress in March 1982, administration officials met and laid plans for what McFarlane called “a huge effort” to counter the Freeze movement. It soon involved the dispatch of officials from numerous government agencies to wage a public relations campaign against the Freeze propositions on the ballot that fall. Participating in the effort, Reagan appeared that July in his home state of California, where he charged that the Freeze “would make this country desperately vulnerable to nuclear blackmail.”
That fall, with the Freeze increasingly likely to emerge victorious at the polls and in Congress, Reagan grew more strident. Addressing a gathering of veterans groups in October, he insisted that the Freeze was “inspired by not the sincere, honest people who want peace, but by some who want the weakening of America and so are manipulating honest people.” In November, he told a press conference that “foreign agents” had helped “instigate” the Freeze campaign. Challenged to produce evidence for those accusations, Reagan pointed to two ''
Reader’s Digest
''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...
'' articles and a report by the House Intelligence Committee. However, the committee chair declared that according to FBI and CIA officials, there was “no evidence that the Soviets direct, manage, or manipulate the Nuclear Freeze movement,” a contention that was confirmed when FBI material was made public in 1983.
Political developments
In April 1982, shortly after the Freeze resolution was introduced in Congress, Reagan began declaring publicly and repeatedly that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” On that first occasion, he added: “To those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say: `I’m with you.’”
Reagan personally feared a nuclear apocalypse and his strategy of a nuclear build-up was rooted in a belief that the economy of the Soviet Union could not sustain itself in a arms race with the United States. Ergo, a build-up would force negotiations for reduction.
Meanwhile, Reagan began to search, initially without success, for a Soviet leader with whom he could negotiate nuclear disarmament agreements.
After three Soviet leaders died in the first four years of his Presidency, Reagan quipped: "How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?"
Decline and legacy
With the rise of
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
to the apex of Soviet leadership in March 1985, Reagan found his negotiating partner. Indeed, Gorbachev was a sincere and committed advocate of nuclear disarmament. In 1955, Gorbachev met
Jawaharlal Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
. His "principled stand against nuclear weapons" had a big impact on a young Gorbachev.
His
“New Thinking,” as his advisors recalled, was strongly affected by the Western nuclear disarmament campaign. As Gorbachev himself declared: “The new thinking took into account and absorbed the conclusions and demands of . . . the public and the scientific community . . . and of various antiwar organizations.”
In the United States, the Reagan administration managed to stave off the challenge posed by the Freeze campaign and other critics of its nuclear policies. In 1983, the Republicans used their control of the U.S. Senate to block passage of a Freeze resolution in that legislative body and, thus, by Congress.
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesota ...
, the 1984 Democratic presidential candidate (and supporter of the Freeze), lost to Reagan in a landslide. With the Freeze campaign's momentum blunted by these events, as well as by a rapid falloff in mass media attention after 1983, the movement declined and began to revise its approach and activities. In 1987, the Nuclear Freeze campaign merged with an allied group, the
National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy
Peace Action is a peace organization whose focus is on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, thwarting weapons sales to countries with human rights violations, and promoting a new United States foreign policy based on common sec ...
, to form a new peace and disarmament organization,
Peace Action
Peace Action is a peace organization whose focus is on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, thwarting weapons sales to countries with human rights violations, and promoting a new United States foreign policy based on common sec ...
.
In the years that followed, Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, signed the
INF Treaty
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, formally the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles; / ДРСМ ...
, and the
START I
START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 De ...
and
START II
START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yelts ...
Treaties. By the early 1990s, the United States and the Soviet Union had ceased the testing, and development and deployment of nuclear weapons. Moreover, they had substantially reduced their nuclear arsenals, and ended the Cold War.
Many consider the Freeze campaign to have largely "fizzled" and lost momentum after Reagan's reelection.
Others, such as
Arms Control Association
The Arms Control Association is a United States-based nonpartisan membership organization founded in 1971, with the self-stated mission of "promoting public understanding of and support for effective arms control policies."
The group publishes th ...
, consider the movement's influence to have been groundbreaking and long-lasting, playing an important role in curbing the nuclear arms race and preventing a nuclear war.
See also
*
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
*
Cold War (1979-1985)
*
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
*
Randall Forsberg
Dr. Randall Caroline Forsberg ( – ) led a lifetime of research and advocacy on ways to reduce the risk of war, minimize the burden of military spending, and promote democratic institutions. Her career started at the Stockholm International Peace ...
*
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucle ...
*
Peace Action
Peace Action is a peace organization whose focus is on preventing the deployment of nuclear weapons in space, thwarting weapons sales to countries with human rights violations, and promoting a new United States foreign policy based on common sec ...
*
Randy Kehler
Randy is a given name, popular in the United States and Canada. It is primarily a masculine name. It was originally derived from the names Randall, Randolf, Randolph, as well as Bertrand and Andrew, and may be a short form (hypocorism) of them ...
*
The Day After
''The Day After'' is an American television film that first aired on November 20, 1983 on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television network. More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the film durin ...
References
{{reflist
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
1980s in the United States
Political movements in the United States