The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

The movement

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Category.	Statistic.
Operated in.	The UK and Ireland.
Founder(s).	Canon John Collins.
Founded in.	1957.
Disbanded in.	Still active.
Political alignment.	Officially pro-peace and anti-Nuclear weopns/power and anti-WMD. Generally seen as a left wing organisation. Unofficially Scottish nationalism and the GDR's brand of communism were circulating in some sections.
Activity.	Officially anti-nuclear weapons/power (later WMD and war in general). Unofficially parts also campaigned on Scots nationalist issues, Biafra War, the Vietnam war and housing in the UK.
On-line Link.	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament.

History

Greenham Common peace camp followers Embracing the base, event at Greenham Common AFB on December 1982.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was founded in 1957 by Canon John Collins  as a peace organisation that advocates avoiding nuclear war by the unilateral nuclear disarmament of the United Kingdom, eventual international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation along with restrictions on weapons testing through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is also opposed to any military action that may result in the use of any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and the building of nuclear power stations in the UK. 

People hated living with the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD) which had become de jure since the Cuban Missile Crisis and de facto since the early 1970s.

CND organised the Aldermaston March which went from the Atomic Weapons Establishment near Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square in London every Easter weekend Between 1959 and 1965.

Committee of 100 was a short lived and riotous splinter group that they disowned after it went off on to topics including the Biafra War, the Vietnam War and housing in the UK. Support for CND dwindled after the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, but rose in the 1980s as the Cold War began to revive.

The Soviet deployment of the technically superior SS-20 missile from 1975 caused major concern in the NATO alliance.

America chose to deploy in Europe from 1983 up to 464 USAF Gryphon Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCMs) that were based on the US Navy BGM-109 Tomahawk Cruise Missile, as well as 108 US Army Pershing II ballistic missiles. Some Submarine Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM) and Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) were also deployed. RAF Molesworth and Greenham Air Base were the recipients of the non-submarine launched missiles.

The Embracing the base event was held at Greenham Common December 1982, near to Greenham, West Berkshire, Great Britain.

At noon on December 12th 1982, 30,000 women held hands around the 6 mile perimeter fence of the former USAF base, in protest against the UK government's decision to site American cruise missiles here. The installation went ahead but so did the protest - for 19 years women maintained their presence at the Greenham Common peace camp.

Naturally, the people of places like Newbury, which was near the Greenham Air Base were terrified and knew under any scenario, they were to end up piles of radioactive ash. This only helped prove CND's case for banning the bomb. RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Molesworth and Greenham Air Base all had peace caps outside them.

In 1990, it was discovered in the archive of the Stasi secret Police that a member of CND's governing council,Vic Allen had passed information to them about CND over his tenure on the council and was considered a "agent of influence" by the Stasi. Some hard-liners from the growing Scottish National Party (the SNP) had also penetrated parts of the Scottish branch in the late 1970s-early 1980s and were trying to portray the nukes as evil because they were owned by UK, which was largely run by English people, rather than just because they were WMD.

Many Labour MPs and councilors, along with a few Conservatives and Liberals, supported CND's ideals and joined in their rallies and marches.

Author's note

I was 10 back then and did not like scaremongering Americans occupying our nation under apparently false pretences in the 1950s, but neither did I like the 1980s anti-establishment rabble who did not understand that we needed to see off the Soviets now relations had broken down. If only we had Glasnost after the Berlin air-lift, not mutually assured bloody mindedness!...

Also see

1. RAF Molesworth
2. RAF Upper Heyford
3. Greenham Air Base
4. Nuclear fallout
5. Atomic accidents and disasters
6. Atomic\nuclear power stations
7. Mushroom cloud
8. Atomic arsenals
9. Bomb blast effects
10. Atomic\nuclear war
11. Atomic accidents and disasters
12. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
13. Atomic War
14. Atomic warfare information notes.
15. A nuclear\atomic holocaust or nuclear apocalypse
16. Nukes
17. Explosive blast\yield
18. Atomic arsenals
19. Bomb blast effects
20. Atomic\nuclear war
21. Atomic accidents and disasters
22. Atomic\nuclear power stations
23. Geiger-Muller counter
24. "Poland is 'toast'!"
25. Nuclear fallout
26. Atomic videos
27. A surprise nuclear attack
28. A nuclear\atomic holocaust or nuclear apocalypse
29. Directory of all Indochinese wars in the Cold War
30. "London's Burning" (the political epithet, not the UK TV show)

Online links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament
• http://www.cnduk.org/
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/451366.stm
• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scargills-ally-was-stasi-agent-1120306.html
• http://www.greenham.greatnow.com/