“For half a century, ACA has been providing the world … with advocacy, analysis, and awareness on some of the most critical topics of international peace and security, including on how to achieve our common, shared goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.”
The Nuclear Freeze and Its Impact
Thirty years ago, Randall Forsberg, a young defense and disarmament researcher, launched the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Designed to stop the drift toward nuclear war through a U.S.-Soviet agreement to stop the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons, the freeze campaign escalated into a mass movement that swept across the
In addition, the freeze concept secured the backing of most of the general public and was made part of the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign platform. By the early 1990s, despite fierce opposition from the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the freeze campaign, bolstered by the activities of nuclear disarmament groups at home and abroad, had succeeded in securing its objectives and in building a grassroots, long-term disarmament organization in the
Background
As a keen supporter of peace and nuclear disarmament, Forsberg had been giving talks to peace groups since 1975. Convinced that they needed greater unity of action and attainable goals, she suggested in mid-1979 that they coalesce behind two objectives: a nuclear freeze and a nonintervention regime. Both, she believed, would “fundamentally change the nature of government policies.” In December, when addressing the annual meeting of Mobilization for Survival, a major anti-nuclear organization of that era, she scrapped the nonintervention idea and focused instead on the nuclear freeze. Actually, Mobilization for Survival and the major groups backing it—the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Clergy and Laity Concerned (CALC), and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)—were already promoting a
Forsberg’s speech served as a catalyst for a new movement. Enthusiastic about her idea, peace group leaders urged her to draw up a formal proposal. In late December 1979, Forsberg began drafting the “Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race.” Circulated widely among leading peace activists, the “Call” emphasized that the freeze would retain the existing nuclear parity between the
The Movement Advances
Thereafter, the freeze campaign surged forward. To the dismay of movement leaders, enthusiasts jumped the gun by placing a freeze resolution on the November 1980 election ballot in western
For the most part, early movement efforts focused on popularizing the idea of the freeze on the local level. Activists distributed vast quantities of literature about the nuclear arms race and brought freeze resolutions before organizations with which they were affiliated, as well as before town meetings, city councils, and state legislatures. They gathered signatures on freeze petitions locally as part of a nationwide campaign and placed freeze referenda on the ballot in cities, counties, and states throughout the country. Although these activities were time consuming and labor intensive, they meshed nicely with the efforts of other groups, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility, to alert the public to the dangers of nuclear war. 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.
These efforts helped produce a widespread display of resistance by Americans to the nuclear arms race. In March 1982, 159 out of 180
Opinion surveys confirmed the vast popularity of the freeze campaign. Five polls taken during 1983 found an average of 72 percent support for and 20 percent opposition to the freeze—results that were virtually unchanged from six polls taken in 1982.[4] Writing in October 1983, Patrick Caddell, one of the nation’s leading political pollsters, called the freeze campaign “the most significant citizens’ movement of the last century…. In sheer numbers the freeze movement is awesome; there exists no comparable national cause or combination of causes, left or right, that can match…the legions that have been activated.”[5]
Organizational endorsements of the freeze provide yet another indication of the movement’s strength. With the exception of fundamentalist denominations, all major U.S. religious bodies expressed their support for the freeze, including 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.[6] Indeed, 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 University Women, the American Nurses Association, the American Pediatric Society, the American Public Health Association, Friends of the Earth, the National Council of La Raza, the National Education Association, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Young Women’s Christian Association. Although the labor movement had been rather hawkish during the Cold War, 25 national labor unions backed the freeze, as did the AFL-CIO.[7] 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.[8] In 1984 it became part of the Democratic Party’s presidential campaign platform.
Reagan Administration Reacts
From the standpoint of officials in the Reagan administration, who championed a vast nuclear buildup and talked glibly of fighting and winning a nuclear war, the rise of the nuclear freeze campaign was a disaster. As David Gergen, the White House communications director during those years, 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.”[9] Queried years later about the freeze campaign, Robert McFarlane, Reagan’s national security adviser, observed, “We took it as a serious movement that could undermine congressional support for the [nuclear] modernization program, and potentially…a serious partisan political threat that could affect the election in `84.”[10]In March 1982, after Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) announced that they would introduce a freeze resolution in Congress, administration officials sharply assailed the idea and met to plan what McFarlane called “a huge effort” to counter the freeze campaign. According to McFarlane, they organized an interdepartmental group that he chaired and that included representatives from the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the U.S. Information Agency. McFarlane told the members of the group that they and their deputies should fan out across the
That fall, as the freeze grew increasingly likely to emerge victorious at the polls and in Congress, Reagan grew increasingly strident. Addressing a gathering of veterans groups in early 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
Results
Superficially, the Reagan administration managed to hold the line against the freeze campaign and other critics of its nuclear policies. Although the administration failed in its diligent efforts to prevent passage of almost all the state and local freeze referenda in the fall of 1982 and to prevent passage of a freeze resolution in the House of Representatives in the spring of 1983, it did manage to defeat a similar resolution in the Senate, where Republicans had a majority. Furthermore, despite adoption of the freeze proposal by the Democrats in 1984, Reagan won re-election that year and then saw to it that a bilateral freeze with the
Nevertheless, the nuclear freeze campaign was considerably more successful than it appeared. Under enormous political pressure, the Reagan administration dramatically reversed its rhetoric. 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.” He added, on the first occasion that, “[t]o those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say: ‘I’m with you.’”[17] Increasingly rattled, Reagan, who had opposed every nuclear arms control and disarmament agreement negotiated by his Democratic and Republican predecessors, also began reversing his nuclear policies. In the fall of 1983, as anti-nuclear protests swept across the United States and Western Europe, he told his startled secretary of state, George Shultz, “If things get hotter and hotter and arms control remains an issue, maybe I should go see [Soviet leader Yuri] Andropov and propose eliminating all nuclear weapons.”[18] Although Shultz and other members of the administration were horrified by this turnabout, Reagan persisted with it and eagerly searched for a Soviet negotiating partner.
Starting in March 1985, he found one in Mikhail Gorbachev. With Gorbachev in power, the way was open for significant arms control and disarmament agreements. Gorbachev was not only a true believer in nuclear disarmament, but a movement convert. The Soviet leader’s “New Thinking,” as his advisers noted, was powerfully affected by the Western nuclear disarmament movement. Gorbachev himself declared, “The new thinking took into account and absorbed the conclusions and demands of…the public and the scientific community, of the movements of physicians, scientists, and ecologists, and of various antiwar organizations.”[19] Meeting frequently with leaders of the Western peace and disarmament movement, including leaders of the freeze campaign, Gorbachev followed their advice by agreeing to the removal of medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe, removing short-range nuclear missiles from
The result was an important victory for freeze activists and other anti-nuclear campaigners. Boxed in by the movement and Gorbachev, Reagan and his successor, George H.W. Bush, were drawn into the most substantial burst of nuclear arms control and disarmament ventures in history. By the early 1990s, the
The success of the freeze movement and its anti-nuclear counterparts of the era provides an important lesson for our own time. If substantial popular pressure can be stirred up by advocates of arms control and disarmament, government officials can be convinced to change their nuclear policies.
Lawrence S. Wittner is a professor of history emeritus at the State University of New York at
ENDNOTES
1. Randall Forsberg, interview with author,
2. Ibid.; Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC), “Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race,” 1980, Western Historical Manuscript Collection,
3. Voters approved the freeze referendum in
4. William Schneider, “Peace and Strength: American Public Opinion on National Security,” in The Public and Atlantic Defense, ed. Gregory Flynn and Hans Rattinger (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld, 1985), pp. 347-348.
5. Patrick H. Caddell, “The State of
6. L. Bruce van Voorst, “The Churches and Nuclear Deterrence,” Foreign Affairs, No. 61 (Spring 1983), pp. 827-852.
7. Gene Carroll to union leaders, letter, February 25, 1985, Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO; Harry Bernstein, “AFL-CIO Calls for Freeze on Nuclear Arms,” Los Angeles Times, October 5, 1983.
8. NWFC, “Citizens Lobby for a U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Weapons Freeze,” 1984, Western Historical Manuscript Collection,
9. Jeffrey W. Knopf, Domestic Society and International Cooperation: The Impact of Protest on
10. Robert McFarlane, interview with author,
12. Mary McGrory, “Reagan Spokesmen Attack on
13. “President Says Foes of
14. Leslie Maitland, “Sources Are Cited for Charge of Soviet Tie to Arms Freeze,” The New York Times, November 13, 1982.
15. Joanne Omang, “Reagan Again Says Soviet Union Influences Anti-Nuclear Groups,” The Washington Post, December 11, 1982; Leslie Maitland, “F.B.I. Rules Out Russian Control of Freeze Drive,” The New York Times, March 26, 1983.
16. Judith Miller, “President Says Freeze Proponents May Unwittingly Aid the Russians,” The New York Times, December 11, 1982.
17. Radio Address to the Nation on Nuclear Weapons, April 17, 1982, in Public Papers of the Presidents: Ronald Reagan: January 1 to July 2, 1982 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), pp. 487-488.
18. George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993), p. 372.
19. “The Gorbachev Interview,” The
20.