The Nuclear Freeze Movement

Despite his tough talk and military buildup, Reagan was not immune to public pressure. Rising protests against nuclear weapons in the United States and Europe in the early 1980s revealed a public increasingly anxious about the possibility of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. At the end of the Carter administration, the United States had promised NATO that it would station new missiles in England, Italy, West Germany, and Belgium. Coupled with his confrontational stance against the Soviet Union, Reagan’s decision to implement this policy sparked enormous protest. The campaign for nuclear disarmament included men and women, but women played a particularly strong leadership role in opposing nuclear proliferation. In 1981 peace activists set up camp at Greenham Common in England outside of one of the military bases prepared to house the arriving missiles. With twenty such camps in England, the disarmament forces organized nonviolent protests, including marches and sit-ins. The peace camp at Greenham Common became the model for the Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice at Seneca Falls, where Barbara Deming and other activists staged demonstrations. Protesters engaged in various forms of nonviolent expression, including singing, dancing, and performing skits to affirm women’s solidarity for peace. As the participation of Deming as well as those at Greenham Common showed, women came together not only to promote disarmament but also to empower themselves and create communities based on mutual respect, trust, equality, and nonviolence.

These activities were part of a larger nuclear freeze movement that began in 1980. Its proponents called for a “mutual freeze on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons and of missiles and aircraft designed primarily to deliver nuclear weapons.” Grassroots activists also held town meetings throughout the United States to mobilize ordinary citizens to speak out against nuclear proliferation. In 1982 some 750,000 people rallied in New York City’s Central Park, the largest demonstration of its kind, to support a nuclear freeze resolution presented at the United Nations. Despite opposition from the United States and its NATO allies, measures favoring the freeze easily passed in the UN General Assembly. In the 1982 elections, peace groups placed nonbinding, nuclear freeze referenda on local ballots, which passed with wide majorities. The nuclear freeze movement’s momentum carried over to Congress, where the House of Representatives narrowly rejected an “immediate freeze” by only two votes. Catholic bishops in the United States sent a pastoral letter to their parishioners condemning the spread of nuclear armaments. Even hard-line anti-Communists like Republican senator and former presidential candidate Barry Goldwater of Arizona joined the critics. “I’m not one of those freeze-the-nukes nuts,” he explained in opposing new missile production, “but I think we have enough.”

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Women’s Peace Encampment Vigil On October 24, 1983, protesters from the Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice held a candlelight vigil outside the Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, New York. Originally organized by feminist women, the protests also drew men. Together they campaigned to shut down the base, which was used as a munitions storage and disposal facility. In 1995 the military closed the depot. AP Photo

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See Documents 28.2 and 28.3 to read about two nuclear freeze efforts.

Demonstrations in the United States and in Europe influenced Reagan. According to a 1982 public opinion poll, 57 percent of Americans favored an immediate nuclear freeze. Reflecting this sentiment, a 1983 television drama, The Day After, graphically portrayed the devastating horror of a nuclear attack on America. Reagan acknowledged that he was more inclined to reconsider deploying missiles abroad because European leaders felt pressure from protesters in their home countries. Ironically, the president credited Europeans’ sentiments on the matter while claiming to ignore widespread efforts of domestic opponents such as Barbara Deming. However, the freeze movement inside and outside the United States created a favorable climate in which the president and Soviet leaders could negotiate a genuine plan for nuclear disarmament by the end of the decade.