disarmament, nuclear: Public Pressure

Some of the scientists who helped make the bomb started the Union of Concerned Scientists, and since then many public groups have formed to campaign for disarmament, including the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Great Britain, SANE and the Nuclear Freeze in the United States, and the worldwide Physicians for Social Responsibility. In addition, many local antiwar, ecological, and women's groups have focused on nuclear issues. Disarmament advocates have used political campaigns, mass rallies, blockades of facilities where weapons are manufactured or stored, and even attacks on nuclear weapons themselves, called “ploughshare actions.” Disarmament groups have long opposed nuclear testing, beginning with the protests leading up to the Moscow Agreement of 1963, a partial test ban. More recently, the international ecological group Greenpeace tried to disrupt French nuclear testing in the Pacific, and there were coordinated protest campaigns against testing in Kazakhstan and in Nevada.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• International Agreements
• Public Pressure
• Bibliography

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