Nuclear freeze movement: 1985 ca.
This unidentified photograph tagged Washington, D.C. is probably the an antiwar march by the April 20 Coalition that drew about 25,000 people to march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House in a demonstration against intervention in Nicaragua and for a freeze on nuclear weapons in 1985.
The march was timed for 10-year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson knelt in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and offered a prayer for the "oppressed" of Central America, the hungry in the United States and peace from "Bitburg to Johannesburg." Bitburg is the site of a World War II German military cemetery that U.S. Reagan was scheduled to visit the following month.
The nuclear freeze campaign exploded in the early 1980s with towns, cities and even states across the country passing resolutions supporting a freeze on the production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cold War rhetoric espoused by U.S. President Ronald Reagan raised fears of a global conflict to heights not seen since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The movement swept Europe as well and a 1983 demonstration in New York City drew over 750,000 people.
In a public relations campaign that may ring familiar to contemporary observers of the presidency, U.S. President Ronald Reagan denounced the protests as “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.”
He told a press conference that “foreign agents” had helped “instigate” the freeze campaign. There was “plenty of evidence” for this, the president declared, although he did not produce any.
Challenged on his allegations, Reagan said that he had leaned heavily for his freeze information on two Reader’s Digest articles and cited a report by the House Intelligence Committee.
However, the committee chairman, Representative Edward Boland (D-Mass.), 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 confirmed when a declassified version of the FBI report was released in March 1983.
Reagan stubbornly continued to insist that “the originating organization” for the freeze was the Communist-dominated World Peace Council and that the first person to propose it was Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Nevertheless, the momentum built.
Meeting frequently with leaders of the Western peace and disarmament movement, including leaders of the freeze campaign, new Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev followed their advice by agreeing to the removal of medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe, removing short-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe, negotiating major reductions in strategic weapons, and unilaterally halting Soviet nuclear testing.
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 United States and the Soviet Union had ceased the testing, development, and deployment of nuclear weapons and had reduced their nuclear arsenals.
[Background partially excerpted from “The Nuclear Freeze and its Impact,” by Lawrence. S. Witner.]
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsjDjYsZp
The photographer is unknown. The original source is unknown. The image was obtained via an Internet auction.
Nuclear freeze movement: 1985 ca.
This unidentified photograph tagged Washington, D.C. is probably the an antiwar march by the April 20 Coalition that drew about 25,000 people to march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House in a demonstration against intervention in Nicaragua and for a freeze on nuclear weapons in 1985.
The march was timed for 10-year anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson knelt in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and offered a prayer for the "oppressed" of Central America, the hungry in the United States and peace from "Bitburg to Johannesburg." Bitburg is the site of a World War II German military cemetery that U.S. Reagan was scheduled to visit the following month.
The nuclear freeze campaign exploded in the early 1980s with towns, cities and even states across the country passing resolutions supporting a freeze on the production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cold War rhetoric espoused by U.S. President Ronald Reagan raised fears of a global conflict to heights not seen since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The movement swept Europe as well and a 1983 demonstration in New York City drew over 750,000 people.
In a public relations campaign that may ring familiar to contemporary observers of the presidency, U.S. President Ronald Reagan denounced the protests as “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.”
He told a press conference that “foreign agents” had helped “instigate” the freeze campaign. There was “plenty of evidence” for this, the president declared, although he did not produce any.
Challenged on his allegations, Reagan said that he had leaned heavily for his freeze information on two Reader’s Digest articles and cited a report by the House Intelligence Committee.
However, the committee chairman, Representative Edward Boland (D-Mass.), 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 confirmed when a declassified version of the FBI report was released in March 1983.
Reagan stubbornly continued to insist that “the originating organization” for the freeze was the Communist-dominated World Peace Council and that the first person to propose it was Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.
Nevertheless, the momentum built.
Meeting frequently with leaders of the Western peace and disarmament movement, including leaders of the freeze campaign, new Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev followed their advice by agreeing to the removal of medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe, removing short-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe, negotiating major reductions in strategic weapons, and unilaterally halting Soviet nuclear testing.
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 United States and the Soviet Union had ceased the testing, development, and deployment of nuclear weapons and had reduced their nuclear arsenals.
[Background partially excerpted from “The Nuclear Freeze and its Impact,” by Lawrence. S. Witner.]
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHsjDjYsZp
The photographer is unknown. The original source is unknown. The image was obtained via an Internet auction.