By Iain Hollingshead (THE GUARDIAN, 18/03/06):
The 1983 Labour manifesto commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament was dubbed by Gerald Kaufman "the longest suicide note in history". By 2005, the pledge was rather different: Labour promised to retain a "minimum nuclear deterrent". This undertaking was back in the spotlight this week as the Commons defence committee opened its inquiry into renewing the Trident weapons system - expected to be obsolete by 2020. The prime minister has promised "the fullest debate" before any decision is taken. Meanwhile, it was reported on Sunday that British scientists are outstripping their US counterparts in developing new atomic warheads.
This is particularly unwelcome news to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which has experienced plenty of ups and downs in its history. Founded in 1958, at the height of cold war tension, it reached its zenith in the Thatcher years, when it was infiltrated by both MI5 and the East German Stasi. Membership peaked at 100,000. A demonstration in 1981 drew 250,000 people. Thousands of women camped outside Greenham Common, an airbase in Berkshire for US cruise missiles.
The end of the cold war took the wind out of CND's sails. Membership had sunk to 15,000 by the turn of the 20th century. Former members started recanting publicly. "Sentimentality rather than logic was the key weapon of our crusade," wrote one. "Looking back, it is blindingly obvious that we were the dupes of Moscow." In April 2004, a four-day march to the nuclear research facility in Aldermaston, Berkshire - an annual event that once attracted tens of thousands - could only garner a couple of hundred. The organisers ran into trouble with the police - over health and safety.
Somewhat surprisingly, the past couple of years have witnessed a renaissance for CND. "George Bush's interest in the National Missile Defence system ['son of Star Wars'] got people interested again," says CND chair Kate Hudson.
Opposition to the Iraq war has also helped. . In 2002 CND made headlines with a failed high court attempt to win a judicial review against the government. It has also continued to march alongside a Monty Python-esque smorgasbord of pressure groups - from the Muslim Association of Britain to Greenpeace - under the aegis of the Stop the War Coalition. "We're still very much an anti-nuclear campaign," says Hudson. "But we're also trying to link into other issues. We've always worked with a range of organisations."
One key challengenow is to reach a generation who know Greenham Common only as a place to go paintballing among abandoned barracks. CND certainly has powerful arguments concerning the ineffectiveness of a nuclear deterrent in an age of terrorism. Missiles that take several days' notice to fire are little use against suicide bombers. Even former Conservative defence minister Michael Portillo, who once famously misappropriated the SAS motto in a party conference speech, has written that the UK should scrap its remaining nuclear arsenal.
Ironically, then, it appears that CND's support was strongest when its arguments were weakest, and vice versa. The Doomsday clock - a quirky measurement of the world's proximity to Armageddon run by a scientific magazine - currently stands at seven minutes to midnight, the same as in both 1980 and 1947. "I reckon that's pretty accurate," says Hudson.
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