The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was a voluntary organization working to achieve the goal of Britain unilaterally abandoning its weapons nuclear power and nuclear alliances. ' They were particularly active during the 1980s, when they grew in popularity with the outbreak of the Cold War and fears of a nuclear attack increased significantly. This essay will address some of the Cold War pressures that directly impacted the CND and how this influenced its actions and success, including the attitude of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government towards the anti-nuclear campaign, the Freeze campaign and the events that took place place on Greenham Common. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay One of the main pressures that the CND faced during the Cold War was the reaction and lack of support from the press and political parties. At the end of World War II, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which had devastating effects. As a result, starting in the mid-1940s, tensions between Western countries such as the United States and Great Britain and Eastern countries, including the Soviet Union, increased due to fears of the spread of communism in the West. This eventually led to the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (known as NATO) which was made up of several powerful Western countries including Belgium, Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States, with the intention that if one of the countries were attacked by any state outside the organization, they would consider it an attack on NATO as a whole and would act together to defeat the opposition. Other countries such as West Germany joined the organization later in the 1950s. In response to this, the USSR entered into a virtually identical pact with Eastern countries, including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland, called the "Warsaw Pact". As a result, many countries began to fear an attack from either side, and Britain entered what became known as the "Cold War", where an arms race began to ensure that they would have enough nuclear weapons that they would have need to defend themselves. a potentially damaging third world war. Paul Byrne notes that "every government since 1945 has held firm to the view that Britain should maintain an independent nuclear deterrent", which shows that political leaders' concerns about a nuclear attack had continued for over four decades after World War II and feared that another war might be on the agenda. However, despite growing fears, many Britons were opposed to the British government's use and possession of nuclear weapons. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament had been active since the 1960s, however it was not until 1979 that the decision was made that the United States would begin moving Cruise missiles towards NATO member countries, including Great Britain, which the debate resurfaced with even more force. discussion as the use of weapons seemed increasingly likely. Byrne noted in his 1987 work that the CND had "resurrected from the late 1970s to its present position, when it has just under 100,000 paying members and has demonstrated the ability to mobilize well over a quarter of a million supporters for mass demonstrations." He also noted that "between 1982 and 1985 the number of members grew by almost 200%".popular and that the chances of success had increased. In the early 1980s, it seemed that the CND had no real opposition against them, apart from the conservative government which was evidently in favor of the use of weapons as it was part of NATO. However, even though the government's threat did not affect them, in the 1983 election there was a "watershed in British public opinion regarding unilateralism and existing defense policy" and studies have shown that at least 50% of people were in favor to the objectives of the CND. One of the main reasons why the CND was able to maintain such influence was due to the fact that many Labor MPs were supporters of the group and even though they were not in power during this period, they still had a strong following due to the ruthless policies and Margaret Thatcher's controversies. in all areas. Stewart states that "delegates to the 1982 Labor Party conference had pledged to commit Labor to unilateral nuclear disarmament" and while this aspect of their manifesto may not have been popular with all voters, it may have been responsible for the attraction more people towards the CND movement. Having realized the growing influence and popularity of the CND after the 1983 election, Thatcher appointed Michael Heseltine as the new defense secretary, probably a tactical decision in which she believed he would be able to control the growth of anti-nuclear protest and solve the problem . the debate so that he could advance his foreign policy plans. Heseltine was obviously unpopular with CND supporters, and although he tried to prevent the anti-nuclear message from spreading further than it already had, he was not particularly successful. He attempted to silence the campaign by visiting university halls while anti-nuclear protesters tried to stop him from addressing conservative students by pushing, throwing eggs, a brick and even on one occasion, swinging a child at his rapid movements. police support car.' This quote alone demonstrates how much activists disapproved of him and felt threatened by his position of authority. His actions also included attempts to publicize information about links between CND members and Marxist organizations, which could have been potentially extremely damaging to the movement due to Western fears of communism, and it could even be argued that public knowledge and even suspense This may have been one of the reasons why the organization achieved so little in political terms. He also arranged for MI5 to listen to phone calls on the phone of John Cox, who was the vice-president of CND. Although his actions were malicious and did not gain him popularity as such, he managed to try to bring down the popularity of the CND while trying to expose and humiliate them, which probably worked as they were never taken seriously enough by the government for them. that he decided against the use of nuclear weapons only because of their influence. The freeze campaign was another Cold War pressure that significantly affected CND. In 1983, the campaign to freeze nuclear weapons was proposed as a short-term solution to anti-nuclear protest, involving the halting of nuclear weapons production. However, as Cortright and Pagnucco point out, the CND did not endorse this solution as it had "worked hard within its own movement to build support for unilateralism", viewing the freeze proposal as a weakening of their position and a potential step backwards. A British freezing campaign emerged.