Tra pacifismo e ambientalismo: il Nuclear Freeze Movement e la risposta dell'amministrazione Reagan

Negli anni Ottanta si assiste tanto nel vecchio quanto nel nuovo continente alla rinascita del movimento antinucleare. Mentre in Europa l’origine di questa ondata di proteste antinucleari è collegata alla “doppia decisione” NATO del 1979, negli Stati Uniti la genesi si colloca nel contesto dalla mobilitazione dei gruppi ambientalisti in seguito all’incidente alla centrale nucleare di Three Mile Island. Dopo l’elezione di Ronald Reagan, alle proteste contro le applicazioni pacifiche dell’atomo si affiancarono quelle contro la politica nucleare del Paese. La retorica di Reagan, il massiccio piano di riarmo, unitamente al rinnovato deteriorarsi delle relazioni tra USA e URSS contribuirono a diffondere nell’opinione pubblica la sensazione che l’amministrazione Reagan, almeno da un punto di vista teorico, non avesse escluso dalle sue opzioni il ricorso alle armi nucleari nel caso di un confronto con l’URSS. I timori legati a questa percezione produssero una nuova ondata di proteste che assunsero dimensioni di massa grazie alla mobilitazione provocata dalla Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (NWFC). Il target della NWFC era l’ampio programma di riarmo nucleare sostenuto da Reagan, che secondo gli attivisti nucleari, in un quadro di crescenti tensioni internazionali, avrebbe fatto aumentare le possibilità di uno scontro atomico. Per evitare lo scenario dell’olocausto nucleare, la NWFC proponeva «un congelamento bilaterale e verificabile del collaudo, dell’installazione e della produzione di armi nucleari». L’idea del nuclear freeze, che era concepito come un passo per fermare la spirale del riarmo e tentare successivamente di negoziare riduzioni negli arsenali delle due superpotenze, riscosse un tale consenso nell’opinione pubblica americana da indurre l’amministrazione Reagan a formulare una risposta specifica. Durante la primavera del 1982 fu, infatti, creato un gruppo interdipartimentale ad hoc, l’Arms Control Information Policy Group, con il compito di arginare l’influenza della NWFC sull’opinione pubblica americana e formulare una risposta coerente alle critiche del movimento antinucleare.

La Pace Calda. La nascita del movimento antinucleare negli Stati Uniti e in Gran Bretagna, 1957-1963

The aim of this proposal is to offer an alternative perspective on the study of Cold War, since insufficient attention is usually paid to those organizations that mobilized against the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons. The antinuclear movement began to mobilize between the 1950s and the 1960s, when it finally gained the attention of public opinion, and helped to build a sort of global conscience about nuclear bombs. This was due to the activism of a significant part of the international scientific community, which offered powerful intellectual and political legitimization to the struggle, and to the combined actions of the scientific and organized protests. This antinuclear conscience is something we usually tend to consider as a fait accompli in contemporary world, but the question is to show its roots, and the way it influenced statesmen and political choices during the period of nuclear confrontation of the early Cold War. To understand what this conscience could be and how it should be defined, we have to look at the very meaning of the nuclear weapons that has deeply modified the sense of war. Nuclear weapons seemed to be able to destroy human beings everywhere with no realistic forms of control of the damages they could set off, and they represented the last resource in the wide range of means of mass destruction. Even if we tend to consider this idea fully rational and incontrovertible, it was not immediately born with the birth of nuclear weapons themselves. Or, better, not everyone in the world did immediately share it. Due to the particular climate of Cold War confrontation, deeply influenced by the persistence of realistic paradigms in international relations, British and U.S. governments looked at nuclear weapons simply as «a bullet». From the Trinity Test to the signature of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, many things happened that helped to shift this view upon nuclear weapons. First of all, more than ten years of scientific protests provided a more concerned knowledge about consequences of nuclear tests and about the use of nuclear weapons. Many scientists devoted their social activities to inform public opinion and policy-makers about the real significance of the power of the atom and the related danger for human beings. Secondly, some public figures, as physicists, philosophers, biologists, chemists, and so on, appealed directly to the human community to «leave the folly and face reality», publicly sponsoring the antinuclear conscience. Then, several organizations leaded by political, religious or radical individuals gave to this protests a formal structure. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Great Britain, as well as the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy in the U.S., represented the voice of the masses against the attempts of governments to present nuclear arsenals as a fundamental part of the international equilibrium. Therefore, the antinuclear conscience could be defined as an opposite feeling to the development and the use of nuclear weapons, able to create a political issue oriented to the influence of military and foreign policies. Only taking into consideration the strength of this pressure, it seems possible to understand not only the beginning of nuclear negotiations, but also the reasons that permitted Cold War to remain cold.

Break-ins at the Electric Boat Shipyard, Groton, Conn. : report of the Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session.

"December 1982."

Man and boy with Queensland Peace Committee banner during Aldermaston Peace march in 1964

Man and boy with Queensland Peace Committee banner during Aldermaston Peace march, Sunday, April 5th 1964. The Aldermaston march covered the distance between Ipswich and Brisbane, Australia, walked in relays covering approximately two miles each. Most relay sections were sponsored by one or more individual organisations.

Two men with placards during Aldermaston Peace march in 1964

Two men with placards during Aldermaston Peace march, Sunday, April 5th 1964. The Aldermaston march covered the distance between Ipswich and Brisbane, Australia, walked in relays covering approximately two miles each. Most relay sections were sponsored by one or more individual organisations.

Two men from the Bulimba Peace Group with placards during Aldermaston Peace march in 1964

Two men from the Bulimba Peace Group with placards during Aldermaston Peace march, Sunday, April 5th 1964. The Aldermaston march covered the distance between Ipswich and Brisbane, Australia, walked in relays covering approximately two miles each. Most relay sections were sponsored by one or more individual organisations.

Women from the Union of Australian Women with banner during Aldermaston Peace march in 1964

Women from the Union of Australian Women with banner during Aldermaston Peace march, Sunday, April 5th 1964. The Aldermaston march covered the distance between Ipswich and Brisbane, Australia, walked in relays covering approximately two miles each. Most relay sections were sponsored by one or more individual organisations. The Union of Australian Women is a national organisation that was formed in 1950. Its aim is to work for the status and wellbeing of women across the world. It has been involved in a wide variety of campaigns that concern women. The Union of Australian Women networks with other women's community and union groups on such issues.

Participants with peace banners during Aldermaston Peace march in 1964

Participants with peace banners during Aldermaston Peace march, Sunday, April 5th 1964. The Aldermaston march covered the distance between Ipswich and Brisbane, Australia, walked in relays covering approximately two miles each. Most relay sections were sponsored by one or more individual organisations.

Anti-nuclear demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Anti-nuclear demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

A woman is arrested at an anti-draft and anti-nuclear demonstration on Wall street

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Anti-Nuclear demonstration on Wall street

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Pro-abortion demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Anti-nuclear demonstration on Wall street

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.

Anti-nuclear demonstration

General note: Title and date provided by Bettye Lane.