Tag: Lawrence Wittner

Looking Back on the Nuclear Freeze and Its Impact

by Oregon PeaceWorks • December 20, 2010 • 5 Comments

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER – In Oregon, the Nuclear Freeze movement was led by Citizen Action for Lasting Security, one of the organizations that later merged into Oregon PeaceWorks. As we end one year and begin a new one, it is encouraging to look back at historian Lawrence Wittnerâ€™s chronicle of that exciting movement. – Editor

Thirty years ago, Randall Forsberg, a young defense and disarmament researcher, launched the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. Designed to stop the drift toward nuclear war through a U.S.-Soviet agreement to stop the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons, the freeze campaign escalated into a mass movement that swept across the United States. It attracted the support of nearly all peace groups, as well as that of mainstream religious, professional, and labor organizations.

Public Mobilization Needed for a Nuclear-Free World

by Oregon PeaceWorks • October 11, 2010 • 2 Comments

LAWRENCE WITTNER — One of the ironies of the current international situation is that, although some government leaders now talk of building a nuclear weapons-free world, there has been limited public mobilization around that goal â€” at least compared to the action-packed 1980s.

BP’s Other Gifts to America â€” and the World

by Oregon PeaceWorks • June 27, 2010 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE WITTNER — The offshore oil drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico brought to us by BP has overshadowed its central role over the past century in fostering some other disastrous events.

Can We Live With the Bomb?

by Oregon PeaceWorks • June 9, 2010 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE WITTNER — For some time now, it has been clear that nuclear weapons threaten the existence not only of humanity, but of all life on Earth. Thus, Barack Obama’s pledge to work for a nuclear weapons-free worldâ€”made during his 2008 presidential campaign and subsequently in public statementsâ€”has resonated nicely with supporters of nuclear disarmament and with the general public.

Answering Rand Paul on Civil Rights

by Oregon PeaceWorks • May 28, 2010 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER — Rand Paul’s criticism of the federal civil rights legislation of the 1960s can be better evaluated by looking at the workings of similar legislation that appeared on the state level two decades before.

Lying About Nuclear Weapons

by Oregon PeaceWorks • April 26, 2010 • 0 Comments

One of the most popular muckraking American journalists of the late twentieth century, I.F. Stone, once remarked: “All governments lie.” Even a prominent government official — Andrei Gromyko, the veteran Soviet diplomat — once admitted, in a weak moment: “Governments are never sincere.” This gloomy assessment appears all too true when it comes to national security policy, and particularly so with respect to nuclear weapons.

Is START Really a Beginning?

by Oregon PeaceWorks • April 20, 2010 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE WITTNER: Does the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), signed by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Prague on April 8, really provide a beginning toward a nuclear-free world? That’s what Obama implied in a statement two weeks earlier. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he described the treaty as an historic step toward “a world without nuclear weapons.”

Preserving the Golden Rule as a Piece of Anti-Nuclear History

by Oregon PeaceWorks • March 31, 2010 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER: The Golden Rule is in danger. No, not the famed ethical code — though proponents of selfishness certainly have ignored it — but a thirty-foot sailing ship of the same name that rose to prominence about half a century ago.

In War, Winners Can Be Losers

by Oregon PeaceWorks • January 22, 2010 • 1 Comment

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER: Thus far, most of the supporters and opponents of escalating the U.S. war in Afghanistan have focused on whether or not it is possible to secure a military victory in that conflict. But they neglect to consider that, in war, even a winner can be a loser.

Another Nobel Controversy

by Contributor • November 1, 2009 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE S WITTNER: The swirling controversy over President Barack Obamaâ€™s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize brings to mind another controversy that began in October 1985, when the Norwegian committee announced that that yearâ€™s prize would go to International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

What Has Prevented Nuclear War?

by Contributor • September 1, 2009 • 0 Comments

LAWRENCE S. WITTNER: One of the great questions of the modern world is: Why has nuclear war not occurred since 1945?

Confronting the Bomb Now Available

by Contributor • July 1, 2009 • 0 Comments

A new book, Confronting the Bomb — A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement by frequent PeaceWorker contributor Dr. Lawrence S. Wittner is now available from Stanford University Press as part of its Stanford Nuclear Age series.

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