70 Year Magazine Archive

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In 1981 the international disarmament movement came out swinging, and much, much more is in store for ’82. European disarmers were stunned last week when NATO Secretary General Joseph Luns charged that the extensive peace movement in Western Europe was Soviet-funded. Monsignor Bruce Kent, head of newly resurgent Committee for Nuclear Disarmament, replied: “[Luns’s] charge is crude and dishonest in the extreme.” . . . That point of view persists despite recent Dutch expulsion of Vadim Leonov, the TASS correspondent in The Hague, for involvement in peace demonstrations. According to Robert Moss (The Spike, Death Beam), Leonov told a friend shortly before his departure that he could bring fifty thousand people into the streets of Holland any time he chose. . . . James Tyson, in his book on Soviet disinformation, Target America, estimates the Soviets spend $3 billion a year on propaganda directed at foreign countries. . . . Hans Apel, West Germany’s Defense Minister, says the anti-nuclear movement in his country is “organized and manipulated” by the Soviets. . . . And the campaign is having devastating effects. The Communist Daily World reports only 45 per cent of the British people think Britain should respond with nuclear or nonnuclear weapons “if Russia launched a nuclear attack on Western Europe.” Another poll shows 53 per cent of the British want U.S. bases removed from the country. . . . Meanwhile in Tokyo, Olof Palme and his Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security met for three days in late November to map out coordinated international program of disarmament activities in ’82, and in New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine—Bishop Paul Moore presiding—the cats were at it. Josephine Richardson, a British Labor MP, accused the U.S. of “saber-rattling.” And John Collins of Clergy and Laity Concerned outlined plans for a fortycity tour of the U.S. next spring featuring an assortment of international unilateralists. . . The Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze is new umbrella organization for U.S. peaceniks.

Jon, London Daily Mail Rothco

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