MR. THOMPSON, I'M GOING TO START WITH A VERY GENERAL QUESTION. PUBLIC DEBATE ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS ISSUES SEEMS TO HAVE GONE IN CYCLES, OBVIOUSLY RELATED TO DEPLOYMENTS. WHY WAS THERE SO LITTLE DISCUSSION OF NUCLEAR ISSUES IN THE EARLY 1970s?

Well, I think it was in, the sense of the opposition, or the peace movement, was preoccupied with the Vietnam War, and although there were one or two sabre-rattlings, nuclear sabre-rattlings at the time, it was overwhelmingly a conventional war and the diplomatic, political and humanitarian issues were dominant. I think that detracted—and I think there was also a lot of ignorance, a lot of inattention, I mean, I just think that there was a learning process to start in 1980, from scratch again, that all of us were eyes goggling, were reading up on all the stuff we hadn't read for the previous fifteen years.

AND IN YOUR CASE IT WAS READING THE GOVERNMENT THING ON CIVIL DEFENSE WHICH GOT YOU GOING – IS THAT RIGHT? - IN A LETTER FROM MICHAEL HOWARD. WHAT PRECIPITATED, WHAT GOT YOU INVOLVED?

I was I was writing and studying, observing the growth of what I regard as the security state, the very heavy tread, in the late 1970s, the attacks on the jury system, the heavier policing and so on. And I was writing a series of articles about this at the time and then, suddenly, I turned on television one day in, I think, about October '79, and there was this defense correspondent explaining we were going to have all these cruise missiles. It all seemed to fit in to the rising profile of a militarist and security state and also one that was dominated by the United States military bureaucracy. And at that time, I decided "No, not if I can do anything about this." And a lot of discussions took place and this resulted in a European-wide appeal, with some Americans also signing it, known as the END Appeal, which—we didn't finally get out 'til about March, 1980, but we were preparing it in the previous few months.

WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE RAPID GROWTH OF THE PEACE MOVEMENT BETWEEN '79 AND '81?

Very encouraged. It was I was confident that this would happen. I was confident that, for some reason, I just felt it in my bones, that certainly in Britain, the old CND constituency would respond and other constituencies would respond, churches, labor movement, trade unions. What we were uncertain about was how far we could build an international response. The development of the American freeze movement was terribly encouraging, and of course, very sad when it began to fall away again, and the one time we couldn't see anything happening—the Dutch were there already, and the Scandinavians were there already—but for a long time we couldn't see anything happening in West Germany, in fact we went over (I can tell you, if you want to know who), but we went over had a little conference in Frankfurt, in March, 1980, and about eight small different German groups, including some from the Greens, came to this conference. And maybe this helped them to begin to prime and put together, but you didn't really see the presence of the German movement until one of the great Protestant church days, in June, and then the first huge demonstration in October 1981 when its presence was really felt.

COULD YOU GIVE US AN IDEA ABOUT HOW THE PEACE MOVEMENT WORKED, WHAT KIND OF POLITICAL MOVEMENT WAS IT? HOW DID IT ACTUALLY OPERATE?

Well it was a, it was, it was extraordinary. We were putting together what eventually broke through into the media on a pre-modern level. We were using the pamphlet, letters to the papers, the church-hall, the even the open-air meeting, the—sort of 19th century type methods to break through into the modernized media. It was difficult to break through, but in fact, the response at first, was very good indeed. And it was extraordinary disorganized, self-organized movement. The initiatives of people in localities was what was most impressive. I mean, reading it back, people say, well CND grew. Actually, that isn't what happened. CND was there, but it was very small. This new appeal came — END — and several people, particularly Bruce Kent and I, were being asked from Newcastle or Bristol or Birmingham or Manchester to go and do meetings and huge numbers turned up at these meetings, as huge numbers turned up after the— out of the ground—ah, in 1980. And they normally, actually did not form then END or CND branches; they formed local organizations against the nuclear arms race, which then later began to knit together and affiliate to CND or whatever.

YOU'VE SAID THAT YOU HAD TO PUT IN A BIT OF TIME RE-READING SOME OF YOUR PIECES. I AM STRUCK BY YOUR FAMILIARITY WITH THE AUGUR. WHAT REACTION, DID YOU HAVE AS YOU READ THE LITERATURE OF NUCLEAR DOCTRINE, AS YOU PENETRATED THIS SORT OF STRANGE WORLD of MEDIEVALOLOGY?

Yes—err, wel—yes, I think it is it is metaphysics it is much of it is mystifying or self-mystifying, I mean what are called the Defense Community are no doubt really expert and very honorable people—some of them are- but they are engaged in an amazing exercise in self-mystification. I think the deterrence theory itself is a non-theory and I've argued this at various places. I think it's actually an accelerator of the arms race rather than a control. We did have the advantage that although a lot of us if you like, a lot of us amateurs were having to catch up or learn from start, there had been the development of the peace research community in the previous ten or fifteen years, and some members of the peace research community, like Mary Kaldor-Van Smith in this country, were able to put us immediately in touch with the literature and y'know, and we started with Alvah Nobel and we read on more widely from this, and at the same time, this very fruitful relationship with the Americans, was consolidating itself, where you had this fine tradition of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, of the arms controllers, the liberal arms controllers, the sci—the nuclear scientists themselves, err, opening out and critici-in fact, if it hadn't been for the integrity of the American community of scientists and arms controllers, the world would not know what the situation was at all. You would never have known through Britain British Secrets Act would have simply excluded all knowledge by citizens of what was happening.

THE WRITINGS ARE IMPRESSIVE IN THEIR GRASP OF DETAIL, BUT THERE'S ONE POINT I THINK I SHOULD PICK UP... I THINK THAT THE PEACE MOVEMENT, AND YOU AS WELL, CHARACTERIZE CRUISE AND PERSHING AS KIND OF WAR FIGHTING WEAPONS. WHEREAS THE NATO PLANNERS ALL SAY THE WHOLE POINT OF THESE THINGS IS THAT THEY WERE ESCALATORY DETERRENT WEAPONS. IN OTHER WORDS, THERE WAS A TENDENCY TO LINK THE WAR-FIGHTING RHETORIC, THE STATEMENT, THE STATEMENTS OF THE WAR FIGHTING RHETORIC BY THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION WITH THE FACT THAT WEAPONS WERE BEING DEPLOYED IN EUROPE. IN RETROSPECT, DO YOU THINK THEY NECESSARILY WERE LINKED? AND DID THE PEACE MOVEMENT, PERHAPS WAS THE PEACE MOVEMENT UNFAIR TO THE AMERICANS IN THAT WAY?

Yes, of course, a weapon, there's a lot of pathetic fallacy here, as if, as if sort of weapons were actors, a weapon is the motive is not in the weapon; the motive is in the military or politicians who command that weapon, so you're really asking a question about that area. So it's a question which is political, rather than—or, I would say, was, as far as the military terminology goes, I was and remain, on this issue unhappy with the, with categories of intermediate forces and strategic and so on, because as far as I could see, in terms of Soviet perception, Pershing particularly, but Pershing and Cruise, were forward-based strategic missiles, that had parking lots in West Europe, which meant that they could reach forward fast, whereas of course, the apart from Cuba which they can't use, and know they can't use, the Soviet Union has no forward parking lots in mid-Atlantic. So in that sense, I thought there was a certain dishonesty about it. I think I think the peace movement did at one stage in the heat of the moment, say less than it ought to have done about the SS-20s. Although you will say, you will find that in different countries it said a lot about them. That's another question, sorry.

YOU SEE THE AMERICANS TEND TO SAY, LOOK WE ONLY PUT THESE THINGS IN NOW BECAUSE WE WERE TRYING TO SATISFY THE EUROPEANS LIKE SCHMIDT. BECAUSE TRADITIONALLY, WHAT THE AMERICANS DO WHEN THE EUROPEANS FEEL UNHAPPY, THEY GIVE THEM NUCLEAR WEAPONS LIKE MCNAMARA DID IN THE SIXTIES. AND THEN ALL THESE EUROPEANS TURN AROUND AND SAY TO US, YOU'RE WARMONGERING PEOPLE ARE GOING TO FIGHT LIMITED NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE.

Yes. Because I have a different perception of that because I was in the United States teaching during President Reagan's re-election campaign. And I remember the tremendous amount of coverage from people like Richard Burt in the New York Times. I think Perle was sometimes writing in the New York Times, and so, in support of Reagan. Which prev-, presenting a, an extremely impassioned case for what I would call aggressive nuclear armament. And, you know, one of Perle's phrases, a richer menu of options. And so, this extraordinary language, in which you had all kinds of games, plans and hypotheses, all of which involved parking new nuclear weapons in West Europe, which also threatened the sovereignty of the European nations. This, this was the way it seemed to connect in my mind.

UM, CAN I TAKE YOU BACK NOW TO, UM, OCTOBER, 1981. WOULD IT BE FAIR TO SAY THAT WAS THE, SORT OF HEIGHT, IN RETROSPECT, THAT WAS THE HIGH POINT OF THIS PERIOD OF CAMPAIGNING?

Yes, I think so, because it was, in October,'81, the German, amazing presence of what I would regard as a new German generation showed itself. I mean, I was there. And my wife and I managed to get media colleagues to in part of a program, give us a ticket to bo-, to Bonn so we saw this. And, absolutely extraordinary. It was the majority of these were under 26. It was just, the art of the, land of Germany, a new generation had come who were a peace generation. It was very impressive. And they were very good humored and they were full of laughter. No agro- , it, I'd love to tell you a story about that too, it was a Heinrich Boll's speech, but, that's another question.

WELL, TELL US THE STORY ABOUT HEINRICH BOLL'S SPEECH --

Well, well, Heinrich Boll was one of the speakers

[INTERRUPTION]

Heinrich Boll was on the platform, speaking and there had been lots of stuff in the press about how there were groups, anarchistic or others, who would like to cause some riot. And he said If any of you have come here with stones in your pocket, please leave them on the ground. The windows of Bonn are innocent. And you may if you wish come to the platform and give them to us. And there was this, a-, amazing sort of sense that the tension was relaxing as Boll spoke to them. Well, at the same time there was, at last, the immobility of the Italians was broken, and you had something like a million who demonstrated in Rome. And the Spaniards also. So I think that was it. That was the, high peak in October, yeah.

OKAY, NOW, JUST TO MOVE ON, THE PEACE MOVEMENT HAD ACHIEVED THIS SORT OF EUROPE-WIDE MOVEMENT, BUT IN TERMS OF THE MAJOR OBJECTIVE WHICH IT HAD SET ITSELF, WHICH WAS TO STOP DEPLOYMENT IN 1983, IT WAS DEFEATED. WHY?

That's very complex and we may not know the answer until we're all dead, and the archives are looked at. I would, I would mention several things. I would mention first, in this country of course, General Galtieri came to Mrs. Thatcher's rescue. I really fell that the peace movement was carrying the majority of the British people until that moment, and then, of course, it was desperately confused after that. I think another thing that happened was that, in a curious way, the battle about these weapons became internalized. And became a contest between the traditional and the traditional right of European societies in which there were, I think, great, much greater resources of influencing the minds and much greater media influence and so on the traditional conservative side. And in a certain sense, this happened on the other side as well. I think the whole question of the defeat of Solidarnosc was of great significance. It was of great significance in central Europe, in Germany. That October '81 meeting several of the speakers from that platform were signifying their support for the Solidarnosc opening. Okay, the Poles later said the Western peace movement didn't support them as much as it should, but we were in really difficult position to support them. Certainly verbally that support was given. And it gave a vision of a new opening in which central Europe began to come together. Once martial law came in Poland, then there was a great defeat for that and you fell back into traditional cold-war categories. But then, in the West, in a certain sense, the ruling conservative governments in Germany, Britain, elsewhere, had to defeat their own peace movement as part of their dominance and control over their society, in a sense. The cruise missiles, as I said once or twice, were aimed more at the Green women of the CND than they were aimed at the Soviet Union. And the SS-20s were aimed more at Solidarnosc or at Charter of '77 in Czechoslovakia than they were aimed at the West. It became an internal battle.

There is a third thing which is much more complex and which has never really been written out very much. Which is the failure at that stage, although subsequently we did, of all those diverse forces, which you can call the Peace Movement, to really make an impact on ruling Soviet policy. Then, if we had a Gorbachev or even a half-Gorbachev in the Kremlin at that time, I believe that together, the more sane forces East and West would have won. We made representation, after representation, when I can say I can tell you who we are, but I mean this is an alliance of Western peace movements, made representation, after representation to the Soviets you know, whether petitions or letters or whatever, or embassy visits. Demanding the halting of the buildup the SS-20 no influence at all. The SS-20s went on, up and up, through '81. We appealed to them to take unilateral action. In advance of a Western response, saying we were sure that if they took unilateral action in reducing these SS-20s, they would get response from them. No, abso-... we heard later that one of these messages which we sent to Andropov. Andropov was in a coma. I mean, Andropov was throughout the early part of '83, he was non-operative. The entire Soviet machine had just sort of come to a stop. No decisions were being made. So that there was plain and extremely rigid, old-fashioned, Brezhnevite, post-Stalinist kind of response. In which they wanted the Western peace movement to be players on their side. Now eventually they realized we weren't. Eventually they realized we were independent, and I believe that we could have had some influence on-

MR. THOMPSON YOU BEGAN TO TALK THERE ABOUT THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE PEACE MOVEMENT AND THE RUSSIANS. NOW, AT TIMES THERE WAS A KIND OF CRUDE YELLOW OR BLACK PROPAGANDA, DOING THE ROUNDS AT THE TIME ABOUT CERTAIN PEOPLE IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT, MOST OF WHICH, NEARLY ALL OF IT ... WAS THE PEACE MOVEMENT CONTROLLED BY THE RUSSIANS? I MEAN WHAT WAS THE REALITY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE RUSSIANS?

Yeah, the CND had a some experience of non-aligned peace policy, and the difficulties of it. And there were other very sober heads around. I mean, we had the late Peggy Duff, who was the first secretary of CND, and who had during the Vietnam War put together a little international organization which proved very important, because it helped the new peace movement together. It had brush after brush and confrontation after confrontation with the intents of the World Peace Council, which is a Soviet dominated and controlled organization based on Helsinki, to co-opt all peace movements under its umbrella as sort of auxiliaries of Soviet diplomacy. And the new movement was emphatically non-aligned. And I think you felt this most strongly in Scandinavia. Uh, in Britain. In groups like the Greens in West Germany, not all, I mean, there were pro-Soviet sections in West Germany, pro-Soviet sections very much in France. Movement de la Paix. Holland, where you had the Interchurch Peace Council, with some extremely expert advisers and staff, and also the Euro-communists particularly in the Mediterranean and Italy and in Spain and in Greece, who simply would not play the old game. They would not play according to World Peace Council script. Ahem, so repeatedly, ahem, the attempts by the Soviet Peace Committee and other organizations to try and make us into auxiliaries which went to the point of trying to drive out certain sections from the peace movement. Denouncing us as CIA agents, the Dutch Interchurch Peace Council, END, myself, Mary Kaldor some of the Euro-communists were denounced in this kind of way. But they all failed utterly. I mean, in fact, the annual great conventions of the, of the European peace movement were non-aligned conventions and the pro-Soviet fractions were really very unimportant. And eventually, now the people in the Soviet Union began to discover this was the case, but they discovered it I think in a, I mean I think it is one of the very important political cultural tendencies of the last five years, that the old cold war script wasn't being followed. And that there were very large forces in the United States and in Western Europe, who were peacefully disposed but who were not, in the old sense, pro-Soviet and would not play according to their games plan. And therefore required a much more complex response. And I think this has contributed to the whole reevaluation of policy that Gorbachev represents. In the sense it has suddenly stopped playing the old game in which you had to be in one camp or the other camp, and the idea that new kinds of relationship with intermediaries, has come forward in Soviet policy.

THANK YOU. LET'S GO BACK NOW TO 1983, AND I WANT YOU TO GIVE US SOME SENSE, I MEAN WE CAN'T GO INTO A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF DETAIL, BUT SOME SENSE OF WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO SEE THE THING, THE BATTLE BEING LOST AND THE WEAPONS BEING DEPLOYED, CRUISE BEING DEPLOYED HERE AND PERSHING. IF YOU WANT TO ANSWER IN TERMS OF SPECIFIC EPISODE.

Well, the, to say the battle was being lost is to take a narrow view of the battle. Because there are, I think, in the sec-, the part of the peace movement that I represent at least three major issues. There's the particular weapons issues. Yes, we were losing on that. And have lost on that, although, in a curious way, now, the result is coming. But the two other major issues one is the question of the cold war itself. That is strategies to break down the bloc division to, as I call it, to Sweden-ize the West and to Finland-ize the East, to begin to edge the nations away towards each other, and citizen communication. Now, we didn't lose this. The peace movement did not, as was expected, suddenly disappear when the Cruise and Pershing came. In fact we have a very tenacious organization. And if anything, communication, citizen communication with unofficial groupings in the east, and in the Soviet Union are much stronger now than they were in 1982 or 1983. Partly because of the opening that is taking place there. So that wasn't lost. And, and the third issue, which was always there, was that of the tensions between Western Europe over sovereignty and the United States. You see, although sometimes one was a bit embarrassed at acknowledging it, there was alongside all the internationalism, a subterranean nationalism asserting itself, notably in West Germany. But to some degree in Britain. I mean, Cruise and Pershing being deployed, parts on our territory, were a visible symbol of United States hegemony. And that of course, is insofar as it's a constructive issue, it's not altogether constructive, but it is partly constructive issue, that has, if anything, enlarged in importance since 1984, this whole question of the relationship of Europe and the United States is problematic. And Star Wars has made it more problematic.

LET'S JUST LET THIS PARTICULAR MANIFESTATION OF SPACE TRAVEL GO AWAY... LET ME TALK TO YOU ABOUT THAT A LITTLE BIT. A KIND OF SORT OF STRANGE PROCESS TOOK PLACE AFTER 1983, STARTED IN EARLIER, WHAT DO YOU THINK BASICALLY HAPPENED? HOW CAN YOU DESCRIBE WHAT HAS BEEN HAPPENING IN TERMS OF THE WAY IN WHICH WE SUDDENLY WENT FROM THIS KIND OF NEW COLD WAR TO WHATEVER WE NOW HAVE?

When Chernenko died. I mean I think the West can take very little credit for what happened. I think, delayed processes of self-reform or modernization showed themselves in the Soviet Union. And this is, this is the main reason there's been a change. In a certain sense, the question is why those have been so long delayed. Or why Brezhnevism went on so long in bringing the Soviet economy and society into a desperate state of inefficiency. I think the worst, one of the worst features of the Euromissile crisis was that the hard men on both sides were strengthening each other. And one has an awful feeling that if Chernenko and his circle had lived longer, this eventuation wouldn't have taken place, but it did take place, and through the new opportunity came a new modernizing younger group of Soviet leaders. And I think they have the main credit for having changed the terms of the argument.

OKAY.

But I think also it's true that the Western, the Western governments who had imposed Cruise and Pershings, you know, who had supported it, have gone through a nightmare. They did not want to go through this again. I mean, even the terms of politics had in rather difficult ways to identify, had changed. I mean, the limits of what was possible had been changed. Politicians no longer were going to summon up a new generation of missiles and face that kind of popular opposition once more. So in that sense, they were disposed to find some solutions. And I hope they find them, but they haven't found them yet.

WERE YOU, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO WHEN YOU DISCOVERED WHAT HAD BEEN DISCUSSED AT REYKJAVIK BY REAGAN, WERE YOU AMUSED, SURPRISED?

I'm afraid I was perhaps more skeptical and sardonic about it than I should have been because I knew that people like Richard Perle had been at Reagan's side at Reykjavik, I really couldn't see this as being anything more than part of a pacification of the American people. I mean, there is still a very substantial constituency in the United States that would prefer a president that is making to a militarist one. I think the sort of constituency that was the freeze is reviving again, and will be quite powerful in the future. And in that sense, no American president can afford to ignore that part of American public opinion.

IN YOUR SPEECH IN COVENTRY IN JULY, YOU SAID THAT THE STRUCTURES ESTABLISHED AT THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR ARE BEGINNING TO CRUMBLE. THERE IS A SORT OF GENERAL FEELING, ISN'T THERE, AROUND THAT THINGS MAY CHANGE, ON ALL AREAS OF THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM. JUST SPELL OUT FOR ME A BIT WHAT YOU MEANT BY THAT STRUCTURES AT THE END OF THE SECOND WAR BEGINNING TO CRUMBLE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN. DO YOU MEAN THAT THE AMERICAN ROLE IN EUROPE IS GOING TO CEASE?

Well, I think, the, in the Soviet role in Central Europe. And I think both tides are retracting. I think, visibly, the, ahem, Central, Eastern European nations are becoming more, in-, more distinct, more individualized and to some degree, more independent of the Soviet Union. The Poles or the Hungarians, and maybe the next year the Czechs, will be making their own spaces. And I think a move of, I would like to see, I would like to see a great superpower summit in which they say, let's call the whole game off. It's very expensive and it's very dangerous. Let us agree that by the year 2000, or 2010, all American bases and troops will be withdrawn from Western Europe, all Soviet bases and troops withdrawn from Central and Eastern Europe, by agreement. I don't think this is as Utopian a perspective as it seemed five years ago.

MR. THOMPSON, YOU WERE DESCRIBING WHAT YOU FOUND THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOUR INVOLVEMENT EARLY ON IN GETTING THE PEACE MOVEMENT GOING IN THIS COUNTRY.

Yeah, I think it is not only the great successes, the huge Hyde Park demonstrations and the amazing variety of contingents from every part of the of the country, Stornoway Keep Out and the Welsh coaches that came in and everything, Cornish. It's not just that, and the sense of self-activity. It was going around doing meetings, in large villages or small market-towns in very traditional, what one would've thought conservative areas, and finding, you know, always, 200 people or so packing out the local hall in an extremely un-doctriniare, open-minded frame of mind. They really wanted to hear the arguments, they were deeply concerned. You would have people with different political beliefs and none came. It reminded me very much of some of the meetings I had attended as a young soldier in 1945, in the general election of 1945, where you had, again, these huge village meetings. I had this sense that the British people only really think about matters of political principle once every 30 years or so. And you could actually hear the creaking, you know, of the, of the rusty cogs, as they're going around. You want to put some oil on them. But when they do, there is an extremely exciting sense of freshness around. And that's what we had, and it's not entirely gone yet. It certainly was a new note in British politics. And also an old note. It was a new note, but it was also linking up with traditions which as a historian of radical movements, I could recognize.

AND YET, IN 1983 MOST OF THOSE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE NOT, THAT YOU JUST DESCRIBED, A LOT OF THEM WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR THATCHER. THERE WAS THIS—

Yes, I think I think that I think in some of those areas they would. I think the support of the peace movement held up very well. Actually, if you think that the CND itself is committed to a very advanced, radical position and can carry no less always more than a quarter of the British people with it, I think that's quite amazing. I think that is a very large, very large force in British politics.

NOW A FINAL QUESTION, YOU OF COURSE CARRIED THE LABOUR PARTY IN A SENSE, IN 1980, AT THE CONFERENCE, AND WAS THAT IN POLITICAL TERMS PROBABLY YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ACHIEVEMENT, CARRYING THE LABOR PARTY. BUT DIDN'T THAT IN A FUNNY SORT OF WAY MAKE THE LABOR PARTY UNELECTABLE? I COULDN'T EXPECT YOU TO AGREE WITH THAT, BUT HASN'T THAT PROVEN TO BE THE CASE?

I think one of the biggest changes that the British and the West European, in North Europe has brought about, movement has brought about, is the end of the Atlanticist consensus. That sort of total Atlanticist consensus. One has seen that for 25 years in which, it simply was not possible to really question the nuclear arms race, or its strategies. Or it was very difficult to question it because it was an all-party consensus. And that's been destroyed. The West German social-democratic party, the Scandinavian, the Dutch, the British have all moved into a much more flexible position, and an anti-nuclear position on this. The only remaining sort of strongholds of the old kind are in the French and the Italian socialist parties. So I think this was a big achievement. You were saying, did that make the British Labour Party unelectable? No, I don't think this is the case. Of course, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think this is the case. I think the British Labour Party hasn't, hasn't always presented its cases intelligently as the peace movement has. I don't think it's done its homework as well. I think it's failed to it's failed to develop a positive, outward looking foreign policy which goes along with its defense policy, so it is really presenting to these people a negative — we're not going to have nuclear weapons. Fine. But it has to tell them much more about what it will have, in the way of active role peace-making internationally and between East and West, and which is, very well suited to be an intermed-, a mediator in this.

FINAL QUESTION. THERE'S A BOOK BY FREEMAN DYSON CALLED WEAPONS AND HOPE WHICH HAS A LOT OF GOOD THINGS IN IT AND A LOT OF STRANGE THINGS IN IT. IT HAS IN IT THE CONCEPT OF, A DEBATE ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS WHICH TAKES PLACE AMONG TWO COMPLETELY SEPARATE GROUPS OF PEOPLE, ONE OF WHOM HE CALLS THE WARRIORS, ONE OF WHOM HE CALLS THE VICTIMS. NOW IN A SENSE, WHEN YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES WERE UP ON ALL THIS NUCLEAR THEOLOGY, YOU WERE ENTERING THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS. I HAVE ASKED YOU THIS QUESTION BEFORE, BUT I'D LIKE TO ASK YOU AGAIN. WERE YOU SURPRISED BY WHAT YOU DISCOVERED ABOUT WHAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE, WHAT THEY'RE USED FOR, AND HOW STATESMEN THINK OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

Yes. Yes, I was surprised by this. I think I think that is a loss of reality a loss of human reality in the very language of defense strategies. In which the vocabulary is designed to exclude the human realities. To exclude really looking squarely at what may be indeed the fate of the species, in the extreme form that you are talking about, and certainly. The most astonishing horrors. However, I will say that I think it is a mistake and one which was partly wished upon us, to suppose the peace movement was only about nuclear weapons. Because a very large part of the peace movement has been about this unnatural division of the world into two military political halves. And overcoming that, which is a political question. Which I think is the most hopeful question to address now, that we're beginning to have it addressed from the other side as well. I mean, very clearly being addressed now in new terms from the Soviet Union. And it's time we addressed it also.

THESE TWO FINAL QUESTIONS, MR. THOMPSON. AS MICHAEL HAS SAID, THE GOVERNMENT, I THINK PROBABLY DID SLIGHTLY CHANGE THE TERMS OF THE AGENDA AT SOME POINT DURING 1983. DID YOU, FROM YOUR END, NOTICE A SHIFT IN EMPHASIS IN THE WAY THE GOVERNMENT MET THE ARGUMENTS OF THE CND DURING 1983?

Oh, yes oh yes, we were quite aware of Mr. Heseltine's posture. We were aware of setting up organization inside the ministry, I think called DS-19, which is of questionable legality. I mean, they were actually using public funds in order to collect information, and some of it false information on peace movement, activists and members. As one went around the country, one came across stories of local special branches interference, sometimes very visible interference, in local peace workers. At one, very astonishing case was up in Coldfield, which in the end got investigated. And I know that I've been told by someone who worked in MI-5, that there's a huge, great file on me. And whether my phone was tapped or not, I don't know. And the selective release of material like this to the press by Mr. Heseltine's office or by intermediaries, all this was happening. At the same time, an attempt to type the peace movement as a pro-Soviet movement, which meant, at the same time, complete suppression of the extremely visible conflicts that were taking place between elements of the Western peace movement and the Soviet peace committee at that time. I mean, they were there for reporting but they were never reported. This, this was something that they didn't want to know about, uh. So in that sense, yeah, we were aware of it. And we could do very little about it.

OKAY, FINAL QUESTION, I THINK WHAT MIKE IS GETTING AT HERE IS THAT THERE WAS THIS PERIOD AFTER AFGHANISTAN AND I GUESS UP UNTIL THE RUSSIANS WALKED OUT AT, I SUPPOSE IT REACHED ITS CLIMAX WHEN THE RUSSIANS WALKED OUT IN GENEVA AT THE END OF '83, AFTER THE DEPLOYMENT. THERE WAS A TERRIBLE SENSE THAT THE WHOLE PLACE, OF EVERYTHING GOING BLACK, AND THE WHOLE WORLD GOING BACK TO AN OLD-FASHIONED COLD WAR CONFRONTATION. WERE YOU AWARE OF IT, DID YOU SENSE THAT?

Yes, I suppose this was one of the this sense of anxiety, this heightening sense of anxiety was one of the reasons the peace movement began to revive, although it worked both ways. I mean we were beginning to try and launch a campaign against Cruise and Pershing before the Afghan invasion. And I noticed that some politicians withdrew very quickly when the Afghan invasion took place, and said it was not opportune moment for us to come forward to do this. So we said, okay, we'll go ahead anyway. I think to some of my generation, what was so evident at the time of Afghanistan, was the, what I call the reciprocity of the cold war process. In which, as tension heightened on one side, it was answered on the other side, the hawks fed the hawks the militarists, the weapons supplies, and the ideologies, all began to heat each other up in this reciprocal process, which was just like the first cold war. And it was that, which was in a sense, the first cold war could be said to have been about something. There were actual issues of interest and real ideology, and even territory involved. But this was replaying the whole thing again simply at the level of psychodrama, and yet not the less dangerous for that reason. It was a very dangerous psychodrama, to which we had to try and give some answer.