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Last Updated: Wednesday, 5 July 2006, 13:06 GMT 14:06 UK

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Timeline: CND and the arms race

October, 1952

Britain tests first nuclear bomb.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Operation Hurricane sees the detonation of the first British nuclear bomb. The device was made at Aldermaston using plutonium from the LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Windscale plant. It was detonated in the frigate HMS Plym off the Monte Bello islands to the north west of Australia.

November, 1957

JB Priestley writes article Britain and the Nuclear Bomb
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Priestley's piece Britain and the Nuclear Bomb is published in the New Statesman sparking an energetic response from readers. Priestley looks forward to the time when "one power able to engage in nuclear warfare will reject the evil thing forever".

January, 1958

CND formed at meeting in London.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0A meeting attended by philosopher Bertrand Russell writers LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Rose Macauley and Julian Huxley and future Labour leader Michael Foot forms CND. It soon demands that the UK unilaterally renounce the use and production of nuclear weapons. In April the first march to the Aldermaston base takes place and Gerald Holtom designs the famous logo showing the international semaphore for "n" and "d".

September, 1961

Bertrand Russell imprisoned.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Having left CND in 1960 so he could pursue a course of direct action Bertrand Russell was eventually convicted of inciting civil disobedience. He told the court "Patriotism and humanity alike urged us to see some way of saving our country and the world." Nearing the age of 90 Russell's two month sentence was reduced to a week.

March, 1976

Soviet Union deploys first SS20.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The Soviet Union started rolling out the intermediaterange missile SS20. The missile was sophisticated and accurate and came to carry mutiple warheads capable of hitting separate targets. The US responded to the threat by deploying Pershing II missiles in the UK and Germany.

July, 1980

Plan to introduce UK Trident subs introduced.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0In July 1980 the British government announced its decision to purchase the Trident missile system from the US. Although the final decision was taken by Mrs Thatcher the ball had been set rolling the previous year when Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan met US President Jimmy Carter in Guadeloupe. The Trident was to replace the LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Polaris system.

August, 1981

Peace camp set up at Greenham Common.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The protest against the siting of cruise missiles at the Greenham air base came to symbolise the struggle for both sides. A group of 36 women marched from Cardiff to the base and CND claimed that 30000 people formed a human chain there the next year. The last of the cruise missiles was withdrawn in 1991 but the protest continued until 2000.

June, 1983

Margaret Thatcher wins election by landslide.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government wins a landslide victory. Labour led by longstanding CND member Michael Foot had adopted unilateral disarmament. Gerald Kaufman MP called their manifesto the "longest suicide note in history". In autumn CND holds a LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0protest which it says is attended by 400000 its largest ever.

December, 1987

Gorbachev and Reagan sign INF missile treaty.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty was the end result of the talks LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0sparked by the escalation of the arms race by the deployment of SS20s and Pershing IIs. It committed both the US and Soviet Union to scrap most intermediaterange weapons by June 1991.

November, 1989

The fall of the Berlin Wall.
LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communist regimes across eastern Europe immediately impacted on international security and the nuclear disarmament movement. CND faced a different world LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0but its battle to scrap Trident remained relevant as the first submarine LETTERSPACING0 KERNING0did not enter service until 1993.

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