The Grand Strategy that Won the Cold War by Douglas E. Streusand

Author:Douglas E. Streusand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Splitting the Peace Movement

Another tactic that the Administration supported was an effort to split the “peace” movement. Most of this movement was composed of innocent citizens concerned about nuclear war and not committed to the communist ideological agenda. But the majority of these people were naïve about the degree to which their movement had been infiltrated, influenced, and at times, directed by communists and the leaders of Soviet front organizations. One way of reducing the ability of the communist and communist-front leaders to manipulate the larger movement was to expose their radical ideological agenda and diminish their credibility in the eyes of the non-communist membership.

One initiative to achieve this objective was undertaken in Los Angeles County by Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky and Los Angeles lawyer and human rights activist, William Pearl, with the Administration’s support. This initiative involved putting a referendum measure on the June 1984 ballot for approval by County voters. What was noteworthy about the choice of Los Angeles County is that, at the time, its population was larger than that of some 35 states of the union, and thus, any referendum passed there would have a larger than usual political significance. The measure read:

Shall the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors transmit to the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union a communication stating that the risk of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union can be reduced if all people have the ability to express their opinions freely and without fear on world issues, including a nation’s arms policies; therefore the people of Los Angeles County urge all nations that signed the Helsinki International Accords on Human Rights to observe the Accords’ provisions of freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and emigration for all their citizens?

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