Last weekend, Americans in 150 cities organized again to protest George Bush’s drive for war against Iraq. They joined several million people in Europe who staged what USA Today called “the biggest protests in modern times.”
No longer able
to ignore the enormous peace demonstrations, the Bush administration is
responding with an odd public relations campaign. It’s comparing the weekend’s events to demonstrations against staging new missiles in Germany in the early 1980s.
“These marches are 1983 all over again,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
From 1983? One look at the photos from across the world tells me that many won’t remember demonstrations that occurred 20 years ago. Some Emerald readers weren’t even born yet.
In certain ways, 1983 was long ago. Boy George ruled the airwaves. Scientists had yet to identify the AIDS virus. And the Berlin Wall was a visible reminder of a Cold War that threatened to destroy all of civilization.
The threat of nuclear war loomed large in people’s lives. How large? A record number of Americans tuned in for a TV movie called “The Day After,” a story about the effects of a nuclear attack on the United States. Among the top films that year was “WarGames,” about a teenage hacker who accidentally starts a “game” called Global Thermonuclear War. In real life, Ronald Reagan escalated nuclear tensions when he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, soon derided as “Star Wars.”
In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union had developed the SS-20, a mobile ballistic missile with unparalleled range and accuracy. In response, NATO adopted a “dual track” strategy of installing new European-based nuclear missiles while simultaneously pursuing arms control treaties. This strategy was controversial from the start.
NATO’s strategy involved stationing more than 600 American Pershing II missiles in Western Europe. Thus, American nukes were directed at the Soviet Union. On the other hand, Soviet missiles would target West Germany, Great Britain and other Pershing bases.
Naturally, many Europeans were quite unhappy. They had suffered two devastating world wars, and now faced the prospect of being ground zero for the third because the Americans were installing a new arsenal on their soil.
In 1983, huge crowds demonstrated against the American missiles. 400,000 gathered in Hyde Park in London. 550,000 turned out in The Hague. A million Germans formed a human chain. NATO remained unmoved.
Fleischer argued that the missiles helped end the Cold War. This is partly true. But the anti-nuclear protests also aided the lasting peace in Europe. They told Mikhail Gorbachev that popular sentiment favored nuclear disarmament and encouraged him to pursue arms talks with President Reagan. Moreover, following suggestions of movement leaders, Gorbachev unilaterally halted Soviet nuclear testing.
In 1987, Gorbachev proposed eliminating European short- and medium-range missiles. NATO accepted. He and Reagan signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the first arms treaty that actually reduced the number of nukes in the world.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, liberating East Germans from the Soviets, but also freeing West Germans and other NATO allies from the Americans. No longer can Washington exercise its will in Western Europe as NATO’s nuclear protector. And here we are today: Europe on one side of Iraq debate, America on the other.
To the Cold War retreads in the Bush Administration who “remember” the ’80s as a time when they “beat” the Soviet Union, I say: At the very least, they should share the victory and stand with the advocates of peace and nuclear disarmament.