Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Former Labour Party leader Michael Foot. Born in 1913, Foot was Labour leader from 1980 to 1983. A life-long socialist, Foot was always on the left of the Labour Party, and was also associated throughout his life with the cause of nuclear disarmament.

Nonparty-political British organization advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide. Since its foundation in 1958, CND has sought unilateral British initiatives to help start, and subsequently to accelerate, the multilateral process and end the arms race.

The movement was launched by the philosopher Bertrand Russell and Canon John Collins and grew out of the demonstration held outside the government's Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire, at Easter 1956. CND held annual marches from Aldermaston to London from 1959 to 1963, after the initial march in 1958 which was routed from London to Aldermaston. From 1970 CND has also opposed nuclear power.

Its membership peaked in the early 1980s, during the campaign against the presence of US Pershing and cruise nuclear missiles on British soil, which left in 1991. It is part of Abolition 2000, a global network, founded in 1995 and with organized support in 76 countries, to press for the elimination of nuclear weapons.