nuclear freeze movement

US political group, most active during the early 1980s, that advocated a bilateral freeze on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. The idea was conceived by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, and supported by the writings of arms control experts such as Randall Forsberg. In 1980 the American Friends Service Committee led a coalition of local and national antinuclear organizations in a nuclear weapons freeze campaign that significantly influenced US policy regarding disarmament.

The nuclear freeze movement developed from the peace and environmental movements of the 1970s. In the late 1970s antinuclear and antimilitarist sentiment led to the formation of many grassroots organizations throughout the USA, that joined the national nuclear freeze campaign in 1980. Support for the campaign soon extended beyond its antinuclear base to include prominent politicians, citizens, and organizations. A referendum in the 1982 elections showed that 81% of those polled favoured a freeze on nuclear weapons. By 1983 more than 150 national and international organizations endorsed the freeze campaign. The movement declined after Ronald Reagan was re-elected president of the USA in 1984. Although Reagan was against the nuclear freeze movement, the following year he and Mikhail Gorbachev agreed, at least in theory, to the abolition of nuclear weapons.