Peace News
Encyclopedia
Peace News is a pacifist magazine first published on 6 June 1936 to serve the peace movement in the United Kingdom. From later in 1936 to April 1961 it was the official paper of the Peace Pledge Union
(PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 was co-published with War Resisters' International
.
who was a Quaker and in 1933 had become editor of the National Peace Council
's publications. Working with a peace group in Wood Green
, London, Moore and his wife, Kathleen (playing the role of business manager), launched Peace News with a free trial issue in June 1936. With distribution through Moore’s contacts with the National Peace Council, the new magazine rapidly attracted attention. Within six weeks, Dick Sheppard
, founder of the Peace Pledge Union, proposed to Moore that Peace News should become the PPU’s paper. Early contributors to this new organ of the PPU included Gandhi, George Lansbury
, illustrator Arthur Wragg
and Maurice Cranston
(later to become a noted philosopher).
Some contributors were so sympathetic to the grievances of Nazi Germany that one sceptical member found it difficult to distinguish between letters to Peace News and those in the newspaper of the British Union of Fascists
. The historian
Mark Gilbert has argued that
"With the exception of "Action", the journal of the British Union of Fascists, it is hard to think of another British newspaper which was so consistent an apologist for Nazi Germany as "Peace News". However, Juilet Gardiner has
noted that Peace News also urged the British government to give sanctuary to Jewish refugees from Nazism. The fact that some PN contributors were supporting appeasement
and excusing Nazi actions caused PN contributor David Spreckley to express fears that "in their scramble for peace", they were gaining "some questionable allies".
Sales of Peace News peaked at around 40,000 during the so-called Phoney War between September 1939 and May 1940. In that month in the face of demands in parliament for the banning of the paper, the printer and distributors stopped working with Peace News. However, with help from the typographer Eric Gill
, Hugh Brock
and many others, Moore continued to publish Peace News and arrange for distribution around the UK.
Humphrey Moore’s emphasis on Peace News having a single-minded anti-war policy was increasingly being challenged. Others wanted greater emphasis on building a peaceful society once hostilities ended. The PPU appointed John Middleton Murry
to edit the paper, which he did from 1940 to 1946.
Hugh Brock
took on the role of assistant editor of Peace News in 1946 and became editor in 1955, lasting until 1964. During his period of tenure the magazine separated from the PPU as it had widened its focus into areas not directly related to absolute pacifism.
From the 1940s on, Peace News began to take a strongly critical line towards British rule in Kenya
. The magazine also established links with African anti-colonial activists Kwame Nkrumah
and Kenneth Kaunda
, and ""Peace News"' close involvement with the anti-apartheid
struggle...led to the banning of the paper in South Africa in 1959".
In 1959 a gift of £5,700 from Tom Willis enabled Peace News to buy 5 Caledonian Road, London. N.1. This became its office and printing press and was also shared with Housmans Bookshop
. It was at in the Peace News' office that the Nuclear Disarmament/Peace symbol was adopted. Describing the British pacifist tradition in the 1950s, David Widgery
wrote "at its most likeable it was the sombre decency of Peace News, then a vegetarian tabloid with a Quaker emphasis on active witness".
The magazine campaigned against nuclear weapons ,often working with CND. During this period Brock brought to Peace News
"a staff of writer-activists committed to developing Gandhian nonviolent
action in the anti-militarist cause", including Pat Arrowsmith
, Richard Boston
, April Carter
, Alan Lovell, Michael Randle
, Adam Roberts
and the American Gene Sharp
.
Brock's successor in 1964 was Theodore Roszak
.
In the same year, a Caribbean Quaker and PN writer, Marion Glean, "contributed to a series of statements by post-colonial activists on race in the run-up to the 1964 election, published by Theodore Roszak, editor of Peace News"
After
the election, Glean helped bring together several activists, including Dr. David Pitt
,
C. L. R. James
and Ranjana Ash to form the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
.
Throughout the 1960s, Peace News covered issues such as opposition to the
Vietnam War and the Biafran issue in the Nigerian Civil War
. The magazine's
coverage of the Vietnam War was notable for its support for the protests of the Vietnamese Buddhists
, who it
argued could become a nonviolent "Third Force" independent of both the Saigon and Hanoi
governments.
In 1971 it added to its masthead the words "for nonviolent revolution".
In 1974, the paper moved its main office to Nottingham, where it remained until 1990. Peace News suspended publication at the end of 1987, intending to relaunch after a period of rethinking and planning. In May 1989 the paper resumed publication, but quickly ran into financial difficulties. In 1990 it became linked to War Resisters' International
and was co-published as a monthly until 1999, then as a quarterly with a British-oriented Nonviolent Action published in the intervening months. Peace News came out
strongly against the Iraq War
while at the same time condemning Saddam Hussein
.
In 2005, Peace News resumed monthly publication, as an independent British publication and in a tabloid format.
and Emily Johns.
The Peace News archives are held at the Commonweal Collection in the J.B. Priestley Library, University of Bradford
Against Nuclear War, which was run from the Peace News office and involved many Peace News staff. The DAC produced the first badges with the Nuclear Disarmament/Peace symbol , and organised various actions of civil disobedience against nuclear weapons and also the first of the Aldermaston Marches
in Easter 1958.
In 1971 Peace News, together with War Resisters' International
, initiated a nonviolent direct action project, Operation Omega to Bangladesh, to challenge the Pakistani military blockade of then East Pakistan.
In 1972 Peace News co-editor Howard Clark, after meeting activists from the Canadian Greenpeace boats, initiated the group that became London Greenpeace
, at first campaigning against French nuclear tests.
In 1973 Peace News played a central role in launching the British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign (BWNIC) and in supporting the BWNIC 14, 14 activists including a member of the Peace News collective charged with "conspiracy to incite disaffection" via a leaflet "Some Information for Discontented Soldiers". After an 11-week trial, a jury acquitted the BWNIC 14 in 1975, although two members of Peace News collective were fined for helping two AWOL soldiers go to Sweden.
In 1974, together with Nicholas Albery
of BIT
Information Service, Peace News began publishing the Community Levy for Alternative Projects, an invitation to supply funds for, generally, fledgling alternative projects, partly targeting shops and businesses that identified with counter-cultural ideas and aspirations.
In August 1974, Peace News published a special edition revealing and printing in full Colonel David Stirling
's plans to establish
a strike-breaking "private army", "Great Britain 1975". By arrangement The Guardian
led with this story on the day of publication, Peace News won the 1974 "Scoop of the Year" award from Granada Television
.
In 1978, Peace News, together with The Leveller magazine revealed the identity of Colonel B, a witness in the ABC Trial
. Peace News fought its conviction for "contempt of court" right up to appeal in the House of Lords, where the Lord Chief Justice's "guilty" verdict was finally overturned.
In 1978, one worker at Housmans was injured after a bomb was sent to the Peace News offices, (allegedly by the neo-Nazi organisation Column 88
) as part of a series of attacks on left-wing organisations (similar attacks were made on the Socialist Workers Party
and Anti-Nazi League
offices before this occurred).
In 1995, Peace News, together with Campaign Against Arms Trade
, was sued for libel by the Covert & Operational Procurement Exhibition (COPEX) for repeating allegations that the exhibition was serving as a meeting place for buyers and sellers of torture implements. The High Court struck out the case when COPEX failed to show in court and the peace groups were awarded costs.
Peace Pledge Union
The Peace Pledge Union is a British pacifist non-governmental organization. It is open to everyone who can sign the PPU pledge: "I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war...
(PPU), and from 1990 to 2004 was co-published with War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.-History:...
.
History
Peace News was begun by Humphrey MooreHumphrey Moore
Humphrey Sims Moore was the founder of Peace News, the British pacifist magazine.Moore was a Quaker who had been born in Samoa where his father had been teaching. He joined the No More War Movement and embraced various socialist causes, while working as a journalist...
who was a Quaker and in 1933 had become editor of the National Peace Council
National Peace Council
The National Peace Council, founded in 1908, and disbanded in 2000, acted as the co-ordinating body for almost 200 groups across Britain, with a membership ranging from small village peace groups to national trade unions and local authorities...
's publications. Working with a peace group in Wood Green
Wood Green
Wood Green is a district in north London, England, located in the London Borough of Haringey. It is situated north of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London.-History:...
, London, Moore and his wife, Kathleen (playing the role of business manager), launched Peace News with a free trial issue in June 1936. With distribution through Moore’s contacts with the National Peace Council, the new magazine rapidly attracted attention. Within six weeks, Dick Sheppard
Hugh Richard Lawrie Sheppard
Hugh Richard Lawrie "Dick" Sheppard was an English Anglican priest, Dean of Canterbury and pacifist....
, founder of the Peace Pledge Union, proposed to Moore that Peace News should become the PPU’s paper. Early contributors to this new organ of the PPU included Gandhi, George Lansbury
George Lansbury
George Lansbury was a British politician, socialist, Christian pacifist and newspaper editor. He was a Member of Parliament from 1910 to 1912 and from 1922 to 1940, and leader of the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935....
, illustrator Arthur Wragg
Arthur Wragg
Arthur Wragg was a British illustrator.His stark poster-like artwork often dealt with themes of social alienation and spiritual emptiness. All his work was done for publication, rather than in 'fine art' media such as paintings or series of prints...
and Maurice Cranston
Maurice Cranston
Maurice Cranston was a British philosopher, professor, and author. He served for many years as a Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, and was also known for his popular publications...
(later to become a noted philosopher).
Some contributors were so sympathetic to the grievances of Nazi Germany that one sceptical member found it difficult to distinguish between letters to Peace News and those in the newspaper of the British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
. The historian
Mark Gilbert has argued that
"With the exception of "Action", the journal of the British Union of Fascists, it is hard to think of another British newspaper which was so consistent an apologist for Nazi Germany as "Peace News". However, Juilet Gardiner has
noted that Peace News also urged the British government to give sanctuary to Jewish refugees from Nazism. The fact that some PN contributors were supporting appeasement
and excusing Nazi actions caused PN contributor David Spreckley to express fears that "in their scramble for peace", they were gaining "some questionable allies".
Sales of Peace News peaked at around 40,000 during the so-called Phoney War between September 1939 and May 1940. In that month in the face of demands in parliament for the banning of the paper, the printer and distributors stopped working with Peace News. However, with help from the typographer Eric Gill
Eric Gill
Arthur Eric Rowton Gill was a British sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker, who was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement...
, Hugh Brock
Hugh Brock
Hugh Brock was a lifelong British pacifist, editor of Peace News between 1955 and 1964, a promoter of non-violent direct action and a founder of the Direct Action Committee, a forerunner of the Committee of 100....
and many others, Moore continued to publish Peace News and arrange for distribution around the UK.
Humphrey Moore’s emphasis on Peace News having a single-minded anti-war policy was increasingly being challenged. Others wanted greater emphasis on building a peaceful society once hostilities ended. The PPU appointed John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry was an English writer. He was prolific, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime...
to edit the paper, which he did from 1940 to 1946.
Hugh Brock
Hugh Brock
Hugh Brock was a lifelong British pacifist, editor of Peace News between 1955 and 1964, a promoter of non-violent direct action and a founder of the Direct Action Committee, a forerunner of the Committee of 100....
took on the role of assistant editor of Peace News in 1946 and became editor in 1955, lasting until 1964. During his period of tenure the magazine separated from the PPU as it had widened its focus into areas not directly related to absolute pacifism.
From the 1940s on, Peace News began to take a strongly critical line towards British rule in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
. The magazine also established links with African anti-colonial activists Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
and Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth Kaunda
Kenneth David Kaunda, known as KK, served as the first President of Zambia, from 1964 to 1991.-Early life:Kaunda was the youngest of eight children. He was born at Lubwa Mission in Chinsali, Northern Province of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia...
, and ""Peace News"' close involvement with the anti-apartheid
Anti-apartheid
Anti-apartheid may refer to any opposition to the former South African apartheid policy. More specifically, it may refer to:* Anti-Apartheid Movement, British organisation* The internal resistance to South African apartheid within South Africa...
struggle...led to the banning of the paper in South Africa in 1959".
In 1959 a gift of £5,700 from Tom Willis enabled Peace News to buy 5 Caledonian Road, London. N.1. This became its office and printing press and was also shared with Housmans Bookshop
Laurence Housman
Laurence Housman was an English playwright, writer and illustrator.-Early life:Laurence Housman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, one of seven children who included the poet A. E. Housman and writer Clemence Housman. In 1871 his mother died, and his father remarried, to a cousin...
. It was at in the Peace News' office that the Nuclear Disarmament/Peace symbol was adopted. Describing the British pacifist tradition in the 1950s, David Widgery
David Widgery
David Widgery was a British Trotskyist writer, journalist, polemicist, physician, and activist.Widgery was born in Barnet and grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire...
wrote "at its most likeable it was the sombre decency of Peace News, then a vegetarian tabloid with a Quaker emphasis on active witness".
The magazine campaigned against nuclear weapons ,often working with CND. During this period Brock brought to Peace News
"a staff of writer-activists committed to developing Gandhian nonviolent
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
action in the anti-militarist cause", including Pat Arrowsmith
Pat Arrowsmith
Pat Arrowsmith is a British author and peace campaigner.Arrowsmith was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College, read history at the University of Cambridge, and then read Social Science at the University of Liverpool and at Ohio University as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar...
, Richard Boston
Richard Boston
Richard Boston was an English journalist and author, he was a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist...
, April Carter
April Carter
April Carter has lectured in politics at the universities of Lancaster, Oxford and Queensland, and was a Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute from 1985 to 1987...
, Alan Lovell, Michael Randle
Michael Randle
Dr. Michael Randle is best known as a peace campaigner and peace researcher, one of the pioneers of nonviolent direct action in Britain, and also for his role in helping the Soviet spy George Blake escape from a British prison in 1966....
, Adam Roberts
Adam Roberts (scholar)
Sir Adam Roberts, KCMG, FBA is President of the British Academy , the UK's national academy for the humanities and social sciences...
and the American Gene Sharp
Gene Sharp
Gene Sharp is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is known for his extensive writings on nonviolent struggle, which have influenced numerous anti-government resistance movements around the world.-Biography:Sharp was born in Ohio, the son of an...
.
Brock's successor in 1964 was Theodore Roszak
Theodore Roszak (scholar)
Theodore Roszak was professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay. He is best known for his 1969 text, The Making of a Counter Culture.-Background:...
.
In the same year, a Caribbean Quaker and PN writer, Marion Glean, "contributed to a series of statements by post-colonial activists on race in the run-up to the 1964 election, published by Theodore Roszak, editor of Peace News"
After
the election, Glean helped bring together several activists, including Dr. David Pitt
David Pitt, Baron Pitt of Hampstead
David Thomas Pitt, Baron Pitt of Hampstead was a civil rights campaigner and was one of the first persons of African descent to sit in the British House of Lords.-Early life:...
,
C. L. R. James
C. L. R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James , who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J.R. Johnson, was an Afro-Trinidadian historian, journalist, socialist theorist and essayist. His works are influential in various theoretical, social, and historiographical contexts...
and Ranjana Ash to form the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination was a British organization, founded in 1964 and which lasteduntil 1967, which lobbied for race relations legislation...
.
Throughout the 1960s, Peace News covered issues such as opposition to the
Vietnam War and the Biafran issue in the Nigerian Civil War
Nigerian Civil War
The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967–15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra...
. The magazine's
coverage of the Vietnam War was notable for its support for the protests of the Vietnamese Buddhists
Buddhism in Vietnam
Buddhism in Vietnam as practiced by the ethnic Vietnamese is mainly of the Mahāyāna tradition. Buddhism came to Vietnam as early as the 2nd century CE through the North from Central Asia and via Southern routes from India...
, who it
argued could become a nonviolent "Third Force" independent of both the Saigon and Hanoi
governments.
In 1971 it added to its masthead the words "for nonviolent revolution".
In 1974, the paper moved its main office to Nottingham, where it remained until 1990. Peace News suspended publication at the end of 1987, intending to relaunch after a period of rethinking and planning. In May 1989 the paper resumed publication, but quickly ran into financial difficulties. In 1990 it became linked to War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.-History:...
and was co-published as a monthly until 1999, then as a quarterly with a British-oriented Nonviolent Action published in the intervening months. Peace News came out
strongly against the Iraq War
Criticism of the Iraq War
The U.S. rationale for the Iraq War has faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States. Putting this controversy aside, both proponents and opponents of the invasion have also criticised the prosecution of the war effort along a number...
while at the same time condemning Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
.
In 2005, Peace News resumed monthly publication, as an independent British publication and in a tabloid format.
Peace News today
Peace News continues to be published in tabloid size print media and as a website by Peace News Ltd. It describes its editorial objectives as: to support and connect nonviolent and anti-militarist movements; provide a forum for such movements to develop common perspectives; take up issues suitable for campaigning; promote nonviolent, antimilitarist and pacifist analyses and strategies; stimulate thinking about the revolutionary implications of nonviolence. It is currently edited by Milan RaiMilan Rai
Milan Rai is a British peace campaigner best known for being arrested on 25 October 2005 next to a London war memorial, the Cenotaph, for refusing to cease reading aloud the names of civilians by then killed in Iraq in the course of Britain's most recent war, alongside fellow activist Maya...
and Emily Johns.
The Peace News archives are held at the Commonweal Collection in the J.B. Priestley Library, University of Bradford
Peace News campaigns and trials
Peace News has been associated with initiating numerous campaigns, and a number of its staffmembers have been arrested for taking part in peace actions. In November 1957 Hugh Brock was one of three founders of the Direct Action CommitteeDirect Action Committee
The Direct Action Committee against nuclear war was a pacifist organization formed "to assist the conducting of non-violent direct action to obtain the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons by Britain and all other countries as a first step in disarmament"...
Against Nuclear War, which was run from the Peace News office and involved many Peace News staff. The DAC produced the first badges with the Nuclear Disarmament/Peace symbol , and organised various actions of civil disobedience against nuclear weapons and also the first of the Aldermaston Marches
Aldermaston Marches
The Aldermaston marches were protest demonstrations organised by the British anti-war Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1950s and 1960s. They took place on Easter weekend between the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, England, and London, over a distance of...
in Easter 1958.
In 1971 Peace News, together with War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International
War Resisters' International is an international anti-war organization with members and affiliates in over thirty countries. Its headquarters are in London, UK.-History:...
, initiated a nonviolent direct action project, Operation Omega to Bangladesh, to challenge the Pakistani military blockade of then East Pakistan.
In 1972 Peace News co-editor Howard Clark, after meeting activists from the Canadian Greenpeace boats, initiated the group that became London Greenpeace
London Greenpeace
London Greenpeace was an Anarchist environmentalist activist collective that existed between 1972 and 2001. They were based in London, and came to international prominence when two of their activists refused to capitulate to McDonald's in the landmark libel case known as "McLibel".-Origins:In 1972...
, at first campaigning against French nuclear tests.
In 1973 Peace News played a central role in launching the British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Campaign (BWNIC) and in supporting the BWNIC 14, 14 activists including a member of the Peace News collective charged with "conspiracy to incite disaffection" via a leaflet "Some Information for Discontented Soldiers". After an 11-week trial, a jury acquitted the BWNIC 14 in 1975, although two members of Peace News collective were fined for helping two AWOL soldiers go to Sweden.
In 1974, together with Nicholas Albery
Nicholas Albery
Nicholas Albery social inventor and author, was the founder or leader of various projects related to the improvement of society, often known as the Alternative Society....
of BIT
BIT
BIT was an information service, publisher, travel guide and social centre founded, in 1968, by John 'Hoppy' Hopkins. It pre-dated the internet as a free service that would try to find any information asked for and derived its name from the smallest unit of computer information.-BIT:BIT was...
Information Service, Peace News began publishing the Community Levy for Alternative Projects, an invitation to supply funds for, generally, fledgling alternative projects, partly targeting shops and businesses that identified with counter-cultural ideas and aspirations.
In August 1974, Peace News published a special edition revealing and printing in full Colonel David Stirling
David Stirling
Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling, DSO, DFC, OBE was a Scottish laird, mountaineer, World War II British Army officer, and the founder of the Special Air Service.-Life before the war:...
's plans to establish
a strike-breaking "private army", "Great Britain 1975". By arrangement The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
led with this story on the day of publication, Peace News won the 1974 "Scoop of the Year" award from Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
.
In 1978, Peace News, together with The Leveller magazine revealed the identity of Colonel B, a witness in the ABC Trial
ABC trial
The ABC Trial was a trial of charges under sections 1 and 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 trial in United Kingdom. It took place in 1978 and is named after the three defendants: Crispin Aubrey, John Berry and Duncan Campbell...
. Peace News fought its conviction for "contempt of court" right up to appeal in the House of Lords, where the Lord Chief Justice's "guilty" verdict was finally overturned.
In 1978, one worker at Housmans was injured after a bomb was sent to the Peace News offices, (allegedly by the neo-Nazi organisation Column 88
Column 88
Column 88 was a neo-nazi paramilitary organization based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in the early 1970s, and disbanded in the early 1980s. The members of Column 88 undertook military training under the supervision of a former Royal Marine Commando, and also held regular gatherings attended...
) as part of a series of attacks on left-wing organisations (similar attacks were made on the Socialist Workers Party
and Anti-Nazi League
Anti-Nazi League
The Anti-Nazi League was an organisation set up in 1977 on the initiative of the Socialist Workers Party with sponsorship from some trade unions and the endorsement of a list of prominent people to oppose the rise of far-right groups in the United Kingdom. It was wound down in 1981...
offices before this occurred).
In 1995, Peace News, together with Campaign Against Arms Trade
Campaign Against Arms Trade
Campaign Against Arms Trade is a UK-based NGO and campaigning organisation working towards the abolition of the international arms trade. Founded in 1974 by a broad coalition of peace groups, CAAT is united in opposition to the military industrial complex and the growth of the private military...
, was sued for libel by the Covert & Operational Procurement Exhibition (COPEX) for repeating allegations that the exhibition was serving as a meeting place for buyers and sellers of torture implements. The High Court struck out the case when COPEX failed to show in court and the peace groups were awarded costs.
Peace News Publications (partial list)
- Big Powers and Little Powers: A Parable by Laurence HousmanLaurence HousmanLaurence Housman was an English playwright, writer and illustrator.-Early life:Laurence Housman was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, one of seven children who included the poet A. E. Housman and writer Clemence Housman. In 1871 his mother died, and his father remarried, to a cousin...
, 1944.
- Law Versus War by Vera BrittainVera BrittainVera Mary Brittain was a British writer, feminist and pacifist, best remembered as the author of the best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth, recounting her experiences during World War I and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism.-Life:Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Brittain was the...
, 1944.
- India Gets Her Freedom by Samar Ranjan Sen, 1948.
- Power or Peace : Western industrialism and World leadership, by Wilfred WellockWilfred WellockWilfred Wellock was a socialist Gandhian and sometime Labour politician and MP.He was imprisoned as a conscientious objector in the First World War....
, 1950.
- Gandhi : the practical peace-builder by John S. Hoyland, 1952.
- Truth About Kenya: An Eye-Witness Account by Eileen Fletcher, 1956.
- Tyranny could not quell them : how Norway's teachers defeated Quisling during the Nazi occupation and what it means for unarmed defence today by Gene Sharp, 1958.
- Race Relations in Great Britain by Vernon Waughray, 1961.
- Nonviolent Resistance : men against war by Nicolas WalterNicolas WalterNicolas Hardy Walter was a British anarchist and atheist writer, speaker and activist.-Career overview:Walter was born in London; his father was the neurophysiologist and pioneer of cybernetics, William Grey Walter...
, 1963
- Civilian Defence by Adam Roberts (foreword by Alastair BuchanAlastair BuchanProfessor Alastair Buchan is a neurologist and researcher in stroke medicine. His main research interest has always been how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic...
), 1964
- Making Nonviolent Revolution by Howard Clark, 1977 and 1981
- From Protest to Resistance: the direct action movement against nuclear weapons edited by Ross Bradshaw, Dennis Gould and Chris Jones, 1981
- Taking Racism Personally: white anti-racism at the crossroads,by Keith Motherson et al, 1978
- It'll Make a Man of You: A feminist view of the arms race, Penny Strange, co-published with Mushroom Bookshop
- Preparing for Nonviolent Action by Howard Clark, Sheryl Crown, Angela McKee, and Hugh MacPherson (This was a joint publication of Peace News and CND), 1984.
- Too Much Pressure : Cartoons by "Brick", edited and designed by Kathy Challis, 1986.
- Against All War : Fifty Years of Peace News, 1936-1986 by Albert Beale, 1986.
- Children Don't Start Wars by David Gribble, 2010.