Ban the Bomb!. Martin Levy

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СКАЧАТЬ it was the Direct Action Committee (DAC) which followed it, that turned Michael into a national figure.

      Operation Gandhi was small-scale. The number of activists never amounted to more than thirty. It hardly bothered anyone, whereas the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (to use its full name) was larger, better organised, more focused, and determined from the outset to be a major thorn in the government’s nuclear weapons programme.

      Michael was its second chairman, taking over from Hugh Brock during the summer of 1958.

      Its purpose? It’s there in the title: direct action against nuclear war.

      In practical terms this meant that it had less patience than Operation Gandhi with moral exhortation. Not that it didn’t try it. It did. On numerous occasions. But nuclear weapons were a national emergency. It wanted the unilateral nuclear disarmament of Britain and it wanted it now. Thus, it was much more willing to raise the ante as far as civil disobedience was concerned, while nonetheless remaining firmly within the tradition of satyagraha.

      But first, it organised the first Aldermaston march. Or rather Hugh Brock and Pat Arrowsmith organised it, with help from Michael and Labourites Frank Allaun, MP, and Walter Wolfgang.

      You’ll read more about Pat Arrowsmith in the interviews that follow this introduction. Next to Hugh Brock and April Carter, she was probably Michael’s closest DAC colleague.

      As for the march, it took place over Easter 1958 and was a huge success. Nothing was able to stop it. Neither the anti-direct action leadership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Nor the Communist Party of Great Britain, which tried to co-opt it. Nor the once-famous McWhirter twins with their Mercedes car and megaphone, who called the marchers communist dupes. Not even the weather, which was atrocious.

      Thousands of people walked at least part of the route: London via Hounslow and Reading to Aldermaston.

      Thereafter, delegates from the marchers carried a resolution to the British, American and Russian governments calling upon them to desist from testing, manufacturing or storing nuclear weapons. All, however, remained unmoved—though the Russian embassy, scenting a propaganda coup, did at least agree to meet and parley with the delegates, amongst whom was Michael.

      Indeed, it was this frustration with the government’s inaction which partly explains the DAC’s next major success in terms of media impact: a series of attempts to obstruct the building of one of NATO’s new nuclear missile bases at RAF North Pickenham, near Swaffham, Norfolk, during December 1958—just as it partly explains the formation of the anti-nuclear organisation that Michael was next involved in: the much bigger, more combative, more politically diffuse and thus inevitably much less Gandhian Committee of 100.

      Again, something had to be done. If one method of countering the Nuclear Behemoth didn’t work, then the demonstrators would try another one.

      But let Michael describe the Committee of 100, of which he was secretary. Here I only want to say that it tested his and the other leaders’ resolution to the utmost and that it did indeed, as the beginning of this introduction suggests, lead to increasingly draconian government action.

      For his part in organising the blockade and mass trespass of RAF Wethersfield, Michael received a prison sentence of eighteen months, of which he served twelve. At the time, this was the longest sentence imposed by a British court for opposition to nuclear weapons.

      That, in a very small nutshell, is the story of the direct action phase of Michael’s anti-nuclear activism. But, of course, he wasn’t—isn’t—just against nuclear weapons. Hating nuclear weapons is the easy bit. He also had a positive vision of what a nuclear disarmed Britain and indeed a nuclear disarmed world might look like.

      It’s important for me to say something about this as well. For Michael has been an activist on many fronts, not least in association with War Resisters’ International, of which he has been a council and an executive member.

      Underpinning his position on nuclear weapons was a particular view of politics: deeply respectful of human rights, democratic, but not party-political. But, on the contrary, profoundly convinced of the power of civil disobedience to keep our democracies ‘honest’ and to hold the dictatorships to account for their many offences.

      Here too, Gandhi was—and again is—a central influence. Another was the Dutch anarcho-syndicalist Bart de Ligt, whose book The Conquest of Violence, he first read in the edition with an introduction by Aldous Huxley.

      As for the other notable organisations and important events that Michael has been involved in: the so-called ‘springing’ of his former prison mate, the Russian spy George Blake, from Wormwood Scrubs; a further long stretch in prison for ‘invading’ the Greek Embassy in London; a campaign to support Czechoslovakian independence in the face of a real, Russian, invasion; another major trial at the Old Bailey, this time for helping Blake escape—those too, I’ll leave him to describe himself. Needless to say, as even this short list suggests, his life post the 1962 highpoint of his anti-nuclear activism has been anything but short of incident or complications.

      Instead I want to say something about the other Michael, the man who Paul Rogers in his foreword to this book calls ‘Michael the scholar’. For this is the Michael that I met.

      It is the Michael of our interviews, the amusing and unfailingly gracious host, the former rugby player (for Brighton Town, if you’re interested), the man who loves literature and music, who laughs a lot and who isn’t afraid of showing his emotions.

      I’ve already mentioned how I prepared the questions. This is how the interviews worked.

      Following that first morning in 2017, I’d usually arrive for our interviews at about 10 o’clock. We’d then spend two hours or so, working through a portion of my questions.

      Sometimes I’d focus my questions on a particular person or organisation, say Ralph Schoenman or Operation Gandhi, but more usually I’d concentrate on a period, perhaps of two to three years, and we’d work through that, week by week or month by month, depending on how busy Michael’s schedule had been—and sometimes he had been very busy.

      That said, if Michael wanted to take the conversation in a different direction or something interesting cropped up that I hadn’t thought about, all to the good. We’d talk about that and then return to the prepared questions afterwards.

      Sometimes Anne would join us, sometimes not. Anne’s memories are often different to Michael’s. Michael is best at public events: the demonstrations, the marches, the big speeches. Anne at the domestic angle. Then she’s also good at filling in details. So, if, as occasionally happened, Michael forgot a name, she could usually be relied upon to supply it.

      After copying up an interview, I would take it to the library, surround myself with pamphlets, newspapers and books, and go through the factual statements one by one. It wasn’t often that I found anything that could be construed as an error. I would then forward the same interview to Michael, in case he wanted to make any changes of detail or emphasis.

      In all, I must have done about twenty-five interviews. However, in the interests of readability, I’ve reorganised them and reduced them to eleven. These are the essential Michael.

      Finally, a further word about politics.

      Naturally, I didn’t agree with everything Michael said during our interviews. He’s on the libertarian left. So am I, but I’m grouchy with it. He’s a consummate team player. I don’t travel well in groups. Michael is also more understanding СКАЧАТЬ