The nuclear freeze was a proposed agreement between the world's nuclear powers, primarily the United States and the then-Soviet Union, to freeze all production of new nuclear arms and to leave levels of nuclear armament where they currently were.

The nuclear arms race between the two superpowers had gone on almost unabated since the Americans had developed the first atomic (fission) weapons in the 1940s, later matched by the Soviets, with both sides also developing hydrogen (fusion) weapons in the 1950s. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreements of the 1970s had provided limits and quotas on the amount of these weapons, but adherence to such limits were generally regarded as unverifiable by conservatives on both sides and the limits were generally considered to be unrealistically high by liberals.

The idea for a nuclear freeze began in April 1980 when Randall Forsberg proposed the “Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race,” specifically for a "mutual freeze on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons and of missiles and new aircraft designed primarily to deliver nuclear weapons." The movement really began to gain traction as an issue in the early 1980s with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980—not because Reagan supported it, in fact he strongly opposed it—by those who feared Reagan's rhetoric indicated an eagerness to use nuclear weapons. The impending delivery of the Pershing II medium-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe then became an even greater focus of the movement. Reagan stated that he had no desire for a freeze, but rather a verifiable bilateral reduction, in nuclear arms. He also showed little interest in meeting with the aging Soviet leaders. When Leonid Brezhnev, whom Reagan had never met, died in November, 1982, Reagan felt justified, believing that anything that he would or could have negotiated with Brezhnev would have died with him. He likewise never met with Brezhnev's two immediate successors, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who were also elderly and in frail health like Brezhnev, each dying within about a year after taking office. During this time, the freeze issue was being pressed in the United States by left-leaning peace groups. It almost became a litmus test issue, conservatives almost invariably opposed to the idea and liberals in favor of it. However, the difference in the systems between the two nations meant that while the proposal was widely publicized and debated in the United States, there is little evidence that this occurred within the Soviet Union. This proposal was primarily one of Western activists, and was never actually a direct part of governmental negotiations between the two major nuclear powers.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader, Reagan met with him and began work along with him on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which was eventually ratified by both nations' legislative bodies and technically remains in force today, although it is considered by most strategic experts highly doubtful that the post-Soviet Russian military is actually capable of operating and successfully launching anything like the number of ballistic missiles and other strategic weapons it is allowed under the treaty. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the resulting absence of financing for pro-freeze groups, the "nuclear freeze" has become something of a dead issue, with a more immediate concern being how better to keep the ex-Soviet nuclear stockpile and other sources of potentially fissionable and/or fusionable materials out of the hands of terrorists.

See also

Nuclear disarmament

Category:Anti-nuclear weapons movement Category:Soviet Union – United States relations

Name	Helen Caldicott
Caption	Dr. Helen Caldicott, October 2007
Birth date	August 07, 1938
Birth place	Melbourne, Australia
Occupation	Physician, Activist
Website	Dr. Caldicott's official website

Helen Mary Caldicott (born 7 August 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general. She hosts a weekly radio program, If You Love This Planet.

Life

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Caldicott attended the Fintona Girls' School, and received her medical degree in 1961 from the University of Adelaide Medical School. In 1977 she joined the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston, and taught pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School from 1977 to 1978.

In 1980, following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, she left her medical career in order to concentrate on calling the world's attention to what she refers to as the "insanity" of the nuclear arms race and the growing reliance on nuclear power.

In 1982, she was the subject of the controversial Oscar-winning National Film Board of Canada documentary on the dangers of nuclear weapons, entitled If You Love This Planet.

Citing confidential memos, Caldicott says that the Hershey Foods Corporation was concerned about radiation levels in milk used in their products because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island accident to Hershey's Pennsylvania factory. According to Caldicott, citing a March 30, 1979 study by the Pennsylvania State University, College of Engineering, radiation contaminants that fell on the Pennsylvania grass found its way into the milk of the local dairy cows. Caldicott noted this was contrary to the findings in the government official report released shortly after the Three Mile Island disaster. Caldicott disputes this report in her book, Nuclear Power is Not the Answer.

Also in 1980, she founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the United States, which was later renamed Women's Action for New Directions. It is a group dedicated to reducing or redirecting government spending away from nuclear energy use towards what the group perceives as unmet social issues.

During her time in the United States from 1977 to 1986, Caldicott was involved with Physicians for Social Responsibility (founded originally in 1961), an organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating others on what they claimed were the dangers of nuclear energy. She also worked abroad to establish similar groups that focused on education about what she said were risks of nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. One such international group (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She herself received the Humanist of the Year award from the American Humanist Association in 1982.

Caldicott's investigative writings had the distinction of being nominated and subsequently chosen as Project Censored's #2 story in 1990. Citing the research of Soviet scientists Valery Burdakov and Vyacheslav Fiin, Caldicott argued that NASA's Space Shuttle program was destroying the Earth’s ozone and that 300 total shuttle flights would be enough to "completely destroy the Earth's protective ozone shield," although there is no scientific evidence to back up this claim.

In 1995 Caldicott returned to the US where she lectured for the New School of Social Research on the Media, Global Politics, and the Environment. She also hosted a weekly radio show on WBAI (Pacifica) and became the Founding President of the STAR (Standing for Truth About Radiation) Foundation.

Her sixth book, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex, was published in 2001. While touring with that book, she founded the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, headquartered in Washington, DC. NPRI seeks to facilitate an ongoing public education campaign in the mainstream media about what it perceives as the dangers of nuclear energy, including weapons and power programs and policies. It is led by both Caldicott and Executive Director Julie R. Enszer. NPRI has attempted to create a consensus to end all uses of nuclear energy and destroy the nuclear age by means of public education campaigns, establishing a presence in the mainstream media, and sponsoring high-profile symposia.

In May 2003, Caldicott gave a lecture entitled "The New Nuclear Threat" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.

A 2004 documentary film, 'Helen's War: portrait of a dissident', provides a look into Dr. Caldicott's life through the eyes of her niece, filmmaker Anna Broinowski.

Caldicott currently splits her time between the United States and Australia and continues to lecture widely to promote her views on nuclear energy use, including weapons and power. She has been awarded 20 honorary doctoral degrees and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling. She was awarded the Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom in 2003, and in 2006, the Peace Organisation of Australia presented her with the inaugural Australian Peace Prize "for her longstanding commitment to raising awareness about the medical and environmental hazards of the nuclear age". The Smithsonian Institution has named Caldicott as one of the most influential women of the 20th century.

Since July 14, 2008, Dr. Caldicott has hosted an hour-long, weekly radio program, "If You Love This Planet." The show was first aired and originated by Houston station KPFT and is now heard on dozens of U.S., Australian and Canadian stations, and on its own website www.ifyoulovethisplanet.org.

A fully revised and updated edition of her 1992 book "If You Love This Planet" was published by W.W. Norton in September 2009.

Helen Caldicott is featured along with foreign affairs experts, space security activists and military officials in interviews in Denis Delestrac's 2010 feature documentary "Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space".

Federal politics

Caldicott contested the New South Wales seat of Division of Richmond in the House of Representatives at the 1990 federal election, a seat held by conservatives since the inaugural 1901 election, and by the Country Party (now National Party) since it first contested elections at the 1922 election. Caldicott polled very well for a federal independent candidate, receiving 23.3 percent of the primary vote. On the sixth count, Caldicott had 27.4 percent of the vote, with Nationals incumbent (and then leader of the Nationals) Charles Blunt at 43.2 percent and Labor candidate Neville Newell at 29.4 percent. Calidcott was eliminated, and her preferences flowed heavily to Newell. This enabled Labor to take the seat for the first time in its history, on 50.5 percent of the two party preferred vote, a swing of 7.1 percent. This saw only one of three times a major party leader was defeated in his own seat at an election, the others being Stanley Bruce at the 1929 election and John Howard at the 2007 election.

Caldicott wished to enter the Australian Senate in 1991 and attempted to win Australian Democrats' support to replace New South Wales Senator Paul McLean, who had recently resigned. However, the party chose the highest unelected person on their New South Wales Senate ticket from the previous election and Karin Sowada took the position.

See also

Anti-nuclear movement in Australia

Anti-nuclear movement in the United States

Nuclear weapons and the United States

Nuclear-free zone

Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone

Treaty of Rarotonga

Bibliography

Nuclear Madness (1979)

Missile Envy (1984)

(1992 and 2009)

(1996)

Metal of Dishonor: How Depleted Uranium Penetrates Steel, Radiates People and Contaminates the Environment, Publisher: International Action Center, (1997) ISBN 0-9656916-0-8

The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush’s Military Industrial Complex (2001 and 2004).

Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer to Global Warming or Anything Else (2006)

(with Craig Eisendrath) (2006)

References

External links

www.helencaldicott.com - Dr. Caldicott's official website

www.ifyoulovethisplanet.org - Dr. Caldicott's weekly radio program, "If You Love This Planet"

Watch a video clip of Helen Caldicott at Big Picture TV

Video of Speech on Depleted Uranium from Freespeech.org

Anti Nuclear Oxford debate by former New Zealand PM David Lange

Heyoka Magazine Interview

Category:1938 births Category:Living people Category:Australian activists Category:Australian agnostics Category:Australian anti-war activists Category:Australian humanists Category:Australian medical doctors Category:Australian political writers Category:Australian autobiographers Category:Harvard Medical School faculty Category:Pediatricians Category:Non-fiction environmental writers Category:University of Adelaide alumni Category:Australian anti-nuclear weapons activists Category:Australian anti-nuclear power activists Category:Activists from Melbourne Category:Medical doctors from Melbourne

John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty. After managing U.S. involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies, a book which remains the only detailed, insider's account of a major CIA "covert action."

Early years

Born in Angleton, Texas, his Presbyterian father moved the family to the Belgian Congo so that he could provide engineering assistance. Stockwell attended school in Lubondai before studying in the Plan II Honors program at The University of Texas.

CIA career

As a Marine, Stockwell was a CIA paramilitary intelligence case officer in three wars: the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Angolan War of Independence. His military rank is Major. Beginning his career in 1964, Stockwell spent six years in Africa, Chief of Base in the Katanga during the Bob Denard invasion in 1968, then Chief of Station in Bujumbura, Burundi in 1970, before being transferred to Vietnam to oversee intelligence operations in the Tay Ninh province and was awarded the CIA Medal of Merit for keeping his post open until the last days of the fall of Saigon in 1975.

In December 1976 he resigned from the CIA, citing deep concerns for the methods and results of CIA paramilitary operations in third world countries and testified before Congressional committees. Two years later, he wrote the exposé In Search of Enemies, about that experience and its broader implications. He claimed that the CIA was counterproductive to national security, and that its "secret wars" provided no benefit for the United States. The CIA, he stated, had singled out the MPLA to be an enemy in Angola despite the fact that the MPLA wanted relations with the United States and had not committed a single act of aggression against the United States. In 1978 he appeared on the popular American television program 60 Minutes, claiming that CIA Director William Colby and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had systematically lied to Congress about the CIA's operations.

Civil Disobedience and Activism

Writing career

Stockwell was one of the first professionals to leave the CIA to go public by writing a bestselling book, In Search of Enemies. The CIA retaliated by suing him in the 4th District Court in Washington, D.C.. Part of the suit intended to eliminate the possibility of selling the story for the purpose of making the movie and requested all future publications be submitted to the CIA for review. Unable to afford the travel necessary to contest the case, Stockwell filed for bankruptcy in Austin, Texas. After the litigation was processed through the bankruptcy, the CIA eventually dropped the suit. It's been previously reported that Stockwell lost the suit as his case is often confused with that of ex-CIA operative Frank Snepp.

His book is useful in many ways for researchers and journalists interested in uncovering secret information about the conduct of US foreign policy in Africa and Asia. For example, a brief story in the book is about a CIA officer having Patrice Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car one night in then Elizabethville, Congo. Stockwell mentions in a footnote to the story that at the time he did not know that the CIA is documented as having repeatedly tried to arrange for Lumumba's assassination.

His concerns were that, although many of his colleagues in the CIA were men and women of the highest integrity, the organization was counterproductive of United States national security and harming a lot of people in its "secret wars" overseas.

"Red Sunset" was Stockwell's next book and was published in 1982 by William Morrow Publishing Co., Inc. in hard back, then in paperback by Signet a year later. In it he discusses his prediction of a peaceful end to the cold war. Stockwell presented these ideas in fiction form in order to get it published.

In 1991, Stockwell published a compilation of transcriptions of many of his lectures called The Praetorian Guard.

Organization Founding

Stockwell was a founding member of the short-lived Association for Responsible Dissent, an organization of former CIA and government officials who were critical of the CIA's Cold War activities.

Lectures

During the 1980s Stockwell visited college campuses to speak out against CIA support for Central American death squads.

Quotes

"It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate and fear, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms." "Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn." "Short, successful military adventures are as effective as the Super Bowl in diverting peoples' attention from unpleasant truths."

In 1980, Stockwell said,

"if the Soviet Union were to disappear off the face of the map, the United States would quickly seek out new enemies to justify its own military-industrial complex."

Further reading

External links

Category:1937 births Category:American activists Category:American anti-war activists Category:American spies Category:History of Angola Category:Living people Category:People of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:Historians of the Central Intelligence Agency Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni Category:American whistleblowers

Name	Cappadonna
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Darryl Hill
Alias
Born	September 18, 1969
Origin	Staten Island, New York City, New York
Genre	Hip hop
Years active	1995–present
Label	Razor Sharp/Epic/SME Records
Associated acts	Wu-Tang Clan, Theodore Unit

Darryl Hill (born September 18, 1969) best known by his stage name Cappadonna, is an American rapper, a member of New York rap group Theodore Unit as well as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan.

Biography

According to U-God, before the Wu-Tang days, he was a beatbox for Cappadonna before getting into rap.

He made his debut on the songs "Ice Cream" & "Ice Water" on Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. In late 1996, he appeared on the track "Winter Warz" for the soundtrack to Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood alongside Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa, U-God, and Raekwon, and made several prominent appearances on the group's second album Wu-Tang Forever in 1997, most notably on the stand-out lead single "Triumph". In 1998 he released his debut "The Pillage" on Razor Sharp Records and featured production done by RZA, True Master & Goldfingaz and also featured guest appearances by Wu-Tang Members: U-God, Method Man, Ghostface Killah & Wu-Tang affiliate Blue Raspberry.

Afterwards, Cappadonna says "he intentionally gave up what material possessions he had amassed and walked the streets of Baltimore for 8 months, before returning to the rap game". He returned to the music industry shortly after, releasing 2003's The Struggle album. This album featured some Wu-Tang Clan members, and was released on Wu affiliate Remedy's record label.

Discography

Albums

Collaboration Albums

718 (with Theodore Unit)

Singles and EPs

1996 Don't Be a Menace soundtrack - track "Winter Warz"

1998 "Slang Editorial"

1998 "Run"

1999 "Black Boy"

2001 "Super Model"

2007 "Don't Turn Around"

2009 "Somebody's Got To Go"

Collaborations and Features

Cappadonna collaborated with Toronto rap artists Tef & Don on the track "MI Familia" at Fatlabs studio, with Canadian producer Vikas Kohli.

References

External links

Cappadonna Interview

Cappadonna Interview with Fake Shore Drive

Upcoming show with @LADJSupreme

Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:African American rappers Category:Members of the Nation of Gods and Earths Category:Wu-Tang Clan members Category:Rappers from New York City

Category:Beatboxers