Ground Zero (campaign)
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Ground Zero was a
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
advocacy and education organization devoted to
nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weap ...
. Founded by former White House
National Security Council A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...
official Roger Molander, it did not explicitly support the
nuclear freeze The Nuclear Freeze campaign was a mass movement in the United States during the 1980s to secure an agreement between the U.S. and Soviet governments to halt the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. Background The idea of simpl ...
, but worked to raise awareness of the nuclear threat during the period of the freeze campaign in the early 1980s. On March 21, 1982, Molander published a prominent piece in ''
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'' discussing the nuclear threat, and from April 18 to April 25, 1982 the organization sponsored a Ground Zero Week of nationwide events to demonstrate that American cities had no defenses in the event of
nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...
. These events were sponsored by the
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,
United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...
, the
National Council of Churches The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, usually identified as the National Council of Churches (NCC), is a left-wing progressive activist group and the largest ecumenical body in the United States. NCC is an ecumenical partners ...
, and an array of other organizations. Some have suggested that these events helped build the momentum for the large freeze demonstration in New York City that took place on June 12, 1982.Katsiaficas, G. N. (1987). The imagination of the New Left: A global analysis of 1968. Boston, Mass:
South End Press South End Press was a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 in Boston's South End. It published books written by political activists, notably Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, bell hooks, Win ...
, p. 189.
Ground Zero also published a mass market paperback entitled ''Nuclear War: what's in it for you?'' Printed by Pocket Books of New York, the book included four scenarios "for killing 500 million people," statistics on the likely death totals of United States and Soviet Union nuclear exchanges and a layman's understanding of how nuclear weapons are designed and built.


See also

* Firebreaks War/Peace Game


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ground Zero (Campaign) Arms control Anti–nuclear weapons movement