Committee of 100
Encyclopedia
The Committee of 100 was a British
anti-war
group. It was set up in 1960 with a hundred public signatories by Bertrand Russell
, Ralph Schoenman
and Reverend Michael Scott
and others. Its supporters used mass nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience
to achieve their aims.
(CND)), and Hugh Brock
, April Carter
(both of the Direct Action Committee
against nuclear war), Ralph Miliband
, Alan Lovell and Stuart Hall
. Schoenman approached Bertrand Russell, the president of CND, with the idea. Russell resigned from the presidency of CND in order to form the Committee of 100, which was launched at a meeting in London on 22 October 1960 with a hundred signatures. Russell was elected as president and Michael Randle
of the Direct Action Committee was appointed secretary.
Russell explained his reasons for setting up the Committee of 100 in an article in the New Statesman
in February 1961:
Many in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament supported the Committee of 100's campaign of civil disobedience, including some of its founders, and in its first year it received more in donations than CND had received in its first year. Several of the early CND's activists, including some members of its executive committee, had been supporters of the Direct Action Committee and in 1958 CND had cautiously accepted direct action as a possible method of campaigning. But, largely under the influence of Canon John Collins
, the CND chairman, the CND leadership opposed any sort of unlawful protest, and the Committee of 100 was created as a separate organisation partly for that reason, and partly because of personal animosity between Collins and Russell. It has been suggested that this separation weakened the campaign against nuclear weapons.
The Committee's campaign tactic was to organise sit-down demonstrations, which were not to be undertaken without at least 2,000 volunteers pledging to take part. Many eminent people participated in the sit-downs but few of the 100 signatories took part in the Committee's activities. Demonstrators were required to adopt a discipline of non-violence. In a briefing document the Committee of 100 said, "We ask you not to shout slogans and to avoid provocation of any sort. The demonstrations must be carried out in a quiet, orderly way. Although we want massive support for these demonstrations, we ask you to come only if you are willing to accept this non-violent discipline." Demonstrators were recommended to remain limp if arrested and to refuse to co-operate in any way until inside the police station.
To begin with, the Committee of 100 differed from CND only in its methods and they had the same objectives. However, there were different attitudes to civil disobedience, direct action and non-violence within the Committee. Bertrand Russell said he saw mass civil disobedience merely as a way of getting publicity for the unilateralist cause. Those from the Direct Action Committee were absolute pacifists, some of them Christians, who followed Gandhi and wanted to use direct action to create a non-violent society. Ralph Schoenman and others, including the anarchists
who later led the Committee of 100, saw direct action as a sort of insurrection and thought that it could force the government to give up nuclear weapons. These factions argued among themselves about whether non-violence was a matter of principle or just a tactic and whether the Committee should limit itself to demonstrations or adopt a more thoroughgoing anarchist programme. Nicolas Walter
, a prominent member of the Committee, argued that it had been an anarchist organisation from its inception, and that the hundred signatories were, in effect, a front.
in Whitehall, London, to coincide with the expected arrival of USS Proteus
on the River Clyde
. (Picture) Between 1,000 and 6,000 people took part. Somewhat to the surprise of the Committee, there were no arrests. At the next sit-down demonstration, on 29 April in Parliament Square, the police arrested 826 people. There were also marches and sit-downs against nuclear testing and demonstrations at the US
and Soviet embassies in London and at the Polaris submarine base
.
On 17 September, Battle of Britain
Day, supporters blocked the pierheads at Holy Loch
and the approaches to Trafalgar Square
. (Picture) The September demonstration is regarded as the high water mark of the Committee of 100. A week before the demonstration, the hundred committee members were summoned to court without charge under an ancient act of 1361 because they "incited members of the public to commit breaches of the peace
" and were likely to continue to do so. In the courtroom, they were ordered to bind themselves to a promise of good behaviour for 12 months; thirty-two, including Bertrand Russell, then aged 89, chose the alternative prison sentence. It is estimated that 12,000 to 15,000 attended the demonstration despite the invocation of the Riot Act and the Public Order Act which effectively made it illegal for anyone to even be in the vicinity of central London that day , More than several thousand sat down. and there were 1,314 arrests but absolutely no violence from demonstrators despite were allegations of police brutality.
The success of the September demonstration encouraged the Committee to move from symbolic sit-down demonstrations in London to mass direct action at the places where nuclear weapons would be deployed, and they planned a series of demonstrations in December to walk on to air force bases at Wethersfield
, Ruislip
, Bristol
, Brize Norton
, York
, Cardiff and Manchester
, to sit on the runways and to prevent planes from taking off. By this time the authorities had begun to take the Committee of 100 more seriously. The official response had escalated from prosecution for incitement to breach of the peace to prosecution for the much more serious offence of conspiracy and incitement under the Official Secrets Act. Six organisers, the "Wethersfield Six", were charged with these offences and later imprisoned for eighteen months: Ian Dixon, Terry Chandler, Trevor Hatton, Michael Randle, Pat Pottle
and Helen Allegranza. (Picture) Bertrand Russell said that he was equally responsible, but the authorities ignored him and concentrated on the six young, unknown Committee of 100 officers. 3,000 military and civilian police were mobilised at Wethersfield. 5,000 demonstrated there and 850 were arrested. The Wethersfield demonstration was regarded by many as a failure and it was the Committee's last act of large-scale civil disobedience. There were recriminations within the Committee, one internal memorandum saying that its policies had turned it into "a public spectacle, a group isolated from the general body of public opinion and feeling." Herbert Read
resigned from the Committee, saying that the action was "strategically foolish". The Committee was weakened by the imprisonment of its officers.
The force used by the police at sit-down demonstrations surprised many of the demonstrators, which, with the Committee's insistence on non-violence and the use of pre-emptive arrests for conspiracy, discouraged many, and support dwindled. The Committee's plan to "fill the jails" by means of mass civil disobedience, and thus compel the government to respond to their demands, was frustrated by the authorities imprisoning a few important members and ignoring the rest. The harsh sentences on the Wethersfield Six "brought home to the Committee its inadequacy when faced with the might of the State," and some of the Committee's leaders were not willing to "fill the jails", mounting strenuous apppeals against conviction or, in the case of Pat Pottle, going on the run.
In March 1962 Russell addressed a a sit-down demonstration in Parliament Square against the sentences on the Wethersfield Six. All the 1,172 protesters were arrested, but there was a growing feeling that such demonstrations were becoming an end in themselves and would not now create a mass movement against nuclear weapons. (Contemporary research showed that public support for the unilateralist cause actually declined in the period when the Committee of 100 was most active.) To underline its opposition to Russian nuclear weapons as well as those of the West, the Committee held a demonstration in Red Square
, Moscow
, at an international congress of the World Peace Council
in the summer of 1962 calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons and attacking the Soviet system. A a sit-down of 7,000 outside the Air Ministry planned for the following September had to be called off because of lack of support, a "public assembly" being held instead.
From 1962 onwards, the Committee became increasingly radical and extended its campaigns to issues other than nuclear weapons. Peter Cadogan
, an officer of the Committee, said it was "trying to go in 12 directions at once", including campaigning for civil liberties in Greece
, against Harold Wilson
's failure to produce a promised Vietnam peace initiative
and against siting London's third airport
at Stansted. Diana Shelley, a member of the London Committee of 100, said that as the Committee adopted objectives other than nuclear disarmament it became "less non-violent". In 1963 Russell resigned, though he remained in sympathy with the early aims and activities of the Committee and was careful not to denigrate it publicly. Following his departure, the public image of the Committee deteriorated, many signatories also resigned and "the Committee of 100 ventured even further into the wilderness of libertarian politics".
Members of the Committee were responsible for the Spies for Peace
revelations in 1963 about the Regional Seats of Government
, a network of secret government bunkers, and later for the escape of George Blake
from Wormwood Scrubs Prison
.
The Committee's interest in Greek politics was sparked by the banning of a march by the Greek "Bertrand Russell Committee of 100" in Easter 1963, by the expulsion of some of the British Committee of 100's members when they attempted to join the march, and by the murder of Grigoris Lambrakis, a Greek MP and peace activist. Plans to protest against the London visit by King Paul
and Queen Frederika
in July 1963 were met by official attempts to prevent the demonstrations and draconian prison sentences on demonstrators. The government was criticized in the press for the severity of its treatment of the demonstrators and eventually there were embarrassing climb-downs. Some of the sentences were overturned on appeal and the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke
, had to offer financial compensation. One of the demonstrators, Donald Rooum
, proved that an offensive weapon had been planted on him and forced a public inquiry that criticized the police and led to the eventual imprisonment of three officers. But a nine-months sentence on Terry Chandler, secretary of the London Committee, was upheld on appeal. Diana Shelley said that the imprisonment of Chandler, "the force which had driven" the Committee throughout the summer, had a profoundly damaging effect. Four years after these events, following the 1967 military coup
in Greece, a “non-violent invasion” of the Greek embassy resulted in prison sentences of up to fifteen months for Committee of 100 demonstrators.
The Committee of 100 was wound up in October 1968.
and Ralph Schoenman, who derived it from the Guelph
Council of 100.
Many of the original signatories were later replaced. The list did not include the President, Bertrand Russell, the original officers, Helen Allegranza, Terry Chandler, Ian Dixon, Trevor Hatton, Pat Pottle and Michael Randle, or the later officers, Pat Arrowsmith, Brian McGee, Jon Tinker, Peter Moule, William Hetherington or Peter Cadogan.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
group. It was set up in 1960 with a hundred public signatories by Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
, Ralph Schoenman
Ralph Schoenman
Ralph Schoenman is an American left-wing activist who was a personal secretary to Bertrand Russell and became general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation...
and Reverend Michael Scott
Michael Scott (Reverend)
Reverend Michael Scott was a British anti-Apartheid activist and leading international promoter of Namibian independence along with Chief Hosea Kutako and Captain Hendrik Samuel Witbooi...
and others. Its supporters used mass nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
to achieve their aims.
History
The idea of a mass civil disobedience campaign against nuclear weapons emerged early in 1960 in discussions between Ralph Schoenman (an activist in the Campaign for Nuclear DisarmamentCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
(CND)), and 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....
, 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...
(both of the Direct Action Committee
Direct 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), Ralph Miliband
Ralph Miliband
Ralph Miliband , born Adolphe Miliband, was a Belgian-born British sociologist known as a prominent Marxist thinker...
, Alan Lovell and Stuart Hall
Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)
Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of...
. Schoenman approached Bertrand Russell, the president of CND, with the idea. Russell resigned from the presidency of CND in order to form the Committee of 100, which was launched at a meeting in London on 22 October 1960 with a hundred signatures. Russell was elected as president and 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....
of the Direct Action Committee was appointed secretary.
Russell explained his reasons for setting up the Committee of 100 in an article in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
in February 1961:
Many in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament supported the Committee of 100's campaign of civil disobedience, including some of its founders, and in its first year it received more in donations than CND had received in its first year. Several of the early CND's activists, including some members of its executive committee, had been supporters of the Direct Action Committee and in 1958 CND had cautiously accepted direct action as a possible method of campaigning. But, largely under the influence of Canon John Collins
Canon John Collins
John Collins was an Anglican priest who was active in several radical political movements in the United Kingdom.Educated at Cranbrook School, Kent and the University of Cambridge, Collins served as a chaplain in the Royal Air Force during World War II and was radicalised by the experience...
, the CND chairman, the CND leadership opposed any sort of unlawful protest, and the Committee of 100 was created as a separate organisation partly for that reason, and partly because of personal animosity between Collins and Russell. It has been suggested that this separation weakened the campaign against nuclear weapons.
The Committee's campaign tactic was to organise sit-down demonstrations, which were not to be undertaken without at least 2,000 volunteers pledging to take part. Many eminent people participated in the sit-downs but few of the 100 signatories took part in the Committee's activities. Demonstrators were required to adopt a discipline of non-violence. In a briefing document the Committee of 100 said, "We ask you not to shout slogans and to avoid provocation of any sort. The demonstrations must be carried out in a quiet, orderly way. Although we want massive support for these demonstrations, we ask you to come only if you are willing to accept this non-violent discipline." Demonstrators were recommended to remain limp if arrested and to refuse to co-operate in any way until inside the police station.
To begin with, the Committee of 100 differed from CND only in its methods and they had the same objectives. However, there were different attitudes to civil disobedience, direct action and non-violence within the Committee. Bertrand Russell said he saw mass civil disobedience merely as a way of getting publicity for the unilateralist cause. Those from the Direct Action Committee were absolute pacifists, some of them Christians, who followed Gandhi and wanted to use direct action to create a non-violent society. Ralph Schoenman and others, including the anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
who later led the Committee of 100, saw direct action as a sort of insurrection and thought that it could force the government to give up nuclear weapons. These factions argued among themselves about whether non-violence was a matter of principle or just a tactic and whether the Committee should limit itself to demonstrations or adopt a more thoroughgoing anarchist programme. Nicolas Walter
Nicolas Walter
Nicolas 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...
, a prominent member of the Committee, argued that it had been an anarchist organisation from its inception, and that the hundred signatories were, in effect, a front.
1961
The Committee's first act of civil disobedience on 18 February 1961 was a sit-down demonstration at the Ministry of DefenceMinistry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
in Whitehall, London, to coincide with the expected arrival of USS Proteus
USS Proteus (AS-19)
The third USS Proteus was a in the United States Navy.Proteus was laid down by the Moore Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Oakland, California, 15 September 1941; launched 12 November 1942; sponsored by Mrs. Charles M. Cooke, Jr.; and commissioned 31 January 1944, Capt. Robert W...
on the River Clyde
River Clyde
The River Clyde is a major river in Scotland. It is the ninth longest river in the United Kingdom, and the third longest in Scotland. Flowing through the major city of Glasgow, it was an important river for shipbuilding and trade in the British Empire....
. (Picture) Between 1,000 and 6,000 people took part. Somewhat to the surprise of the Committee, there were no arrests. At the next sit-down demonstration, on 29 April in Parliament Square, the police arrested 826 people. There were also marches and sit-downs against nuclear testing and demonstrations at the US
Embassy of the United States in London
The Embassy of the United States of America to the Court of St. James's has been located since 1960 in the American Embassy London Chancery Building, in Grosvenor Square, Westminster, London...
and Soviet embassies in London and at the Polaris submarine base
Submarine base
A submarine base is a military base that shelters submarines and their personnel.Examples of present-day submarine bases include HMNB Clyde, Île Longue , Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Naval Submarine Base New London, and Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base .The Israeli navy bases its growing submarine...
.
On 17 September, Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
Day, supporters blocked the pierheads at Holy Loch
Holy Loch
The Holy Loch is a sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland.Robertson's Yard at Sandbank, a village on the loch, was a major wooden boat building company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
and the approaches to Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
. (Picture) The September demonstration is regarded as the high water mark of the Committee of 100. A week before the demonstration, the hundred committee members were summoned to court without charge under an ancient act of 1361 because they "incited members of the public to commit breaches of the peace
Breach of the peace
Breach of the peace is a legal term used in constitutional law in English-speaking countries, and in a wider public order sense in Britain.-Constitutional law:...
" and were likely to continue to do so. In the courtroom, they were ordered to bind themselves to a promise of good behaviour for 12 months; thirty-two, including Bertrand Russell, then aged 89, chose the alternative prison sentence. It is estimated that 12,000 to 15,000 attended the demonstration despite the invocation of the Riot Act and the Public Order Act which effectively made it illegal for anyone to even be in the vicinity of central London that day , More than several thousand sat down. and there were 1,314 arrests but absolutely no violence from demonstrators despite were allegations of police brutality.
The success of the September demonstration encouraged the Committee to move from symbolic sit-down demonstrations in London to mass direct action at the places where nuclear weapons would be deployed, and they planned a series of demonstrations in December to walk on to air force bases at Wethersfield
RAF Wethersfield
MDPGA Wethersfield is a Ministry of Defence facility in Essex, England; it is located north of the village of Wethersfield—about north-west of the town of Braintree...
, Ruislip
RAF Northolt
RAF Northolt is a Royal Air Force station situated in South Ruislip, east by northeast of Uxbridge in the London Borough of Hillingdon, West London. Approximately north of London Heathrow Airport, the station also handles a large number of private civil flights...
, Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, Brize Norton
RAF Brize Norton
RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, about west north-west of London, is the largest station of the Royal Air Force. It is close to the settlements of Brize Norton, Carterton and Witney....
, York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, Cardiff and Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, to sit on the runways and to prevent planes from taking off. By this time the authorities had begun to take the Committee of 100 more seriously. The official response had escalated from prosecution for incitement to breach of the peace to prosecution for the much more serious offence of conspiracy and incitement under the Official Secrets Act. Six organisers, the "Wethersfield Six", were charged with these offences and later imprisoned for eighteen months: Ian Dixon, Terry Chandler, Trevor Hatton, Michael Randle, Pat Pottle
Pat Pottle
Patrick Pottle was a founder member of the Committee of 100, an anti-nuclear direct action group which broke away from CND....
and Helen Allegranza. (Picture) Bertrand Russell said that he was equally responsible, but the authorities ignored him and concentrated on the six young, unknown Committee of 100 officers. 3,000 military and civilian police were mobilised at Wethersfield. 5,000 demonstrated there and 850 were arrested. The Wethersfield demonstration was regarded by many as a failure and it was the Committee's last act of large-scale civil disobedience. There were recriminations within the Committee, one internal memorandum saying that its policies had turned it into "a public spectacle, a group isolated from the general body of public opinion and feeling." Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
resigned from the Committee, saying that the action was "strategically foolish". The Committee was weakened by the imprisonment of its officers.
The force used by the police at sit-down demonstrations surprised many of the demonstrators, which, with the Committee's insistence on non-violence and the use of pre-emptive arrests for conspiracy, discouraged many, and support dwindled. The Committee's plan to "fill the jails" by means of mass civil disobedience, and thus compel the government to respond to their demands, was frustrated by the authorities imprisoning a few important members and ignoring the rest. The harsh sentences on the Wethersfield Six "brought home to the Committee its inadequacy when faced with the might of the State," and some of the Committee's leaders were not willing to "fill the jails", mounting strenuous apppeals against conviction or, in the case of Pat Pottle, going on the run.
1962-1968
By 1962, half of the original 100 signatories had resigned and had been replaced. The Committee was in debt and had to face the failure of its mass civil-disobedience campaign. It was dissolved and the campaign was decentralized, thirteen regional committees, each with a hundred members, becoming responsible for organizing demonstrations, with a co-ordinating National Committee. Of the regional committees, the London Committee of 100 was the most active and influential. A national magazine was launched by the London Committee in April 1963, published under the name Resistance from January 1964. Like CND, the Committee of 100 had begun with a self-appointed and unelected leadership, and, like CND, it faced pressure for greater participation by supporters. This re-organisation was intended to involve more people in decision making and to to spread demonstrations throughout the country and had been anticipated in the creation of a number of subgroups in December 1961. Although Bertrand Russell opposed it, he wrote that "The Committee has found that its support, named and on file, is so extensive that regional committees are required to accommodate this strength," But supporters became exhausted by the number of demonstrations they attended and "neither London nor the regional committees had their full complement of a hundred."In March 1962 Russell addressed a a sit-down demonstration in Parliament Square against the sentences on the Wethersfield Six. All the 1,172 protesters were arrested, but there was a growing feeling that such demonstrations were becoming an end in themselves and would not now create a mass movement against nuclear weapons. (Contemporary research showed that public support for the unilateralist cause actually declined in the period when the Committee of 100 was most active.) To underline its opposition to Russian nuclear weapons as well as those of the West, the Committee held a demonstration in Red Square
Red Square
Red Square is a city square in Moscow, Russia. The square separates the Kremlin, the former royal citadel and currently the official residence of the President of Russia, from a historic merchant quarter known as Kitai-gorod...
, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, at an international congress of the World Peace Council
World Peace Council
The World Peace Council is an international organization that advocates universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass destruction and all forms of discrimination...
in the summer of 1962 calling for the abolition of all nuclear weapons and attacking the Soviet system. A a sit-down of 7,000 outside the Air Ministry planned for the following September had to be called off because of lack of support, a "public assembly" being held instead.
From 1962 onwards, the Committee became increasingly radical and extended its campaigns to issues other than nuclear weapons. Peter Cadogan
Peter Cadogan
Peter Cadogan was an English writer and political activistCadogan was born into a middle-class family in Newcastle upon Tyne, where his father was employed by a shipping company. He was educated at The King's School, Tynemouth in the 1930s...
, an officer of the Committee, said it was "trying to go in 12 directions at once", including campaigning for civil liberties in Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, against Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
's failure to produce a promised Vietnam peace initiative
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and against siting London's third airport
London Stansted Airport
-Cargo:-Statistics:-Infrastructure:-Terminal and satellite buildings:Stansted is the newest passenger airport of all the main London airports. The terminal is an oblong glass building, and is separated in to three areas: Check-in concourse, arrivals and departures...
at Stansted. Diana Shelley, a member of the London Committee of 100, said that as the Committee adopted objectives other than nuclear disarmament it became "less non-violent". In 1963 Russell resigned, though he remained in sympathy with the early aims and activities of the Committee and was careful not to denigrate it publicly. Following his departure, the public image of the Committee deteriorated, many signatories also resigned and "the Committee of 100 ventured even further into the wilderness of libertarian politics".
Members of the Committee were responsible for the Spies for Peace
Spies for Peace
The Spies for Peace was a group of anti-war activists associated with the Committee of 100 who publicized government preparations for rule after a nuclear war. In 1963 they broke into a secret government bunker, Regional Seat of Government Number 6 at Warren Row, near Reading, where they...
revelations in 1963 about the Regional Seats of Government
Regional Seat of Government
Regional Seats of Government or RSGs were the best known aspect of Britain's Civil Defence preparations against Nuclear War. In fact, however, naming conventions changed over the years as strategies in Whitehall changed....
, a network of secret government bunkers, and later for the escape of George Blake
George Blake
George Blake is a former British spy known for having been a double agent in the service of the Soviet Union. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 and fled to the USSR...
from Wormwood Scrubs Prison
Wormwood Scrubs (HM Prison)
HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs is a Category B men's prison, located in the Wormwood Scrubs area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, in inner west London, England. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service....
.
The Committee's interest in Greek politics was sparked by the banning of a march by the Greek "Bertrand Russell Committee of 100" in Easter 1963, by the expulsion of some of the British Committee of 100's members when they attempted to join the march, and by the murder of Grigoris Lambrakis, a Greek MP and peace activist. Plans to protest against the London visit by King Paul
Paul of Greece
Paul reigned as King of Greece from 1947 to 1964.-Family and early life:Paul was born in Athens, the third son of King Constantine I of Greece and his wife, Princess Sophia of Prussia. He was trained as a naval officer....
and Queen Frederika
Frederika of Hanover
Frederica of Hanover was Queen consort of the Hellenes as the wife of King Paul of Greece.-Early life:...
in July 1963 were met by official attempts to prevent the demonstrations and draconian prison sentences on demonstrators. The government was criticized in the press for the severity of its treatment of the demonstrators and eventually there were embarrassing climb-downs. Some of the sentences were overturned on appeal and the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke
Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor
Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor CH, PC was a British Conservative Party politician.-Political career:...
, had to offer financial compensation. One of the demonstrators, Donald Rooum
Donald Rooum
Donald Rooum is an English anarchist cartoonist and writer. He has a long association with Freedom Press who have published seven volumes of his Wildcat cartoons....
, proved that an offensive weapon had been planted on him and forced a public inquiry that criticized the police and led to the eventual imprisonment of three officers. But a nine-months sentence on Terry Chandler, secretary of the London Committee, was upheld on appeal. Diana Shelley said that the imprisonment of Chandler, "the force which had driven" the Committee throughout the summer, had a profoundly damaging effect. Four years after these events, following the 1967 military coup
Greek military junta of 1967-1974
The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", and "The Seven Years" are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing military governments that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974...
in Greece, a “non-violent invasion” of the Greek embassy resulted in prison sentences of up to fifteen months for Committee of 100 demonstrators.
The Committee of 100 was wound up in October 1968.
Name
According to Christopher Driver, the name was suggested by Gustav MetzgerGustav Metzger
Gustav Metzger is an artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966...
and Ralph Schoenman, who derived it from the Guelph
Guelphs and Ghibellines
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, the split between these two parties was a particularly important aspect of the internal policy of the Italian city-states...
Council of 100.
Legacy
Before the Committee of 100 came on the scene, civil disobedience on this scale was virtually unknown in Britain, although the researches of its advocates uncovered it as a strand of protest throughout the centuries. The Committee of 100, and parallel movements outside the UK (not least the US Black Civil Rights movement), made it a common method of social action, now familiar in the environmental and animal rights movements as well as in the contemporary peace movement. However, the Committee's strict insistence on nonviolence is rare. The Committee also popularized a new method of organization derived from anarchism and unfamiliar to those in traditional political parties, based on decentralization, autonomous "working groups" rather than executive committees, and without formal membership.Original signatories
- Lindsay AndersonLindsay AndersonLindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...
- Clare Annesley
- John ArdenJohn ArdenJohn Arden is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley . His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature....
- Margaretta ArdenMargaretta D'ArcyMargaretta Ruth D'Arcy , an Irish actress, writer, playwright, and peace-activist. Margaretta is a member of Aosdána since its inauguration and is known for addressing Irish nationalism, civil liberties, and women's rights in her work....
- Pat ArrowsmithPat ArrowsmithPat 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...
- Ernest BaderErnest BaderErnest Bader and his wife, Dora Scott, founded a chemical company, Scott Bader, and gave it to the employees, under terms of Common ownership, forming the Scott Bader Commonwealth, in 1951....
- John BergerJohn BergerJohn Peter Berger is an English art critic, novelist, painter and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to a BBC series, is often used as a university text.-Education:Born in Hackney, London, England, Berger was...
- Eric Boothby
- Jack Bowles
- Lord Boyd Orr FRS
- John BraineJohn BraineJohn Gerard Braine was an English novelist. Braine is usually associated with the Angry Young Men movement.-Biography:...
- Doug Brewood Jnr
- Oliver Brown
- Wendy Butlin
- Jane Buxton
- April CarterApril CarterApril 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...
- George ClarkGeorge ClarkGeorge Clark may refer to:*George Rogers Clark , American Revolutionary War military leader*George Clark , creator of The Neighbors*Sir George Clark, 1st Baronet, MP*George Anthony Clark, unionist politician and Orangeman*Col...
- Major CV Clarke
- Una Collins
- Alex ComfortAlex ComfortAlexander Comfort, MB BChir, PhD, DSc was a medical professional, gerontologist, anarchist, pacifist, conscientious objector and writer, best known for The Joy of Sex, which played a part in what is often called the sexual revolution...
- John Crallan
- Elizabeth Dales
- J Alun David
- Shelagh DelaneyShelagh DelaneyShelagh Delaney, FRSL was an English dramatist and screenwriter, best-known for her debut work, A Taste of Honey ....
- Francis Deutsch
- Reuben Fior
- Hilda Fitter
- John Fletcher
- Harold FosterHarold FosterHarold Foster may refer to:*Hal Foster, cartoonist*Hal Foster , university professor and art critic*Harold E. Foster, basketball player and coachSee also*Harry Foster...
- William GaskillWilliam GaskillWilliam 'Bill' Gaskill is a British theatre director.He worked alongside Laurence Olivier as a founding director of the National Theatre from its time at the Old Vic in 1963...
- Dorothy Glaister
- Janet Goodricke
- Michael Gotch
- David GrahamDavid GrahamDavid Graham may refer to:*David Graham , American photographer*David Graham , pen name of British writer Robert Hale*David Graham , Scottish footballer...
- Bob Gregory
- Mary GriggMary GriggMary Victoria Cracroft Grigg, Lady Polson, MBE was a New Zealand politician of the National Party.She represented the Mid-Canterbury electorate in Parliament from 1942 after the death of her husband Arthur Nattle Grigg who she had married in 1920, and who had held the seat from 1938...
- Robin HallRobin HallRobin Hall was a Scottish folksinger.He was born in Edinburgh but spent his childhood years in Glasgow. After studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, he briefly became an actor....
- Nicholas Harding
- Laurence Hislam
- David Hoggett
- John Hoyland
- Martin Hyman
- Alex Jacobs
- Augustus JohnAugustus JohnAugustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
OM - Nicholas Johnson
- Bill Kaye
- Ann Kerr
- Dr Fergus King
- Rev RE Kirby
- Michael LesserMike LesserMike Lesser is a mathematical philosopher and political activist.The youngest member of the Committee of 100, he was sent, aged sixteen, to Wormwood Scrubs Prison along with most of the Committee...
- Ed Lewis
- lsobel Lindsey
- Christopher LogueChristopher LogueChristopher Logue, CBE is an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He has also written for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage...
- Alan Longman
- Alan Lovell
- David LumsdaineDavid LumsdaineDavid Lumsdaine is an Australian composer. He studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music . He moved to England in 1952 and for a while shared a flat with fellow expatriate, the poet Peter Porter, with whom he collaborated on several projects including the cantata Annotations of...
- Hugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
- Pat McConnell
- George MellyGeorge MellyAlan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
- Gustav MetzgerGustav MetzgerGustav Metzger is an artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966...
- Bernard R Miles
- Dr Jack Mongar
- Dr John MorrisJohn Morris (historian)John Robert Morris was an English historian who specialised in the study of the institutions of the Roman Empire and the history of Sub-Roman Britain...
- RE Muirhead
- John NevilleJohn NevilleJohn Neville, OBE, CM was an English theatre and film actor who moved to Canada in 1972. He enjoyed a resurgence of international attention in the 1980s as a result of his starring role in Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen .-Early life:Neville was born in Willesden, London, the...
- John NichollsJohn NichollsJohn Nicholls is a former Australian rules footballer who played for Carlton Football Club in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.-Carlton career:...
- Mike NolanMike NolanMike Nolan is an American football coach and the current defensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins...
- Pat O'Connell
- F O'Hanion
- John OsborneJohn OsborneJohn James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....
- Colin Painter
- John PapworthJohn PapworthJohn Papworth After being reared in an orphanage, the Reverend John Papworth has been at various times a baker, journalist, economist - London University graduate, ecologist, a self proclaimed 'futurist' and Church of England priest...
- Adam Parker Rhodes
- Dr John Paulett
- Malcolm Pittock
- Joan Pittock
- Inez Randall
- Herbert ReadHerbert ReadSir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
- Heather RichardsonHeather RichardsonHeather Richardson is an American speed skater who has competed since 2006. She represented the United States at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where she finished 6th in 500 metres, 9th in the 1000 metres, and 16th in the 1500 metres.At the 2011 World Single Distance Speed Skating...
- Mary Ringsleben
- Ernest Rodker
- EGP Howe
- Edith Russell
- Ralph SchoenmanRalph SchoenmanRalph Schoenman is an American left-wing activist who was a personal secretary to Bertrand Russell and became general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation...
- Michael Scott (Reverend)Michael Scott (Reverend)Reverend Michael Scott was a British anti-Apartheid activist and leading international promoter of Namibian independence along with Chief Hosea Kutako and Captain Hendrik Samuel Witbooi...
- Ivan Seruya
- Teddy Seruya
- Peter Digby Smith
- RW Smith
- Tony Smythe
- Robin Swingler
- Chris Warbis
- Will Warren
- Barbara Webb
- Dr W Weinberg
- Arnold WeskerArnold WeskerSir Arnold Wesker is a prolific British dramatist known for his contributions to kitchen sink drama. He is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings...
- Alan White
- Shifley Wood
- Biddy Youngday
- Alastair Yule
Many of the original signatories were later replaced. The list did not include the President, Bertrand Russell, the original officers, Helen Allegranza, Terry Chandler, Ian Dixon, Trevor Hatton, Pat Pottle and Michael Randle, or the later officers, Pat Arrowsmith, Brian McGee, Jon Tinker, Peter Moule, William Hetherington or Peter Cadogan.
External links
- Pathe news film of 1963 demonstrations against the Greek royal visit.
- Pathe news film of 1963 demonstration at Porton Down, Wiltshire.
- Web site about CND's archives
- Left-wing account of the Peace Movement in the 1950s and 1960s
- International Institute of Social History
- Letter from Peter Cadogan, Committee of 100
- Carroll, S.J., Fill the Jails: Identity, Structure and Method in the Committee of 100, 1960 – 1968, D. Phil. thesis, University of Sussex, 2010