ABSTRACT
Nuclear weapons dominated the Cold War and continue to shape geopolitics into the present day, but this situation was never inevitable. As the 1950s began and a new generation of nuclear weapons was born, Americans continued to oppose them, offering alternatives and envisioning a nuclear-free world. In response to the threats the American people launched a new wave of antinuclear activism based on approaches that included nonviolence, lobbying, civil disobedience, education, and public demonstrations. During the 1940s, pacifists continued to oppose nuclear weapons, and in the new decade they took part in several notable campaigns of nonviolent civil disobedience. An even bigger challenge for antinuclear activists than Dwight Eisenhower's foreign policy was the Red Scare, the strident anticommunism that dominated social and political life in the 1950s. Democrat Adlai Stevenson proposed a nuclear test ban in his 1956 presidential election campaign against Eisenhower, and even though Eisenhower won, the public held fast to the idea of a test ban.
