ABSTRACT
As the arms race escalated, Cold War Americans lived in the shadow of the atomic bomb. For some Americans, nuclear fears and the growth of a national security state, as well as America’s involvement in Southeast Asia, generated activism for peace abroad and justice at home. This peace movement was not limited to student activists who opposed the draft and the war in Vietnam. In fact, liberal internationalists, radical pacifists, and religious-minded dissenters not only opposed the war in Vietnam but sought to create a world based on democratic principles and international justice. In many instances these groups practiced what some call people-to-people diplomacy or citizens’ diplomacy, and their legacy became part of the municipal diplomacy of the late Cold War era.
