ABSTRACT
The intensifying nuclear debate was expressed in the bitter public dialogue which developed between western governments and their own citizens. The anti-nuclear protest movement constituted a visible and vocal opposition to dominant views on nuclear defence and was partly responsible for exerting the political pressures which led the Reagan administration to enter arms control talks with the Soviet Union. The peace movement became the major social protest movement of the post-war era, involving trade unions and members of all political parties. Peace movement events tended to be large and spectacular, and thus attractive to routine journalistic news values. It was as a spectacular protest lobby that the anti-nuclear movement most frequently made news. The ‘Interim’ Zero Option, President Reagan’s main contribution to the Easter counter-propaganda battle with the European peace movement, was announced on 30 March, the day before the peace movement protests were scheduled to begin.
