LETTERS CND and Stalinists
Sir: Marjorie Thompson, Vice-Chairman of CND, does not deny (Letters, 3 March) that the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR used the word `peace' as a propaganda tool and as evi- dence of popular Western support for Soviet-style communism. However, she then draws a parallel with the Ministry of Defence which, she says, 'spent time and money trying to do the same thing to CND'.
I find her logic obscure: the Stalinist governments were clearly wrong to draw conclusions about popular opinion in the West from the antics of CND and its counterparts, because these groups repre- sented only a minority view. In Britain, for example, repeated Gallup polls showed only some 25 per cent in favour of unilater- al nuclear disarmament whilst nearly 70 per cent supported the retention of a British nuclear deterrent as long as the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons.
What Michael Heseltine succeeded in doing, when Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence in 1983, was to show beyond doubt that the Soviets and their satellites were wrong to view CND as representative of British public opinion in this way. His analysis showed clear majori- ties of Labour, Trotskyist, socialist and communist activists as having been elected or appointed to key CND committees at the height of its one-sided campaign against the deployment of cruise missiles.
Later that year, at a Bow Group meeting In October, Bruce Kent admitted that, 'the Conservative voting strength within CND runs to a decimal point and a series of noughts before you get to the figures.' It was subsequently revealed that an internal survey found fewer than 1 per cent of CND's chanting, marching masses to be Conservative voters — at a time when the Tories had won a crushing election victory.
This clearly shows that the Eastern bloc was wrong to view CND as evidence of public support for 'socialism', whilst Mr Heseltine was right to describe it as a front for the Left.
Norris McWhirter
Chairman, The Freedom Association, 35 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1
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