SANE
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The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, more commonly known as SANE, was founded in 1957 by Coretta Scott King, Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Benjamin Spock and others in response to the nuclear arms race and the Eisenhower administration's policies on the production and testing of nuclear weapons.
SANE was formed with the aim of alerting Americans to the threat of nuclear weapons. A full page advertisement placed in the New York Times in November 1957, prompted a nationwide response, and by 1958 the membership of the organisation had grown to 25,000. SANE was formally incorporated in July of that year.
The organisation worked for nuclear disarmament through its programs of public education and political lobbying, with the majority of the work in these areas carried out by volunteer members of SANE's local chapters.
In 1960, SANE was named during Senate Committee hearings investigating "Communist Infiltration in the Nuclear Test Ban Movement", leading the organisation to expel members of the Communist Party, amid much controversy.
SANE also organized opposition to the Vietnam War, endorsing Eugene McCarthy as the Democratic presidential candidate in 1968 and leading the effort to secure the passage of the War Powers Resolution.
During the 1980s SANE expanded its work to oppose U.S. military intervention in El Salvador and to end U.S. military aid to the Contras in Nicaragua.
SANE merged with the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (also known as "the FREEZE movement") in 1987 to form SANE/Freeze. The organization was one of the main U.S. opponents if the Gulf War in 1991. Under the leadership of William Sloane Coffin, the merged organization was renamed Peace Action in 1993.
See also
External links
- Peace Action official site (http://www.peace-action.org/)
- Records of Sane Inc., Swarthmore College Peace Collection (http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/DG051-099/dg058sane.htm/dg058saneintr.htm)
SANE can also stand for