[March for Disarmament, Master #2]

Part of the Global Perspectives on War and Peace Collection. Live coverage of large rally to support disarmament in Central Park. June 12th, 1982.

00:00Copy video clip URL Correspondent Jon Alpert talks with the member of the Grey Panthers from San Francisco and her daughter and grandson.

00:23Copy video clip URL Holly Near performs “Singing for Our Lives,” on the front stage in Central Park. Near concludes her set and credits her band.

01:11Copy video clip URL Correspondent Maxi Cohen interviews Dr. Eric Chivian, a staff psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He speaks on the psychological effects of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

02:05Copy video clip URL Michio Kaku physicist from the City College of New York, speaks at the podium as Dr. Chivian continues talking. Audio then transitions to Kaku’s speech, as he denounces president Ronald Reagan’s policies on defense spending and disarmament.

04:46Copy video clip URL Kaku, who had family members die from the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, introduces survivors of the Hiroshima nuclear attack. An elderly woman, survivor of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, addresses the audience in Japanese and a translator then translates her speech into English. 

09:56Copy video clip URL Maxi Cohen interviews Randy Kehler, coordinator for the National Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.

10:58Copy video clip URL Nancy Cain takes the mic for station identification for the Public Interest Video Network.

11:36Copy video clip URL Animation of a nuclear bomb dropped over Hiroshima. Testimony of an atom bomb survivor is cut short.

12:18Copy video clip URL Correspondent Carlos de Jesus reports. He says that one of the most important things that have happened this past hour are the congressional representatives who have presented their opinions about disarmament. More than 200 political representatives have gathered, de Jesus says, including the three representatives recently seen on screen. “The freeze on nuclear arms should be a bilateral decision, and November 4th [election day] is when we will decide whether or not we want this to happen,” de Jesus says. He continues saying that another person who gave us an important opinion was a representative of defense contract workers [Rep. Toby Moffett] who said that these workers demand another line of work, not for defense contractors, but for constructive efforts on behalf of local communities. de Jesus also reports on the interview with Jill Clayburgh, footage from The Atomic Cafe, and the interview with Dr. Spock.

14:29Copy video clip URL Transition to Jon Alpert reporting from the Central Park crowd. He interviews Jim Langlois, a Roman Catholic Deacon at the Church of the Incarnation in Manhattan, and Sister Debbie Sashay of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. Langlois says that many of the families and individuals in his neighborhood, with a large population of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, suffer from the economic divestment caused by policies that funnel money from social programs to military spending. Sister Debbie says that the Catholic church would endorse such a demonstration. Longlois describes the need for the church at the parish level to organize their communities for political change.

17:19Copy video clip URL Nancy Cain interviews Dr. Randall Caroline Forsberg, from the Institute For Defense and Disarmament Studies, responsible for writing the nuclear freeze policy under consideration by the United Nations. Dr. Forsberg speaks about how people now feel that something can be done to stop the production of nuclear weapons.

18:32Copy video clip URL More interviews with people in the crowd. Alpert interviews a woman who has lived in Colombia for the last 15 years speaks about her reasons for coming to the meeting. Another woman from Germany, who walked from Santa Fe to New York in the World Peace March, explains the march, which was organized by Buddhist monks in the previous year.

21:13Copy video clip URL Maxi Cohen introduces a tape from Upper West Side’s March for Disarmament from that morning.

21:55Copy video clip URL Man holds sign that reads “Protest and survive” and says that this cause is the most important cause in the world.

22:17Copy video clip URL Nuns speak about how impressed they are with the way the people are unified in the cause.

22:43Copy video clip URL Footage of the Upper West Side march with interview of Spanish-speaking man.

23:21Copy video clip URL Return to Central Park. Nancy Cain interviews actress Colleen Dewhurst who says this might be one of the most exciting days of her life. “It’s probably the one time in the history of the United states that everybody got the chance to speak out about the nuclear freeze… There’s no way now they can put a label on us like they always try to do. There’s no labeling this group. This is simply a group across the United States and the whole world saying, ‘We’re telling you, we want to live.’”

25:40Copy video clip URL Alpert interviews people from the Modern Times Theater who have been putting on a play about Hiroshima and atomic war by Steve Friedman called Hibakusha: Stories From Hiroshima.

27:14Copy video clip URL Maxi Cohen reads a press release from Channel 13, with Defense Secretary Kaspar Weinberger saying that the demonstration will have no effect on disarmament policy, because “U.S. policy is determined at the polls and not in the streets.”

28:22Copy video clip URL Interview with B. Ruby Rich, who runs the film department for New York State Council for the Arts. She says the arts funded by federal dollars are having trouble now, given the budget cuts from the Reagan administration. Rich advocates for people to contact their legislatures to organize and fight the financial deprivation of arts and culture.

30:50Copy video clip URL Excerpts from The Atomic Cafe. Footage of a test atomic bomb explosion from August 1949. Military chaplain explains to soldiers what happens when an atomic bomb is dropped.

32:03Copy video clip URL Interview with Norma Becker, Chairperson of the War Resistance League. She reacts to the statements made by Weinberger: “To be very honest, I find it disgusting that an official of the government would express such disdain for public opinion.” She hopes people will be inspired to organize at the local levels and strategize to defeat incumbent politicians who neglect public opinion. “We are putting the politicians of America on notice that we want our children to live and we will fight for that,” Becker says.

34:22Copy video clip URL Arts for Life Festival at NYC’s Lower East Side. Footage of performances.

35:46Copy video clip URL Carly Simon performs “Turn of the Tide.”

36:20Copy video clip URL Back live in Central Park, Nancy Cain interviews Dick Gregory. He talks about how people only recently have realized how dangerous the atomic bombs are. He claims we initially accepted them because they were created by scientists at prestigious universities. “Now we realize that Harvard, Yale, MIT, all of them can be thugs and hoodlums, just like the thugs and hoodlums we grew up with in the neighborhood. Now the glamour is gone.”

38:13Copy video clip URL Men have contest called “Push-ups for peace.”

39:15Copy video clip URL A speaker urges people to sit for the next speaker before Jackson Browne.

39:44Copy video clip URL The speaker introduces Coretta Scott King to the podium. King takes the stage for her speech.

41:09Copy video clip URL Back stage, Maxi Cohen interviews Edith Ballantyne of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, who is currently stationed in Geneva. She says that people in Europe have been protesting in great numbers. She anticipates the positive news coverage and reception in Europe of the disarmament rally.

43:39Copy video clip URL Back to King’s speech. She calls for a revolution of values on human needs and for the people to take action until peace is achieved.

45:30Copy video clip URL King’s speech ends.

45:48Copy video clip URL Nancy Cain interviews Theodore Bikel. “[This event] is totally improbable, but we have done the improbable before.” He recites lyrics from Glenn Yarbrough’s “A Hundred Men,” an anti-war song.

46:52Copy video clip URL Jackson Browne and his band begin their set.

47:25Copy video clip URL Fade to a taped segment where a reporter, walking past a line of cops, refutes the claim that the peace movement isn’t affecting the Reagan administration’s policies.

47:56Copy video clip URL Return to Browne’s performance, where he sings “For Everyman.”

48:30Copy video clip URL Nancy Cain interviews James Taylor backstage. He says, “[The nuclear freeze] is the most important human endeavor, certainly of this century, and perhaps of human history.” Cain jokingly asks him to hum a few bars for them, which causes him to act intensely awkward and respond, “I had to stop.”

49:32Copy video clip URL Back to Browne’s performance.

51:41Copy video clip URL Maxi Cohen interviews Holly Near. “I’m here with a million people to try to show very clearly that disarmament is the only solution for the world.” She hopes that the demonstration will encourage people to take action in their own communities and she describes her experience performing in front of such a large gathering of protestors.

54:03Copy video clip URL Browne performs “The Pretender” with Gary “U.S.” Bonds.

57:02Copy video clip URL Nancy Cain interviews Winona LaDuke of the Indian Treaty Council (later to be Ralph Nader’s running mate for President in 1996 and 2000). “I’m here to honor the earth… The earth is our mother, and that’s who we have to protect.” “We’ve [Native Americans] survived here for 490 years, and if can learn anything about how to live on this continent, I think they should be talking to us.” According to LaDuke, approximately 60 percent of uranium supplies for the U.S. and Canada (the two largest producers of uranium in the world, LaDuke says) lies under Native American reservation land.

59:41Copy video clip URL Browne introduces Joan Baez to the stage. Baez takes stage. She speaks about Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, and Bob Dylan and says, “Now we have to move a mountain, and I believe when I see you, that we can.” She begins singing a cover of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

61:11Copy video clip URL Brief shot of Susan Sarandon.

61:17Copy video clip URL Back to Baez singing “Imagine” with crowd.