Item NUCLEAR AGE 10/18 - Interview with historian and anti-nuclear campaigner, E P Thompson, [1989]

Typescript transcript of interview with Dr Edward Palmer Thompson, author and member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), [1988], relating to the summit meeting between Chancellor Helmut (Heinrich Waldemar) Schmidt, Federal Republic of Germany, Prime Minister Rt Hon (Leonard) James Callaghan, US President James Earl 'Jimmy' Carter and French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Guadeloupe, Caribbean, 1979; the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II (SALT II) on agreed limits on the numbers and testing of new types of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), Jun 1979; the US development and deployment of the MGM-31C Pershing II Short Range Battlefield Support Missile, 1978-1983, and the General Dynamics BGM-109G Gryphon Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM), 1978-1984; US Presidential Directive 59 (PD 59) on the development of the US counter force strategy, of attacking an enemy's nuclear and military forces instead of centres of population or economic targets, in order to deter an enhanced Soviet first strike capability, Jul 1980; the policies of James (Rodney) Schlesinger, US Secretary of Defense, 1973-1975; the speech by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Federal Republic of Germany, to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, on the consequences of the planned US deployment of General Dynamics BGM-109G Gryphon Ground Launched Cruise Missiles and MGM-31C Pershing II Short Range Battlefield Support Missiles on German territory ('Euro-strategic missiles'), 7 Oct 1977; US development of the 'neutron bomb', a thermonuclear enhanced radiation tactical nuclear weapon [1974-1978]; the Soviet deployment of the SS-20 'Saber' Mobile Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), 1974-1977; the adoption by the USA and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) of the strategic policy of flexible response, 1961 and 1967.