War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Douglas Waller, 1987
Description:
Douglas Waller served as a legislative assistant on Representative Edward Markey's staff in the 1980s. In the interview he discusses the arms control debate in Congress during the Reagan Administration, especially the nuclear freeze issue. He depicts Congress at the beginning of the Reagan presidency, when Democrats like his boss were in the minority and hesitant to resist the new conservative momentum. He describes the small group of liberal legislators, including Markey, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Senator Mark Hatfield, who became involved with the Nuclear Freeze Movement and brought it into the national political arena. He describes Kennedy's major push to keep the freeze movement in the public eye, and the eventual passing of the joint resolution in 1983. He notes that the movement benefited from the Reagan Administration's initial criticisms of it; however, once Reagan began advocating for certain arms control measures, most of Middle America seemed satisfied, and the movement lost much of its momentum.
