Operation Dismantle

Year Published:  1977
Resource Type:  Organization
Cx Number:  CX425

Founded this past summer by Peter Brown, Christopher Hanratty and Director James Stark, Operation Dismantle is an organization committed to bringing about total nuclear disarmament, through a global referendum, in approximately five years.

Abstract: 
Founded this past summer by Peter Brown, Christopher Hanratty and Director James Stark, Operation Dismantle is an organization committed to bringing about total nuclear disarmament, through a global referendum, in approximately five years.

This group conducted a feasibility study between January and April, 1977. These preliminary explorations pointed to the referendum as the appropriate democratic tool among people with the political will to urge total and permanent nuclear disarmament in the interest of peace and planetary survival.

Since August, thirty-one part-time employees and six volunteers have taken ballots to people in Toronto's streets and residential areas. The ballots contain a Yes or No option on the statement: "I am requesting the United Nations to impose total and permanent nuclear disarmament upon all the nations of the earth, to expand its peace-keeping force, and to use it automatically to ensure the defence of any nation which is attacked." In the first weeks of balloting, about 80 per cent of those approaced were willing to vote, and 96 per cent voted Yes. Canadian voters are asked to fill in their special insurance number to protect against multiple votes.

Operation Dismantle defrays costs by means of donations; at the same time, it would like to see the Federal Government take a position of leadership for peace in the world by spearheading a movement such as this and providing the necessary financial backing. A more immediate goal for Operations Dismantle, which is also tied in the World Federalists of Canda, is to bring to the United Nations 1978 summer session on disarmament, by way of endorsement of the proposition, the preliminary results from the distribution of 10,000 ballots among eighty nations of the world.

This abstract was published in the Connexions Digest in 1977.