Waging Peace in a Disarmed World: Arthur Waskow's Vision of a Nonlethal Cold War

Abstract

This article explores the writings of Arthur Waskow, who epitomized what the historian Charles DeBenedetti has termed the “Cold War peace opposition.” Writing on topics that included disarmament, civil defense, an international police force, and “nonlethal equivalents of war,” Waskow offered a nuanced critique of the Cold War. Far from being a utopian idealist, Waskow, as this article shows, offered a series of pragmatic proposals to end the nuclear arms race and prevent an atomic war. Waskow's involvement with the Peace Research Institute, furthermore, sheds light on the often ignored peace research movement that developed in the 1950s and early 1960s as an alternative to the think tanks occupied by defense intellectuals. Despite his best efforts, Waskow could convince neither pacifists nor Cold Warriors of the benefits of a nonlethal Cold War.