Great peace march for global nuclear disarmament

The nine-month Great Peace March for Global uclear Disarmament (GPM) called for nuclear disarmament and was devised by polit ical campaign strategist and former Vietnam Moratorium organizer David Mixner in 1985. It was intended as a mass protest undertaken by ordinary Americans marching from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., taking the message of nuclear disarmament and peace directly to cities, towns, and communities across the nation. Mixner envisaged a "portable city" of some 5,000 individuals, supported by high-profile corporate donors and marketed via a glitzy publicity campaign by its parent organization, PRO-Peace. This was a far cry from the 1960- 1961 San Francisco to Moscow March for Peace, or the 1976 Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice. This new venture, Mixner argued, would revitalize the peace movement in the wake of President Ronald Reagan's reelection, building it into a tmly mass movement by using the GPM to inspire and motivate a hitherto uninterested citizenry.