65th anniversary of CND. Tony Benn on an early CND Easter march
Tony Benn’s diary makes no mention of the first Easter CND march from London to Aldermaston in 1958.
However when the march reversed direction in 1959 and went to London, Benn was there.
Tony Benn Diary March 30th 1959.
Took they boys to watch the Aldermaston marchers as they came in. They were 1,500 strong at Trafalgar Square and had Frank Cousins amongst them. The movement is a force to be reckoned with.
A representative of the White Defence League was there with some Fascist propaganda. Mosley is standing in North Kensington at the next Election.
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Benn was a mainstream Labour figure in the late 1950s and certainly not an active CND supporter. He went to become Harold Wilson’s spin doctor before the 1964 Election. In the Labour Party of 2023 his spectating at a CND march would no doubt have seen him required to write an official apology.
A recently published account by an active participant in an early CND march can be found in Michael Rosen’s So They Call You Pisher!
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