Coalition for Peace through Security

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The Coalition for Peace Through Security (CPS) was a campaigning group active in the UK in the early 1980s. It strongly opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO as advocated by CND, supporting instead the replacement of Polaris by Trident and the deployment of NATO cruise missiles.

Amongst its activities were the commissioning of polls concerning British possession nuclear weapons; the mounting of counter-demonstrations and stunts to CND's demonstrations; the provision of speakers at public meetings and debates; and the highlighting of what it considered to be the left-wing affiliations of leading CND figures. CPS also directed their attention to other bodies, such as the World Peace Council, the World Federation of Scientific Workers and the Soviet Peace Committee which it considered to be propaganda groups for the Soviet Union.

The tactics of CPS attracted criticism from the Peace movement. Bruce Kent alleged in his autobiography that the CPS placed a spy, Francis Holihan, in CND. An early CPS leaflet also linked Bruce Kent, then General Secretary of CND to the IRA. CPS also attracted criticism for refusing to reveal its sources of funding whilst alledging that organisations within the peace movement were funded by the Soviet Union.^[1]

With the decline in anti-nuclear agitation from 1985, and the Zero Option agreement in the 1987 INF Treaty to scrap both cruise and SS20 missiles, the organisers of the CPS pursued other political objectives. Tony Kerpel MBE became Chief of Staff to Conservative Party Chairman Kenneth Baker; Edward Leigh (Chairman up to 1985) and Dr Julian Lewis both became Conservative MPs for Gainsborough and New Forest East repectively.