The Woman inside the Negotiations: Alva Myrdal's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 1961–1982

Abstract

Alva Myrdal, Sweden's chief negotiator at the United Nations Eighteen Nation Disarmament Commission, devoted the last twenty years of her life (up to 1982) to nuclear disarmament. With a powerful antinuclear women's movement behind her, Myrdal offered proposals such as nuclear‐free zones, a no‐first‐strike pledge by the nuclear powers, and a comprehensive nuclear test ban monitored by seismic stations and satellites. She asserted that the escalating arms race was irrational as well as dangerous. Disarmament would bring far greater security to both superpowers and all the peoples of the world. Because no real disarmament followed the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in 1971, she considered her efforts a failure. However, she had demonstrated women's leadership ability in a technically complex and crucial area of cold war diplomacy, and her proposals bore fruit later.