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"It all started when the Soviet Union and the
United States resumed nuclear testing. Almost
overnight [in 1961], women across the
country, I among them, began to protest. We founded
Women Strike for Peace.... Calling for a ban on the
bomb, we warned of the danger of radioactive
contamination in our children's milk resulting from
nuclear test fallout....We held one demonstration
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after another at the UN and at the
White House, and we lobbied in
Congress. I served as both political action
director and legislative director for WSP.
"In 1963 the limited nuclear test ban treaty
gave us a limited victory. Testing of hydrogen
bombs in the atmosphere was outlawed. But
underground testing continued... and the arms race
just continued to mount and mount."
WSP's peace work, "flowed naturally into the
campaign to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam," and
Abzug was active both nationally- lobbying and
leading WSP delegations to Washington-and
locally. In Manhattan, she organized peace action
committees and built coalitions among "the peace
movement, liberal Democrats and Republicans,
women's groups, poor people, blacks and other
minorities, and young people" to pressure
candidates to adopt anti-Vietnam stances. Abzug
continued her influential political work for peace
throughout the sixties, until finally, in 1970, she
decided to run for office herself.
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