SANE Protests the Arms Race, 1957

As the standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union intensified throughout the 1950s, both sides raced to develop increasingly powerful nuclear weaponry, including hydrogen bombs. In 1957, the National Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy (SANE), a grassroots lobbying organization founded by the writers Lenore Marshall and Norman Cousins, took out full-page advertisements in newspapers around the United States. Although the advertisement primarily focuses on the arms race and the need for nuclear disarmament, the authors make important claims about the impact of nuclear technologies on both the environment and the nature of progress. In what ways might the Cold War and domestic anticommunism have shaped or limited appeals like SANE’s?