Direct Action Committee

The Direct Action Committee (DAC) against nuclear war was a pacifist organization formed "to assist the conducting of non-violent direct action to obtain the total renunciation of nuclear war and its weapons by Britain and all other countries as a first step in disarmament". It existed from 1957 to 1961.

The DAC was formed in response to the British H-Bomb tests carried out between 1956 and 1958. In 1957, at the time of one of the tests on Christmas Island, Harold Steele planned to sail into the test area in protest. He was unable to do so but his supporters formed a committee and marched in support to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston.

The original committee comprised:

They were soon joined by:

By the end of 1958 the Committee's members also included Alex Comfort, Frances Edwards, Michael Howard (of the Crusade for World Government), Sheila Jones and Francis Jude.

The DAC's march from London to Aldermaston at Easter, 1958, was, in the event, supported by the newly formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and in the upsurge of popular opposition to the H-bomb attracted thousands of people. The Aldermaston March was subsequently run as an annual event by CND.

The DAC organized meetings, marches, vigils and pickets, campaigned in parliamentary elections and carried out acts of civil disobedience to publicize the pacifist cause. Following the principles of the Indian nationalist leader M.K.Gandhi, they believed their actions should be non-violent and carried out at some personal cost to themselves, such as losing their jobs or going to jail.

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