Greenham Women Against Cruise Missiles

Material collected in support of Greenham Women Against Cruise Missiles v. Reagan - 9th November 1983. Includes amicus briefs, letters of support from USA and international supporters, legal documents including original filing, arguments to court, transcripts, plaintiff personal statements and judicial responses, press statements and press cuttings, photographs of peace camp at Foley Square outside court, 1983, telegrams in support of the Filing from peace camps around the world, letters relating to writing and publication of related book, files relating to activities of Helen John and Jean Hutchinson, posters relating to anti-nuclear, postcards.

Catalogued created by Julie Parry, 2024

The original files and system of arrangement used by the creator have been retained

3 related banners have been deposited with The Peace Museum, Bradford

Available to researchers, by appointment. Access to archive material is subject to preservation requirements and must also conform to the restrictions of the Data Protection Act and any other appropriate legislation. This Archive contains correspondence and other items containing personal data.

In 1983 Elizabeth Hegarty was living in Cardiff with her then husband (David Forder, deceased) and her two young sons, aged 3 and 7. Elizabeth was already involved with Greenham Common and the Women's peace movement generally. When the original march to Greenham set off from outside Cardiff City Hall, Elizabeth was there with her youngest son in his pushchair. The local peace group Elizabeth belonged to began supporting the core group of marchers who stayed at Greenham Common. This included travelling to one of the gates at the USAF base and camping overnight, bringing supplies and support to women permanently settled at the main gates and the other rainbow named gates around the entire base.Elizabeth became close to Ann Pettit, the woman who had originally put up a postcard in a local shop asking interested people to attend a meeting about the siting of cruise missiles at the base. They cemented an active relationship when a group of local women decided to march through the Welsh valleys during the Miners' strike to USAF Brawdy - a listening centre on the west coast of Wales.Among the group's wider network were two radical lawyers. They called some of the women for a meeting in London. One of the lawyers had met women lawyers from the Center of Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and discussed the scope for using the US Constitution in order to draw attention (especially in the USA) to the number of US bases, sited all around Great Britain, largely within England.A clause in the Constitution called the Alien Torts Claims Act, allows citizens of other countries who are threatened by US activity within their own country to make a claim against the government.This was the start of a series of law suits and activity which would last over two years. The lawyers pitted against the US Attorney General, at that time, Rudolph Guiliani and ultimately a global response. Elizabeth Hegarty, had a full permanent US Visa at this time, she was also a trained teacher with good adminitrative skills and was brought in to have a presence in the CCR offices.Due to the threat of nuclear exhange at that point in history, Elizabeth agreed to stay for 3 months, leaving behind her husband and two children.The US lawyers at CCR, New York City and 13 women UK plaintiffs filed a lawsuit, together with 2 members of Congress. The suit indentified ways in which the deployment of Cruise missiles violates fundamental human rights as guaranteed under international law and the U.S. Constitution.In July 1984 the case was dismissed by the Federal Court on the grounds that there were no "judicially manageable standards" for a decision. The court of appeal affirmed the dismissal.