What can you do when your government's trying to kill you? Leave the country? What about the world? The 20th Century can be fairly neatly divided in the middle: the first half, before humans found out how to split the atom, and the second half, when various nations started stockpiling enough atomic bombs to blow up Mother Earth 50 times over¹.

The policy pursued by the stockpilers of these bombs came to be called 'Mutually Assured Destruction'. This policy involved the idea that if the consequences of using a weapon were equally unacceptable to both sides... why, nobody would use them. Opponents of this idea pointed acidly to the resulting acronym. This small but vocal minority considered their government's policy to be a harebrained scheme, and one that might just get the whole planet killed.

Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches, the other seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger.
  – Carl Sagan, 1983.

Even during the Cold War 1950s, some Americans opposed MAD. One of them was famous: Dr Martin Luther King. He and other leaders and intellectuals supported an ad hoc committee in opposition to the nuclear arms race. Formed in 1957, this group was called SANE. Its full name was 'National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy', but people got the point. Or did they? Nothing was happening, until some pram-wielding activists got involved.

These young mothers were agreed: it was time for some grassroots non-compliance.

Operation Alert 1954

The challenge for MAD was not getting the military to buy it. As far as most generals were concerned, if the enemy had a big bomb, you had to have a bigger one². End of story. No, the hardest sell was getting the public to buy into the idea of being sitting ducks for a devastating nuclear attack. After all, being used as hostages didn't really fall under the usual obligations of citizenship. The citizenry would probably have been even more worried had they known about the emergency bunker Congress had under the mountain in West Virginia. But they didn't find out, back then.

The first order of business, then, was to convince US citizens that it was possible to survive a nuclear attack. People needed to believe that if they only followed the rules, all would be well. So, in 1954, the government instituted 'Operation Alert', an exercise designed to convince the public that they were in good hands, atom bomb-wise.

They put on a big show: President Eisenhower ostentatiously left Washington, DC, as part of the mock evacuation. The newsreel footage was spectacular. The government set up shop in a tent city³ Civil Defence planners mapped out the enemy's 'target' areas, and announced how much fictional damage had been done. That part went down so well, they decided on a yearly promotional event.

For most citizens, this exercise required only 15 of their Earth minutes, and a minimum of inconvenience. All they had to do was get off the street, go to the nearest designated 'fallout shelter', and wait. The nice Civil Defence wardens in their snazzy white helmets would do the rest. Simple.

That's when a few citizens went SANE.

Operation Alert 1955-1959

The next year, the State of New York made failure to comply with Operation Alert punishable by a $500 fine and up to a year in jail. That was the signal for pacifists to stage a protest in Manhattan's City Hall Park. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, said this in a leaflet:

We will not obey this order to pretend, to evacuate, to hide. In view of the certain knowledge the administration of this country has that there is no defence in atomic warfare, we know this drill to be a military act in a cold war to instill fear, to prepare the collective mind for war. We refuse to co-operate.

Twenty-nine people were arrested, including one completely uninvolved Italian-American 'shoeshine boy', who didn't know what was going on. The protestors got a lot of bad press, and the judge threw the book at them. The public didn't respond appreciably, so the pacifists kept protesting, year after year. And the air raid wardens kept herding people off the New York City streets.

Operation Alert 1960

In 1959, a young mother named Mary Sharmat read an item about the protest in the newspaper. This made her thoughtful. She wondered, could anything be done? She explained her subsequent actions like this:

The reasons for my decision were not scientific, although it was clear to me that New York City would become a desert in the event of nuclear war. Or, the Hudson River would run into a great big hole. I felt that nuclear air-raid drills taught fear and hate towards an enemy. No enemy was coming to attack New York City, and I could not hate an unknown enemy in a nuclear age. I would disobey a bad law.

Mary decided to make a protest during the next Operation Alert exercise. Her husband declined to stand up and be arrested with her, but took $500 out of the family savings account for her bail. His brother came over to support him in his hour of crisis, and Mary prepared a beef roast for them, so they would have sandwiches to eat if she went to jail. The home front thus secured, the would-be scofflaw⁴ prepared for battle.

First, Mrs Sharmat packed a diaper bag⁵ with requisites for her infant son, who would be joining her in this protest. Then, she donned her most fashionable ensemble: a black and white checkered cotton suit with matching red accessories. She decided the baby should look good, too. 'Jimmy wore a new blue linen outfit that looked adorable.' Now that she had her priorities straight, this dangerous enemy of the people set out on 86th Street, with mischief on her mind. She and Jimmy intended to get arrested. She parked her pram belligerently, right next to the Civil Defence truck. And then she waited.

The siren sounded. Mary didn't move. The volunteers for liberty in their 'little white helmets' scurried around. According to Mary, 'The Civil Defence men had noticed me sitting alone, but would first save the rest of the population.' When everyone was standing under entrance canopies, secure from nuclear harm, they started shouting at Mary. The young mother was frightened, but refused to move.

A local policeman threatened her with a ticket, but failed to give her one. When the all-clear sounded, both cops and CD men went away. Mary went home, relieved but let down. Her husband was relieved, as well. He put the bail money back in the bank, and reassured his wife that, well, she'd tried.

Mary, however, wasn't ready to give up.

Operation Alert 1961

I will not raise my children to go underground.
  – Mary Sharmat.

After her disappointing first foray into civil disobedience, Mary refused to become discouraged. In the newspaper, she saw that another woman had actually managed to get herself arrested, briefly. This woman, Janice Smith, was just like Mary – a mother with a baby, well-dressed and respectable. Unlike Mary, Janice had a husband who worked for the United Press International. And she'd staged her protest in City Hall Park, a much more public place. Mary decided she needed to meet this woman.

In 1960, this was more easily said than done. There was no Internet. There was, however, a hard-copy telephone directory. With names and first initials. Of husbands. Mary called a lot of 'Smiths' before she found Janice. Fortunately, Janice's husband's name was Jack, so she was spared the second half of the alphabet. Janice was delighted to hear from Mary. The anarchists were finally getting organised.

By dint of networking in public parks, the women managed to find other mothers with infants and an objection to nuclear war. By 1961, they had marshalled their campaign. Workshops had trained the mothers for dealing with the police⁶. and Civil Defence men. They'd informed their recalcitrant husbands, packed their diaper bags, and dressed 'as if going to afternoon tea'. They had their taxi fare ready.

On the day, the mothers gathered in City Hall Park. Mary wore a large white hat trimmed in lace, and a pink and white checkered dress with a wide full skirt. Jimmy was smartly turned out. In all, 500 protestors were there, including a few men. As some of these uncharacteristically brave fellows were actually bachelors, the ladies lent them some extra babies. College students showed up, too, and sang 'We Shall Not Be Moved'.

The 500 protestors attracted a crowd of about 2,000 onlookers. New Yorkers are nothing if not curious. When the sirens sounded, there was little Civil Defence could do. The cops rounded up the 28 scruffiest bystanders they could find, which was all the paddy wagons⁷ could carry.

One cop muttered, 'Next year, we'll bring ten wagons.' But there wasn't going to be a next year.

Operation Alert 1962

For some unexplained reason, Operation Alert was cancelled in 1962. And every year after that.

In 1992, The Washington Post published the story about the bunker in West Virginia. The government decommissioned it immediately – although the hotel on top of it is still open for business, and offers tours.

In 1993, SANE renamed itself 'Peace Action'. The group continues to fight against nuclear war. Its members try to promote justice. A lot of famous and influential people have been members of SANE: Steve Allen, Harry Belafonte, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Buber, Albert Schweitzer, Bertrand Russell.

Yes, but to the number of SANE activists, please add Mary Sharmat and Janice Smith. Armed with nothing more than their diaper bags and impeccable good taste, they helped to put an end to a government lie.