Catalogue Number
Temp.2024.14.2
Object Name
Leaflet
Title
10 million women for 10 days at Greenham Common
Place
East Germany; Germany; RAF Greenham Common
People
NATO; Heseltine, Michael
Events
Exercise Lionheart; Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
Date
1984
Description
Leaflet titled "10 million women for 10 days at Greenham Common", with more information on the reverse side about opposing Exercise Lionheart, "the largest NATO exercise since 1945" to practise "for World War 3".
Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp protested against nuclear weapons between 1981 and 2000. Thousands of women, many from the lesbian or wider LGBTQIA community, travelled from all over the UK to live at the site for weeks, months or years.
The RAF base at Greenham Common was one of three sites within the UK chosen to deploy US Cruise missiles during the Cold War. The protest started in 1981 when a group of mainly Welsh women chained themselves to the fences that surrounded the base. Shortly after, in 1982, a women's-only protest camp was established in order to resist further deployment of nuclear weapons. Cruise missiles were removed from Greenham Common in 1987, following the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, shortly before the end of the Cold War in 1991. Despite multiple eviction attempts, the camp remained standing until 2000 to oppose the UK government's nuclear deterrent Trident Programme.
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