Ground Zero is a periodical published by the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. Based in Poulsbo, Washington in the US, the headquarters of the group are situated adjacent to the US Navy’s Pacific port for Trident ballistic missile submarines. 

The group organises to resist the Trident Nuclear programme. The newsletter shares news of nonviolent action, as well as letters and accounts of members’ motivations for opposing nuclear weapons. It aims to educate its readers on the threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons and the moral imperative to oppose them. 

In this issue, one member recounts her visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki: ‘In Nagasaki, I was told that there were two kinds of A-bomb survivors: those who gave in to despair and those who continued to believe in life, to live and to hope’ . She suggests that it is possible to challenge power structures though living for the continuation of life, through taking every step in our power to make peace.

The Commonweal Collection includes around 40 copies of Ground Zero, published between 1982 and 1992. Other materials in the Collection about Nuclear Disarmament (Xd) can be found on the catalogue here.

Josie Mulligan (Commonweal volunteer).

A full list of over 1,700 magazines, newsletters, bulletins and journals that are in the Collection can be found here.