An urgent call to get rid of nuclear weapons was made by two men who had previously been in very senior positions in the USA and Britain.
Field Marshal Lord Michael Carver was Chief of Defence Staff 1973 - 76. He said:
"British nuclear weapons made absolutely no contribution to maintaining peace in Europe. Their only effect is in helping the United States believe that they are not the only people with nuclear weapons. The fact that we were prepared to be members of the nuclear club was invaluable to the US."
Robert McNamara was defence secretary at the time of the Cuban missile crisis and described in detail how close the world came to nuclear war. At the time of their most crucial meeting around 26th October, the American decision makers were acting on the basis of CIA information, that there were, at that point, no nuclear weapons in Cuba. It is now known that there were 162 Russian nuclear warheads in position. The US also totally underestimated the strength of conventional Soviet forces on Cuba. Some of President Kennedy's advisers were urging him to launch an air attack followed by an amphibious invasion in the mistaken belief that Soviet forces would not respond militarily. Had he followed this course the Soviet forces could have reponded with nuclear weapons which they already had available which US intelligence did not know about.
Mr McNamara know argues that progress must be made on nuclear disarmament. He said:
"It is incredible to think that nuclear weapons could be retained indefinitely without their use resulting in the destruction of nations. I drew the conclusions from the Cuban missile crisis that the combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons would lead to their use. The crisis was the best-managed crisis in 40 years but that was not why we escaped nuclear war, we escaped it because we were lucky. There is always a risk of nuclear attack due to misinformation, misjudgment, miscalculation. ... Fallibility will absolutely guarantee the use of nuclear weapons over time. Whatever the reason we had for having them in the past we don't have that reason today."
"We can indeed put the genie back into the bottle. If we do not there is a substantial risk that the 21st century will witness a nuclear holocaust."
Lord Carver and Robert McNamara are only some of the military leaders who have argued against the bomb.