About

The Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security (“CPDCS”) advocates for peace and nuclear disarmament within a framework of common security among nations. Our priorities include working for nuclear weapons abolition and common security diplomacy among all nations, especially the great powers, to prevent wars, end global warming, and address other global challenges.

Founded in 2017, CPDCS serves as a bridge between peace and nuclear disarmament movements in the U.S., Asia, and Europe and employs an organizing strategy that centers on the experiences and leadership of the preeminent voices in the global peace movements. To this end, CPDCS produces resources, organizes conferences and forums, and provides speakers on these and the related subjects of nonproliferation, climate change, and global racism.

Our program work includes:

Lead organizer of Two Minutes to Midnight conference in New York City that featured speakers including Sergio Duarte, Daniel Ellsberg, Christine Hong, Zia Mian, Noam Chomsky and Medea Benjamin.

Learn more about Intersectional Working Meeting. Published articles on U.S.-North Korean relations, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock announcement, the nuclear challenges of the Trump era, and NATO. In addition, President and CEO Joseph Gerson has had several Lecture & Speaking engagements including: Keynote speaker, World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs Shizoka

Hiroshima and Bikini Day commemorations

Dr. Gerson has brought his important message to Brussels, a speaking tour in Australia, and to the Randall Forsberg Conference at Cornell University. In the US, he has spoken in cities including, Philadelphia and New York, and in small towns in Massachusetts: Bedford, Belmont, and Chatham.

Lastly, Dr. Gerson is an active participant in the International Peace Bureau, Korea Peace Network, Massachusetts Peace Action Nuclear Disarmament Working Group, and the founding meeting of the new European Nuclear Disarmament Network.

Funding for CPDCS initially came from individuals. Contributions were made to establish the organization, to fund its initial programming, to develop a strong local and regional base, and to reinforce our international partnerships. We depend on contributions from committed individuals and, as appropriate, foundations. Please donate early and often.

(We are deeply appreciative of the support that we receive from many individual supporters, small foundations and New England War Tax Resistance.)

2023 Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security Highlights

CPDCS work is undertaken in the context of the pursuit of Common Security to prevent and end catastrophic wars and to build collaborations that are essential for nuclear disarmament, to stanch and reverse the climate emergency, and for justice.

Common Security Advocacy

• “Commons: PEACE & Security for All” conference and planning for Peace Momo’s Early Warning on the Danger of Armed Conflict in Northeast Asia, Seoul, ROK
• Articles in Pressenza, Common Dreams, and Letter to the Editor Boston Glove
• Webinars about Common Security, tectonic geopolitical change, and emergence of multi-polar disorder, European peace movements.

US-Russia & Ukraine War

• Workshop leadership Ukraine Peace Summit for a ceasefire, in Vienna, Austria
• Arranged Noam Chomsky’s video keynote for Ukraine Peace Summit
• Track II process with U.S., Russian & European diplomats, scholars, and retired military
• Webinars with on nuclear power plant decommissioning with U.S. & Russian scientists, local officials & community activists, and about global NATO

Asia-Pacific

• Co-chair, Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy
• Core member and co-author, Asia-Pacific Common Security report process (release planned for Spring, 2024)
• Keynote speaker Japan Peace Conference
• Speaker, 70th anniversary of Korean Armistice commemoration and PSPD conference, DMZ and Seoul South Korea
• Articles on Biden-Kishida and trilateral U.S.-Japan-South Korea summits
• Webinar about myths and realities of China’s nuclear weapons program

Israel-Gaza War

• CPCCS statement October 8
• Webinar with Phyllis Bennis & Anatol Lieven, 600 registrants from across US & 11 countries
• Arabic Hour panelist with Ambassador Chas Freeman and Phyllis Bennis
• Email blasts urging ceasefire and talk by Peter Beinart

Nuclear Disarmament

• Chaired U.S. & International NGO Coordination for events during Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Second Meeting of States Parties (2MSP) at U.N.
• Organized in person & online international round table on geopolitical changes and their nuclear implications for experts & movement leaders from 13 countries
• Organized “The Urgency of Disarmament” public meeting during TPNW 2MSP with Setsuko Thurlow (Nobel Peace Prize) and speakers from US and five countries
• Keynote speaker, World Conference against A- & H-Bombs – Nagasaki

CPDCS’ Efforts To Promote Common Security

Nations and populations can only feel safe when their counterparts also feel safe.

The Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security (CPDCS) addresses the dangers of nuclear weapons and power, the challenges of climate change, and the need to halt the war machine by developing and educating activists about a common security framework. We seek support for more effective international organizing around this important and necessary approach to security.

The Olaf Palme Commission originally developed the concept of common security during the height of the Cold War. Put most simply, Common Security means that nations and populations can only feel safe when their counterparts also feel safe. Security cannot be achieved unilaterally but only through a process of extended cooperation with presumed enemies. Common security is both a hope and a difficult, necessary challenge. Common Security is applicable within and between nations.

The Project on Common Security

The concept of common security lies at the core of CPDCS activities. Our mission statement pledges the organization to be “advocates for peace and nuclear disarmament within a framework of common security among nations.”

CPDCS is focusing its efforts on the following objectives:

Revitalize public consciousness in U.S. about common security diplomacy as an alternative to military-first policies.
Reduce the dangers of catastrophic war.
Provide positive and empowering proposals and related analysis for community-based activists and others to advocate.
Advocacy of common security policies by peace activists and limited numbers of journalists and policy makers.
Build international common security collaborations (in unity there is strength).

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Gretchen M. Alther – Chairperson

Gretchen Alther is a Senior Leadership Development Specialist at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawai’i, where she designs and delivers adult leadership education programs in Hawai’i and across the Asia-Pacific region. With over 15 years’ experience as a humanitarian and international educator, Ms. Alther infuses all of her work with a commitment to equity, justice, and grassroots communities. She directs the Center’s flagship residential course, and also develops initiatives to support female-community leaders in the Pacific Islands, and to build leadership that is peace- and climate-aware. As an occasional consultant for EarthWatch, Ms. Alther facilitates sustainability leadership programs around the world. Recently, she has worked UNFPA in the Arab States Region to help them operationalize their resilience strategy. She was a 2018 Rotary Peace Fellow and earned a professional certificate in peace and conflict resolution at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Ms. Alther earned an M.A. in Sustainable International Development from the Heller School at Brandeis University, a postgraduate certificate from the East-West Center, and a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Texas A&M University

Jim Anderson

Jim Anderson is a International Peace & Social Justice Activist. He is deeply engaged in intersectional organizing across issue areas. Jim is the President of Peace Action New York State and is State Vice President of Citizen Action of New York. He is a founding member and organizer of the National Black United Front which led the formation of the Third World and Progressive People’s Coalition which helped organize the June 12th 1982 Disarmament Rally in New York City at the U.N.. Jim served as a organizer & leader for the Peace Contingents of both the 2014 NYC and 2017 D.C. Climate Marches.

Jay Crawford – Treasurer

John (“Jay”) Crawford currently serves on the Board and Finance Committee of Birches School, an independent, co-educational Pre-K through 8th Grade school located in Lincoln, MA. Prior to that, Jay spent his entire working career engaged as a project manager in various facets of Finance. In that capacity, he was responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the completion of numerous projects while ensuring these projects were on time, on budget, and within scope. He founded Inwood Capital Partners (“ICP”) in 1995 to originate and fund new domestic and international real estate investment opportunities including project and global fund development, investments in companies as well as portfolio and single-asset acquisitions. From 1996 to 2013 ICP was affiliated with the HDG Mansur Group, where Jay served as Head of New Product Development and was responsible for launching a $2 billion global property fund. Since 2013 Jay has served as Director, Business Development for Josar Group which included the development of power distributed generation plants for high-rise commercial office buildings. Prior to the formation of ICP, Jay spent 15 years in the Global Private Bank of Bankers Trust Company, which he joined in 1980 as the deputy division head, to establish a Real Estate Advisory Service for high net worth international and domestic clients. Jay came to Bankers Trust Company from Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (“TIAA”) where he had spent the previous six years in the Mortgage and Real Estate Department engaged in various facets of mortgage lending and real estate acquisition. Jay has an undergraduate degree from Union College, from which he graduated in 1968. After three and a half years as an officer in the United States Navy, Jay entered Columbia University Graduate School of Business where he graduated in 1974 with a master’s degree in Business Administration – Concentration in Finance.

Mariana Fernandez

Mariana Fernandez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She obtained an M.A. in Art History at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Before joining the staff of the Rosa Luxemburg Stifgung in New York, she served as Human Rights & Press Officer for the Argentine Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel. At RLS her primary responsibilities relate to indigenous, feminist and Latin American social movements.

Gary R. Goldstein

Gary R. Goldstein is a theoretical physicist, specializing in high energy particle physics and nuclear physics. As a researcher, teacher and a long time member of Tufts Physics and Astronomy Department, he taught all levels of Physics course along with courses for non-scientists including Physics for Humanists, The Nuclear Age: History and Physics (with Prof. M. Sherwin – History), Physics of Music and Color. He is a political activist on nuclear issues, social equity, anti- war, and environmentalism. He spent several years working in the MIT Program for Science, Technology and International Security and at University of Oxford Department of Theoretical Physics. He was also a Science Education researcher affiliated with the Tufts Education department and TERC, Cambridge, working with K-12 students and teachers in public schools. He is a member of the board of the Massachusetts Peace Action Fund for Education. Over many years he has been giving talks for a general audience about the dangers of nuclear weapons and war.

Paul Joseph – Assistant Treasurer

Paul Joseph was recently the Distinguished Chair for the United States-India Education Foundation (Fulbright program) and based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is a political sociologist with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1975). His research specialty is the politics surrounding foreign and defense policy, and especially the impact of public opinion and peace movements on policy outcomes. His books include a decision-making study on the Vietnam War, the debate over nuclear policy, and the security implications of the end of the Cold War. In Are Americans Becoming More Peaceful? he explores the influence of new public sensitivities toward the costs of war on the Bush administration’s management of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He has investigated “human terrain teams,” the social scientists who were embedded in combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, and served as General Editor of the Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives (Sage Publishers). He has also published articles, review essays, and encyclopedia entries on race and class in the United States, on Maori-Pakeha (European) relations in New Zealand, the memory politics surrounding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the influence of peace movements on government policies. He was for many years the director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Tufts University, and served two terms as president of the national Peace Studies Association. He has lectured in more than a dozen countries, served as guest curator for a Tufts Art Gallery exhibition based on the materials provided by peace museums in Japan, and experimented with video conferencing technology to develop co-curriculum with the Naval Academy and West Point. His teaching interests include war and peace, globalization, and political sociology, and he was recognized by Tufts University with both the Lillian Liebner Award for Teaching and Guidance and the Seymour Smiches Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising.

Terry Kay Rockefeller

Terry Kay Rockefeller is a documentary film producer who had the great honor of working on Eyes on the Prize, a history of the civil rights and black power movements, and the NOVA science series, among other productions for public television. Terry’s sister, Laura Rockefeller, was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Since 2002, Terry has worked with September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows to honor her sister’s life and try to insure that other families throughout the world do not experience the violent deaths of their innocent relatives. Following the US-led invasion of Iraq, Peaceful Tomorrows began seeking ways to remain supportive of the Iraqi people, and today Terry works with the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative, a collaboration between Iraqi and international NGOs to support human rights, democracy, and anti-corruption activists in Iraq. Peaceful Tomorrows is one of the NGOs observing the military tribunals that have been convened at Guantanamo to try those accused of the 9/11 attacks; Peaceful Tomorrows members are deeply concerned that more than 18 years after 9/11, trials have not begun. Terry currently serves on the board of directors of Amnesty International–USA, and as the National Co-convener of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of U.S. peace, nonviolence and social justice organizations. Terry speaks regularly about the need for non-violent responses to terrorism and pro-active efforts to address the root causes of hatred and violence.

Jerald P. Ross

Jerry Ross is an active member of the Massachusetts Peace Action Nuclear Disarmament Working Group and is the Peace and Disarmament Lead for the First Parish Bedford Unitarian Universalist Peace and Justice Committee. He has also worked on nuclear disarmament issues with the Unitarian Universalist Office of the United Nations and serves as his congregation’s UN Envoy. You can find various articles by him on the UUA International Blog. Jerry holds a Masters degree in Human Service Administration and graduate training in Public Health. Retired from a career as Executive Director of a community mental health center and private practice in organizational consulting, Jerry now devotes considerable energy to the goal of nuclear disarmament. He began his personal peace advocacy efforts as a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam War.

Paul Shannon

Paul Shannon was born in Boston in 1947 and has lived all his life in the greater Boston area. For the past 47 years he has been an activist, writer and speaker in various peace, union, prison reform, human rights, and social justice movements particularly the United Farm workers union drives, the Vietnam anti-war and solidarity movements, the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, the 1980’s Central America and Cambodia solidarity movements, the Haiti solidarity movement and the Afghanistan and Iraq anti-war movements. He is a recently retired staff person for the American Friends Service Committee in Cambridge where he worked for over 4 decades. He continues his 42 year career as an adjunct college instructor and is coordinator of the Raytheon anti-war campaign focused on ending the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

Mark Solomon

Mark Solomon is a retired Professor of History at Simmons University. He is past national co-chair of the United States Peace Council and past member of the Presidential Committee of the World Peace Council. He is also past national co-chair of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. He currently serves a s a member of the Peace and Economic Security Committee of the American Friends Service Committee as well as a board member of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security.

Elaine Scarry

Elaine Scarry teaches at Harvard University where she is the Cabot Professor of Aesthetics. Her recent book – Thermonuclear Monarchy – shows that nuclear weapons and democratic governance are mutually exclusive. We have ready at hand the constitutional tools for dismantling the country’s nuclear architecture, and have an urgent obligation to carry out this work. Elaine was elected to the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her awards include honorary degrees from Northwestern University in the United States and Uppsala University in Sweden, as well as the Truman Capote Award for literary criticism, and most recently, the Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for a “progressive and original” writer. In 2005, Prospect Magazine and Foreign Policy named her one of the top 100 leading intellectuals. She authored The Body in Pain as well as On Beauty and Being Just.

Emily Rubino

Emily Rubino is Director of Policy and Outreach of Peace Action New York State. Emily has been involved with Peace Action New York state in various capacities. She is co-chair of the World Conference Youth Assembly planning committee, a Ploughshares Women’s Initiative spring 2019 grantee, and an International Peace Bureau Council Member. She was a 2018 Japan Peace March International Youth Relay Marcher, and an attendee of the 2018 and 2019 World Conference Against A&H Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a guest of the Japan Women’s Peace Fund (Shinfujin). Emily is dedicated to intersectional activism that recognizes the connections between domestic social justice struggles and international human rights struggles, and looks forward to continuing to advocate for a less oppressive world order. She is a Fordham graduate with a BA in International Humanitarian Affairs and Sociology.

Michael VanElZakker

Michael VanElzakker is a neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School, and an Instructor at Tufts University. His research is focused on long-term neurological consequences of viral illness and long-term psychiatric consequences of trauma and war. He is particularly focused on the long-term consequences of US policy on the people of the nations it invades and hegemonizes, and in the prospects for health and welfare if public resources can be shifted away from empire and arms dealer profits. He is active in Massachusetts Peace Action, with particular interest in Yemen, nuclear weapons, Korea, and Iran.

Rev. Karlene Griffiths Sekou

Rev. Karlene Griffiths Sekou is an international public theologian, preacher and speaker as well as a community organizer, and international human rights advocate. She is active in the Black Lives Matter Movement as a core leader for BLM Boston, a founding chapter of Black Lives Matter Grassroots where she is the Director for International Relationships and Organizing for the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Karlene has worked across borders and movements alongside Indigenous, Palestinian, Dalit, Immigration, Anti-war and Nuclear abolition liberation struggles in the U.S. and abroad. Karlene was a presenter at the 2017 Ambedkar International Conference in Hyderabad, India; a 2018 delegate to the World Conference Against the A and H Bombs in Hiroshima, and a speaker for the 2020 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Conference in Paris, France.

Joseph Gerson

Joseph Gerson is Executive Director of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security and Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient organization. He organizes and educates at local, national and international levels for peaceful and just alternatives to U.S. foreign and military policies, concentrating on great power tensions, nuclear weapons abolition, the impacts of U.S. foreign military bases, and Pentagon spending. He serves as Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau, co-convenes the Peace & Planet international network and is a member of the No to NATO/No to War steering committee. He is recently returned from the World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and an IPB delegation to Okinawa and the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s International Conference in London. His books include Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World The Sun Never Sets…Confronting the Network of U.S. Foreign Military Bases With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion and Moral Imagination Common Dreams and Truthout carried his articles about the crisis with North Korea, the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty, and the Endless War in Afghanistan.

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