FORTY years ago, on October 22 1983, CND held the largest demonstration in its history with 400,000 people in Hyde Park. 

The reason? West European leaders had decided to deploy new US missiles that would likely lead to nuclear war in Europe. British prime ministers — first Callaghan in 1979, then Thatcher — agreed to take cruise missiles, at Greenham Common and Molesworth bases, from 1983. 

The deployment of these missiles — and Pershing missiles elsewhere in western Europe — meant that Europe would be the nuclear battleground in a war between the US and Soviet Union, which seemed ever closer.