Great Britain: Aldermaston's Amen?

Since 1958, when the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament staged the first Aldermaston March, its 52-mile Easter parade has turned into Britain's biggest lunatic fringe benefit. Beardies and weirdies soon stole the spotlight from the pacifist parsons and left-wing Laborites who started the ban-the-bomb movement.

It also became evident that the four-day shuffle was being manipulated by such highly motivated "pilgrims" as Communist agitators, anarchists, and a few thugs to boot. Last week, after the sixth annual spectacular ended in blisters and bombast in Hyde Park, most responsible Britons—including several C.N.D. co-founders—were more eager to ban the march than the bomb.

Their...