From there we go through a remarkable life – seven decades of commitment, principally to campaigning against nuclear weapons but later with important academic contributions on alternative defence and civilian resistance, especially his work on the role of civil action in Eastern Europe on the breakup of the Soviet bloc.
After his early actions in Hungary, Randle was heavily involved, in both the UK and Ghana, in action against the French nuclear tests in Algeria. When he returned to Britain, he worked as a core member of the anti-nuclear movement in the early actions at US nuclear bases in the UK, especially the anti-war group, the Committee of 100. It was as part of this group that Randle and five others – dubbed ‘the Wethersfield Six’ – received substantial prison sentences for organising a demonstration at Wethersfield airbase in 1961. This sentence would lead to Randle’s meeting with George Blake.
Randle’s decades-long involvement with War Resisters’ International and other groups may have centred on nuclear issues, but they also involved actions against the Greek Colonels and supporting Czech resisters to Soviet suppression at the time of the Prague Spring in 1968.
But the springing of George Blake certainly did grab attention, as did the trial. Blake’s escape was an amateur effort, which involved Anne crafting a rope ladder with knitting needles for rungs. The somewhat crude plans may have helped to make the escape attempt invisible to the authorities, but they also make it all the more astonishing.
After his escape, Blake was moved between flats and houses of friends in London, before being smuggled out of the country and across northern Europe in the hidden compartment of a campervan driven by Randle and Anne, who appeared to be taking their two young boys on holiday.
In the more recent past, from the early 1980s onwards, Randle has combined his actions with academic work. While his own books and teachings are important, perhaps his most significant contribution is his six years of coordinating the work of the Bradford University-based Alternative Defence Commission, especially its first volume, ‘Defence Without the Bomb’, as well as three more books.
Levy’s ‘Ban the Bomb’ is an unusual but rather delightful combination of biography and autobiography, gently edited and something of a page-turner, not least because it concerns a life very well lived.
When Levy was completing the book, he kindly asked me to write a brief preface. I ended it with the following passage about Michael Randle:
Comments
We encourage anyone to comment, please consult the oD commenting guidelines if you have any questions.