[3] Russell resigned from the presidency of CND in order to form the Committee of 100, which was launched at a meeting in London on 22 October 1960 with a hundred signatures.
Ralph Schoenman and others, including the anarchists who later led the organisation,[8] saw direct action as a sort of insurrection that could force the state to give up nuclear weapons.
These factions argued among themselves about whether non-violence was a matter of principle or just a tactic[6] and whether the Committee should limit itself to demonstrations or adopt a more thoroughgoing anarchist programme.
[8] Nicolas Walter, a prominent member of the Committee, said later that it had been an anarchist organisation from its inception and that the hundred signatories were, in effect, a front.
[9] The Committee's first act of civil disobedience on 18 February 1961 was a sit-down demonstration at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, London, to coincide with the expected arrival of USS Proteus on the River Clyde.
[10] On 17 September, Battle of Britain Day, supporters blocked the pierheads at Holy Loch and the approaches to Trafalgar Square.
The court bound them to a promise of good behaviour for twelve months; thirty-two, including Bertrand Russell, then aged 89, refused and chose to go to prison instead.
It is estimated that 12,000 to 15,000 attended the demonstration despite the invocation of the Public Order Act, which effectively made it illegal to be in the vicinity of central London that day.
[4][6] (Picture) Bertrand Russell said that he was equally responsible, but the authorities ignored him and concentrated on the six young, unknown Committee of 100 officers.
[15] The Committee's plan to "fill the jails" by means of mass civil disobedience, and thus compel the government to respond to their demands, was frustrated by the authorities imprisoning a few important members and ignoring the rest.
This re-organisation was intended to involve more people in decision making and to spread demonstrations throughout the country[3] and had been anticipated in the creation of a number of subgroups in December 1961.
Peter Cadogan, an officer of the Committee, said it was "trying to go in 12 directions at once", including campaigning for civil liberties in Greece, against Harold Wilson's failure to produce a promised Vietnam peace initiative and against siting London's third airport at Stansted.
[8] In 1963 Russell resigned, though he remained in sympathy with the early aims and activities of the Committee and was careful not to denigrate it publicly.
One of the demonstrators, Donald Rooum, proved that an offensive weapon had been planted on him and forced a public inquiry that criticized the police and led to the eventual imprisonment of three officers.
[25] Diana Shelley said that the imprisonment of Chandler, "the force which had driven" the Committee throughout the summer,[8] had a profoundly damaging effect.
Four years after these events, following the 1967 military coup in Greece, a "non-violent invasion" of the Greek embassy resulted in prison sentences of up to fifteen months for Committee of 100 demonstrators.
[4] Before the Committee of 100 came on the scene, civil disobedience on this scale was virtually unknown in Britain, although the researches of its advocates uncovered it as a strand of protest throughout the centuries.
The list did not include its president, Bertrand Russell, the original officers, Helen Allegranza, Terry Chandler, Ian Dixon, Trevor Hatton, Pat Pottle and Michael Randle, or the later officers, Brian McGee, Jon Tinker, Peter Moule, William Hetherington or Peter Cadogan.