November 15, 1957
The US Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), now known as Peace Action, was founded by Lenore Marshall, Norman Cousins and others in response to the nuclear arms race and the Eisenhower administration’s policies on the production and testing of nuclear weapons. The name “SANE” came from the concepts put forth by Erich Fromm in his book The Sane Society.” The group’s aim was to alert Americans of the threat of nuclear weapons. A full-page advertisement placed in The New York Times in provoked a nationwide response, and by 1958 the membership of the organization had grown to 25,000.
