New Jersey

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. News, and Other Relevant Links
3. Related Organizations and Resources
4. Featured Resolutions

New Jersey is one of the few states to pass state-wide legislation calling for the U.S. to sign on to the TPNW and take steps to reduce the risks of nuclear conflict.

Since the creation of the atomic bomb, New Jersey—particularly Princeton—has had a distinctive relationship with nuclear weapons and disarmament. During the Cold War, New Jersey was viewed as a potential major target of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union due to the presence of multiple nuclear warheads and the Defense Department’s primary nuclear transportation unit, as well as the state’s broader role as an industrial center. In the aftermath of World War II, Albert Einstein, Leo Szilard, Linus Pauling, and other scientists founded the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists in 1946 in Princeton, with the mission to educate the public on the dangers of nuclear weapons. The committee focused on fundraising initiatives to build an informed public because, as Einstein wrote in a 1947 letter, “We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not death.”

This legacy of activism continued into the Cold War era. In 1960, The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy, a leading organization advocating for nuclear disarmament across the U.S., organized an 109-mile march across eight days from the McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey to the United Nations Plaza in New York. The march was calling upon President Kennedy to maintain the moratorium on testing nuclear weapons with the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.

Academic institutions in Princeton have also played a sustained role in advancing disarmament efforts. Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, founded in 1974, is an influential academic program working to reduce the dangers of nuclear weapons and energy through research and training. As technology has evolved, the program has expanded the scope of its concerns e while maintaining its mission for global security and disarmament. Princeton faculty involved with this program had a pivotal role in the passage of Resolution 230 by the New Jersey General Assembly in 2019. The resolution called for the United States to sign on to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and detailed steps the United States should undertake to promote nuclear disarmament and limit the dangers of nuclear weapons. 

The Coalition for Peace Action, another key player in nuclear disarmament activism in New Jersey,  played a leading role in the passage of this resolution. The Coalition was founded in 1980 under the name “The Coalition to Reverse the Nuclear Arms Race.” Since then, the coalition has remained committed to its goals of achieving nuclear abolition, the promotion of a peace economy, and ending global weapons trafficking. Its initiatives have included numerous interfaith conferences and events and an annual commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since 1981, Rev. Robert Moore has served as executive director of the coalition, under whose leadership the coalition has expanded its advocacy across a broader spectrum of peace issues. 

In 2019 the state of New Jersey passed Resolution 230 following sustained advocacy and campaigning. The state is one of the few to pass state-wide legislation calling for the U.S. to sign on to the TPNW and take steps to reduce the risks of nuclear conflict.