John Ainslie Archive Coming Home

First, at the Scottish Parliament at 1.00pm the Cross Party Group on Nuclear Disarmament (CPG) are meeting at lunchtime, special guests hosted by Bill Kidd MSP, Convenor of the CPG (email scndcpg@yahoo.co.uk to be added to the guest list) 

 At The National Library at 4.30 pm at 4.30pm , all are welcome to a drop-in exhibition of the archive willopen supported by Scottish CND and the Nuclear Information Service, who will present and demonstrate the digital archive. A (free) panel discussion will take place at 5.30, Go to www.nuclearinfo.org/resisting-the-bomb to register for the panel discussion about the archive including colleagues of John Ainslie,  and others.

John Ainslie, Church of Scotland Minister and peace campaigner, was in one of a flotilla of canoes buzzing the first Trident nuclear submarine coming up the Clyde in 1992 at the start of his term as coordinator of Scottish CND. He was an activist and organiser but additionally an internationally recognised expert researcher.

Since John Ainslie’s death in 2016, Scottish CND, CND UK and many nuclear disarmament campaigners around the world continue to rely on the work he produced from the early 1990’s until his premature death in 2016.

The Ainslie Archive is a Nuclear Information Service project to digistise and upload  this vast archive to enable researchers, academics and campaigners to browse hundreds of documents, reports, press cuttings, de-classified UK, US and Russian government memos, dating back to the Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis and right up to the more recent times.

Scottish CND is very grateful to the Nuclear Information Service (NIS) for the safekeeping of the boxes, and for the specialised work of digitising and organising this archive not only for posterity, but so that the information could be accessed and utilised for current use, for example by the  International Scientific Advisory Group working on   practical measures for the implementation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Now that the work is complete, the 16 boxes containing the physical archive is being returned to Scotland where it will be added to the collections held by the National Library of Scotland, a moment to celebrate, reflect and appreciate.