Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp

In 1979, NATO member states agreed to expand their ‘first-strike’ capability against the Soviet Union, which involved Britain receiving US ground-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles in a number of military bases across the country. 

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RAF Greenham Common near Newbury in Berkshire was selected as the first base to receive cruise missiles, providing the catalyst and a focal point for protests. Starting in August 1981, Women for Life on Earth (WLE) marched from Cardiff to Greenham Common to organise public debates about nuclear weapons. After being rebuffed by the US commander at the base, they decided to camp outside, where they remained from September 1981 until 2000.

The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (GCWPC) was infiltrated between June 1983 and June 1986 by HN33/98 ‘Kathryn Lesley ‘Lee' Bonser’ HN33/HN98 'Lee Bonser' HN33 'Lee Kathryn Bonser' was an SDS undercover officer who infiltrated Lambeth Women for Peace and Greenham Common Peace Camp between 1983 and 1986. , through her membership of a supporting group, Lambeth Women for Peace (LWP). [[link]] Bonser was one of seven signatories on the GCWPC bank account and attended discussions subject to legal professional privilege through Greenham Women Against Cruise Missiles, which she had also infiltrated. 

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According to Bonser’s written statement, she was asked by SDS manager Chief Inspector HN819 Derek Kneale HN819 Derek Kneale Derek Kneale was Chief Inspector of the SDS for two years starting in March 1974, before being promoted to Superintendent. He wrote the 1974 and 1975 SDS Annual Reports and was a member of a Special Branch working party set up to assess the state of the SDS in early 1976. He is deceased.  to infiltrate the Greenham Common peace camp. He told her that Margaret Thatcher,‘wanted to know what the Greenham Women were doing’.

Bonser was the first female officer to join the SDS in more than a decade.

SDS officers had also infiltrated the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is a mass organisation founded in 1957 that advocates for unilateral nuclear disarmament. In the early 1980s, it had around 100,000 members and attracted 250,000 people to its marches. Despite Special Branch and MI5 acknowledging that it was not a subversive organisation, it was spied on by both, including SDS undercovers HN65 'John Kerry' and HN88 'Timothy Spence' in the 1980s.  HN88 ‘Timothy Spence’ HN88 'Timothy Spence' HN88 'Timothy Spence' was an SDS undercover officer between 1983 and 1987. For the first two years of deployment, he infiltrated police monitoring and campaign groups in Hackney, such as the Hackney Campaign Against the Police Bill. From 1985 to the end of his deployment, he infiltrated CND. , HN65 'John Kerry’ HN65 'John Kerry' HN65 'John Kerry' was an SDS undercover who was deployed against the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament during 1980 to 1984.  were therefore in a position to report on the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp.  

The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (GCWPC) was a decentralised group, comprising many different camps situated around the base’s nine-mile perimeter fence. 

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It grew far beyond the initial marchers from the WLE and attracted thousands of supporters. As a women-only group, the GCWPC encouraged male allies to take supporting roles such as fundraising and childcare. It drew widespread support from CND, the Quaker movement and trade unions, including the NUM. National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) The National Union of Mineworkers The Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) formed in 1889 and it became the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in 1944 and is still a functioning organisation today. It is a core particpant in the Inquiry. The NUM was involved in many strikes in across the UK. This included the majot 1972 and 1984 strikes. Although the NUM was of great interest to the surveillance state (including MI5) no evidence of targeting by the Special Demonstration Squad has been disclosed by the Inquiry. Full page: National Union of Mineworkers (NUM)

The 1983 SDS Annual Report stated that the women ‘would resort to any tactic to gain access’ to the base. SDS Annual Report 1983, inc Home Office letter authorising continuation, 29 May 1984, Metropolitan Police Special Branch, MPS-0730903.View Document  In fact, GCWPC based its tactics explicitly on principles of non-violent direct action (NVDA) and made decisions by consensus. 

Disruption through NVDA included sit-ins that blocked entrances and occasionally cutting through the fences to enter the military base. Women at GCWPC relied on telephone trees to mobilise supporters elsewhere to join these actions. Spycop Lee Bonser obtained these phone numbers and contact details by infiltrating the camp.

Early examples of GCWPC actions included a 24-hour blockade of the base on 22 March 1982. When the first 96 cruise missiles arrived at Greenham Common in November 1983, the women in the camp organised Embrace the Base, attracting at least 30,000 protesters. In late December 1983, campaigners broke into the base’s air-traffic control tower, undermining government claims at the time that the base was secure.

Sources

Commonground. A Greenham Women Everywhere project. Greenham Women Everywhere, Commonground. A Greenham Women Everywhere project., 2024.