Gunvor Andersen, member of Social Democrats against Nuclear Weapons and Militarism (SAM) and editor of the SAM magazine, has handed in her archive containing material from the association’s 10-year history. The archive is now registered and ready for use.

By Liv Øvlisen Brun Jensen, student intern | 21.12.2016

Social Democrats against Nuclear Weapons and Militarism was founded in 1981, and according to the association, its purpose was to maintain the anti-militarist basis of the labor movement and to stop armament in Denmark and Europe and start disarmament instead. It was a requirement that members were also members of the Social Democratic Party, and in 1986, SAM had 36 local chapters that worked locally and nationally to promote an anti-militarist agenda within the Social Democratic Party. Several times a year, the association also held national meetings for all members.

The association pointed out that it was equally opposed to militarism and rearmament in the eastern and western parts of the world, but in his Cold War report ‘Wolves, Sheep and Guardians’, Bent Jensen accuses SAM of being a communist-controlled front organization that worked to promote pro-Soviet and anti-USA/NATO views. The accusation is based on reports from PET, which monitored the group throughout its existence and states that SAM had a “close and possibly politically coordinated relationship” with the DKP-controlled Cooperation Committee for Peace and Security. In addition, prominent members of SAM had a number of contacts with the GDR, especially in the latter half of the 1980s, and one member was questioned by PET after several meetings with a KGB officer. However, according to the PET Commission’s report, PET employees apparently did not have a general distrust of SAM or its members.

Due to declining support after the end of the Cold War, SAM was dissolved in 1991.

Gunvor Andersen’s archive contains SAM’s resolutions and the magazine’s accounts from most of the association’s lifetime, as well as minutes from, among other things, the nationwide joint meetings in the early years. In addition, there are a number of letters, including letters regarding the SAM magazine and correspondence between SAM members and politicians. Finally, the archive contains a large amount of newspaper clippings from the years 1981-1991.

Hopefully, the archive can help shed light on more aspects of SAM’s history than those that have so far been dealt with on the basis of PET’s reports.

The archive consists of four boxes and a detailed description of the contents can be found here.

The SAM magazine was published quarterly and included reports and articles written by members. All issues of the magazine are available in the library and can be borrowed for use in the reading room via this link.

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