Coalition for Peace through Security

The Coalition for Peace Through Security (CPS) was a campaigning group founded in September 1981 and active in the UK throughout the early and mid-1980s. It strongly opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO as advocated by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, supporting instead the replacement of Polaris by Trident and the deployment of NATO cruise missiles after the Soviet Union began deploying its SS20 missiles in 1977. The basis of the CPS case was set out in detail in a book published towards the end of the campaign, Paul Mercer's "Peace" of the Dead, and many of its arguments at the time can still be found on the website of Julian Lewis, formerly its Research Director.

Its main activists were Julian Lewis, Edward Leigh, Tony Kerpel and, for its first year only, Francis Holihan. It was said to have close relations with the Institute for the Study of Conflict, the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Centre for Policy Studies.

The CPS was said to have close links with Conservative leaders. It was endorsed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and rented its offices in Whitehall, London, from Jeffrey Archer. It was associated with the Campaign For Defence and Multilateral Disarmament (CDMD), which was run by Conservative Central Office. The CDMD included Winston Churchill, Conservative Party Chairman John Selwyn Gummer, Minister of State for Defence Peter Blaker, MOD spokesman Ray Whitney, Secretary of State for Defence Michael Heseltine and Conservative ex-Chairman Cecil Parkinson. The Economist newspaper reported in 1983 that the CPS had had meetings with Blaker.