Rainer Santi, in his history of the International Peace Bureau, said that the WPC "always had difficulty in securing cooperation from West European and North American peace organisations because of its obvious affiliation with Socialist countries and the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. Especially difficult to digest, was that instead of criticising the Soviet Union's unilaterally resumed atmospheric nuclear testing in 1961, the WPC issued a statement rationalizing it. In 1979 the World Peace Council explained the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as an act of solidarity in the face of Chinese and US aggression against Afghanistan." Rob Prince, a former secretary of the WPC, suggested that it simply failed to connect with the western peace movement because it used most of its funds on international travel and lavish conferences. It had poor intelligence on Western peace groups, and, even though its HQ was in Helsinki, had no contact with Finnish peace organizations.