Women strike for peace

I have four women in studio with me all of whom are concerned with the Strike for Peace which is to take place next Wednesday November the 1st. If I am correct I believe I am. And before I discuss with them why they are involved in this particular movement or event I would like to ask Francis herring how this apparently grassroots spontaneous thing took place because it seems to me that news of it is coming from every direction and that both individuals and organizations and groupings of various kind all are suddenly involved in this thing with a sense of excitement and urgency which I have not seen duplicated. And I would like to know where it jumped off.

It jumped off in Washington D.C. with eight women one of whom I knew personally she was the mother of one of my Oberlin students and we found we both were active in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and then we had many other things in common so had become acquainted. She wrote that eight of her neighbors were so concerned that there was a sort of mad rage that they had going toward a cataclysm and they were sitting by and doing nothing. But they started meeting on Saturday evenings to think out something they could do. And after every session they put phone calls around the country to their friends and said What do you think of this idea. And they had a number that I thought were just no good like marching on Washington or on your capitol that no one could afford to do and so on. And then on the third Saturday they invented a letter asking that women set aside their ordinary concerns on one day November 1st

and let all their elected officials know that they were. Determined to do something to see that we entered upon disarmament negotiations and ended the arms race and they were so strengthened by the fact that President Kennedy had made for the a new disarmament proposal that they thought there was real grounds for believing that we have some effect back on the decision makers. So one of them prepared a really very appealing letter I think Dagmar Wilson illustrator of children's books was one of this group and another it Eleanor Garst a professional writer wrote the letter and they just rounded on the mimeograph machine and sent it to all of their mailing lists and their personal friends and their books. And each of us sent back I sent everybody in my book that I thought would be interested and they got an original mailing and other people did it in Berkeley

and I asked up and others tell and I will tell you I got involved too later. This is chemical. How did you get involved in this. I had a letter from Dagmar Wilson about two weeks ago and I was very very happy to get the letter because I had been thinking about this for several weeks myself. Cuti since hearing Mr. Mumford's speech at the university and I believe it was a week ago Saturday Mrs Herring called me and asked me if I would be interested in doing some work on a womens peace movement and I certainly was interested in that is how I have become involved in it. Well as I understand it all the people who have heard about this have attempted to involve any group or any series of individuals whom they were aware of so that it has spread quite rapidly throughout various

communities all over the United States. Approximately how many cities are involved in in this Mrs. Drutman do you know. We have a press release. Gives this information for the Bay Area. Yes well I was thinking nationally as as well as as locally on October 10th if I may be and there were 30 cities and more every day I should imagine there are twice as many no just on November 1st we will receive a wire from Washington to be rented out. Tell me how many are involved. But I hear of more every day. Well what is the schedule really for this day. What what are the. Because I suppose some sort of ad hoc committee is this specific arrangements have had to be made up as you've gone along. What are you actually planning on doing on November the 1st. This is documented on November the 1st we're going to visit

all of the local officials and this is taking place in Berkeley Oakland Albany Elser rito. They have human Richmond Walnut Creek I believe. I don't know about San Francisco. Yes the ones that you know we are in. Yes the whole Bay Area. Now back to the light you have biting yourselves up in a committee isn't going to different officials or is it just going to be a sort of a mass influx. Well we plan to meet at the city halls of the various cities in other words Burkely women will meet at the Berkeley city hall and so on and from there we will have we will have a set list of appointments we have made appointments with those officials that we could secure an appointment with and then the women will decide which officials they want to see and then we will go from there.

These these are arranged times Willis albeit at a local level or is there any plan to approach state officials for example in California or any of the other states involved. Oh yes we plan to see the state officials and we have already seen Mr. Coe Halon because he could not give us an appointment on November 1st. So we so we have seen him already. I think it interesting what happened in numbers there. Didn't you x tell four women 45 turned out. It happened so you had a delegation of 45 women to talk to Africa we had all that startled him. If you don't know him quite a bit the variety of women was very impressive too. There were women who were there they were professional women who had left their work to come down in the morning and there were

housewives there were women from the women's Democratic Club clubs in the Bay Area and I think that out of these 45 women many many more will be reached. They will transfer the information to other people on I'd like to get our facts straight before we discuss some of the other aspects of it. Any woman in any community who is interested in this thing on November the 1st is simply to present herself at the City Hall of that town at what time on November the 1st. There you have We're doing it at 10 o'clock 10 o'clock and I'm already 30 Francisco and they don't have to be a member of anything or had any previous contact with I think they just come. Perhaps it would be interesting to explain the way I.

I advertise this myself I think other women might have done a similar thing. I thought I had I just made a mailing list of all the women I know all of my friends all of the women in my phonebook and I sent them announcements of our planned meeting and a letter a copy of the letter we had gotten from Washington and out of the several hundred women I mailed notices to. There has been a great great response and they have contacted many other women and I think that probably each of the women involved in the organization of this peace movement have done something similar or the same thing. This is true of age how did you get in to. Well I also received a letter about two weeks ago from Dagmar Wilson and I sat on the idea of her found two days and then I took down the yellow sheet which describes Women Strike for Peace to cow book and had it printed up and I took a precinct list and by the precinct I'd have been sent

one with a personal note to every woman that lived in my precinct. Then I followed up as best I could with phone calls inviting them to come for coffee to discuss the idea. And then I soon after heard of Mrs. Druckman Mrs. herring. This is tempo and we are all getting together on who's getting copies of what and so on. In your precinct what kind of a turnout did you get. I had five. However most of the people I reached on the telephone were very interested they had all read it and thought about it quite a bit. I didn't even get to my last name before they said oh yes I've been interested but most people were not ready anough to go out and speak to a representative quite a few said they would write. Others said that they would think about it. This was a new idea to most of the women in my precinct.

I think your experience was one thing that made us think that really what we're trying to do in such a short time is to mobilize women who are already concerned with reason and education of new women so much. Once you've never gone vanished you don't know what to think as an attempt to focus the strength that does exist on something that might actually be effective. Back in Washington but we didn't know at the beginning whether we should just sort of send out buckshot things or let the snowball work and I think this snowball proves to be the effective way I think it is also true is it not that you're having some kind of a rally in the evening at the end of this day where is that being held. Go with a junior high school caliber. Yes that's for the entire East Bay as far as the whole and the whole community not just the women. Yes. What about San Francisco to go you know whether or not there's any rally being held there. And if so where.

I know that they're meeting at the First Unitarian Church at 10:30 and I've heard rumors of several meetings but I know it's all I can do to keep track of the San Francisco one so I don't want to give false information. The w i l p f the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom office. I offered some secretarial help and they probably could tell where the meetings were going to be if anyone wanted to call them. Well I think that this is fascinating and quite unusual. I don't recall anything quite like it and I think it must indicate something in terms of public concern. I wonder if we could discuss now what you expect out of this. What are you trying to achieve. And on what basis do you does your thinking on it rest. Who would like to talk to that.

We all have probably oh I agree but not many has the styluses TEPCO. Well what I personally would like to achieve is ultimately disarmament and a negotiated peace. And I think that doing it having this meeting rightnow. It is effective because it makes people stop and think and ask theirselves if they can do something to create peace in the world perhaps to let them know that they don't have to just sit down and wait for the bombs to start falling. That if everybody tries to do something to protest and to to support the people in official positions to support Kennedy in his disarmament program perhaps we we will be. I hope we will be successful we will make an impression on the world.

Is it your intent as a group as a grouping to register the total impact of the sign with the president himself in some way or will there be something that everyone involved has to sign or how is it going to be done. Well when we go to see officials we ask them to send a letter to President Kennedy to ask they Stephenson to Dean Rusk and to Mr. Dean on their stationery telling them of our visit and they are this way we hope that women all over the country will it will be known that they have this did officials and that they have made their their. Point of view clear to officials all over the country yes but are they not as individuals going to register something in writing. Yes Harry asked him to he asked them to write to these individuals themselves. We make a distinction between writing two or talking to our

congressional delegates and our school board members say or the mayor or the councilman in the former case. We try to talk about the substantive issues and make them make say Jeffrey to heal and realize that we want him to act in his capacity as a policy maker on the national level in a way to further this end. But we dont of course the school board president or the public health official that will talk to you doesn't have such national responsibilities of what we are asking of them is simply that they do what we have done stop short for at least a few minutes in their day were taking a full day to suspend their usual occupations and recognize that every citizen in the United States has got to do something to turn this tide back. And all we're asking them to do is to send a letter notifying the president with copies to the other people that their community is concerned as evidenced by this

delegation of women and asked them to send a letter. Mrs. Druckman What was your feeling when you involved yourself in this. What are your reasons. I had been very concerned with the arms race and the dangers inherent in this for a number of years and had been engaged in. Seeking individual action writing letters and this sort of thing. This is this peace movement is a very stimulating thing because it's individual action but it's also the feeling of others doing the same and a feeling that perhaps there is a chance to be effective. And individuate often when you're sitting home you're writing letters. You wonder how many are doing the same. If it is having any effect

and to see women so interested and so concerned and the response has been tremendous when I received my letter from Dagmar Wilson I showed it to a neighbor and a friend who I knew would be interested for the afternoon was over she had six friends very enthusiastic. What do we do. And ready to act. I think people are feeling a need to act because they they are beginning to feel that the arms race is definitely out of hand and becoming more and more dangerous to each one of us. Many people have been discouraged about writing individually and many of these people prefer this type of action and of course we are going to encourage people to follow this up individually and I think perhaps this will give some people the impetus to do so with the

stimulation and seeing that other women are so vitally concerned. Two I think is very important as been very stimulating to me. It seems to me that one of the most. Interesting things about this is that it has not been done under a specific grouping of some sort that it has cut across all sorts of organizational structures and has is reaching out apparently into the community itself. I was very struck by the reaction of one of the people here on the stuff who when she heard about this said to me Oh I have been so worried now I feel I don't have to worry by myself there's something I can do and where can I get the literature I'm going to go out and ring doorbells in my neighborhood. Now this is a person who I have never heard of express

a political idea specifically in the time that I have known her. She is an interested person. You know I mean she's alive she's awake she's intelligent. But as far as I know she has absolutely no specific alignments within any kind of organization. And yet her instantaneous reaction. It was I'm not alone any longer. If things of this sort are going to happen and that I think is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this Mrs. Trowbridge What is your background which has led you here. Well I came to this with a very a political background in around three years ago I realized almost all of a sudden that there was an arms race going on and it could very well mean the end of us. And I started to inform myself and I steeled myself to write my first letter to then it was President Eisenhower. And one thing led to another I

volunteered my minor type assistance to anyone that seemed to be working for peace. And I persist in individual action. I have been very despairing about how much effect this is having I when I receive this letter it seemed hopeful our literary group had just been reading those the Strada and I you know received this and thinking in terms of this drug. So as I said I had sent it out to my precinct and so on which is still left me a little discouraged because there were only five but actually more more people in the precinct are turning up now and I have given this to quite a few of my friends who have given it to friends and I heard of a woman the other day who had not even bothered to find out where she could get copies but had made her own copies typed out 100 or so and was passing them out in front of her church. And I'm greatly encouraged I think this may possibly have an effect and voicing

our objection to the arms race. Perhaps Kennedy will feel sufficient support to go ahead with his U.N. gamble and his disarmament program. I like the logic of this movement. But you said there because women can be stirred up emotionally about something but sensible women don't want to just go out and be hysterical and ring doorbells for no good reason to have. When President Kennedy actually proposed a new disarmament program with a coming far closer than ever before to what the Soviet Union had proposed in fact it was just amazing what the State Department sent me on their on their mailing list. I compared the two. Add on all essential matters we are now in close agreement. But I'm just furious with our press because how many people know it when I go around saying this to people some of them say I just don't believe it

and so on the evening of our meeting. Well the end speaker had a pit kid who teaches over exam just go state and is very well informed person and is certainly a stalwart member of your staff. Well she's not a member of the staff and she's one of our most prized volunteer volunteers has agreed to give the factual documented material on this so that people can go and check for themselves and I feel that. Women are very well informed. I understand that some of our congressmen say well you don't understand about arms control and you you should go back and read. But actually I think they have not only inform themselves what they've seen right through an awful lot of the vagaries and deliberate weavings that have made this seem an impossible task and realize that if the man is close to it as Kennedy says he believes the Russians are ready to negotiate and he's ready

we ought to back him up and just sit instead of saying what's the use. What action do you propose to take regarding the nuclear testing. This is one of our protests. Yes we plan to protest. We have. We are it's part of our letters. That we don't test war on Berlin or for any other trouble spot. We protest the nuclear testing by any country and we favor the positive disarm. Oh so are you planning on communicating the protest to nuclear testing to any other government besides the American government. Not as far as I'm concerned Leon in this movement as we want a Jewish group however is plan to deliver a letter to Mrs. Khrushchev I don't they're also team capable and I personally I also am framing my letter to Mr. Khrushchev. Many personally are I think the Los Angeles group plans to do that.

They're meeting at the in front of the state building on Wednesday morning and I talked with some people when I was there this last week and they do plan to write letters abroad. It would be so much easier if we had a Russian Embassy. As I understand when the Russians resumed nuclear testing there was a group of U.S. students who wanted to picket and protest and so they tried to find out if there was anything Russian around here that they could protest and they were out in front of an picket and there was nothing not even not even a Russian commercial concern as very frustrating it would mean I think for most people are simpler if they could visit an embassy or something of the sort because some people it is difficult for most of us to get around to writing all of the letters we would like to write. Many of us will. But for most people when they're engaged in this kind of action

it's a sort of self-perpetuating. And it's ultimately simpler say to visit someone while you're busy doing this than to sit home and compose a letter which may take an hour or two hours or three hours. And so that whereas many of us will write and communicate our feelings to Christian yet there will not be as many communications we were able to contact same and the same sort of thing. But each community over the country is designing its own plans we really don't know what each one is doing we can as far as I'm concerned. I was just speaking for the East Bay and I said there was no formal action directed toward anything but our own government although we are expressing our abhorrence of this in our letters. It seems to me that it is extremely interesting and perhaps something that a group of women

could contribute to the lack of adequate information which afflicts the public in the. I'm afraid all countries it seems a little extraordinary that when the heads of both of the governments Mr. Kristol and Mr. Kennedy both go to considerable lengths to outline a possible scheme for disarmament that as if the two things were not even connected. All the other. Preparation all the other saber rattling and the nuclear testing on the part of the Russians for example and the discussion of whether or not we should resume testing. Seems you just run along in a parallel line and I would wonder if one of your purposes was not to try to jump this gap.

You mean to try to point out the inconsistency here. Yes the little I mean here you have the people on the one hand and you have the heads of the governments on the other hand both of them apparently interested in disarmament somewhere along the line and you seem to have various other factors that are not so interested in it. It's a kind of dual situation which is extremely frustrating to watch and I wonder if if there isn't some case to be made for what I. It seems to me you're doing which is a direct approach to the. Just leaping this to this intermediate stage entirely. I'm not sure I understand you super well. Do you mean that through this movement. Oh we would be able to inform people of what's going on more

readily. Yes and even if you are assuming that both Mr. Kris Joffe and Mr. Kennedy mean what they say and if the people also mean that then a direct communication between the population and the head of the government is it seems to me what you're attempting to establish. You were talking about strengthening Kennedy's hand well presumably you think it needs to be strengthened against somebody or on a house or start a series of well that there was an article in The Wall Street Journal the end of September outlining what they described as Kennedy's bold gamble. I haven't seen this report in other papers too extensively but the article pointed out that his advisors were against this and that the people that had spoken out on the subject at all had spoken out against it and he was going to make the scandal of strengthening the U.N.. However if you did not get public support the

situation could change in days or even months. And I feel it's very vital that I hope there is public support and I feel it's very vital that we we get out and say that from our Schweitzer statement in 58 he says that it is the particular duty of women to prevent the send against the future it is for them to raise their voices against it in such a way that they will be heard. And this is in the sense that this letter and this whole appeal is going out to women although of course I feel that men should all speak out also what your experience with men and hear about it. They are pretty enthusiastic to modify this. They are extremely enthusiastic they're glad that their wives are doing something. My husband is extremely enthusiastic and although he is a bit neglected sometime between the telephone and mailing address. The sort of thing he is very very glad because he too feels the threat and yet with his concerns it's a bit

difficult for him to get involved to the extent that it is for most of us women we are involved. Anyway I think most of us feel it much more acutely and on a more personal level and I think that our feeling is we want not only to communicate our support but to exert a bit of pressure at the same time. Not only are we supporting President Kennedy and any move toward disarmament strengthening of you know us but we are more or less saying we want action. Let's have some. Yes there is an urgency that comes for this and rejecting those statements that he has made also in that same speech about a willingness to go along go to war over Brann or mouse or whatever the next will be. I am extremely unwilling to go to war I think that our

problems can be negotiated and that these negative show of strength standing firm is a very dangerous course. Well you must be condemned. Kennedy and others have pointed out again and again that we have passed the point when we can use nuclear power as an instrument of national policy. You cannot win anything that we're after as a nation by mutual suicide. Both sides are already poised so that whoever whichever one starts it the other one has retaliated whether they're all cut off in the first blow these are automatic things so that. Facing up to that Kennedy can't help trying and wanting support to a negotiation to get rid of the arm so that we can talk about the issues that really do need to be solved between our countries without being able to wipe each other and the other parts of the human race off the earth misstep.

God you have something you know I was thinking while Francis was thinking how important it is for people to stop and think really what a nuclear war could mean. Ignat you simply can't think in terms of World War world 2. It's an entirely different thing and I don't think people can you know fine try to they try to find comfort in the fact that perhaps America will win a war with this new question of who will win the war will all lose the war. And I think that this movement that we're involved in is particularly valuable overfitting make people stop and think of what this kind of war would mean to humanity. Did you see Norman Cousins editorial in this Saturday Review in which he says we speak about I'm not quoting but he says we speak about the horrors of war but he said we're already living through horrors. And he describes what's happening to our morality in this country under our willingness to settle for war is dissolving our social cement

we're talking about killing our neighbors if they want to get into our fallout shelters even ministers are saying this would be permissible it's it. We're concerned that just getting ready for a war like this is ruining a great centuries of civilization really. And the longer it goes on the harder it's going to be to build back up into the kinds of trust and creative living that we believe in. I wonder what the thinking of this group would be on this idea which has occupied my mind recently. Clear back through to the days of the caves aggression has always been the expression of the will to live. In essence you didn't kill your neighbor because you wanted to die you killed him because you wanted to live and he was getting in your way and suddenly

aggression and violence are no longer an expression of the will to live. They are going to end by being death if you if they are implemented. But I don't believe that has penetrated to the subconscious processes of society and I am wondering if there isn't something here that would also be a job for what is presumed to be the less aggressive. I want the community but I really have the feeling that this has relevance. You know when people continue to talk as if I was going to be one because down through the ages what you haven't wanted what you have feared you have attempted to get rid of to make more room for yourself to reinforce the your own life. And suddenly it no longer means that except that psychologically we have not been

able to make that jump. Do you feel that there's any validity in that. Well I feel thinking in terms of the dinosaurs becoming extinct because they could not adapt to a changed environment. I think atomic warfare has really made a changed environment far more than the Industrial Revolution or the stone age and so on that it has entirely changed things and unless man can suddenly adapt himself to this. Well you know OK interesting point though that you could no longer express a will to live through this. And one thing that strikes me is the extensive propaganda let's call it to make people begin to look into the face of death not their own death necessarily but the death of people who are somewhere else near them there will hope to get in that fallout shelter. But there is I think one of the things that is turning this into a

psychologically sick state is that you really can't pretend to yourself that what you're doing is furthering life in any way what you're doing is at the most saving stints which probably will be unhealthy from now on out. One thing that has occurred to me is that. When people argue that war is essential for release of hostilities and aggression and so on I think about modern warfare. And this is not even so in modern warfare because in All-Star warfare you have a hand-to-hand combat you have real hostility and a real sort of fight between people. Now it's remote control. It's dropping one bomb and polishing off perhaps several million people. This is I think I disagree a bit with you. Time to end because I think that people

are not facing their own death. I think that it's too remote. I my feeling is that the whole idea of pushing a button and releasing this death is too remote for most people to grasp. And it's not really real to so many people. It doesn't mean your death and my death or the death of someone I know where the death of a city it's very hard to grasp this. I think that it's just sort of. Not too far removed from anything human and from from human experience my feeling is that people really don't or can't realize the real meaning of this. Well Ed do you feel that this has led to apathy and frustration. Isn't it to reintroduce the feeling of relevance

to the individual that you're trying to do this thing next week. It seems to me that that is one of the hallmarks of the situation now is the general feeling of well just that there is nothing that they can do. I mean However people feel about things that the expression of it that you run into most frequently is one which leads you to the realization that the individual feels utterly defeated in the face of what is to be coped with. National and international level and I would feel that what you women are trying to do is to start a tide running in the opposite direction. Do you mean there's a good chance of having some impact and I wonder how the rest of you feel.

I've been getting very little sleep I've been working really twice as hard as I ever worked before in my life with you and I feel better even though I'm tired because I didn't realize before how much of my weariness was due to the surrounding the horrors you know the sense of frustration that the sense of pressure on the whole world that you somehow carry on your own shoulders and just to feel that you're doing what you can about it it just it put new life into me. Have you had that feeling at all. Well yes actually although I'm I've never been so tired but I've never been so busy in my life. I've I'm very very happy that I'm able to do something and that to me that's you know of the most significant thing if you can just manage to to get people to do something to stop and think what is going on in the world like that. I think if we do that to a larger staff with the women of America we're never going to protests that will be a great thing.

Anyone else a response to your rants is observation and just agreed I think we're all pretty swamped with telephone calls and eager women and and although the nerves get a little frazzled sometimes that I'm tired of the telephone. It's it's it really is that like a tonic the feeling that individuals are ready to do something and that that perhaps there is some hope for this course of action. And it's it really is a fine feeling. You expect it to terminate with the November 1st rally or do you think that perhaps possibly you have started a ball rolling which will continue to roll. Well we've been giving a lot of thought to the end of the

meeting. There is no organization behind this and we can't promise further meetings or anything none of us could keep this up you know for long. Besides I think there's some the virtue of this thing is that it is a focused on one thing that we can manage but we are going to have a sheet listing the ongoing organizations both national and local in which have programs of this kind. And I happen to have to go east at the end of the November and I'm going to meet with the women in Washington and talk over what they have been thinking about it and what is coming from all of the other groups to see whether. I myself would like to see us remain focused on the disarmament negotiations I would like to see the women of America that have been around here informed regularly by competent people that will keep track of the disarmament negotiation and let them know what has is happening I've been thinking of this before this

strike for peace came up and now I'm more firmly convinced than ever that if we could get men of first caliber who would cut right through the mass media inform one headquarters that would get out over all this group of women that are now eager that we would know when to write our letters we would be able to have concerted action again as we have here. I don't know that I'm going to be able to sell the wind I can Washington on this but I've been working on it independently and I think it feeds into my mouth. I'm breaking this news to the others present for the first time. Well I think it's good it's a good plan I think. Do you. Yes I do because I wouldn't want to see this movement that we've created and on November the 1st I think it must go on. I have a hunch that with a lot of women there is going to be a feeling if if they get much of a feeling on November 1st of participation

of doing something that they will perhaps want to continue individually at least and perhaps in small groups with their friends. And this is if if this much came from it would be very valuable I do think that what would they do. Well to continue to inform themselves and this is a club which I participate in part of the function of the club it seems to me is the exchange of information because trying to get all of the information available on something is very difficult. We all seem to come up with with quite different things we cover different newspapers magazines Pre-OT of girls publications and documents so that there is a sharing of information. And by informing ourselves we feel that we can act intelligently and be aware of what

is happening. If women could do this if they could form their own little informal groups for the purpose of informing themselves and of. Keeping abreast of what is happening and of writing letters at the right time this this would be fine and I have a feeling that some women at the push of this action just may result in the sort of spontaneous group I would hope would well as the thing that strikes me about this is that with in a very limited time span with no national organization no money with no money with no backing as far as mass media is concerned as far as I know. There may be quite literally thousands and hundreds of thousands perhaps even millions of women who would wish to

join their voices to this strike for peace and that perhaps the November 1st rally could interest many people whom you none of you have known about but one of the exciting things is meeting the various people too I'm just so thrilled with the women I've met. Oh yes tick woman suggested to me that she thought we should do this the first of every single month. I mean I wasn't quite ready to go out today. OK you're a student. The university told me and said that the students the girl students are going to come down and done this and did the city hall juniors many years since they can do as well Khan and he also told me that he they're going to have a 20 day beginning Tuesday noon a 24 hour silence on the

campus really that the students and professors community people everyone who will will come to take out this beginning Tuesday noon and simply sit on the campus in silence. What films do you already get against the off exposing October 30. Oh all the students are very very worried and want to do something. Did you have something you wanted same so I'm just going to say it. It seems when I first got concerned with the arms race I was wandering round with the question of what can I do. And there didn't seem any answer. Now that I've been more active I find that there are so many more things that I have time to do and if perhaps some of the women that get involved in speaking out for the first time can can

learn the realm of possibilities I mean their lotteries and individual visits working through groups church groups or political groups through social groups talking in your neighborhood. I have become a monomaniac on the subject of avoiding war. What do you think of of getting good materials that are easily available for already growing adult groups of all you know. Would you think women would be interested enough to inform themselves about the background of the disarmament discussions to date in the test discussions and what's involved in the control of outer space. And so they can be spokesmen from now on in their own groups you know. Somebody has to follow these things. And this was part of what I. First thing you haven't before the strike for peace happened on a number of women who are working on it and we finally got an excellent person to take charge or former teacher of economics

it at Vassar and who has been worked in economic capacities with the government with the UN and on UN missions she's given up a book she was writing and is just focusing her full time on preparing materials for say 10 discussion sessions with shortly be obvious that you could get readily and then a long bibliography for people that want really to go into it. I think you think if you want to be interested want to learn what you want her that you can get this material. They don't realize you can write for subcommittee reports on the disarm Hermione's of such as spam here and people that are run into there are very few that even knew such things work and the it's an existence and that that just a private citizen could get a hold of them. There is such a job you know if you take if you go through all of the pamphlets and literature if it's just overwhelming and I thought perhaps if it could be concentrated around ten questions that an informed citizen should know something about in order to pass a judgment on the design proposals as they come up

and read the papers and get the things that come out from his organizations with a little background. I think our press is very poor in this regard. Art is something that very much upsets me particularly. I know one thing that had distressed me was the joint statement by the United States and Soviet Union of eight principles for complete disarmament. These were not printed or even mentioned in many of the local papers. There was a text in the New York Times I think on one of the back pages the Wall Street Journal. But there was no article there was no hell here all the you know our you know in the back page of the crown court there was no heralding this was the right as an arranger and you ran through I know I mean the fact that the Soviet Union and the United States could get

together to agree on are really quite comprehensive principles for disarmament including. Agreeing on general completely Sardou you somehow Yes I'm jealous that I'm with and on the strengthening of the United Nations and the peace force in action and so on but the fact that this was was not written in the press and of course this is just one example of what happens continue almost a humbling is never seen one of them the public is not informed of course depending upon what newspaper you read or what newscast who listen to your your level of information is a very good deal but I think for most people it's very low or they don't seek out the sources. Most people don't have the time and they have to assume that they're giving getting correct information and I think in many cases they're not getting any information and or very.

I'm starting to like the way in which this sense of frustration is turning in negative directions I was talking to the minister yesterday who said he had attended one of the lectures on communism in which the people in front of him clapped so hard when the man said I understand Russia and he did that. He was sure their hands were blistered. I read this. This reaction that all you have to do is to start hatred I think is worrying. President Kennedy I did you notice that Harlem to Cleveland his. I think he's called his advisor on international affairs. Spoke for Kennedy in saying warning people that they were beginning to act frenzied pushing us toward war and to please realize that we could still negotiate. Things are getting out of hand you can't play this game

long and not have people feel it get any emotional pressure behind the fear has to have an outlet. And yet it seems to not be going in constructive ways I was very upset last Friday at hearing the greatest applause of the speaker Mr Sloan's doctors when someone asked him can we negotiate and he said in essence no and he got the largest applause fighter that evening and I just had to leave I was so upset that he was delighted to hear we could not negotiate. Well I think it all comes back to what. Mr. Mumford I said you can do that in his speech in a cap is that it is really our moral responsibility to end this this war this this terrible you know it isn't just your period or your skin's it's our view and I think people just don't really understand what it means.

You know if they really understood what it meant they couldn't help but but say they don't want it. Well it's always been one of my theories that women perforce are closer to reality than men and I will expect great things from this group. I wish to apologize to the audience for the fact that they must have heard a lot of coughing in the background. It was I I I have the flu. You know I've had it now for three weeks and I'm beginning to think that it has me rather than I think it and I am very grateful to this whole group. I wish you luck on November the 1st. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.