“Excerpts from reports by various walkers” (1961)

Let us start the new year with a celebration of one of the most ambitious yet lesser-known actions of the mid-20th century peace movement: the San Francisco to Moscow Transcontinental Walk for Peace. This action, which was first thought up at the Hygienic Restaurant in New London, Connecticut, saw ten people in ten months walk across the entire width of the continental United States (and halfway down the East Coast), then the entire span of Europe from Britain to Moscow in the Soviet Union. Along the journey, hundreds of people walked parts of the way with the core team, and in the end, the team demonstrated for peace and nuclear disarmament in Moscow’s Red Square. 

Overview of the Walk: http://www.voluntownpeacetrust.org/a-peace-of-history-blog/san-francisco-to-moscow-walk-for-peace 
Organizing the Walk: http://www.voluntownpeacetrust.org/a-peace-of-history-blog/organizing-the-san-francisco-to-moscow-walk-for-peace-1960-1961 
Excerpts from the first month of the Walk: http://www.voluntownpeacetrust.org/a-peace-of-history-blog/excerpted-account-of-the-san-francisco-to-moscow-walk-pt-1 
Challenges on the Walk: http://www.voluntownpeacetrust.org/a-peace-of-history-blog/challenges-on-the-san-francisco-to-moscow-walk-for-peace-1960-1961 

Today, we have some excerpts from the walkers’ personal logs from January 1961, published together in a special newsletter by the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), the organizers of the action. The excerpts offer an early, two-week snapshot of a 10-month walk across two continents. While much of it seems banal, there are some important (and humorous) points we can learn from the walkers’ experiences:

• Especially when dealing with multiple parties and ongoing expenses in a long-term project, developing rules & systems is important, as demonstrated by the mention of the expense sheets.
• But sometimes, relaxing the rules can also be important, as when the walker team decided to let team member Brad Lyttle talk for an hour with a woman on the radio, and later, when John Beecher went on the radio and shocked everyone with the announcement of his professorship resignation from the State University of Arizona and his decision to join the walkers (more on John Beecher next week).
• Individuals and even churches that purport to follow the “Prince of Peace” sometimes close their doors to those with radical peace politics. But by staying gracious and communicative, radical groups may find that those who are unwilling to give open and direct aid may give referrals to other sources that are willing to help, and thereby open other doors and more opportunities to spread the message.

Two more notable moments:

• It is fascinating to see mention of “the Cuba situation” from an antinuclear weapons group in January 1961, almost two years before the Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States government even became aware at all that “the Cuba situation” had turned nuclear. These CNVA participants were clearly thinking forward, examining the logical nuclear ends of Cold War strategy and concluding that this unsustainable global balance would, given enough of time, devolve into a nuclear war that none would survive unscathed.
• On a lighter note, the excerpt ends with a quick description of ten members of the “Children of Light” religious group who briefly joined the walkers: a reminder that radical movements like the mid-20th century peace movement sometimes attract even more fringe groups, for better or for worse. In times of great change (as true then as now), sometimes, we must take our allies where we can find them.

(Click the image below to download the PDF version of the original newsletter clipping)

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Take Action

The CT Committee on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons organizes a few pro-disarmament demonstrations throughout the year. To participate in these demonstrations against nuclear arms and in support of the UN’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, please get in touch with us on Facebook or email us at vptcomm@gmail.com

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Source

“Excerpts from reports by various walkers.” Polaris Action Bulletin. 30 January 1961 (Special Bulletin), page 1.