WITNESS FOR PEACE

...A team of top-level architects, together with an experienced builder-contractor, turned from their current jobs to give their full-time, unpaid services to the project...

...Yet the Center's board felt that support for a dramatic effort, in which thousands of Fair visitors could be reached with a direct peace appeal, would be forthcoming from the Seattle "peace constituency...

...In some localities, it has been the vehicle through which a fledgling peace organization has gotten off the ground: "The showing...

...At a time when most exhibitors were planning the dismantling of their exhibits, a new structure made its appearance under the cavernous dome of the Washington State Coliseum...

...Working day and night, some fifty volunteers raised an attractive, black-white-and-orange structure, ten feet in height and enclosing an area of 1,800 square feet, while artists and lighting technicians solved the problems of hanging the show to best advantage on the canvas walls...

...In all, approximately 70,000 pieces of peace literature were given to visitors...

...These materials had been requested as a loan from the city-owned Museum...

...When the Fair closed, the Hiroshima Exhibit was lent to a church group in suburban Seattle for display at a large shopping center, where its positive message of peace and hope weathered the worst days of the Cuba crisis...

...Free literature from these various organizations, as well as more general peace pamphlets, were provided for visitors as long as the supply held out...

...A large panel headed "Organizations Working for Peace" displayed the full spectrum of peace organizations, varying in approach from the legalistic United World Federalists to the direct-action Committee for Non-Violent Action, and covered the peace programs of church, labor, and professional groups...

...attendance at the Peace Center increased five-fold while it was on display...

...Volunteers were buoyed up by the number of strangers who engaged them in thoughtful discussion, and who signed a roster requesting information on peace activity nearest their own places of residence...

...The Peace Center, although it had functioned for five months as a literature-distributor, was hard-pressed to provide the quantities of printed material appropriate to a World's Fair operation...

...I am convinced that this is something that constitutes a real moral backbone of the American people, something that the United States should be prouder to have than all the nuclear arms she may have in possession, something that makes America really strong...

...An urgent call for volunteers went out, to which more than two hundred and fifty responded...

...In four Northwestern states alone, the Hiroshima Exhibit has been seen by more than 185,000 persons...

...Fair visitors, queuing up at the entrance to the new exhibit, might or might not have been prepared for what they would see inside as they glanced at the words on the leaflet handed them: "It is the privilege of SUE DAVIDSON GOTTFRIED is a free lance writer whose work has appeared in The Commonweal, The Nation, Antioch Review, Frontier, and Western Political Quarterly...

...The Exhibit attracted a great deal of press notice...

...To the surprise and delight of the Peace Center's board the Fair's director of exhibits expressed interest in placing the Hiroshima Exhibit on the Fair grounds...

...The entire effort was completed within four days...

...They are part of the "Hiroshima Exhibit for Peace," a collection of sixty-two mural photographs and twenty-one relics from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial ("A-Bomb") Museum, now touring the west coast...

...The exhibit was born in Seattle, just three weeks before the World's Fair closed its gates there last October...

...The city of Hiroshima responded by making a permanent gift of the exhibit to the Peace Center, even bearing the expense of packing and shipping it...

...Among the earliest-planned of the Peace Center's programs—indeed, long before the Center had a physical location—was an exhibit of photographs and articles from the Hiroshima Museum...

...Visitors were encouraged to inform themselves on peace activity...

...In order to point up the potentialities of that "peaceful world," and to dramatize the creative, loving aspect of man's nature, the Center mounted a companion exhibit titled "The Joy of Life...

...At least five hosts were required at all times to handle the crowds that kept coming twelve hours a day, seven days a week...

...The board did not expect enthusiastic reception, for although the Seattle Fair was subtitled "Century 21," and was host to a sprinkling of quasi peace-concerned exhibits, the problem of mankind's survival had mainly been soft-pedaled...

...Nevertheless, what most impressed those participating in the Fair project, was the seriousness of visitors...

...The building, equipping, and operating of such a project represented a costly effort on the part of the Peace Center not only in terms of money, but in terms of the limited time available from volunteers...

...Its confidence was more than justified...

...From all over the nation, letters began to arrive from peace, religious, and human welfare groups, requesting the loan of the Exhibit...

...and the discussions provided the students with a variety of possible solutions and conclusions to ponder...

...If this exhibition helps achieve peace," wrote Hiroshima Mayor Shinzo Hamai, "that will be flowers for the people who died...

...We ought to have a little private booth where they could go to pull themselves together," remarked one hostess...

...Water-damaged in transit from Japan, and much the worse for steady wear, the photographs and frames are in need of renovation or, in some cases, replacement...

...Even before the show was fully hung, thousands of visitors had surged through the Exhibit...

...The Seattle Peace Information Center, which closed with the Fair, is now reorganizing with the objective of founding a permanent peace center...

...Encouraged by 'this show of interest, the Peace Center board of directors approached World's Fair officials concerning the possibility of placing the Hiroshima Exhibit on the Fair grounds...

...Sponsor and owner of this new exhibit was the Seattle Peace Information Center, an independent, voluntary operation located on a quiet street five blocks from the fair...

...In the months since, the Exhibit has been shown in Washington, Oregon, Montana, and California, in small towns and large, and frequently on college campuses...

...resulted in doubling the number of names on our mailing list...

...Mayor Hamai wrote recently: "After reading your detailed report, I realized we had contributed a small but significant part to the cause of peace . . . "When we sent out the exhibit to Seattle, it was not without fear that it might invite repugnant response . . . but your report brought with it many an illuminating surprise...

...by our newly-formed group...

...Besides the leadership of the regional peace movement and "regular" volunteers, this number included a daily reinforcement of peace-minded persons who had not previously been drawn into organized activities...

...I was highly interested in what you called the 'peace constituency' in your country...

...She was chairman of the Hiroshima Exhibit Committee and vice president of the Seattle Peace Information Center during most of the events described in this article...

...The object of the Hiroshima Exhibit was not to overwhelm viewers with the horrors of nuclear war, but to motivate them to ask, "What can I do...

...the victims of Hiroshima to remind the world never to see this dishonor of mankind repeated...

...The people and the city of Hiroshima awaited news of the Exhibit's first United States tour with special interest and hope...

...In others, "It served to arouse an emotional 'readiness to act...

...The greater part of this literature was probably selected mindlessly, and as mindlessly thrown away...

...a total of more than one hundred thousand was reached by the end of three weeks when the Hiroshima Exhibit closed with the Fair...

...In spite of its grim content, "The purpose of the Hiroshima Exhibit is not to frighten or accuse," the Peace Center's description proclaimed...

...Its purpose is to demonstrate the immorality and self-defeat of modern war, and to appeal to every individual to work actively toward a peaceful world...

...The Center is attempting to raise the funds necessary for that task, and in this effort, it looks to the support of a "peace constituency" which it hopes has been augmented by the impact of the Hiroshima Exhibit for Peace...

...Not one picture but scores recording that fateful occasion in August have been confronting citizens of, and visitors to, California's San Francisco Bay area this summer...

...Until the Peace Information Center requested the Hiroshima Exhibit, the contents of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum had never left Japan...

...Daily attendance averaged five thousand persons...

...The painful emotion of viewers was especially striking...

...Meanwhile, one of its chief problems is the deterioration of the Hiroshima Exhibit...

...These photographs of healthy, lively human beings, mostly children, provided eloquent contrast to the human agony staring out of the Hiroshima pictures...

...A six-months' venture, "to emphasize the peace theme of the Seattle World's Fair," the Peace Center enjoyed the support of Seattle-area peace organizations, as well as of the unorganized "peace constituency...

...The Peace Center then provided a broad variety of answers...

...The first showing of the Hiroshima Exhibit was at the Peace Center, for a two-and-a-half week period beginning August 6, 1962...

...It had gained commendation from such figures as Erich Fromm, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bertrand Russell...

...Indeed, among the more important side-benefits of the Fair project must be counted its positive effect upon the already-committed, who were heartened by the experience of finding so many "ordinary people" receptive to a peace-education effort— "For once, we're not just talking to each other...

...The Hiroshima Exhibit Witness for Peace by SUE DAVIDSON GOTTFRIED Tf it is true that one picture has the impact of ten thousand words, then the number of Americans who understand the meaning of Hiroshima Day should be much increased as that anniversary dawns this year...