Speaking Tour of the Physicians for Social Responsibility
Soviet-American Wilderness Expedition
March 28, 1988
PRESS RELEASE
AMERICAN STUDENTS LEAVE U.S.A. TO BEGIN US-SOVIET “CAMPAIGN OF HOPE”
With two slide projectors and thousands of Russian-language handouts on nuclear war and global issues in hand, four Americans left today for the Soviet Union to begin an unprecedented five-week tour of young Soviets and Americans jointly urging audiences in both countries to put an end to the Cold War and the arms race.
”It’s time the nations of the world stopped acting like children and started acting like adults,” said Rick Donahue, 30, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Massachusetts at Worcester. “In the mountains, we’ve learned to trust one another, and our countries need to learn trust as well.”
The tour, organized by the students and sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Soviet Committee of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, brings together four American and four Soviet participants from two previous US-Soviet wilderness trips held in the Caucasus mountains and Maine. “So far, we’ve together climbed the highest peak in Europe and paddled 55 miles on the open ocean in two-seater kayaks, with one Soviet and one American in each boat,” said Daivid Kreger, 26, a fourth-year student at Harvard Medical School. “Now we’ll be taking on our biggest challenge yet—convincing large numbers of people in both countries that our cooperation is a metaphor for what is possible on the world scale.”
The Soviet leg of the tour will last from March 28-April 15 and includes stops in Moscow, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Vilnius, and Kaunus. The students expect to speak to large audiences of medical students, physicians, high school students, and members of mountaineering clubs, and they are bringing “at least a hundred pounds” of translated information on nuclear weapons, the world military situation, and global environmental problems to distribute to Soviet listeners, according to Gale Warner, 27, a writer and graduate student in literature at the University of Massachusetts. “When it comes to peacemaking, ordinary Soviets often seem to know the tune and not the words,” Warner said. “So we’re bringing over some lyrics.”
In the U.S., the campaign will take place May 8-29 and bring the Soviet-American group to six regions and ten cities, including Atlanta, Philadelphia, Newark (NJ), Amherst (MA), Columbus (OH), Indianapolis, Louisville, Champaign-Urbana, Los Angeles and San Diego.
The students’ joint presentations will combine a factual overview of the present world situation with slides, music and stories of how the Soviet-American group learned to surmount language and other barriers, resolve conflicts when they arose, and reach new summits together, according to Amy Donahue, 24, a secondary school science teacher. “Our tour is unique because we and our Soviet friends have already been through so much together—we are like family. Our personal relationships are so strong that in our presentations we can venture into risky territory, into places where we might disagree.”
The four Soviets will be unescorted by any Soviet officials. “Our Soviet friends were not initially selected to be part of an international speaking tour—they were just a bunch of medical students who had hiking experience and who happened to go along on our first wilderness trip in the USSR,” said Warner. “In fact, for a long time we thought this was too crazy an idea and the Soviets would not allow such a free-wheeling tour.”
But soon the young soviets and Americans will be exploring a different kind of wilderness together—the uncharted territory of a new experiment in international glasnost.
“In the mountains, our survival depended on one another. On the ocean, it was either cooperate of capsize,” said Rick Donahue. “The same is true of our planet today
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May 5, 1988
PRESS RELEASE
NEW EXPERIMENT IN GLASNOST: SOVIET AND AMERICAN YOUNG PEOPLE TO VISIT TWELVE U.S. CITIES ON UNPRECEDENTED “CAMPAIGN OF HOPE.”
Eight young Soviets and Americans who have together climbed the highest peak in Europe and paddled 55 miles in kayaks on the Atlantic Ocean will soon travel throughout the United States to take on their next challenge—convincing large numbers of people in both countries that ordinary citizens can make a difference in preventing nuclear war.
Their five-week speaking tour, called “Moving Mountains: A campaign of Hope” and sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the Soviet Committee of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (SCPPNW), represents the first time young Soviets and Americans have traveled together through both nations jointly urging an end to the arms race.
“We are children of the Cold War. Our generation has inherited a world burdened by nuclear weapons and divided by dangerous stereotypes and ideologies,” says David Kreger, 26, a fourth-year student at Harvard Medical School. “But all over the globe, people—especially young people—are beginning to take action to heal our planet’s wounds.”
The young Soviets and Americans hiked and paddled together during 1986 and 1987 experiments in “wilderness diplomacy” held in the Caucasus Mountains and Maine and sponsored by PSR and SCPNNW, the American and Soviet affiliates of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
They have just returned from the Soviet leg of the tour, which took place March 29–April 14 in Moscow, Tblisi, Kaunus, and Vilnius. They spoke to audiences in hospitals, medical schools, high schools, student cafes, and the main public square of Kaunus, the second-largest city in Lithuania, where local medical students persuaded a marching band to perform and help attract an astonished audience of 500 people.
“It was incredibly exciting to be able to say anything we wanted to large public audiences in the Soviet Union, hand out our fact sheets on nuclear weapons, answer their thought-provoking questions, and brainstorm together about ways they could work for peace,” says Gale Warner, 27, a writer and co-author of the book Citizen Diplomats.
“This project has been an experiment in international glasnost that would have been inconceivable a year ago,” adds Rick Donahue, a fourth-year student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Between May 8–29 the Soviet-American group will travel to six regions and twelve cities of the United States, including Amherst, Atlanta, Augusta, Champaign-Urbana, Columbus, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Louisville, Newark, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Worcester.
“During our presentations, we talk about the very real and pressing problems our planet faces with regard to nuclear weapons and ecological issues,” says Amy Donahue, 24, a biologist and middle-school teacher, “but we also convey hope through our slides and stories showing young Soviets and Americans climbing mountains together and becoming the best of friends.”
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Note: Press releases were written by Gale Warner and David Kreger.