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The Peacemakers

There are many who have contributed to promotion of world peace. We can list some of the contributors and some of their contributions: Woodrow Wilson was the guiding spirit behind the creation of The League of Nations and the United Nations; Wendell Willkie advocated One World; Franklin D. Roosevelt worked tirelessly for the founding of the United Nations; Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower spoke of a world community under law; Albert Einstein called for world government in an important book, Einstein on Peace; Pope John XXIII issued a great Encyclical, Pacem in Terris; Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King promoted and practiced non-violent confrontation; Joan B Kroc founded an effective peace institute at the University of San Diego; David Kreiger founded The Nuclear Age Peace foundation in Santa Barbara, and Walter Cronkite has written and spoken of the need for a world peace keeping authority.

All of the above are heroic in their separate pathways to peace. We are all in their debt.

Other prominent Peace Makers have contributed in various ways. .

Jimmy Carter

As president, Jimmy Carter led a worldwide campaign to promote human rights. He confronted the Soviet Union for violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and boycotted the Moscow Olympics of the 1980s.

In retirement, President Carter has been called upon on numerous occasions to observe and report on procedures utilized in elections around the world. His Carter Center is perhaps the most vital institution in the world in the promotion of peace, justice, and freedom.

As a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, he has been duly recognized for his noble work.

Norman Cousins

As editor of Saturday Review, Norman Cousins wrote editorials and essays about thermonuclear and environmental issues for over forty years. An advocate of world federalism, he made over 2000 speeches, wrote thousands of editorials and essays, and authored many books calling for world peace through the development of world law. Modern Man is Obsolete, Who speaks for Man?, and In Place of Folly were three very compelling books on peace..

Cousins was a founder of The National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE); and in the 1960s he became famous for facilitating communication between the Kremlin, the Vatican, and the White House which resulted in the American-Soviet nuclear test ban in the atmosphere. His work on this nuclear test ban is chronicled in his book, The Improbable Triumvirate.

For his work on the test ban treaty, Pope John XXIII awarded Cousins his personal medallion. He was also the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Peace Award in 1963, The Family of Man Award in 1968, and The United Nations Peace Medal in 1971. That he was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is an incredible oversight.

Norman Cousins shaped my own life more than any other living person When I founded the Fullerton College Center for the Study of the Future of Man, he gave the dedicatory address.

When I was hired as an administrator at Santa Barbara City College, I heard President Bartolazzo report to the Board of Trustees that I had been highly recommended by Mr. Norman Cousins. That was a proud moment that I will always treasure.

John F. Kennedy

President John F. Kennedy is widely regarded as a hawk, a cold warrior, and the president who took us to the brink of nuclear war in the Cuban missile crisis. Missing in most historical and biographical accounts is JFK's unswerving dedication to the building of world peace through world law.

Actually JFK graphically described the power of nuclear weapons and continually warned the American people that nuclear weapons must be controlled. From his salad days as a U.S. Senator to the hour of his death he made heroic proposals for "a grand and global alliance...., a strengthened United Nations...., a world security system...., a worldwide program of conservation...., and world peace through world law."

This Kennedy legacy is found in Alan Nevin's book , The Strategy of Peace, a compilation of Senator John F. Kennedy's speeches, and my own books, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's Grand and Global Alliance: World Order for the New Century and The Kennedy Option Pursuit of World Law.

The media has cashed in on JFK as a central figure in a murder mystery, as a princely figure in Camelot, and on what should have remained his private life. Meanwhile JFK is much diminished and essentially undiscovered.

Unlike the Carter Center, which is a vital and active peace link in our time, The Kennedy Library and Museum has done little to enlighten the public about Kennedy the Peacemaker. It has done nothing to promote and implement his commitment to world peace through world law.

John F. Kennedy spoke with urgency and passion about thermonuclear and environmental issues. His words on these subjects are critical in defining the Kennedy legacy. But more importantly, if mankind is to resolve countless life threatening issues, we can no longer ignore The Kennedy Option: Pursuit of World Law.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the Truman administration. She was widely admired as the former First Lady, but in her new position most people referred to her as First Lady of the World.

At the United Nations, she became the chairperson of the commission that drafted THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS. If James Madison can be called "the Father of the American Bill of Rights," Eleanor Roosevelt must be recognized as the chief architect who reframed those rights and presented them to the entire world.

Every president since December 10, 1945, and President Carter in particular, has reminded other nations of their failures in implementing human rights. The hope for the survival of mankind in a world of peace, justice, and freedom depends upon the swift codification of the ideals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into enforceable world law.

A treasured letter from Eleanor Roosevelt follows:


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Ted Turner

No living person has matched Ted Turner's efforts in the promotion of peace. He sponsored and financed the Goodwill Games that helped to thaw the chill of the cold war. He has purchased $500 million worth of land with the primary purpose of conserving and preserving species. Turner's commitment to all living things honors Albert Schweitzer's oft quoted phrase, "reverence for life." Turner believes that even bats and rattlesnakes are sacred. He has given $1 billion dollars to the UN and set up a UN foundation; he has established and financed a Nuclear Threat Initiative which has done impressive work in reducing the threat of nuclear, biological and radiological weapons. And in addition to all of this his Turner foundation promotes environmental causes. He is the most generous and compassionate of all the entrepreneurs. Why has he not received the Nobel Peace Prize? He is without question the most deserving of anyone who could currently be considered..

Ted Turner accepted my own television documentary "John F. Kennedy's Lost Pathway to Peace" for airing on TBS, the SuperStation on the 69th and 70th anniversaries of JFK's birth. This TV production documented JFK's persistent call for a strengthened United Nations, the pursuit of world peace through world law and the development of a worldwide program of conservation.

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