R E L A U N C H of The Pease Flag
Briefly, I made a flag for Peace (the first one to my knowledge) and gave it to a crew
member of a ship that was dry docked in Sausalito California that then used it to Protest
French Nuclear Bomb Tests in Mururoa, got arrested, had the flag stolen, and then
sailed to New Zealand and wrote a book about it.
In the early 1970's I was very active in protesting against
the War in Vietnam and frequently when I attended rallies in
San Francisco the American flag was being burned. I understood
the anger that motivated people to do this but I thought
destroying the flag did not solve the problem, and another
message was needed. I graduated from George Washington University
and I asked myself, "What would George do?" I decided to make a
flag for Peace. Prior to this time I never saw a Peace symbol
on a flag. First, I made them out of cotton, but they quickly tore
apart in the wind, and after awhile I decided to make a
"lasting peace" out of nylon, a much stronger material.
There was a problem though, and that was that they were very
expensive and not many people could afford them.
My favorite one was a yellow field with a black symbol patterned after a
flag I saw in Stockholm some years earlier.
Here's what makes mine so special....
I was working in San Francisco and would drive north over the Golden Gate
bridge and through Sausalito a coastal town to Corte Madera where I lived at
the time. One day I noticed a sailboat anchored in the Bay and I thought it
would be nice to see my flag flying from the top of their mast, but I had no way
of approaching it.
Sometime later this ship was no longer in the bay but in dry dock
at the end of town which gave me an opportunity to visit them and sell
them a flag. I took my briefcase with flags and walked up the plank to their
deck but nobody was topside, however a hatch was open so I called
out "Hello". Slowly a man appeared from below deck. I introduced myself and told
him I made Peace flags and asked if he would like to buy one?
He said, "We can't afford it." I thought for a moment and decided to give him
one of my favorites, a yellow and black one 4'x 6'. He thanked me and I said,
"Good Luck". The next day my flag was flying from the top of their mast and soon
they were out of dry dock and back in the Bay with my flag still flying from the top of
their mast, I was happy and a few days later they were gone.
About 18 months later I was watching TV one night and there were
some Hula dancers which looked interesting so I continued watching,
and then a Citroen DS21 pulled up and having owned an old ID19
I was intrigued. Next, a Military officer stepped out of the back of it in
full dress uniform and was greeted with smiles by Clergymen with a voiceover
describing that they were in Tahiti to witness a French Nuclear Bomb Test.
Then the picture was at sea and there was a sailboat
bobbing up and down in heavy waves in the Bomb Test Zone that looked
familiar, and I wondered, "Could it be the ship that was in Sausalito? . . . No, there are
thousands of sailboats." Then the camera scanned up the mast and there was my flag
flying at the top. I couldn't believe it! I was stunned and I look back today
in amazement at what happened.
Just prior to this, news of their planned voyage and Protest had spread to France
where General Jacques Paris de Bollardiere heard about it and was inspired to fly
to Australia, charter a boat to take him to the Bomb Test Zone, and join them.
He traveled thousands of miles and when he got to the Bomb Test Zone he was
gratefully welcomed aboard the protest ship, FRI.
When the French commandos boarded the ship to arrest everyone, General Bollardiere did
a rare deed, he returned in Protest to the French President, the Medal of Legion of Honor that
he had been awarded. He was pictured on the front cover of L'EXPRESS in France with the full
story of his journey and protest. See a photo of him above and the letter he wrote to the Minister
of the Armed Forces of France.
The French Navy Commandos then seized their ship, stole their (my) flag and arrested the whole crew.
An Amazing Syncronicity
Several months after I saw this film on TV I was visiting a friend in Bolinas, a small town on the
coastline and on my way home I stopped to give a ride to someone who was hitch-hiking.
As I was driving on Route 1 I told him I was a painter and I asked him what he did and he said,
"I'm a filmmaker and I recently made a documentary about a ship that sailed near Tahiti in Protest
of the French Nuclear Bomb Tests." I turned and looked at him in disbelief and exclaimed,
"I MADE THE FLAG THEY FLEW, I SAW YOUR FILM ON TV" It was incredible, our eyes
were glued together as he told me the story of how the crew was arrested, and then released and
sailed on to New Zealand and wrote a book about it. He said, "It's at The Tides bookstore in Sausalito."
I took him to where he was going in the San Geronimo Valley, and asked him his name, Andy Clark,
but I did not ask him for a copy of his documentary film. I am currently trying to find him.
I did find David Moodie, the Captain of the FRI, and he's looking for the film Clark made.
I went to the bookstore and got their book, FRI ALERT, and on the CONTENTS page is a photo
(the only one) of my flag being hoisted up the mast, and on the Forward page is a photo of Sir
Edmund Hillary with a big smile and the statement, "I cannot help but admire their spirit."
Wikipedia reports, ". . . Fri was an important part of a series of anti-nuclear protest campaigns
out of New Zealand which lasted thirty years, from which New Zealand declared itself a
nuclear-free zone which was enshrined in legislation in what became the
New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.[2][3]
In 1974, coordinated by Greenpeace New Zealand, the Fri embarked on a 3 year epic
40,233 kilometers “Pacific Peace Odyssey” voyage, carrying the peace message to all
nuclear states around the world.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fri_%28yacht%29
Here is a link to a video made by Alistair Barry one of the crew members of the FRI:
http://www.mururoavets.org.nz/index.php/photo-galleries/video-gallery/viewvideo/7/mururoa-trip-videos/mururoa-1973-trailer-vanguard-films-nz.html (please copy & paste into your browser)
Here is a time lapse video of all the Nuclear Bomb Explosions between 1945 and 1998
made by Isao Hashimoto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
(please copy & paste into your browser)
Perspective From The Distant Past
It is generally thought that our combined human scientific knowledge today is the ultimate
and most advanced to ever exist on our planet. However, the eclectic scholar and linguist,
Charles Berlitz author of, The Bermuda Triangle, raised a serious question in this regard
in one of his books titled: The World of the Incredible But True. As the title suggests
he reports some of the most unbelievable stories one can imagine. The last story is especially
poignant : Prehistoric Atomic Warfare. In it he describes that at the very moment of the detonation
of "the first" Atomic Bomb at White Sands New Mexico in 1945 J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted a
passage from the ancient Indian book the Mahabharata :
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once in the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.
I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
"The Mausala Parva, a section of the Mahabharata, has more to say about the effects
of the Iron Thunderbolt, particularly reminiscent of Nuclear Bombs:"
". . . it was a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe.
an incandescent column of smoke and flame,
as bright as ten thousand suns,
rose in all its splendor . . .
it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt,
a gigantic messenger of death
which reduced to ashes the entire race
of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
. . . the corpses were so burned
as to be unrecognizable
Their hair and nails fell out . . .
Pottery broke without apparent cause
and the birds turned white."
"Were these strange parallels to our own experience merely
an example of ancient 'science fiction' or were they accounts
of real events that destroyed a civilization thousands of years
before our own developed?"
Adding more credibility to Berlitz's story is the report from
Archaeologists that at Mohenjo Daro, in what is now Pakistan,
ruins have been found that have at their base a layer of green fused
glass such as what is found at the sites of Nuclear Bomb blasts. Bodies were
found there in a street where the people appear to have died instantly in some
cases holding hands.
The nuclear arsenals of the world today could destroy the world many times over,
making the need for Peace more essential today than ever before..
While the testing of Nuclear Bombs in the atmosphere may have stopped, and the
use of Hydrogen and Neutron Bombs are a real danger, another problem continues
to plague the world, namely the use of Nuclear Energy. Since the unprecedented
catastrophe at Fukushima the threat of Radiation has increased exponentially and
will continue to do so forever. New clean ways of making electricity are being developed
and Dr. Hans Neiper in Germany wrote a pioneering book on it titled, Conversion Of
Gravity Field Energy, REVOLUTION In Technology Medicine And Society that gave
respectability to the pursuit of novel ways of making electricity that require no fuel.
Meanwhile, plans for building more nuclear power plants continues despite the unsolvable
problems of waste disposal. and old plants leaking radiation into the environment.
Since the nuclear reactors at Fukushima melted down in 2011 there has been
more awareness of the dangers of using nuclear fuels to make electricity and
the colors in my flag coincide with the colors being used in Japan at public gatherings.
See: The Atomic States of America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snq5InfEdlg
that was selected by the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.
And : High Power, made in India 2013:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msxq0UifZlE
Foster Gamble, the co-producer of THRIVE, spoke recently at the United We Stand Festival
in Los Angeles and gave us a glimpse of a future with abundant safe energy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsA6iDGgpQg
As you could hear there is real excitement about the prospect of these technologies becoming
available soon, and simultaneously our pursuit of Peace continues. My goal is to help unite many
diverse groups around the world who are striving to achieve a safer world free of leaking nuclear
reactors and bombs that assure mutual destruction. Your help is needed to resurrect The Pease Flag.
I'm looking for distributors at all levels, radio and advertising experts, and everyone with a desire
to create a safer world.
Every flag will be delivered with a Certificate of Authenticity verifying that it was made
by the originator of the flag flown in protest of the French Nuclear Bomb Tests at Mururoa
in 1973.
Briefly, I made a flag for Peace (the first one to my knowledge) and gave it to a crew
member of a ship that was dry docked in Sausalito California that then used it to Protest
French Nuclear Bomb Tests in Mururoa, got arrested, had the flag stolen, and then
sailed to New Zealand and wrote a book about it.
In the early 1970's I was very active in protesting against
the War in Vietnam and frequently when I attended rallies in
San Francisco the American flag was being burned. I understood
the anger that motivated people to do this but I thought
destroying the flag did not solve the problem, and another
message was needed. I graduated from George Washington University
and I asked myself, "What would George do?" I decided to make a
flag for Peace. Prior to this time I never saw a Peace symbol
on a flag. First, I made them out of cotton, but they quickly tore
apart in the wind, and after awhile I decided to make a
"lasting peace" out of nylon, a much stronger material.
There was a problem though, and that was that they were very
expensive and not many people could afford them.
My favorite one was a yellow field with a black symbol patterned after a
flag I saw in Stockholm some years earlier.
Here's what makes mine so special....
I was working in San Francisco and would drive north over the Golden Gate
bridge and through Sausalito a coastal town to Corte Madera where I lived at
the time. One day I noticed a sailboat anchored in the Bay and I thought it
would be nice to see my flag flying from the top of their mast, but I had no way
of approaching it.
Sometime later this ship was no longer in the bay but in dry dock
at the end of town which gave me an opportunity to visit them and sell
them a flag. I took my briefcase with flags and walked up the plank to their
deck but nobody was topside, however a hatch was open so I called
out "Hello". Slowly a man appeared from below deck. I introduced myself and told
him I made Peace flags and asked if he would like to buy one?
He said, "We can't afford it." I thought for a moment and decided to give him
one of my favorites, a yellow and black one 4'x 6'. He thanked me and I said,
"Good Luck". The next day my flag was flying from the top of their mast and soon
they were out of dry dock and back in the Bay with my flag still flying from the top of
their mast, I was happy and a few days later they were gone.
About 18 months later I was watching TV one night and there were
some Hula dancers which looked interesting so I continued watching,
and then a Citroen DS21 pulled up and having owned an old ID19
I was intrigued. Next, a Military officer stepped out of the back of it in
full dress uniform and was greeted with smiles by Clergymen with a voiceover
describing that they were in Tahiti to witness a French Nuclear Bomb Test.
Then the picture was at sea and there was a sailboat
bobbing up and down in heavy waves in the Bomb Test Zone that looked
familiar, and I wondered, "Could it be the ship that was in Sausalito? . . . No, there are
thousands of sailboats." Then the camera scanned up the mast and there was my flag
flying at the top. I couldn't believe it! I was stunned and I look back today
in amazement at what happened.
Just prior to this, news of their planned voyage and Protest had spread to France
where General Jacques Paris de Bollardiere heard about it and was inspired to fly
to Australia, charter a boat to take him to the Bomb Test Zone, and join them.
He traveled thousands of miles and when he got to the Bomb Test Zone he was
gratefully welcomed aboard the protest ship, FRI.
When the French commandos boarded the ship to arrest everyone, General Bollardiere did
a rare deed, he returned in Protest to the French President, the Medal of Legion of Honor that
he had been awarded. He was pictured on the front cover of L'EXPRESS in France with the full
story of his journey and protest. See a photo of him above and the letter he wrote to the Minister
of the Armed Forces of France.
The French Navy Commandos then seized their ship, stole their (my) flag and arrested the whole crew.
An Amazing Syncronicity
Several months after I saw this film on TV I was visiting a friend in Bolinas, a small town on the
coastline and on my way home I stopped to give a ride to someone who was hitch-hiking.
As I was driving on Route 1 I told him I was a painter and I asked him what he did and he said,
"I'm a filmmaker and I recently made a documentary about a ship that sailed near Tahiti in Protest
of the French Nuclear Bomb Tests." I turned and looked at him in disbelief and exclaimed,
"I MADE THE FLAG THEY FLEW, I SAW YOUR FILM ON TV" It was incredible, our eyes
were glued together as he told me the story of how the crew was arrested, and then released and
sailed on to New Zealand and wrote a book about it. He said, "It's at The Tides bookstore in Sausalito."
I took him to where he was going in the San Geronimo Valley, and asked him his name, Andy Clark,
but I did not ask him for a copy of his documentary film. I am currently trying to find him.
I did find David Moodie, the Captain of the FRI, and he's looking for the film Clark made.
I went to the bookstore and got their book, FRI ALERT, and on the CONTENTS page is a photo
(the only one) of my flag being hoisted up the mast, and on the Forward page is a photo of Sir
Edmund Hillary with a big smile and the statement, "I cannot help but admire their spirit."
Wikipedia reports, ". . . Fri was an important part of a series of anti-nuclear protest campaigns
out of New Zealand which lasted thirty years, from which New Zealand declared itself a
nuclear-free zone which was enshrined in legislation in what became the
New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987.[2][3]
In 1974, coordinated by Greenpeace New Zealand, the Fri embarked on a 3 year epic
40,233 kilometers “Pacific Peace Odyssey” voyage, carrying the peace message to all
nuclear states around the world.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fri_%28yacht%29
Here is a link to a video made by Alistair Barry one of the crew members of the FRI:
http://www.mururoavets.org.nz/index.php/photo-galleries/video-gallery/viewvideo/7/mururoa-trip-videos/mururoa-1973-trailer-vanguard-films-nz.html (please copy & paste into your browser)
Here is a time lapse video of all the Nuclear Bomb Explosions between 1945 and 1998
made by Isao Hashimoto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
(please copy & paste into your browser)
Perspective From The Distant Past
It is generally thought that our combined human scientific knowledge today is the ultimate
and most advanced to ever exist on our planet. However, the eclectic scholar and linguist,
Charles Berlitz author of, The Bermuda Triangle, raised a serious question in this regard
in one of his books titled: The World of the Incredible But True. As the title suggests
he reports some of the most unbelievable stories one can imagine. The last story is especially
poignant : Prehistoric Atomic Warfare. In it he describes that at the very moment of the detonation
of "the first" Atomic Bomb at White Sands New Mexico in 1945 J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted a
passage from the ancient Indian book the Mahabharata :
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once in the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.
I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
"The Mausala Parva, a section of the Mahabharata, has more to say about the effects
of the Iron Thunderbolt, particularly reminiscent of Nuclear Bombs:"
". . . it was a single projectile charged with all the power of the Universe.
an incandescent column of smoke and flame,
as bright as ten thousand suns,
rose in all its splendor . . .
it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt,
a gigantic messenger of death
which reduced to ashes the entire race
of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.
. . . the corpses were so burned
as to be unrecognizable
Their hair and nails fell out . . .
Pottery broke without apparent cause
and the birds turned white."
"Were these strange parallels to our own experience merely
an example of ancient 'science fiction' or were they accounts
of real events that destroyed a civilization thousands of years
before our own developed?"
Adding more credibility to Berlitz's story is the report from
Archaeologists that at Mohenjo Daro, in what is now Pakistan,
ruins have been found that have at their base a layer of green fused
glass such as what is found at the sites of Nuclear Bomb blasts. Bodies were
found there in a street where the people appear to have died instantly in some
cases holding hands.
The nuclear arsenals of the world today could destroy the world many times over,
making the need for Peace more essential today than ever before..
While the testing of Nuclear Bombs in the atmosphere may have stopped, and the
use of Hydrogen and Neutron Bombs are a real danger, another problem continues
to plague the world, namely the use of Nuclear Energy. Since the unprecedented
catastrophe at Fukushima the threat of Radiation has increased exponentially and
will continue to do so forever. New clean ways of making electricity are being developed
and Dr. Hans Neiper in Germany wrote a pioneering book on it titled, Conversion Of
Gravity Field Energy, REVOLUTION In Technology Medicine And Society that gave
respectability to the pursuit of novel ways of making electricity that require no fuel.
Meanwhile, plans for building more nuclear power plants continues despite the unsolvable
problems of waste disposal. and old plants leaking radiation into the environment.
Since the nuclear reactors at Fukushima melted down in 2011 there has been
more awareness of the dangers of using nuclear fuels to make electricity and
the colors in my flag coincide with the colors being used in Japan at public gatherings.
See: The Atomic States of America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Snq5InfEdlg
that was selected by the Sundance Film Festival in 2012.
And : High Power, made in India 2013:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msxq0UifZlE
Foster Gamble, the co-producer of THRIVE, spoke recently at the United We Stand Festival
in Los Angeles and gave us a glimpse of a future with abundant safe energy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsA6iDGgpQg
As you could hear there is real excitement about the prospect of these technologies becoming
available soon, and simultaneously our pursuit of Peace continues. My goal is to help unite many
diverse groups around the world who are striving to achieve a safer world free of leaking nuclear
reactors and bombs that assure mutual destruction. Your help is needed to resurrect The Pease Flag.
I'm looking for distributors at all levels, radio and advertising experts, and everyone with a desire
to create a safer world.
Every flag will be delivered with a Certificate of Authenticity verifying that it was made
by the originator of the flag flown in protest of the French Nuclear Bomb Tests at Mururoa
in 1973.
