FORs Food for China project from the mid-1950s, initiated by Alfred Hassler, was profiled in this Amy Goodman interview with William Worthy (the most important journalist you never heard of) from 1998, rebroadcast yesterday on Democracy Now! WILLIAM WORTHY: Let me just interject a little story I like to think is of great historic interest. The Fellowship of Reconciliation across the river here in Nyack was—had their concerns verified when Prime Minister Nehru of India visited China in 1955 and came back and disclosed that there were areas where there was famine. It was, of course, a food—a total embargo on commerce with China at that time. And so they instituted a project asking people, their members and others, to send little rice bags with a ticket, a little tag, to President Eisenhower, with the label, If thine enemy hunger, feed him. And they had no idea what the reaction was. They found out later, indirectly, through—after Eisenhower went out of office, through one of his aides, that this project had been discussed at Cabinet meetings and with the U.S. military, which was pressing for a nuclear attack on China. And Eisenhower—not many people know this, but I’m pretty sure it’s true—came out of a—had a Jehovah’s Witness mother who was opposed to his military career. And he turned to the Cabinet meeting, with the military officers’ high command sitting there, and said, How many of these bags of rice have come in? The New York Times had run a big story, and there had been a lot of news follow-up. And when he was told, I think it was 40,000 or 45,000, plus thousands of letters, he said, If the American people want reconciliation with China, this is no time to be bombing it. And that was the end of that threat. A very interesting little side light to history. [Photo: FOR Archives; published to Flickr by Jim Forest.] Excerpted from longer reflection on China, found at the 53-minute mark here: democracynow.org/blog/2014/5/18/from_the_vault_1998_william_worthy_on_democracy_now
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 10:45:36 +0000
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