The Women's Strike for Peace.

“Our milk supply is toxic. As a young mother of two babies you need to speak up now!”

My friend Muriel insisted that we join the Women’s Strike for Peace to tell President Kennedy and U Thant that women would no longer tolerate the testing of nuclear bombs. Bella Abzug and Dagmar Wilson were planning a demonstration at the United Nations Plaza – Muriel and I signed up and volunteered to help in whatever capacity we could. Muriel had sold her book “Any Wednesday” for a huge amount of money. She needed to do some rewriting for its Broadway run and asked me to take over her duties as press liaison for the demonstration. This was going to be the first of many demonstrations across major cities of the world. A sort of trial balloon. If you hated war and loved motherhood, how could you resist the opportunity to speak your mind in the new radical culture? I was hesitant about taking over for my friend but hey, it was 1961 and New Yorkers were breaking the mold.

Muriel wanted me to be well versed on how President Kennedy had announced a moratorium on above ground nuclear testing. We knew that the fallout contained strontium‐ 90 – a toxic chemical which fell on the grass. The milk cows were grazing on this grass and the strontium‐90 was going into our milk supply, thus poisoning our children’s milk. I agreed to take the job. “All you have to do is alert the seven newspapers in New York and call as many magazines as you can to alert them that our group will be marching in the United Nations Plaza,” she said.

The day before the march we gathered to take possession of several hundred white helium balloons specially marked with black skull and crossbones to symbolize the poison in our milk. We brought about a hundred to Muriel’s chic townhouse and stuck them in every available space. There were a few left over and she shoved them in her hall closet. A photographer from Look Magazine was going to be interviewing her that evening over cocktails. I asked if she would alert him about the demonstration tomorrow at the U.N. Plaza. She just giggled and replied no – the meeting was about Any Wednesday not about strontium‐90. She winked and said, “Thanks a lot. I’ll call you when Wallace Litwin leaves”.

Later that evening Muriel called and was laughing so hard that I had trouble understanding what she was saying. “You’ll never guess what happened,” she said. When Wally, the photographer from Look arrived, he was wearing a jacket which Muriel took to hang in her coat closet. He seated himself on a couch in the living room and she poured drinks for them. She could tell there was good chemistry between them. The interview went so well that Wally asked Muriel out for dinner. Muriel blushed and played coy as they walked to retrieve Wally’s jacket. When Muriel opened the coat closet a barrage of the helium balloons came floating out. Wally asked, “Do you always keep balloons in your closets?” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and departed. “Any Wednesday” was a great success and so was their marriage several months later. Muriel incorporated the balloon scene into her play.

Women’s Strike for Peace grew and grew. Eventually we had simultaneous marches in major cities around the world -- 60 cities in all. It was remarkable.-- we didn’t close down the nuclear industry but we made our voices heard.