"A DREAM UNFOLDING": A GUIDE TO SELECTED JOURNALS, MAGAZINES, AND NEWSLETTERS ON PEACE, DISARMAMENT, AND ARMS CONTROL Grant Burns Why talk "peace movement" in a world that has recently been described as seeing peace "breaking out all over," where "velvet revolutions" have deposed communist dictatorships throughout Eastern Europe, and where the prospect of a head-on nuclear "ex- change" between the U.S. and the Soviet Union seems to be the stuff of memory? If the recent experience in the Persian Gulf is not a sufficient reminder that peaceful resolution of human conflict is scarcely an entrenched habit of the species, then brief perusals of such documents as Amnesty International's annual reports should relieve most readers of any unwarranted rosy feelings about peace on earth and good will prevailing among men, women, and children. From Indonesia to Ethiopia, from the Philippines to El Salvador, thousands of people are being killed, tortured, and otherwise physically intimi- dated for political purposes. Crippled by overwhelming military demands, national budgets fail to meet basic civil needs. Arms merchants, Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," swoop down to satisfy the hardware hungers of any state that can ante up the cash for the latest hot new missile or tank. Peace may be a "dream unfolding," ,as Penney Kome and Patrick Crean say in Peace: A Dream Unfolding (Sierra Club, 1986), but large numbers of Burns is a reference librarian at the University of people are not yet a part of the dream. The peace Michigan-Flint Library. This article is based in part on movement exists to help make the dream real. In a his book The Nuclear Present, a guide to current literature world where the U.S. and the Soviet Union still possess on nuclear war, nuclear weapons, and the peace move- some 50,000 nuclear warheads, and where, according ment, to be published by Scarecrow Press. to a recent Brookings Institution report, at least sixteen SERIALS OF "l'tl£ PEACE MOVEMENT -- WINTER 1991 7 nations possess ballistic missiles with ranges of up to A Diverse Literature 1,500 miles, that elusive reality is in clear need of assistance. Given the great diversity of the peace movement, it stands to reason that its literature is equally diverse. Peace Periodicals It is. The objectives of the peace movement involve far more than the mere absence of people trying to kill Talking about the periodicals of the peace move- one another to achieve their goals, although that ment requires some further reflection on what that absence is the fundamental reason for the movement's movement is--and what it is not. The "Peace Move- existence. Periodicals advocate the causes of peace from ment" is not a monolithic, unified force with a single, many different perspectives informed by a wide variety clear objective, but a loose assembly of individual of values and experience. social, political, and religious movements with diverse People come to the peace movement with religious concerns. The assembly is composed of local, regional, and philosophical motivations, with environmental national, and international organizations, from the concerns, with basic human compassion for the suffer- church group that meets down the street to the Council ing of others, with legal and medical perspectives, even for a Livable World, Women's Action for Nuclear with enlightened business sense; the cynical slogan of Disarmament, and International Physicians for Social the Vietnam War era, "War is good business; invest Responsibility. your son," is one whose irony many executives have The peace movement is also composed of individ- come to recognize. (Many more, alas, have not; uals who belong to no voluntary associations, but General Electric may claim to "bring good things to whose awareness of the destructiveness of war and life," but it is also one of the nation's premier nuclear other forms of institutionalized violence as tools for weapons contractors, and as such has been for several addressing social and political problems leads them to years the target of a nationwide boycott by the peace question and criticize policies related to these tools. movement, as well as the object of various direct Those who contribute to the peace movement may protest actions.) do so by making financial donations to groups like Pax Christi or the CCCO (formerly the Central Committee Since Vietnam for Conscientious Objectors). They may contribute by taking part in mass demonstrations against their govern- The Vietnam War did more than any other recent ments' use of force, whether in Afghanistan or Panama event to stimulate the development of peace (or at least or South Africa or the Middle East. They may contrib- antiwar) publishing in the United States, especially ute by writing letters to their local newspapers, or by through the briefly-flourishing underground press talking with friends and work acquaintances about movement. Since the war's end, the periodicals of the peaceful approaches to national and global problems. peace movement have proliferated and diversified. Yet the peace movement extends far deeper than Further, they have strengthened their theoretical any of those activities. It entails a commitment to ways underpinnings and have broadened their scope, moving of living that honor life at large. This commitment can beyond the gut issue of opposition to a specific war manifest itself in solitary reflection on the shared goals to address the multiple issues of peace, justice, and and trials of humanity, in prayer, in the practical freedom. application of environmental awareness (for the ways With the election of Ronald Reagan and the U.S. of peace necessitate peaceful treatment of the planet military buildup of the early 1980s, and with the intense every bit as much as a peaceful approach to other focus early in the Reagan years on renewed fears of people), and in the education of one's children in nuclear war, the past decade witnessed an impressive enlightened thinking about war and violence. resurgence and maturing of publishing on issues of war What is the peace movement? Is it a current of and peace. It was a resurgence particularly strong at mingled hope and realization issuing from the soul of the grassroots level, the level of citizen action suggest- humanity and manifesting itself in a thousand very ing that the "slowly dawning but relentless conscious- different yet complementary ways? Is it the sign of a ness" is a force real and insistent. slowly dawning but relentless consciousness that The most dramatic example of the grassroots peace survival--of the species and of the planet--depends on movement in the 1980s was the Nuclear Freeze cooperation rather than conflict? movement, a movement that did as much as anything It may be nice to think so. But whatever the peace to bring mainstream legitimacy to nuclear weapons movement's origins, it is by now far too varied in its protest, even to the extent of a congressional resolution people and its activities to permit simplistic definitions. in its favor. The freeze movement was eventually manipulated and co-opted by the Reagan administra- 8 SERIALSREVIEW -- GRANT BURNS tion's assertions about making nuclear weapons "impo- attention to peace periodicals in the early 1980s. Some tent and obsolete" through the Strategic Defense titles here I have known and admired for a number of Initiative, and about their complete abolition, but the years, others are new to me. movement's accomplishments were real and significant. For The Nuclear Present, forthcoming from The Persian Gulf War brought some soul-searching Scarecrow Press, I annotated a substantial number of to many peace movement activists and sympathizers; peace movement periodicals, along with other titles it is a search that can be traced in grassroots periodi- dealing with nuclear issues from military and political cals. The overwhelmingly sympathetic mass media perspectives. This task entailed use of such standard treatment of the Bush administration's pursuit of the periodical guides as Ulrich's as well as recent reference war led some long-time peace advocates to a cringing books noting likely periodicals. Many of those titles support of the U.S.-led war effort; other activists, who appear in this article. My intention here is to present maintained a strong opposition to the war, nevertheless titles of potential use in almost any U.S. library. The were sidetracked into devoting an embarrassing amount list omits some interesting titles, such as some religious of time to showing "support for the troops." denominational publications, because their focus is too With the illusion of what General Colin Powell constricted for a general audience. called in a post-war speech to the Veterans of Foreign Subscription prices, dates of first publication, Wars (VFW) "a clean win" having dissipated in the circulation, ISSNs, and OCLC numbers are noted when bloody aftermath of the Gulf ceasefire, there will be ascertained. If there are two subscription costs, the first further discussion in the grassroots press about the is for individuals, the second for institutions. Given maintenance of clear thinking regarding war as a today's rap~d changes in periodical prices, the figures necessary evil. listed here cannot be expected to prevail for long. At any rate, it is ultimately to the grassroots When identified as covered by indexing or periodicals that one must turn to sense the depth of abstracting services, such tools are noted. Titles are emotional and intellectual commitment that comprises grouped for reader convenience in subject categories. the peace movement. These publications can, if one Treating periodicals in this fashion is usually a risky is in the mood, prove almost overwhelming in the game, for it compels forcing some against their will purity of their commitment to peace on earth.