Ray & Joan by Lisa Napoli

Author:Lisa Napoli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-10-17T17:46:18+00:00

10

“Dear World, I Really Love You”

An hour into the invitation-only National Women’s Conference to Prevent Nuclear War, a siren wailed, startling the two hundred A-list attendees, many of whom believed deep in their bones that a nuclear holocaust was imminent. So committed to the cause was the Oscar-winning actress Joanne Woodward that she had spent the last nine months planning the gathering. And despite her dislike of speaking publicly or talking to the press, she’d decided to serve as chairwoman of the proceedings. Though her husband, the actor Paul Newman, was himself so involved in the push for disarmament he’d been invited to serve as a citizen delegate to the United Nations, neither he nor any man was allowed to attend. “We’re not anti-men,” Woodward explained. “We’re pro-survival. We just thought it best for women to hear what women had to say because we certainly aren’t being heard in those behind-the-door meetings.”

And so a who’s who of women arrived to talk, and to listen: Rosalynn Carter; Coretta Scott King; Bella Abzug; Billie Jean King; Sally Field; Eleanor Smeal, who as president of the National Organization for Women had led the unsuccessful drive to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women; and Condoleezza Rice, the young assistant director of the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University. The backdrop for this austere occasion was the grand, two-story Cannon Caucus Room in the United States Capitol, with its three-tiered crystal chandeliers, ornate rosette-accented ceiling, and storied history. Hundreds of members of the Women’s Army Corps had pledged their vows here to serve their nation during World War II. In 1948, the room provided the location for one of the key hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, where communist turned informant Whittaker Chambers faced off with Alger Hiss and accused him of treason. Now, with looming Cold War tensions and President Ronald Reagan’s recently announced Strategic Defense Initiative to amp up the United States arsenal, Cannon offered a place where women concerned about the accelerating arms race could convene to discuss how they might change the world. On this day, hopes were pinned on the sentiment expressed in the title of the conference, “It’s Up to the Women,” which borrowed its name from proto-feminist first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s first book.

The siren turned out to be routine, a weekly test of Washington’s civil defense system. In short order, the discussion on the urgent matter at hand resumed. The presidential election was less than six weeks away. The goals presented to the group included both the immediate—to defeat President Reagan and elect the Mondale-Ferraro ticket—and a bit longer-term: to convince world leaders to enact disarmament, in time for the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. To that end, participants were encouraged to sign a proclamation:

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