Linda Smith Explores a Whole New Ballgame

Linda Smith is not your typical peacenik. A member of the exclusive San Diego social group Las Patronas, wife of San Diego Padres President Ballard Smith and daughter of Joan Kroc, the multimillionaire owner of the McDonald’s fast-food fortune, Smith might not seem at home organizing a peace march.

But as founder of Mothers Embracing Nuclear Disarmament, Smith, 37, is doing just that--for her four daughters, she says.

There was a moment of enlightenment earlier this year when she was standing in front of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. “My daughters were looking at it and not understanding, and I began to cry. They were thinking ‘War--what’s that?’

“The absurdity of it all struck me. There wasn’t even a nuclear warhead exploded in that war. I felt such despair at that moment.” Smith said she realized the capability for mass destruction and wanted to do something to help insure that her daughters never live--or die--in a nuclear war.

On the flight back from Washington, M.E.N.D. was conceived. Smith said she was inspired by conversations with Australian activist Helen Caldicott and scientist Carl Sagan, both prominent members of the anti-nuclear movement. And the activities of her mother, Joan Kroc, owner of the Padres and an outspoken leader of the movement, influenced her, she said.

Based loosely on Mothers Against Drunk Driving, M.E.N.D. was formed, Smith said, “to inform and empower people to save mankind.” The group, formed in April, has 200 active members, she said. M.E.N.D. is planning a “Walk for Peace” Aug. 6, beginning in Balboa Park, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

She talked about the group in M.E.N.D.’s recently opened office in La Jolla. On her wide desk, next to photos of her daughters, ages 5 to 12, and her husband Ballard, is a black and white photo of high school queen Linda Smith in Minnesota posing with then-Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, a man she said she admired. Smith spoke softly, her eyes welling

with tears when she discussed the future of her children’s world.

Her maternal instincts drove her to form M.E.N.D., and other women are drawn to the group by those same feelings, she said. “We would lie down and die for our children. I think women are genetically coded. We are a very potent force.”

Smith is optimistic that President Reagan will reach a mutually verifiable arms agreement with the Russians because of pressure from groups like hers. “We need to disarm so we don’t have an accident at the very least,” she said. “I wouldn’t be sitting here if I weren’t hopeful.”

It was at the National League championship series last year when Smith felt her first pangs of social responsibility. During the Padres’ dramatic victory over the Chicago Cubs, earning them the pennant, she was “struck by the potential of being in a respected family and having the means to get the message across.”

“This town was on such a high --through the family ownership of the team.”

Whenever the Padres made a good play, “people would look up to the box as if to say ‘Thank you,’ ” Smith said. “At that point something touched me to try to help make a difference.”

M.E.N.D. has something most grass-roots peace groups don’t have--in Smith’s words, “ample funds.” Her stepfather was the late Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s restaurants.

But Smith said she does not feel a responsibility because of her wealth. “Since I was a child my instincts have driven me,” she said. “I wouldn’t create a cause to make me feel good about myself because my family is in the limelight. This is an issue that found me.”

The goal of M.E.N.D. is to reach mothers in other cities. “I have a vision of M.E.N.D. replicating itself in every city,” Smith said.

“People must be informed first. We must educate and then give them a vehicle so if and when those sirens go off, each one can look their children in the eyes and say, ‘Honey, I did my best.’ ”