3,000 in L.A. Protest Threat of Nuclear War

Protests against the threat of nuclear war and celebrations of hope for peace were held in Los Angeles, across the nation and around the world Tuesday in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

About 3,000 demonstrators lined Wilshire Boulevard from downtown Los Angeles to the sea in Santa Monica on Tuesday afternoon. About 300 gathered in front of the Federal Building in Westwood, where Hollywood stars joined other activists to display part of a “peace ribbon” flown out to Los Angeles after use in a Washington demonstration Sunday.

Aly Morita, 14, a Japanese-American girl from Tarzana who helped hold the ribbon, said some of her relatives had died and others were injured in the Hiroshima blast, which killed more than 130,000 people. Aly added that she visited the city’s Peace Museum with her family earlier this year.

“We saw the pictures, the clothing, the remains of what the bomb had done,” Aly said. “I’m sure it would be very scary to go through that, and have your parents die in the bomb, and not have anyone to look after you. . . . This is our way to try to spread the word about how devastating a nuclear bomb can be, and how many people it can kill, and we want to stop it.”

Thomas Greening, 54, a Westwood psychotherapist who walked from his office to join the demonstration, said he considers it vital that the world not forget the horror of Hiroshima.

“Unless that terror and pain and concern gets transfused into people in general, it will just be a historical event . . . that happened a long time ago to other people,” Greening said.

But the peaceful “Hiroshima vigil” generally assumed a festive air as passing drivers honked horns in support and the International Children’s Choir sang, including its theme, “Let There be Peace on Earth.”

“May Apple Pie (and) Russian Vodka Live Forever,” proclaimed the portion of ribbon held by Doris Pally, 63, of Sherman Oaks.

“Our country and Russia certainly have enough bombs in their stockpiles to destroy the world many times over,” Pally said. “Why do we need more?”

Among the Hollywood stars assembled at the vigil were Mike Farrell, Blythe Danner, Tyne Daly, Patty Duke and her son, Sean Astin. The vigil “commemorates something we haven’t even understood yet,” Daly said. “It’s been 40 years, and we still don’t understand the meaning of Hiroshima.”

The Los Angeles vigil ended at 2 p.m. with the ringing of church bells throughout the city. Church bells were also pealed in remembrance in cities across the nation.

Before dawn Tuesday, ash-white human silhouettes, depicting the victims of nuclear holocaust, were painted on sidewalks in an estimated 20 countries, according to spokesmen for “International Shadow Project 1985.”

Three men and two women, all in their 30s, were arrested about 4:30 a.m. for investigation of misdemeanor vandalism after officers spotted them painting human figures and the word “Hiroshima” on sidewalks and private property in Westwood Village and adjacent areas of Wilshire Boulevard, according to Sgt. Nick Barbara of the Los Angeles Police Department.

At about the same time, a man and a woman were arrested at UCLA for investigation of malicious mischief after they were found in similar activity on the sidewalks at the south end of the campus, a university spokesman said.

Peter Lacques, a spokesman for the Alliance for Survival, said those arrested were among 100 people who used an easily removable, water-soluble “chalk-like” paint to produce more than 1,200 silhouettes on sidewalks “from the San Fernando Valley to Seal Beach.”

The silhouettes show “people in various postures--walking, strolling down the street, some are people in death throes,” Lacques said. “Some are animals--cats and dogs--because animals would also perish in a nuclear war.”

The activists wanted to express “a political and artistic message about the dangers and the imminence of the possibility of nuclear war,” he said.

Worldwide Effort

Lacques said the Los Angeles-area effort was part of a project “occurring in over 300 communities around the world in over 20 countries.”

According to wire reports, an estimated 300 people were arrested across the country for the painting activity, while at least 150 demonstrators recalling the atomic bomb’s first victims were arrested Tuesday at arms manufacturing plants and government buildings.

In San Francisco, demonstrators massed Tuesday morning to disrupt traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, briefly interrupting commuter traffic. During the protest, staged by a group called “No Business as Usual,” several demonstrators hurled mattresses and watermelons onto the pavement in a bid to halt traffic. Police said 15 people were arrested.

In Nevada, 25 demonstrators were arrested when they were alleged to have crossed the boundary of a nuclear test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Those arrested, who carried banners reading “Let’s Test Peace,” included anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg, who released the secret Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam War in 1971.

“There is no place in the world I would rather be on this day,” Ellsberg said before he was arrested. All were charged with trespassing.

Marchers Pray

Sixty other demonstrators continued a two-mile march along a road close to the test site. At times they stopped to kneel in prayer.

In Hiroshima, sirens wailed, bells pealed, streetcars stopped and people lay down in the streets as the city commemorated its own destruction at the dawning of the nuclear age.

The noise of the sirens and of the bells from the city’s 300 temples and churches commenced at 8:16 a.m. on an overcast morning, ending a minute of silence that marked the dropping of the world’s first atomic bomb on a sunny day 40 years ago.

In Amsterdam, peace activists inflated a huge black fabric balloon, shaped like the mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion, created by American artist Lee Waisler.

Other demonstrations were held in cities across Europe.

Nuclear-Free Zones

South Pacific nations Tuesday considered a proposed treaty that would declare their areas a nuclear-free zone but allow each country to decide whether to ban nuclear ship port calls.

New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange, spokesman for the 13-nation South Pacific Forum, said he believes an agreement in principle on the nuclear-free zone would be reached during the group’s annual meeting this week.

The proposed nuclear-free zone treaty was presented by Australian Prime Minister Robert Hawke to the conference Monday in the Cook Islands, about 1,600 miles northeast of New Zealand.

The treaty would declare a nuclear-free zone roughly from Australia to South America south of the Equator.

Lange said the treaty would ban member nations from manufacturing, deploying and testing nuclear weapons within the zone, as well as prohibit them from dumping radioactive wastes.

But it would not prohibit the transit of nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed warships in the waters of the zone and port visits by such ships would be left up to the individual countries.

Times staff writer Philipp Gollner contributed to this story.