Pedaling for Peace: Former Nun Is Bicycling Across America to Protest Arms Race

A 61-year-old former nun is pedaling her bicycle across America in a personal mission she hopes will wind up in Moscow with the planting of a “peace tree.”

Caroline Killeen, who said her trip is a demonstration against the nuclear arms race, said she is headed to the Soviet Union “in the spirit of Samantha Smith,” the U.S. schoolgirl who captured worldwide attention when she wrote a letter extolling the virtues of peace to former President Yuri V. Andropov and then traveled to Moscow at his invitation. Samantha was killed in a plane crash in 1985.

“I was inspired to do this because of the Iceland summit,” the gray-haired Killeen said recently in Atlanta during a break from her trip that started Dec. 6 in Santa Fe, N.M. “Last year was the international year of peace and the year was supposed to end on a peaceful note. But it ended up on a ‘Star Wars’ note.

“At the time, I was a companion-nurse for a little old lady. I’ve been involved in other causes, but I really started to think about this. So I got my Irish up, went to Santa Fe, planted a tree and got started. I’m preserving my own sanity by being out here.”

Riding alone with her belongings strapped to her blue 10-speed bicycle with a “Peace Tree to Moscow” sign on the back, Killeen has made ends meet with donations from supporters and strangers who see her pedaling down the road. Friends along the way have given her shelter at night.

Biking an average of 40 miles a day, Killeen crossed Texas, hugged the Gulf Coast and now is heading north on a route that will take her through the Carolinas and up to Washington, where she plans to stop at the White House. She expects to conclude the biking part of her trip this month when she arrives in New York.

With donations she’s collected along the way, Killeen hopes to purchase a round-trip ticket to the Soviet Union. She wrote a letter to Mikhail S. Gorbachev asking for permission to plant a pinon tree--a tree native to New Mexico, she says, “where the nuclear nightmare began.”

Killeen has not received a reply but plans to proceed to Moscow with a seedling, which she said symbolizes not only peace but nature, “the lifeline of all of us on Earth.”

“We have to change our attitude about technology,” said Killeen, her face wind-burned from weeks on the chilly open road. “The nature of our world must become No. 1 again and technology No. 2, not the other way around.”

Her years as a nun provided ample training for her current spartan life style and her training as a bicyclist has given her the physical capabilities for her mission.

Despite that, she almost had to call off her trek when her bicycle was stolen during a stopover in San Antonio, Tex. But the delay was a short one; an advertising executive came to the rescue with a new bike.

Killeen takes some verbal harassment because of her age.

“Some people will yell, ‘Hey, Grandma, get off your bike,’ ” she said. “That hurts me because I don’t like the idea of getting older. But since I started the trip, I’ve felt fine. The exercise has really limbered me up. At my age, this is keeping me healthy.”

Despite riding alone, Killeen said she has encountered no resistance other than the incident in San Antonio and expects no other problems.

“I have a very great faith,” she said. “I feel a divine presence. I feel I’m being protected. I’ll be all right. I’m a survivor.”