Since its beginning in 1952, Promoting Enduring Peace has sought ways to “give the enemy a human face”, facilitating many delegations of Americans to visit supposed enemy nations as citizen diplomats, bringing back the truth that peace is available if those who benefit from war can be moved aside.

Perhaps the greatest examples happened in 1986, when the possibility of nuclear holocaust seemed closer than at any time since 1961. It was in that year that a kind of “river cruise exchange” took place: a large number of Americans and Russians journeying down the Mississippi River together, through the heart of the South, and an equal number journeying together down the Volga River, through the heart of Mother Russia. Read more about it in the Time article here. Read Doug Mattern’s article here. Read his article on the Volga Cruise here.

In the new century PEP maintains contacts with many groups and agencies that carry on this tradition, such as Pastors for Peace, Global Exchange, and others, inviting Americans to sign on for these frequent, adventuresome, fascinating, and peacemaking trips abroad.

The collapse of support for nuclear saber-rattling in both the US and the USSR in the mid-eighties is a tribute to the power of citizen diplomacy.

“As an activist with one of these exchange programs, the National Council for American-Soviet Friendship, I made many trips to the Soviet Union and hosted many Soviet groups in the U.S. It was during one of the people-to-people exchanges in 1986, a cruise down the Mississippi River by Soviet and U.S. peace activists (sponsored by Promoting Enduring Peace), that a joint U.S.-Soviet peace petition was drafted and signed: the People’s Peace Appeal. Over the course of 1986-87, the People’s Peace Appeal was signed by 500,000 Americans and millions of Soviets…. A strong case can be made that the Nuclear Freeze Movement, the strong movement for peace in the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries and the many initiatives for people-to-people diplomacy made the difference in the avoidance of a nuclear war during the 1980′s and helped ensure that the demise of the Soviet empire was not bathed in blood. Gorbachev, who was greatly influenced by what he called “citizen diplomacy”, stated later that “my credo was: We need radical reform without bloodshed, without violence.” — From The American Peace Movements by David Adams.

Since its beginning in 1952, Promoting Enduring Peace has sought ways to bring people together, to encourage dialog and promote mutual understanding. PEP’s mission in the new century, as in the past, is to change the social paradigm from one of competition to one of cooperation, from a culture of violence and war to a world devoted to the well-being of all who share it. This requires a peaceful transition from an unsustainable culture steeped in institutionalized violence, exploitation, and profligate consumption to a commonwealth of all species based on universal harmony, mutual respect, and a love of the Earth and all beings who call it home.

PEP was incorporated as a tax-exempt organization in 1958 and reincorporated under current tax exemption regulations in in 2008.

In late 2005, following the death of former executive director Alice Frazier, and having secured the promise of a position at The Compassionate Listening Project, Yael Petretti resigned as PEP’s Executive Director, proposing to dissolve PEP and donate its treasury to her new organization. (PEP’s assets then totaled over $1 million, accumulated over fifty years in mostly small donations.) At about the same time, a Fairfield University professor named Joy Gordon became the newest member of the PEP Board and proposed that PEP donate its funds to the organization of which she was a Board member, the New Haven/Leon Sister City Project (to which PEP presented the Gandhi Peace Award in 1995).

Both proposals were rejected by the Board. Gordon, Petretti, and two others convened a teleconference intended as a meeting of the Board against the instructions of PEP’s then- president, Karen Jacob. They were guided by Jack Horak, a prominent attorney with the Hartford firm of Reid & Riege and a leader of the Yankee Institute, a far-right “think tank” based in Connecticut, whose then-executive director had publicly sworn to wage war on progressive institutions, including public educations and unions.

Acting in accordance with Horak’s counsel, they barred PEP’s longstanding advisors from participating in the teleconference and forced out PEP’s longest-serving Board member, Paul Hodel, in the process eliminating all but one of those discussants who opposed the dissolution plan. They did so without proper advance notice–a violation of Connecticut law–and committed a number of other breaches of law and PEP’s bylaws.

The few Board members remaining in the teleconference then voted to elect Gordon president of PEP, although her time as a PEP board member totaled less than six weeks. They then voted to dissolve PEP and distribute its assets to other organizations. They took control of PEP’s financial instruments and relocated PEP’s funds to a location she would not disclose. In the following weeks about one-fifth of PEP’s assets (well over $200,000) was transferred from PEP accounts to Attorney law firm. (This amount would grow to over one-third of PEP’s assets before a settlement was reached.)

Three Board members–Karen Jacob (PEP’s actual president), Betty Hill (PEP’s vice-president) and Paul Hodel then convened PEP’s executive board and advisors and filed a complaint with the Attorney General. The Public Charities Unit took interest in the matter because of the funds involved and the violations of law cited in the complaint. A compromise was arranged by Assistant Attorney General Janet Spaulding-Ruddell whereby the usurping group would return PEP’s assets in exchange for a general release of liability for their actions.

Before that settlement could be ratified, Horak filed a lawsuit on Gordon’s behalf against each of the PEP members who had signed the complaint to the Attorney General, precipitating several years of further mediation attempts and litigation. (The lawsuit was filed in the name of PEP although PEP was no longer under his group’s control. Attorney Frank Cochran, as PEP’s true legal counsel, simply withdrew it on behalf of PEP.)

During numerous mediation efforts in the following months and years, each one sabotaged by the usurping group, members of that group spread false rumors in the peace and justice community about the motivations and actions of PEP’s Board members. They also sabotaged PEP’s attempts to resume its activities. For example, PEP in early 2005 had voted to award the Gandhi Peace Award to a nationally known peace activist. When the Award ceremony was being planned in 2007, a member of the usurping group secretly contacted that person and made allegations that caused her to demure.

(No PEP funds were ever transferred to either the New Haven/Leon Sister City Project or the Compassionate Listening Project, nor was Petretti hired by the latter.)

At the 2006 Annual Meeting of PEP, with none of the usurping group attending to stand for re-election, the PEP membership voted to replace them with longstanding PEP activists. The members then voted to rescind all actions taken by the usurping group in their attempts to dissolve PEP and disburse its funds. They also voted to retain Frank Cochran, a well-known Connecticut attorney and advocate for progressive causes, to take action to recover PEP’s assets. PEP members and supporters contributed their personal funds to pay for his services.

There was a consensus among PEP members that the conflict should be resolved as amicably as possible, in accordance with the values and traditions of the peace community, and that continued mediation was preferable to court action. Cochran initiated direct negotiations with Horak on PEP’s behalf, which evolved after several years into an ultimately successful mediation process under the aegis of Judge Emmet Cosgrove of the Connecticut Superior Court and joined by representatives of the Attorney General’s Public Charities Unit.

An agreement was finalized that resulted in the donation of half of PEP’s remaining assets to the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, the the annual income of which is to be distributed as grants to groups doing work “substantially similar” to the traditional activities of PEP, with Gordon as the chair of the self-selecting, self-perpetuating committee that would allocate the grants. In 2009 the remainder of PEP’s endowment (about one-third of PEP’s assets at the time of Gordon’s attempted takeover was returned to PEP to provide income for programming and administration.

Having survived this assault, in 2009 PEP embarked on a revitalized program to bring the organization forward into its second half-century. As part of this, a fund has been established in cooperation with the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven to award grants to organizations proposing projects substantially similar to PEP’s traditional activities of peace education, citizen diplomacy, and work toward a sustainable world peace.