"AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT A PASSPORT" TO MOVE FROM THE PRESENT SPECIFIC ISSUE OF TAKING POLITICAL CONTROL OF THE EAST/WEST GERMAN BORDER FROM THE MILITARIES TO THE ISSUE OF TAKING POLITICAL CONTROL OF THE BORDERS BETWEEN NATION STATES IN GENERAL PLUS--'MISSION TO BAGHDAD' by John Runnings  

 

  INTRODUCTION   TOWARD UNIVERSAL CIVIL LAW

Dear Louise,

After we got to the airport there were three hours to put in until the plane arrived. When we had been on board 'til 2:00 A.M. our time, morning started to come and I didn't get any sleep but Sean slept for a while.

There was a four hour stopover at Heathrow and then the plane from Berlin had landing gear problems and we were delayed 45 minutes. We got to Tegel at 11:00 P.M. and except for the people getting off the plane, the airport was empty. With the help of some phone number Sean had brought, we called Andreas to leave a message on his answering machine. And then we got Rainer who told us to take a taxi to his house at his expense.

We were met at the door by Rainer and his house guests and I was given two large daisy like flowers and a piece of the Wall (I told him it wasn't as big as the piece I gave him--the large piece of the tile he has on display, that I broke from the Wall in 1986 in the Museum). He appreciated this to the extent of repeating it to others and we were taken to the kitchen where we ate leftovers. Rainer has a tall European-type house with the wood structure showing through the brick and stucco, three stories, large rooms but very plain.

And so to bed. I got up at 5:00 and Sean and I had a bath and Rainer put up some more leftovers, not only leftovers but leftover leftovers, lots of leftovers. I think he saw an opportunity to get rid of them. We are waiting around for the Museum to open. Rainer says that the place is still available at the top of the Museum. I will fold some pamphlets until I get some more news for you.

We took a taxi to C.P.C. for 25 Marks to be charged to the Museum. It was too early to get into the cafe so we went along the place where the Wall was. The defended line has been moved back to the Second Wall and high wire fences and all other points are controlled by all the fences of the international borders. I was wondering if my action might not be spoiled by the thaw between the Berlins but I find the Wall is just as effective as it ever was. And I don't think its publicity potential is spoiled at all. I was welcomed back enthusiastically by Hans and Christina. Sean asserted himself and took over the typewriter to get out a press release statement and in a short time a statement approved by Hans as to correct German was on 30 sheets of paper directed to different media. The 'thank you' sculpture for Rainer's hospitality in '89 that Abner Johnson made for me was picked up after I got here and this morning it was hung on the wall of the office. I objected that it should be in the Museum and was assured that it would be moved.

They did a very clever thing with the battering ram. It was made a division to direct people onto the stairs. It was modified to suit the Hildebrandt position that a proper battering ram should be carried so he added ropes so that it is complete without the car. We changed the date of the passport burning until next Tuesday to give time to get a press release out. We went back in the place at the top of the Museum and are enjoying the full access to the cafe. Sean is in his element practicing his German and instructing other innocent Americans about the Wall.

I have a far more lively relationship with the Germans with him around. Rainer told Sean that he liked my passport burning effort but my going around the world without a passport would only make people think I was crazy. This was also his response to my doing a hunger strike at the West German police department last year. But he did approve of my occupying the police station that got me the only good exposure I got all summer. So when Rainer said that it was not too late to get the mailing back from the mailbox, Sean said, "There is nothing you can do about John, he's been crazy for a good while." The office has a thick file of letters and pamphlets I have sent over the years, yet Hildebrandt still refuses or is unable to hear what I am trying to convey.

Later: Hildebrandt came to see us at the table in the cafe to write an introduction of us for the Passport burning. I was delighted that he wanted to do this, so we started trying to put our words on his paper and Sean nearly gave up trying to keep him from putting the Liberal message in my mouth. And he really wanted to accommodate me!! But even so we spent a hard 2 hrs. on a 10 minute introduction. But he is very supportive to testing the new relationship in this way. I will call you tomorrow morning.

Lovingly, John

P.S. Sean took two pictures of me with the Abner's mask at my face. I went into the workshop to find the ever accommodating Michael fixing Abner Johnson's sculpture for the Museum wall.

 

May 21/90

Dear Louise,

Sean and I have been busy getting our pamphlets and making a display for tomorrow when we will burn our passports before the World to declare ourselves International Politicians.

We anticipated that we will do action on Friday too! As I said in the earlier letter the Wall is being repaired as fast as it is being destroyed. A small portion of the hundred mile Wall has been torn down and has been replaced by a woven wire fence and then there is the Second Wall. And even if there is no Wall the militarily imposed border is still there so long as they collect tribute. It is the Second Wall that we will climb on the 25th. so both actions will be over by the time this gets to you.

Our list for today is: press release for the second action, hardware store for hammers, lumber yard for materials for ladder, build ladder, Louise's letter, etc.

It is a lot of fun so far. I will get another letter to you soon!

Warmly, John

P.S. On Tuesday in a surprise move, the last thing we will do before we go into East Berlin, we will paint out the line that divides East and West. At a signal we will summon two paint brushes and a paint can. And Sean and I at opposite ends will paint out this

International division.

 

May 22/90

Dear Louise,

Today we burned our passports. Sean and I counted six T.V. cameras and there was radio, T.V. and freelance reporters. We had a large poster of Sean's drawing of the Eurasian rooster and another poster to carry the message of Universal Civil Law. We had prepared a pail ventilated at the bottom with some fuel oil in it. Sean threw his in and lit a match and I tore mine piece by piece. Sean said that there was a good coverage and that short statement would have satisfied me. But the 10:00 o'clock news did not carry it. After we had burned our passports we each took paint roller a pail of black paint and painted out the famous line, where people gaped at where the East and West divided. We then took the rollers and painted each others faces. Then we took the signs and pamphlets and ran into East Berlin, where we were stopped by East German soldiers. So Sean and I dropped to the ground and started screaming. So we were dragged to the border controls building where one of the soldiers tried to find out from Sean where he wanted to go East or West while Sean gave irrelevant responses.

Eventually I was put in a wheelchair and then in an ambulance. I was taken to a hospital where I was put in a ward where they put drunks to dry out. A young man who said he was a doctor of psychiatry complained that it wasn't nice of me not to respond to his questions. A hefty young man that looked like he might be a doctor came to tell me that I could go and then came again and again. He forcefully got me to a wheelchair with which he conveyed me to the sidewalk where he instructed me how to get back to the West and left me. I stayed put for a while and then decided that I should go back into the hospital. There I was again expelled but they got the message and called the West Berlin police whom I made forcefully load me in the car, which they did carefully enough. They took me to C.P.C. and dumped me on the street where Sean was waiting. He took me by my hand and raised me to my feet.

The next day when we approached the Checkpoint, Sean insisted that we make a copy of my passport so I could cash my travelers cheques. I argued that a copy of the passport so I could cash my travelers cheques. I argued that a copy of the passport might be accepted at the other airports and my trip around the world would be no more exciting then a world tour. But he got a copy and put it in my pocket and sure enough when we got to C.P.C. the police gave the copy to the attendant for my admission to East Berlin.

So we have been trying to find a newscast that shows the action but without success. Sean and I enjoyed the action especially the painting out the International border and, in our exuberance, the painting of each others' faces. This exuberance didn't carry over into the crowd. I think it was something they were not prepared for.

 

May 23:

I had reasoned that since the border guards are plainly not going to do anything to us more serious than moving us, that I should make a sustained assault on the Checkpoint. I anticipated advancing into East Berlin and when I was stopped, become a sack of potatoes and let them deal with the situation. Sean was dubious but said he would go along. (I intended to mention earlier that Sean was arrested by Berlin police for blocking traffic when he was sprawled on the street and served one hour in a jail cell.) When we were in the Checkpoint I wanted to try and go around the line and through where the motor traffic went but Sean insisted on going through with the line. When it came our turn the line stopped when we could not show identification and while authority was appealed to. After a while we were taken out of line and the Captain and Sean engaged in German. He said that if I didn't go back or lie down on the street, I would stay where I was and that if I were not let through or taken back to the West, I would stay there 'til they had to remove me in a long box. This disturbed the police very much. The Germans, like the Dutch, are neat people and don't like to leave extra bodies lying around. They should be swept up and put out of sight. The end was that we were given a one day pass that usually cost 10 DM. Sean signed his but I didn't sign mine. The next day, Sean and I went to the border. Sean had insisted that we should be given a one day pass that usually cost 10 DM. We had a poster and a few pamphlets, and, as this was a symbolic occasion and we didn't have any pamphlets left, Sean said, "Let's find a copy place in East Berlin." So we asked around in the street until we got directions to find a copy place. But the copy place would not take West Marks so we had to find a hotel where the change was made and then we got our copying done.

Sean saw a Tass News Agency so we went in and the girl said that the reporter was out but to stop back in an hour. So Sean thought we should have some tea in the stand up cafe but they just had lemonade and beer. Sean was attracted to a German sausage so we had that and as we were going out one of a party of three called out, "There's the Wall Walker, the man with the unsound mind."--and so we joined them. They were so obviously happy to see me that I let them buy me a beer. I have never been so welcomed, they clinked my glass and shook my hand over and over. The party was an older man and his two sons and one of the sons went to get a newspaper to show the article with a picture of us sprawled on the concrete at C.P.C. They told us that we had 4 minutes on T.V. and that in 1986 there was no mention of my efforts against the Wall.

 

PEOPLES' PAPER Berlin, Wednesday, 23 May, 1990, page 9

WALL WALKER BLOCKS BORDER CROSSING

 

The U.S. American, John Runnings, who became known as the 'Wall Walker', because of spectacular appearances (scenes) at the Berlin Wall, had, yesterday afternoon, blockaded the Foreigners' Crossing at Checkpoint Charlie in the direction of East Berlin. The 72-year-old laid himself out flat on the Friedrichstrasse and blockaded the traffic. With his companion, he then burned the two passports. Through this action, he wanted to demonstrate for a world without military borders. The Duo was handed over to the medical service in East Berlin by DDR border guards, because of the 'uncertainty of how sound their minds were,' quoting the news agency ADN (United German News Agency) press secretary of the East German border troops. (Photo: Peters)

 

WALL WALKER BLOCKADES CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

 

The Wall is gone, but passport control must remain. . . . Also known as the 'Wall Walker' John Runnings and Sean T. Taeschner (both from U.S.A.) on Tuesday at Checkpoint Charlie. . . as they tried to travel without passports failed, they both protested horizontally.

ND-Foto: Ulli Winkler

 

We autographed every available piece of paper, then we pulled ourselves away to keep our appointment. We were received sympathetically by the Russian reporter and he pronounced my Round the World effort a 'good idea'. Then we went into the East Berliner Morgen Post and they got us a picture of me and Sean lying in the street. The officer is the Captain we faced down this morning. We found the stories in the East papers more satisfactory than those of the West. It was one of those days when we couldn't do anything but good. And every time Sean introduced me it came across as a pleasant experience. We are still gloating over the day. I asked Sean if he wanted to go back tomorrow and he said, "Of course."

Love, John

 

May 23/90

I don't quite know where I was when I finished my last letter to you but on Friday we engaged to cut down the Allied Checkpoint border sign that divides the East from the West. It is an elaborate sign in several language and on 8" x 8" posts. There were few cameras, no video but a T.V. station told the story with stills. We were over-powered by the police and there was a good deal of action but no movie cameras to record it. I played dead and they took me to the police station. Sean showed up later, he was formally arrested and charged with destruction of property. We did get in a few swipes with the bow saw before we were stopped,

At the police station they wanted to let me go but I had Sean tell them that I was doing the political occupation of the police station and I told Sean he should tell the police they would have to throw me out. Two American M.P.s were called and they were real rough with me until they sat me on the steps and left me. I adopted a comfortable position lying on the street in front of the steps. People stopped to inquire if I was all right and laughed with me when I explained what I was doing. Then two Berlin police picked me up and took me to another police station some miles away. They set me on a bench outside the office and when someone explained who it was, they all smiled with pleasure. A female officer wanted my autograph and she had a camera that develops pictures and had me pose with her. After I had sat there for 2 hours, Sean and Mr. Lothor Wolff came to get me.

They argued that we were free to do the thing again, so there was no reason for staying in jail. Mr. Wolff is a New York businessman who is interested in starting up a business in East Germany and teach the natives how to run a business. He drives a Mercedes Benz and is quite enthusiastic about the city. After I got out of jail, he took us to East Germany where his brother and sister-in-law, who were on vacation in an area close to Honeckers' residence. He showed me the elaborate security measures they had.

We were entertained in a kind of community house. There were about 10 adults for supper and 3 children. We had supper and pretty good music turned up real loud. When leaving, Sean was able to give a 15 minute review of what we were doing. East Germany is a very pretty country with many trees and the crops seemed to be very good. They (this in a middle class area) burned a poor grade of soft coal for fuel and wood. Wolff drew attention to the shabbiness of the buildings. We left the brother and sister-in-law at the vacation site.

On the way back, Wolff was concerned about getting us across the border without passports and he wanted us to hold up something that looked like a passport while he was showing his. I was uncomfortable with this and asked him to let me out so I could walk across. We got out too late and the guard wanted to examine us. Wolff got so scared he left his passport behind and kept going. Sean and I tried to bull our way through but we were stopped and although it was a strange checkpoint they knew who we were. When they were ready to let us go through we said we must have the passport Wolff left behind. They argued that they could deliver the passports to nobody other than the West police or the owner. They locked us in a room for two hours and by this time they promised to deliver the passport into the hands of the West Berlin police, so we walked home. Next morning, a police officer, the smoothy I told you about (Guenther Tiede, The Singing Policeman), told us that the passport had been delivered.

This morning Sean and I were discussing strategy and I said that we should demand our bow saw back and, if necessary, do an occupation of the police station. Sean suggested that we cut down the sign with a chainsaw. I saw that this would speed up the process but a chainsaw is a pretty wicked piece of machinery to mess with. The police might be somewhat deterred by the fact that they have no experience in dealing with this. So we were out this evening buying two chain saws. The store people recognized us and no doubt suspected what we were going to do with the saws. I was to buy the two chain saws. After the event we would take them back to the store and explain the saws were unsatisfactory because they were only useful for one day and if the store was sympathetic we would get the charge taken off the Visa card. We took the chainsaws to the back of a service station and assembled them. After they put oil and gas in, they pulled and pulled on the cord. I had a feeling I didn't want this to happen when the police were coming to take it away. Even when it was started, it kept stopping and I was quite apprehensive about tomorrow. Sean optimistically assured me that when it was warm and the choke was set up right, it would start with no problem.

After we got the saws running, Wolff took us out to dinner. I had veal and stir-fries which was quite good. I was taken back to the Hotel as Wolff wanted to take Sean out on the town. But let's return to the purchase of the saws. In preliminary discussion, Wolff would supply an axe and if the axe was taken away by the police, he would supply another axe. Since axes cost money, we would use small axes. When Sean suggested a chainsaw I saw this an an action I was prepared to invest in. Sean plays around with a lot of ideas, most of them are plain awful but they test the situation to see if you are doing as good an action as you can. I jumped on this and said we should have two chain saws. We spent a lot of time on the phone yesterday afternoon.

It is 6:18 in the morning and at 11:00 we will attempt to cut down the sign of the Allied Command. I know of no greater honor on earth that I would like to have than that of cutting down that sign, as I saw it as an assault against the Allied Command. So it isn't butterflies I have in my stomach but BUMBLEBEES!

Dr. Hildebrandt, who has spent the last 30 years working towards the end--an undivided Berlin, is very unhappy. He is said to have an agreement with the Allied Command that when they pulled out he was to have the sign for his Museum. I want him to have his sign but he would rather have it given to him by an agent of the military than someone who has earned the right to cut it down by political (non-violent) action. He has invested in a very uncomfortable asset in me.

We heard from an American from Los Angeles while we were politicking in East Berlin, that the Smithsonian is to come next Friday and pick up the Allied Command building at Checkpoint Charlie and take it back to the United States. If this is true I will be one jump ahead of the Smithsonian with my action today.

Affectionately, John

 

May 28, 1990 p.4 BILD in Berlin

 

With a saw, ex-Wall Walker, John Runnings (72), showed up: Together with his friend Sean (25), he wanted to cut down the sign with the inscription 'You are leaving the American sector'. In a few minutes, he brought police onto their beat and they held him in security until afternoon.

John Runnings (left) and his friend, Sean, wanted to cut down the Checpoint sign. Photo: Peters

 

May 25, 1990

Dear Dear,

Yesterday was the Queen's birthday but in Berlin it is an important holiday, Pentecost. We wanted to get a press release out that on Monday we would affirm our victory of the 22nd. by sawing down the huge Allied Billboard that announces the international division. It stands over the international line close by C.P.C. It had not occurred to me that this was the obvious next step, but I was sold by the Persuasive Sean and wrote the press release.

The C.P.C. office was closed so we couldn't get it out so Sean suggested that the police department would be open and we would ask them if we could use their machines. This is not so wild as it first sounds as the smoothy from the police department intercepted us before our burning of our passports in the cafe and made pleasant conversation and wanted us to make things easier by getting permission to paint out the white line. I said I would be drawn and quartered first. Anyway, the police had their doors closed but were available through a phone at the door where it was politely explained that our request couldn't be accommodated, that the Axel Springer Complex would be a more likely place to get this done.

When the receptionist for the complex was approached he acted like it was an obvious request. He started the machine of the institution like he had an order from the chief executive. Sean was shown a computer and the head of the BZ department was at our disposal. After several hours the press release was being faxed out to a vast array of news media at Axel Springer expense.

Years ago, a young man, Jay Mosesson, lived at our place and when I showed him, triumphantly, that I had had a letter published in the Friends Bulletin, he said, in effect, that I was shooting too low. This is the message I am getting from Sean. Nobody believes me when I say that I am a rather timid person, and it would never have occurred to me that the Axel Springer Complex would reward me for violating their property last year. My message must have impressed them to the extent that while they cannot openly support me in their editorial section, they can give me the go-ahead with their machines.

We came back to the cafe pleased with ourselves. There was an American family there who had come into East Berlin by train and who had to cross the Checkpoint and paid the fee to get into West Berlin and then to pay a fee to return which they thought was excessive. Sean decided that we would go to the Checkpoint and champion their cause. "Come on, John, we'll get them through. Remember, we are international politicians and they have appealed to us." I was dubious and so was the family but Sean would not be denied. So we went to the Checkpoint that was processing the holiday crowd. When our turn came, Sean in a quiet voice, explained the situation as though the charge must surely have been an oversight. The attendant got off the phone and said the alteration was impossible and Sean said, "Okay, we will do a sit-in right here"--and flopped himself down on the floor. I followed suit. The tourists had to step over us to get to East Berlin. The border police brought us chairs and said that we could sit on the chairs or they would call an ambulance. I said, "Let them call the ambulance". After a while the guards came to say that the family had been let through. Sean, who was inclined to disbelieve them, reluctantly told them that we would leave but if this was not true we would be back. Sean had tried to get a bunch of youths to support us and one of them did, but the guard pounced upon him so forcefully, the rest were deterred from following his example.

It is now 4:19 A.M. I will try to get this off before our attack on the East Wall this morning at 11:00 A.M. We have built a nice ladder. Sean told me he would get the equipment to attack the Wall without cost and we went first by taxi to the lumber yard that I used when building the Ram. Hildebrandt was to pay for the taxi so it was left waiting until I arranged for free wood for the ladder. Then we went to the hardware store where we wanted two sledges at a cost of $30.00 each. It was explained that nothing left the store without cash up front. So we took the taxi to the bank to get my traveler's checks cashed with 14 foot lengths sticking through the car's sunroof. The bank was closed so we went back to the hardware and requested to see the owner. Sean explained that we wanted to have the sledges charged to the Museum and we would settle with Dr. Hildebrandt. At this point, the owner caved in and got a plastic bag to hold some gift rulers and pencils and then got us the sledges for free. I had proposed some time in the future we should saw down the border sign, not realizing that it was a natural follow-up on our victory in East Berlin. Sean saw this right away (what you do to one side you have to do to the other) and I was easily convinced.

Today we will take the media to an unspecified place on the East Wall and we will climb the ladder and do some damage and we will walk the Wall for the cameras and then we will set the ladder over and climb down to the East Germans.

Lovingly, John

 

May 26, 1990

Dear Louise Ann,

Attache case goes to Goodwill, lap desk goes to Canada. Put Sean's mail behind the stairs. I lost my Mastercharge card but think it more fun to go around the world without it.

We went to the Berliner Bank where last I was told I must go to downtown main bank to use my Mastercard. Bank manager, "There's no way we can cash your traveler's checks without a passport." Sean, "If you don't, we will lie down on the floor and start screaming." Bank manager, "I'll call downtown." Downtown bank manager,"We'll be happy to cash your checks at any time."

May 22 at 11:00 we were still waiting for the press to come to record our attack on the second Wall and at 11:10 we were still waiting. So Sean said, "We have a good audience here, we'll attack the Wall behind the guard booth." We went through the West Wall that is being chipped away by the West Berliners and tourists and being reinforced by East German soldiers. Taking our ladder we ran to the East Wall. We set the ladder against it and Sean mounted the Wall and started pounding. The top tile is very strong. The guards are leaving us alone. I am having trouble getting on the Wall as it is much shorter and the ladder sticks up above but there is not something firm enough to steady me. I start pounding from the ladder. Sean has broken the tiles on both sides of the joint and has thrown down his sledge and is talking with tourists at the end of the Wall when an East guard comes and takes the hammer. I holler at Sean who shrugs his shoulder, rethinks, and like a marathon runner takes off after the guard, overtakes him, and recaptures his hammer. We have not passed the Checkpoint. We had arranged with several persons with videos to get the action. Spurred on by our action, the Wall chippers were occupying the wing Wall that leads into the Checkpoint and then they started to destroy it (a mini riot!). They had taken off the cap tiles for about 30 feet and Sean got into the act with the hammer and the ladder set up against the West Wall and a New Zealander with an enormous expenditure of energy (with our ladder and hammer) managed to drive the end tile along the Wall until he could tip it over the end so Sean called the Axel Springer people where we had done so well the day before and one paper said they were uninterested and the female Morgen Post reporter said that she thought our action was silly.

Among the things I had worked out--the result from a political action against a military border was that it would bring the people out.

When Sean and I arrived in Berlin there was no solid promise that the Wall would come down. And my years of experience with reports of border negotiations did not lead me to expect the Wall to come down anytime soon. And while there was great activity bashing the first Wall there was a second Wall that was not yet touched. And the East German guards were filling up the holes as fast as they were developed. So I was in a great sweat to violate the second with a paintbrush. So one of the first things we did was get a ladder, climb over, and with pots of paint we began to decorate the second Wall. Guards came by to intercept us. But we used the non-violent threat of a wet paintbrush against neatly-tailored uniforms to keep the guards at bay. In the end we painted the Wall unchallenged. Sean took the opportunity to promote his employer on the Wall. Later in the summer our decorations were painted over with others.

Sean made a cartoon of the two establishments together at the top and the people together at the bottom. When we were apprehended on the 19th, I was taken by the East police and Sean was arrested by West police and we have sympathizers on both sides of the Wall.

Sean has made his poster independently that shows May 1961 where two tanks (U.S. and U.S.S.R.) are facing each other, guns pointed at each other and antennas pointing back to headquarters. Below representing the present, are two tanks (much more sophisticated and larger) their antennas pointed at each other and the guns pointed in the opposite direction at a man with his hands up representing the people (on both sides).

Later:

Sean and I went again to East Berlin. We found an open air market by accident and we set up. Sean had buttons, caps, and pamphlets and copies of his position in the suitcase we loaned him, so we set up in the spacious area. I said, "This is all right but there is no place to sit and I am going to get tired of standing." Sean looked around and saw an unused chair and asked the owner if he could have it for me? No problem.

We sold three buttons for 2.50 DM and three caps for 12 DM and gave away all our literature. A number of persons recognized me as the person who broke the Wall. A lady from one of the booths brought me a slice of watermelon. Sean later thought to give her a button. We showed our driver's licenses going over and were granted a free pass and on the way back we gave the changing guards roses we had borrowed from an East Berlin bush.

We came home and watched a Disney show of panthers contesting with eagles and hunters and other dangers.

I will end this now. Something we heard in East Berlin--the American Checkpoint is going to be dismantled. The day after tomorrow we will saw down the signboard held up by 8" x 8" posts. Dr. Hildebrandt doesn't like it at all.

 

May 29/evening

We, Lothor Wolff, Sean and I are up in our room at the top of the Museum. We have two T.V.s turned on to see our action today but where we might expect to get some space, there is nothing. So we wait for the next newscast. It is all in German, of course, so it's pretty dull looking to me. We were recorded on two T.V. cameras. We had put the chain saw in Lothor's Mercedes. Sean and I had breakfast and waited. We had to take an unemployed area where we could get the saws warmed up so they would start and keep going. The time is 10:30 A.M. and the action was to start at 11:30, one hour to go. The place we must go to prepare our saws is some distance in heavy morning traffic and then we must return to the starting place, a block from the Checkpoint. But at 10:45 Lothar shows up. He said he had been towed. When I heard this I thought, "We have been discovered", but his car has been improperly parked and it cost him 90 marks. However, we got the saws warmed up in plenty of time. Sean had prayed to his Heavenly Mother, which he assured me always got results.

Our first gain was that Lothor managed to make it in spite of getting towed. Behind a tree we tried to start our saws. Sean got his started but mine would not start. Sean went on without me and Lothar went with him while I fussed with my machine. Lothor came back and said that Sean had been stopped. There were no reporters and we should take the machine back to the car so it would not be found and taken. I sent him back to the car and I preceded to C.P.C. When I got there I saw a camera crew but they didn't see me so I introduced myself and they had another mission but were prepared to put it aside to record my action, so I said that there was still another chainsaw.

They filmed me against the Wall for a statement and I sent Lothor for the saw. No doubt as arranged by the Lady Upstairs, I got the blade running. I walked the short distance to the offensive signboard. I had scarcely nicked the post when I was pounced on by three military police. I didn't want anyone to get hurt so I gave in right away and the cameras got it all. I lay on the ground of no-mans' land until I was lifted into the van by the police.

Sean had been put in the Checkpoint booth and he was now dragged out and put in the van with me (protesting horizontally the entire way). He had had his actions recorded by one of the Berlin T.V. stations. He had gotten a cut about 1/4 way through a post before he was overpowered by M.P.s. The M.P.s took us to the police station where we were held for an hour. We were then taken half way to Tegel Airport and then dropped off like stray cats!

We were in a rejoicing mood. We had no doubt that at least one station would give us a story. It had been so much more colorful an action than we had planned. The Lady Upstairs had done fine so far. But someone else must have gotten Her attention because there is nothing on T.V. which was the purpose of our action. She may have something better planned!

Anyway, dear, I am to get a contact in Moscow on my way around the world from the smoothy policeman that we like. He is celebrated as the "Singing Policeman"--Guenther Tiede--and is impressed with us and wants to help me this way. He posed for pictures with me. He said he played old time songs on the piano until someone convinced him that he would do better with the accordian as his face looked better than his behind.

Lovingly, John

 

June 1,'90

Dear Louise,

I am now at Schoenfeld airport in East Berlin with Sean, and Lothor Wolff who drove us here. Yesterday, Wolff drove us on various errands. First, Sean had to go to East Berlin to leave off some great photos for a nice female reporter. Lothar had gotten the chainsaws back from the police after we had unsuccessfully tried to saw down the border sign. We went to the store to try to return them. Lothor said that he would say there was something wrong with them, and was disturbed when I said, "We couldn't do that as they had worked perfectly." I insisted that we lay the matter before the store. I had figured that every employee would know what the saws were used for. The clerk we contacted said there was no way that they could take the saws back as there was oil on the blades. So I asked him for his boss. I expected that Sean would then take over and talk them into accommodating the Wall Walker.

Anyway, the manager came and said that there was no way they could take them back as there was oil on the blades. So I asked her if she could consult her boss. And she said she had full responsibility for her position. So Sean explained the policies of Ernst Hardware in Seattle. And she said that that was not the policy of this store. And then Lothor came in and generously said that he would bear the cost of one saw and ask his brother in East Germany to take the other.

We then went to get our laundry done. And then we were invited by Hans Bermeister, who makes a living selling photos of the Wall. Well, no, he has a job besides. He had a nice apartment on the 5th floor overlooking the Wall. Sean and I and Lothor met his wife in their spotless flat. We had to remove our shoes. Han's studio walls were covered with handsome photo art. He has a book of pictures devoted to me. Sean and Lothor bought pictures. I didn't have to buy any because when I showed an interest in a picture Lothor bought it for me. It was late when we left and we had to be at the airport about 7:00 A.M. Because of this, Lothor, who elected to drive us to the airport, crashed in our room.

When Sean checked out my flight that day, he mentioned that we would have no passport. The girl said, "We know. We have you on the computer. There is a flight for both of you." Sean said, "But I don't have a ticket." The girl said, "That's all right." So when we got to the airport everything was cleared for my flight to Warsaw. The flight was uneventful and when I arrived my hearing was gone as is the case when I land from an airplane. But I showed the uniformed attendant my driver's license and the opening lines of my first pamphlet and the closing lines of the second. There was some consternation. I was invited to go aboard the port bus but I declined. I have been waiting for a response for about an hour as others checked through into Warsaw. I am hoping they are trying to make decisions, rather than waiting for an appropriate time to ship me elsewhere.

(Later)

I have been sitting here in the airport since 11:00, it is now 2:50. The security officer, I guess, a woman, has invited me to board the airport bus. I expected it to take me back to East Berlin. But I declined again so she said I couldn't stay here.

So she called the American Embassy and I had a pleasant talk with a lady there. The Polish lady said, "You can't cross other borders without a passport." And I said, "Oh, yes, but I can"--and told her about my going across two international lines this morning.

It is now 6:33 P.M.. There were some people going through a wicket where we show our passports so I took my coat and shoulder bag and slipped through to the carrousel where you pick up your baggage. I looked around for the suitcase I checked but I couldn't see it.

A man in military uniform came through and begged me to come back to where I was. I said I wanted to get my bag and asked him what they were intending to do with me. He said they were waiting for the embassy. So I expect that they are going to deport me.

One of the girls on the staff asked me if I would have some tea? And a young man who apparently works here offered to get me something to eat if I had some money. I had some American money and he promised to get me American change so I let him. He asked what I wanted and I said I wouldn't know unless I saw what there was. I told him to buy something he would like. So he bought me a round confection about 8" across and just shy of 3/4 of an inch thick covered with chocolate, but inside it was similar to butterfingers in consistency. I wasn't able to eat the half of it. They made a glass of tea for me with a heating element you dropped in the cup. The boy also brought me a generous bag of salted peanuts.

One of the soldiers that serve as security officers is unhappy because I am asking the impossible. It is impossible for me to be let out into the city without a passport. Evidently, the embassy is not going to do anything, so I am in a holding building, a bit like house arrest. So it looks like I will have a place to sleep tonight. There is a cafe, too. I don't know yet if it is free, as my bed will be. The building is very interestingly designed. But I have no film to record it. There's a sparrow hopping around on the chairs. A soldier came along with a voucher for supper. And as the cafe was to be closed down soon, a young woman came to urge me to go to eat. She argued the case for my getting a visa. But stern words were accompanied by a roguish smile. And pretty soon I was telling her about my exploits, to her obvious pleasure.

I wasn't very hungry after the chocolate but decided to see what was offered. It was limp vegetables and salad, and a large portion of old rooster. Fortunately, there were two hungry-looking cats so I put a plate on the floor and loaded it with rooster.

 

June 2:

I slept well on a daybed and my two coats for covers. The guard looked in occasionally. I have shaved in cold water and have The Lake Murders still to read. I cannot get overly interested in who killed the dancer.

I have been brought up to the waiting room. I hope they have something for me to eat, I'm hungry, but otherwise feeling extremely well. On the opposite wall there are four posters. Fields of poppies and the line "Lot invites to Poland." Lot being the airline of the airport.

I went to get breakfast at 11:00 with the soldier. A waiter promptly asked if I would have scrambled eggs and bacon and I said, "Yes." Tea or coffee? Tea he brought with the breakfast, two bread buns and butter. (The hungry cat was there.) I was presented with a bill, 26.00 something. I said I would not be paying it as I was held against my will. So the manager of the restaurant came with me to the transfer area where I am held and argued my case. It was unclear how it came out.

Later:

Apparently I get a voucher for one meal a day. So at 1:00 P.M. today I got another voucher. So I offered to pay for the meal I got extra yesterday but the head chef waved it aside. I had chicken again plus cucumber slices and diced vegetables. I have been two days under guard here with no end in sight. I fantasize a political issue going on out there but my past experience does not support it.

Sean should be home soon. He was to leave for home on the second and this is the third. It is now 3:57. The waiting room is empty except for the soldier and myself. It is a warm day. I can go out to the rail outside and watch the planes coming in and taking off. There is an overpass that also provides an excellent place for people to wait for arrivals.

I am still in a rejoicing frame of mind. To have gotten all the way to Poland without a passport is quite a victory. And whatever they do with me should get me an international press.

June 4th:

Well, dear, I have made it to the third day. It's like jail upside down. The longer they hold me the greater is the possibility that there is a contest over whether to let me through. And then the crowning possibility that my deportation be taken up by the Polish press and radio. The time is going rather fast. I have finished the Lake Murders and Judge Dee. The conversations I found rather stilted. And under it all was the proposition that people are either good or bad. But I value it as a peek into ancient Chinese culture. Pearl Buck was a much more convincing author.

The administration of the airport is now here offering me a free trip to Berlin. My response is now the occasion of a lively discussion in the glassed-in administration area. There is some laughter. I would like to know what it is about. But I have a notion my fate is far from sealed. The young woman with the mischievous smile came in again and spoke to me and on leaving she burst out, "I love you." I supposed she meant that she enjoyed what I was doing. And apparently she was also expressing the sentiment of the office. Two officials came and gave me the offer of being flown to Berlin. Or if I supplied the money they would get me a ticket to Moscow. But I could not go first into Warsaw without a passport. That was impossible. The immigration would not allow it. I said, "You are the immigration." They said, "No", they were employees of the airport. So I sent them to talk to immigration.

I said that if they sent me to Berlin I would non-cooperate from the airport. And that I knew Berlin would not accept me. That the easiest response would be to let me out in Warsaw for a couple of days to pass out literature, and let me buy my own ticket to Moscow. The hour of the crisis is arriving. As soon as it gets to immigration it will be John Runnings versus Poland and I love it.

Shortly after this the two representatives for the airport came back and said, "Will you come?" And I said, "No", that I must first be assurred that I was to be let into Warsaw. Where would they take me? "We are taking you to immigration." So I remained where I was. So they picked me up and took me in a wheeled chair to a bus and from the bus they loaded me on a plane. So I was flown back to East Berlin. When I arrived I continued my 100% non-cooperation. Now I had done 5 days of this when I went after Mirko in East Germany in '86 and I fasted in a nice, soft bed. Here I was shunted around from place to place all afternoon and ended up in the hospital. When they were taking me out of the ambulance a big, husky policeman looked and acted like he would like to have me in a less public place where he could kick me where I ought to be kicked.

So I was warehoused in a corridor until the doctor rolled me into his office. He found a small abrasion on my head. He put a dressing on it and said I could go, and handed me a bill for 40 DM, but I remained inert. So I was left again in the corridor. When the police came they asked me where I wanted to go and I said I wanted to go to Warsaw. So they took me to the checkpoint to the airport. And in an hour or so I was taken to a West German underground station where they dropped me. But anyway you will be glad to know that I then decided you can't change the world in one day. When I broke the top of the Wall it took many whacks to do it and it may take many attempts before the way is open for my penetration into Warsaw. And they left me with no one to non-cooperate with, so I picked myself up and found my way back to the Museum.

I was told that I could have my old room back. But someone had managed to get in and had stolen a T.V. set so the locks had been changed. When I couldn't get in my room I went down to the cafe where I met Jonathan who starred in the play, "Our Wee Rosa." He said he would call Dr. Hildebrandt. It was the first time I had met Jonathan this year. He is living permanently with his girl friend. He is playing in a show and selling vegetables and getting paid for both. He called Rainer. Rainer lives a long way out. He said call a taxi, he would pay the fare. I was exhausted and wanted to lie down right away. But I gratefully accepted.

Dr. Hildebrandt lives in the midst of elderly mansions that would make our house look like a hovel. It needs a carpenter, a plumber, and a painter, but for an old house it wasn't bad. It is also an art museum. My own appraisal is that all the well mounted and well lighted artwork had been made by persons who had taken a course in uglification.

I was in a sweat to return to the Museum but Rainer slept late and there was no one around but a nice woman that did not know English. She had done some shopping for breakfast. She showed great pleasure when Rainer kissed her good morning while she took from the sack bread and eggs and jam, etc. A grey Siamese cat jumped onto my lap. She was far gone in pregnancy. And when I stroked her behind the ears she purred with a heavenly expression on her face. I was given an egg cup of wood in which not only was there a hole scooped out for an egg, but a place scooped out for a piece you cut off the top.

Yes, I'm coming home. My next move here would be to return to Warsaw, but I feel it would be too early. So I am going to declare a victory and come home. I am going home to help you move and get established in our new home in Canada. I'm greatly pleased that things worked out as they did as I want to be there while this exciting thing is happening.

I went for a walk along the Wall for what I expected would be the last time. A man called out from a shack in a shack and canvas village. He said he wanted to meet the "Wall Walker", so I conveyed to him that we would need an interpreter if we were to say more than, "Hello!", "goodbye." So someone took me to one of the tents and out came Mirko! who had walked the Wall with me in '86.

Mirko said that they were occupying the no-man's land between an international boundary and the Wall. He was in overalls. He had two weeks growth of beard, his hair was a bit Mowhawkish. I took him to breakfast at the cafe where my guests are accommodated free if the right staff person is on duty. I showed him the book of pictures I made up of my several campaigns, it was the first opportunity I had to show them. He was fired up with these and I saw Mirko as one through whom I might get through to the liberal community and I talked to him to this end. And he was excited about the idea of getting the community to have a passport burning party. And in the end I said I would stay in Berlin until he had tried to get his group to do that action with me.

You see, dear, they have me boxed in here. While I say that I managed to be allowed to cross the border without conditions because I have made a sustained application of Vulnerable Challenge the press and Dr. Hildebrandt say that I am successful because I am elderly and an American. The principal of this device lends itself to this put down. I am exploiting the vulnerability of my age and, if possible, my citizenship to show that this is a way that the Wall can be penetrated. But to Rainer and Co. it is parallel to Columbus's egg trick or untying the Gordian knot. It is cheating on the rules. So I cannot prove my point until I get Berliners involved. So while I have a strong yearning to go home, my desire to prove my point is stronger and Mirko has taken a lot of duplicated material from my book and will use this to promote a passport burning by the members of his group. And I must stay until he finds out if we can pull it off. I will be writing to Sean at your address so he should check in betimes.

Lovingly, John

 

June 13,'90

Dear Louise,

I hope you will arrange to get plenty of rest. I think you are working harder than you need and it is unhealthy and no fun. After my confrontation with Pan Am, having no passport I took the U-Bahn back to Checkpoint Charlie. And while I was eating my soup, the Evening Telegraph reporter snaggled me. When I went outside I was confronted by the CBS team that came to record the removing of the Allied Checkpoint building that is reported to have been acquired by the Smithsonian. I was very heartened by the evident pleasure that this team greeted me. They gave me quite a substantial interview under the circumstances.

Lothor had advised putting off the invasion of Warsaw to be around when this event is taking place to take advantage of the big-time media that will be here. But he was overruled by Sean and I who felt that such a media event would be for one story only. But Rainer, who is a big hero of the Checkpoint, recommended that they see me. So I am here, accidentally, at the right place at the right time. I will be going back to Tegel tomorrow morning. I will ask if there are any empty seats on the last flight to Seattle at that price or try to get my ticket changed.

June 14:

I awoke this morning in the dark, astounded by the enormity of the thing I am contemplating today. Even though I realize that last year I faced down the Allied Command, the DDR, the Berlin police and the Axel Springer complex, I am astounded by my own presumption. I am contemplating facing down the US Embassy, the City of Berlin, Tegel Airport and Washington, D.C. It is beautiful music to the ego to have the police begging you not to commit a crime. Since they have no community to support them putting me in jail, I can go to Tegel and repeat my yesterday's actions indefinitely.

West Germany is not going to deport me so the most likely possibility is that Pan Am will quietly put me on a plane to Seattle.

Later:

I was once more to the airport and I wasn't even taken out of the airport but was deposited in a chair and the smoothy P.R. policeman left me while they negotiated a way for me to get home. But I was pretty sure that anything they would come up with wouldn't be satisfactory to me and I was not really wanting to fly out that day anyway. So I came home and decided to buy another ticket. I was able to recover my investment short 100 DM to be applied on regular fare. So I am to fly out on the 20th. I will get you the time of arrival on the phone. So I returned to do some autographing and I passed out leaflets in the Museum. I told Hans Jorgen that I was wanting to make a sign to say I was available for autographs in the Museum. And while I am talking I see him typing out a sign on his computer. I had gotten the paint from the workshop and anticipated going to the store for a paintbrush but in no time at all he was laying out the cardboard I had brought up.

It is now hanging in two languages and it is 12:18 and I have only signed one book but I have given out a number of pamphlets. I have been provided with a table and chair so I am trying to get this letter ready to send during the slow periods.

Lovingly, John

June 16, 1990

Dear Louise,

I have written another press release which I will have faxed out on Monday. I am sitting at my table by my battering ram display in the Museum. I had complained about the size and the awkward place of the first exhibit (which is still in place) but I have nothing to complain about with respect to the second display. It is the most prominent exhibit in the Museum.

Rainer blows hot and cold toward me. When Sean and I were sawing down the Allied Border Sign, he came storming into the office, "We'll have to completely disassociate ourselves from these people." Sean wrote a conciliatory letter and he is now all smiles. The message explaining what I am doing explains nothing and it sounds like a putdown (in three languages) but it may not be intentional. There are lots of enlarged pictures and my name is prominent. One would never guess the goal I have set out for myself from anything that is seen or said on display.

I am sitting now in the Museum, where thousands of people pass through daily, with a table and chair provided by the Museum. I made what I believe to be a very valuable contact. We are in the process of planning a book. It is to be a small book with plenty of pictures and artwork. He is an artist, an American living in Denmark with his former wife and two children. He is a slight, energetic, intense person. I think I would like him even if he didn't think I had the most marvelous story of the age. He is a 30 year-old artist and to impress me with his abilities he said he had called a bank on the phone and asked for $4,000.00 to develop a museum display and received it. He talks of developing the book in two months, having it translated to German and put on sale in Berlin. I took him across the line (where foreigners must pay tribute and Berliners must show a passport) without paying tribute or showing a passport and he was delighted and impressed.

The Danish government has seized four of his art pieces for non-payment of taxes and he agonized all the time we were in East Berlin over whether or not he should use my methods for the recovery of his art pieces. It is tentatively proposed that if I cannot get on a flight in Tegel that I try crossing the Danish border with him and maybe help him recover his artwork. The only thing is I don't think he has a case. He argues that artists should not be taxed because of the nature of the contribution the artist makes to society, but I am not able to discern the difference between art and other labours.

June 18th:

It is rumored that the Allied Command building is going to be taken away today. I am not quite sure what this portends. The East Germans are still requiring passports both ways and the West stop cars too. All day there are crowds of people along the Wall. People with collections of pieces for sale. Tables with army paraphernalia, hats, badges, pins, ribbons, helmets, decorations, and pieces of the Wall are hung in plastic cages and children have collections of little pieces and are becoming developed merchants. Some go along the Wall turning over the bits that fall from the hammer to reveal the colour that makes the concrete marketable.

I have been feeling very well and I have a good appetite. I would like to get home, but the embassy is still adamant. I have bought a new ticket and will attempt to fly out on Wednesday, the 20th. I will send out a press release to say that without a passport I have no right to be in Germany and no right to leave.

It is 8:32 A.M. and I am wolfishly hungry and the cafe doesn't open until 9:00. Later: I had two hamburger patties and two croissants for breakfast. Maurice is not here yet. I have a great statement for our proposed book made this morning after a good night's sleep that I want to see him about. We went for a U-Bahn ride and ended up in a Greek restaurant. I had an omelette and salad and we talked "book". I will mail this and hope that I beat it home.

Love, John

 

June 20, 1990

Dear Dear,

I am assuming that you have now started settling in our new home and I am sorry I am not there to help. I have been rejected by the airport three times. The last was this morning when police and airport personnel made a substantial effort to fly me home via Frankfurt and New York. We had assurance that it would happen, but then Pan Am scratched it. I am buying a ticket for next Wednesday.

It is said that C.P.C. booths of the Allied Command are to be moved this Friday. My new friend is delaying his trip back to Denmark so that he can take photos of it being removed. His name is M. Maurice Hawkesworth. He does artwork and photos and posters for the Museum. He was with me at the airport in his car. Sean had left a copy of his book about me at the office of the Museum and it has proved a wealth of material for the book Maurice proposes to put together. He is a rather inspired, driven individual and laces his conversation with "incredible" and "I was in shock", and tends to labour the point after he has made it. He is writing his own book about the Berlin Wall.

The support supplied by the Museum to me is hard to believe. My press releases are made up from my scrawl and faxed to all the media in Berlin and to the international media agencies. My pamphlets are copied without charge, my telephone calls to you are absorbed by the Museum and this letter will be included in the Museum mail. I borrowed the money for my ticket when the bank balked at giving me money on the Visa card without a passport.

I get little bits in the newspapers about how, even after the Wall is down I cannot stop, but continue mindlessly to mess around with it. I feel completely cut off now that you are gone from 525-9486 and 2713 N.E. 94th.

There has been a thunderstorm and I think of Mirko living in his little tent. After you get the house arranged you will want to put in a garden and I imagine you will have vigorous growth of alders in the East pasture. I wonder what you will do for transportation. Had I arrived home, I intended to buy a car.

June 21:

I think I will get a sandwich board to wear at the airport and say on it: "Pan Am will not fly me home" and pass out the press release. It is about an hour each way on the tram. I leaned on Hans Jorgen to make up the lettering for the sandwich board, but it ended up a conventional sign. Michael and I put it together in the shop and when I took it out on the street all liked it.

 

June 23, 1990

Dear Dearness,

The Allied Command building is gone, perhaps prematurely, to the Smithsonian as the Allied Command has not yet pulled out.

Yesterday morning, Maurice came up to take pictures from the balcony and then a couple from Denmark and a couple of Fins. Catherine from the office came up puffing from all those stairs and she was with a couple of young men she introduced as her "body guards". She implored me not to do anything, and for the sake of the Museum, not to cause any trouble. I was angry and distressed that she, who knew me over such a long period of time, should suggest that I might want to cause a disturbance while the ceremonies for the removal of the Checkpoint were going on.

These were the fears of the planners, so I saw the two men as the plainclothes policemen that they were. I immediately decided to go to breakfast and I was restrained. To call attention to the cameras in the balcony I struggled and yelled as the police tried to keep me from going to breakfast, and I was angry and frustrated that the great performance that I was putting on was not being recorded on film. They threatened me with arrest and I said, "Arrest me", and that they would call the police and I said, "Call the police", and then to subdue me properly, one pulled out his badge and said we ARE the police!!

In my frustration, I am calling to myself, the people on the balcony, sheeps and chickens and opportunists, that they would rather keep their place on the balcony than help me show that I am under house arrest.

I gave in and went to bed again. They shut me in my room, and I was to discover later that the balcony had been cleared before they stopped me. The thoroughfare had been set up for speeches, and the military band. By the time my guards left, the C.P.C. Allied Command Building was up in the air, a toy building in comparison to the enormous mobile crane that held it.

I went out again with my sign and attracted all cameras. I received so much verbal response that I was hoarse from talking, and some gave me some change. Mostly, they stare at me as they realize that this is the fabulous creature that broke and walked the Wall some time ago.

I plan to take my sign and go to the airport and try it out in front of the Pan Am ticket office. I have a date with a Los Angeles radio station next Tuesday.

 

Saturday, June 24th:

I went to the airport this morning. I had a quiet time. A number of officials picked up my leaflet and one employee wanted my autograph. When I returned to the Museum, Alexander, young, tall, handsome, soft-spoken, who was buying my ticket from the agency said that the agency had been contacted to tell me that I might be fined $15,000.00 for my sign that suggested that Pan Am was at fault that I was not accommodated. While I admit it's 'dirty pool', I doubt that they could make a case out of it. If they had a stick to hit me with, I would already be in jail awaiting trial.

I went again Sunday to Tegel and a young man came to me with an envelope full of pamphlets I must have mislaid somewhere and also my addresses. I will be able to write and call Sean. A man came and said he had called the radio station and that someone would be out to record my action. An hour later he called back to find out that nothing had happened, and that I was to call again later. It is a repeated story that reporters get excited about my action and then when they clear it with the boss, find it's 'no dice'.

June 26:

I woke up this morning with an addition invented for my sign:

'I burned my passport to campaign for the political destruction of militarily-imposed divisions--For the political integration of Homo sapiens--For universal civil law and for a common market of the earth.'

John

June 25, 1990

Dear Louise,

We have been having nice summer weather with winds that make it pleasant. I have been continuing the campaign at Tegel. I don't have any competition and I am sure that I wouldn't be allowed to picket there if it weren't for my reputation. However, everyone seems friendly enough. For the most, like in Seattle, I am ignored.

A young fellow, on the bus over to Tegel, sat down beside me and shoved a radio station card in my hand and asked for an interview. We arranged it for tonight in the cafe at 9:00 P.M. I have a bad cough, and it slows me down. Oh, yes! I did get on the radio show, that was Los Angeles radio station broadcasting via satellite from Berlin. Dr. Hildebrandt got about 15 minutes and I got about 3 minutes.

Later:

The young man from the radio station came. It was a preliminary interview and they will take enough tape to do a half hour of interview to be aired at 1:00 P.M. at a later date. They will tape the interview July 3rd, so it looks like I may be here for a while. You will see that had I been allowed to fly right away that there would have been no campaign at Tegel, and no interview on the radio. Please write and send our new telephone number. (It is 5:50 A.M. No breakfast until 9:00 A.M.)

Nothing I do is very newsworthy to the establishment and you'll remember that I had the use of the Axel Springer Complex to get out one press release and not one news camera showed up. Well no. We did get media for the burning of our passports but nothing much came of it. It was my second effort to fly with Pan Am. That was the flop.

I am wondering what it is like for you to find yourself all alone in a big house without transportation to anywhere. Or maybe you have bought a car. I am interested in what you would buy if you should acknowledge that you needed a car. I had two hamburger patties with bread buns for breakfast. Let me know how Morgan and Kathy are doing. Kathy will be eating out of the garden by now, but they will need an income.

Lovingly, Sir

 

Sunday, July 1, 1990

Dear Louise Ann,

The border between the Germanies is said to be no more. There was a celebration to this effect last night at Checkpoint Charlie. There may have been several hundred people and many cameras. I had some thoughts as to the propriety of taking my sign among these people who were celebrating the reunion of Germany and imposing my concern with open borders to the United States.

I'm glad I did. I think I must have registered on nearly every camera in the crowd and on the T.V. cameras. My sign identified me in the night crowd and I was beseiged for my "autograms". Then we went to the cafe and Rainer and I sat down at the table and autographed books for the patrons. I went to bed at 3:30 A.M.

Rainer wanted to have me say something complimentary of the border guards that he could repeat in German on how I was treated by them. I had some trouble with this, as I could remember being pulled off the Wall, but all in all I felt that the German police had treated me as well or better that I was treated at home. I said something to this effect. With Rainer's translation, I was applauded, and I was listened to with great interest by a Dutch couple. It was a great evening for me.

While I was campaigning at Tegel yesterday, one of the security persons engaged me in conversation. When he found that I didn't hold Pan Am at fault for my inability to fly out, we had a friendly exchange. When another person joined us, the security person told him how I had proposed four years ago that the Wall be broken up and sold to tourists. I was astonished as I did not think I had mentioned this to anyone but you in a letter from Berlin. It developed that he had received it from a 'reporter' whom I recognized as Maurice when he was recording my last action. Maurice is vastly impressed with my 'prophetic vision'.

I went out this morning to visit the Checkpoint and see with my own eyeballs this thing that happened overnight. It seems to be 'for real'. There were perhaps 10 guards, they were not doing anything. One by one they came to me with the slip of paper that had formerly been required for crossing the border an asked for my autogram on it. The Checkpoint is closed so people were taking the route that Sean and I took a while back. My cold has developed from nasty to worse. My cough is complicated by a running nose.

July 2nd:

I am getting plenty of rest. I gave away all my pamphlets Sunday night and the office ran out of paper. I feel better that I did. I called Maurice at his home and he will not be back for a few days. It looks like my next try for leaving for home will be July 11th at 10:20 A.M. Berlin time. It has been real nice summer weather.

Sir

 

 

July 3, 1990

Dear Louise,

I came in because a summer shower is pouring down. I went to Tegel this morning and the half dozen D.D.R. train stops in the route were open and the trains stopped to take on and let off passengers. I had seen that they were being re-directed, but it is still in process. When I arrived at Tegel nobody seemed to want my pamphlets and I wasn't feeling too chipper, so I made a circuit of the airport to register with police and officials that I was there and I came home.

While at the airport I bought a Times. Gorbachev is making confident noises about his place in power and the West Germans are rejoicing on how smoothly the changeover has come about. My pamphlets are shouting as loud as they can that this could happen between all states if the states really wanted it to. For all the pamphlets I wasted on the Germans, there is not a whisper, so far as I can tell, that in this there is any lesson to be had for the union of mankind.

I am hoping that you have written a letter and that one may come anytime. I feel a bit guilty that I have put myself into this impossible position and that you had not been prepared for it, but I had faced down so many giants last summer I thought the U.S. would be a pushover. I still don't think they can keep me here, and I am making plans to provoke deportation if all else fails.

July 4th:

Eleanor's birthday. I hope she is looking better than she was. I went to Tegel again. I was in good spirits and I had a good time. One of the employees gave me "what for" for picking on the poor unfortunate Pan Am. I had already heard that Pan Am was in trouble so I blushed with pleasure that little me was seen as a threat to this enormous institution that is Pan Am. I told him I was unfamiliar with Pan Am's history and that in the future I would choose a more robust company. I had no interest in the financial collapse of Pan Am and that all I wanted was to go home.

(Pan Am brochure enclosed)

He objected to my street display because it suggested that it was perversity on the part of Pan Am that I was denied a flight on the plane, when the U.S. government imposed a $10,000.00 fine for carrying a passenger without a passport and that this applied equally to all air carriers. I said in effect that Pan Am was the only fulcrum I had to move the U.S. government to let me on the plane, and what I was doing probably would not stand up in the light of good ethics.

The street display has a sign at the top in German and in English.

I BURNED MY PASSPORT !--TO CAMPAIGN FOR THE POLITICAL DESTRUCTION OF MILITARILY IMPOSED DIVISIONS--FOR THE POLITICAL INTEGRATION OF HOMO SAPIENS--FOR UNIVERSAL CIVIL LAW AND A COMMON MARKET OF THE EARTH.

I have an international audience at Tegel and at the Museum who are taking pictures of this sign, hopefully, to carry this new goal to every corner of the earth. I have to build myself up with such propositions for the evidence that anything is happening is so ephemeral that most of the time I feel like I am campaigning in a paper bag. A bunch of people will exit from the Museum. Several will start reading my statement, more will join, and then a number of them will want my leaflet and maybe I will pose for a picture. They have picked up my brainchild! This masterful new perspective--these exciting new concepts for a non-military world--but what happens to them?!!

Sir

 

July 6, 1990

It is cold today. I had my breakfast, two hamburger patties, two croissants, pot of tea and strawberry jam. I called first the local doctor's office. The nurse assured me I would have to wait, so I went around to the place. A limping woman preceded me inside and I looked into a room of chairs. Between those lined up to check in and those seated, there must have been 15 people. Two or three others crowded in ahead of me, while I took in the situation. I conluded rather quickly that to get the cure was going to be worse than having the disease. This was not Family practice with a dozen doctors. This was all to see one doctor. I went to a nearby apothecary and asked for something for a cough. A neatly dressed attendant went to a stack of drawers, pulled one out and selected a packaged bottle with a plastic measuring cup. The attendant showed me how to select the dose and charged me 6 M 90. When I returned to my room I tried it out and it tastes bad enough to be very good medicine.

Christina came to me to say that I couldn't book another flight on the direct flight on Pan Am until the 18th. of July. I asked them to get me a flight to Victoria. I didn't know if there is an airport at Victoria. I will try to get an answer sometime today.

Alexander tells me that if I am put on a flight to England I will be flown back to Berlin. While writing pamphlets is a chore, carrying out instructions is much more difficult. I am down with this bad cold. I should perhaps take a day off and have my chest looked at. I have nobody to confide in, but I think the heaviest thing now is that I don't know what is happening with you. Get me a letter and a phone number if you have one as soon as possible.

I went down to the cafe and had my ego charged up by a Polish young man who makes a full time job of breaking pieces from the Wall for sale. The Poles here, like the Turks, I think, are people without a country. Anyway, they live in trailers (no relationship to the American kind) and some streets are lined with them. They make a living anyway they can. The Berliners accommodate them by allowing them space for a market, a kind of Pike Street Market here and there in the city. Anyway, I get people from them who are highly impressed with what I am doing. This young man was one of them. He wanted to treat me to refreshments from the cafe and he didn't know enough English for me to convey to him that I could get any of it for free. An elderly lady came in that I had met before. She and her friend had discovered me. They were so pleased with their find that I thought for a while they were going to take me home as a pet.

Anyway, they finally settled for a picture with me on my camera. Me cuddling them both by the huge crane that carried off the Allied Command Building. She came tonight to express her delight with the pictures.

At the Tegel news stand I bought a 'Guardian' (I was greedy for news) and the things that are going on in Europe seem so much improved over the conditions of 12 years ago when I started this thing. There is no way to show that I had anything to do with it.

NATO talks about a minimum of nuclear weapons and on 'last resort response'. This is pure archaic rhetoric in the context of the present relationship and certainly in the relationship of helpfulness that Americans seem to want with the U.S.S.R. So, history seems to be undermining my mission before the world realized that I had one. So, Dear, I am waffling over whether I should continue my 'round the world without a passport. Will not the nations themselves realize soon that passports get in the way of all the international things we are trying to do? The states changed from the Communist system by political means and will they want to go back to armed means for protecting their borders? I just read in a European paper that a leader in Czechoslovakia said that they wouldn't consider leaving the Warsaw Pact unless they were given full control of their army. Then I think about the refugees and the Poles and the Turks who are denied the rights of citizens wherever they are. I waffle back again so I may not work the thing out soon.

Oh, yes, someone evidently came under the sign: "You are leaving the American Sector" with a truck and cut the posts off it at about 7" and carried it off. When I asked Hans about it, he said, "Are you sure you didn't do that?" and he was serious. So maybe I will get credit for it after all. Another sign has been moved in with undamaged posts.

I have me a companion a German by the name of Henry. He speaks fluent English. He is 50 years old. We would probably match up as twins as closely as the earlier effort a year ago. He is a voluble talker and he has opinions on just about everything. Like Sean, he takes a proprietary, protective role with me and concerns himself with my cold and cough, that doesn't seem to be getting better.

The apartment hasn't been swept since the people prepared the apartment for the painters, before I moved in last year, so he was concerned that the dust was part of the trouble and he took on the rather substantial job of cleaning, not only the floore of my room, but all the rooms of the apartment. We took a walk together in Tiergarten and while I found him a bit tiresome in places, he was by far the most companionable person I have met in many a day. He has experience being a political prisoner in the nasty old days. He claims versatility in several languages and mentioned Wordsworth and "The Daffodils" and Mark Twain, and I introduced him to Kipling. He is unmarried and I think, if he could, he would make a rule against women being taught religion. Then the materialist women seemed to be about as bad. I gathered that there weren't any that weren't one or the other. I took him to Tegel with me this morning and somehow lost him, but I have his sleeping bag in my room so I expect he will show up.

Affectionately, Sir

P.S. Send pictures of our new place.

 

July 12, 1990

Dear Louise,

No letter yet. It is a little like when I was waiting for a letter in the East Berlin lockup. It was a very nice day today, but I received disturbing news that I will have to give up my place at the top of the Museum. I am one of the homeless. There are people concerned with my problem, but there is no assurance that this will do any good. Maybe if I attempt to stay in Tegel, they will deport me. My new friend, Henry, and I were to Tegel today. I changed my sign to read, "The U.S.A. refuses". Judging from this day, in the hour and a half I was there, I was given two 10 DM notes and one 20, and a man in a business suit was indignant that I was refused passage home by the U.S. government and suggested a petition for me.

I have been waiting for Maurice to get back from Denmark but the printing that he ordered has been delayed. I will continue passing out world arranging material at Tegel. I asked Christina if my leaving the Museum would affect any of my other privileges and she said no, so I will continue to get my printing free and my food at the cafe. If I find that I have no place to stay when they ask for the key, I think I will do a lie-in at the airport and see if I can get them to deport me. Otherwise, I have already started a campaign against the United States and I should continue that for a while.

Your Sir

 

July 14, 1990

Dear Dear,

It was a nice day and Henry suggested we go to the zoo first and then to Tegel. It sounded like a good idea to me, so we went to the zoo. We spent an enjoyable time. Henry, who is a walking encyclopedia, kept me entertained and had something to say about everything. It was fun to have someone to whom I could talk about my farm life at home with Aunt Jean. Before we left, he gave me a half hour lecture on German history. I am rather disturbed at times by the small amount of material he needs to make a generalization, but he certainly is an interesting companion.

He treats strangers like he has known them all along and instead of consulting a map, he'll ask the person closest to him.

I was watching a conversation between him and a woman on the U-Bahn. She gave a shy smile every now and then and was obviously enjoying what he was saying, so I asked him later what they were talking about. He said, "We were talking about her knitting." It was a great improvement seeing the zoo with Henry than alone needless to say, so we came home and I had something to eat. We went to Tegel after 6:00 P.M.

The passenger thoroughfare at Tegel is a circle of about 1/2 a mile in circumference. We worked our way along stopping whenever we saw people reading our sign, where we would pass out literature and we met a man about the size and shape of Mr. Michaels at Northgate who introduced himself as Mr. Horst, the manager of Tegel. I had told Henry that when he showed up with me the word would go around Tegel that Mr. Runnings had doubled his forces, but I hadn't expected that I would flush out the manager.

After he had complimented me lavishly on my contribution on the Wall, he wanted to know what my problem was. I knew he had not read my material, and further he was not particularly interested in my answers. Eventually, he said he was going to tell the security and the police that I was to be left undisturbed (which was the condition that I enjoyed already), that I should limit my time there to 1-1/2 hours. I saw no point in committing myself to anything and we shook hands and parted. I have the official sanction of Tegel airport to do what I planned to do anyway.

So I leave home pretty pleased with myself. I have found that if I keep trying to go home, I am unable to plan future action, so I will put this off until I can do some preparatory work. For instance, there is the other airport to Poland, where I would love to campaign, but I will need my pamphlets printed in Polish. Once I had that, I could feed my message into Poland without having to use a .50 stamp. Therefore, if we can find another place to stay I will arrange to stay a month or two longer.

We met a school teacher from East Berlin in the airport last evening who said that one of the newspapers had a piece about me in East Berlin, something about my having burned my passport. I did get some exposure earlier in the West Berlin media.

Sunday, July 15th:

Henry and I were in the cafe this morning when a well-dressed couple from Heidelberg approached us. She had met me in 1986 (much impressed), while I did not remember her at all. Neither spoke very much English and Henry spoke for me. He was a bit embarrassed that I had admitted that I didn't remember the lady and felt that they could be very useful contacts. He felt that my performance could have been improved upon, but he said they will be around for a while, and we might be able to mend the situation.

It seems like no time ago we were looking forward to the 1st. of July and the opening of the Wall or the joining of the two Germanies and now it is the middle of July already. The days are beginning to feel Fall-ish.

Sean has written a song about me that he sent "with all rights reserved". Perhaps if I were 25 years old I would think it pretty good, but as I am 72 years old, I think it is pretty awful.

Lovingly, Sir

 

Sunday, 15th July, 1990

Dear Louise,

Christina handed me your letter as I passed her on the stairs. Your letter was so thin and small that I thought it would be just a note to say, "Dear Sir: I have fallen in love with a wonderful man!" So I was relieved to find the letter, though brief, packed with interest and acceptance of the way things are.

Henry has been explaining to me about 'women' and how they didn't like to have their husbands away.

Yes, I was relieved that Ian was out of his misery since there was no hope of him living to a comfortable old age.

I hope you will write about the experience of moving which I have missed and what are you doing with the farm? I had been worried about the alders in the front forty. That with the vigor they showed they might get ahead of you and be a major problem to get rid of. Then how do you get around with no car? And what is this about not being able to collect Medicare in Canada? And what is Anna saying and doing? And do you have a phone? And what is the number? Have you met the neighbors?

Lovingly, John

 

July 16, 1990

Dear Dear,

I received the letter from Elaine and I will return it to you. It was to report that Harry has died. I was present when Elaine asked Aunt Jean about going out with Harry. Aunt Jean, who disapproved of most of the neighbors, said it would be all right. They were very happily mated. Their place was the only one in the neighborhood where I felt I could drop in for a visit. Harry and Elaine were a very important part of my life. Harry was very much respected.

I let Henry read your letter and he showed so much interest in you and my family. When he read the word 'Polemics' to describe the contents of my leaflet he exploded like it was a personal affront. I thought it an unkind word to describe my carefully articulated proposals, but I am pleased that Kathy liked my letters. Kathy is a woman whose respect I would covet.

My life has changed a bit for having Henry with me. In the other season I was in Berlin, I campaigned and I didn't stray from the area where my work was as there was no one to do anything else with, but last night we went for a walk. There is a 20 story building close by with a glassed-in outside elevator. I asked Henry what he thought would happen if we went and pushed the elevator button, so he said let's try and see.

We pushed the button and it took us up to a restaurant at the top of the building. Henry ordered a beer and as I was hungry I ordered a light meal. The view was not at all spectacular. Berlin is a very flat city and there are no skyscrapers as we know them in Seattle. I didn't know what I was ordering, but it turned out to be very good fried potatoes and it wasn't very expensive. I suffered in the night for having eaten, except that it was a nice experience. Henry is quite a talker and has a lively sense of humor.

We didn't go to Tegel today as the copy machine had to be worked on, so we went through an ancient art school and saw many things 'they made that were not wanted by the trade'. And I quoted 'the artist is an awful man' to Henry and he laughed satisfactorily. Then we went to an art museum but there was very little there I enjoyed.

July 19:

I have had quite an uncomfortable time with cough, congested chest and sinus pain, but I have been quite a bit better the last several days. I went through three different cold prescriptions. The last one will get credit for the improvement.

Henry is living in my room with nobody's permission except mine. I figured that since I am to lose this place anyway, they have no stick to hit me with for having unauthorized persons here. He has been a great help in my campaign.

July 20:

We went to Schoenfeld Airport today. I had been there before but not on the train. It is about 3/4 of an hour each way. The signs were in Russian and in English. I treated Henry to a meal there. It is a nice day and on the way here we met a young woman from Tashkent. Henry knows a little Russian and he kept her entertained. She is married to a Russian officer here, was nicely dressed and not at all hard to look at.

The weeds along the railway track look alike all over the world I guess. There were a few I didn't recognize but most of them were old standbys like Scotch thistle and Queen Anne's lace and Oregon grape loaded with fruit. I will go down now and have some tea in the cafe and drop this letter off in the Buro.

Lovingly, Sir

 

July 22, 1990

Dear Louise,

It is a nice, brisk, bright day and I am inside trying to write the next pamphlet.

Yesterday, Henry took me to visit Frankfurt on the Ober. It serves as a border between Germany and Poland. We met the guards who were guarding a bridge that was being prepared for the passage of Poles and Germans only. We went along the shore of the Ober. According to information Henry received, it was down about 10 feet. We came to some abandoned barges against which a tourist boat was tied. Otherwise, the river was empty of any craft. The Poles claim the river to the south shore and the Germans claim the river to the north shore and there is no treaty to challenge either case.

This person had received permission from the Poles to run the small boat that held 7 passengers. We paid the 6 DM each, and had the driver and the boat to ourselves for a ride of about 1/2 hour. A T.V. camera was there from 'Free Berlin T.V.' to interview the owner and Henry introduced me to the producer in hopes that she might be able to get me on T.V.

The camera operator said he had filmed my trial in 1986, but no interest in me was shown at this time. Along the river there were lowlands that would have been flooded if the water had been up. There were peninsulas into the river where a few people were fishing with poles. We were planning a political invasion of Poland.

Henry said he had lived in Frankfurt when he was five years old and that he remembered it much as it is today. We found ourselves in front of an art museum. It was a fascinating building so we went inside for 3 DM. It was lovely inside and some of the art was challenging. There were other things to be seen like a huge bell that looked like it hadn't ever been rung, churches, etc.

We then took the hour trip on the train back in time to go to see and hear 'Pink Floyd'. I was tired and wanted to go to bed, but Henry wanted my company. They had fireworks right off and noise and a light show so that I became all charged up. There was paid attendance of 20 DM but I'm sure the majority of the audience were the people outside the fence. It was like Woodstock, with people lying about on bedrolls in the dirt. We stood on a small rise and watched the 'Wall' (the theme of the show) change colors. There was also a hot air balloon tethered close to the ground but all-in-all I thought for free it was a rather good show. And so to bed.

I have been considering in case I have to leave the museum, of buying a tent and squatting on the no-man's-land between the Walls. This would allow me to use the facilities of the Museum to try to launch myself around the world again. I have so many things going for me here, it seems a pity to leave it to start all over next year. Nobody has asked me for the key yet. When Dr. Hildebrandt and Hans Jorgen get back from Moscow I will feel things out on how I stand. Paulons and Lisa Lotta and their small son who was born in France (we have a picture of them with me), has put an ad in a secondhand periodical that lists secondhand things for sale, asking for a place for me. This is probably a longshot.

There are times when I feel like chucking the whole mess and provoking arrest and getting myself deported. Then I remember that when I get home I have to deal with Northgate. This is stimulating at times, but at other times it is depressing.

I am still waiting to hear about what happened to the car? How are you getting along without one? What are you doing with the farm? What is Anna doing? What is Gwyneth doing? What is Bryan doing? Have you got the wood furnace operating? How is the weather? How much did it cost to move? Except for that short letter I am still subsisting on letters May 17th., 19th., and 22nd. How are the Runnings family over in Lasqueti making out? They must be getting garden truck by this time. Did Ivy and Otis enjoy the visit to Grandma's? Have you got the furniture all placed in the house? How did it arrange? Are we going to be able to sell the house to the Evergreen's?

Your affectionate husband, Sir

 

July 26, 1990

Hello Dear,

I have your letter July 17th. My mail must be bunching up somewhere. It isn't coming back. The fact that I didn't have a complete address has not stopped you from getting letters. If and when you get the money for the house, what are you going to do with it?

I am afraid that Morgan and Kathy may find themselves home-sitting in Vancouver and working in the fish plant. It might not be a bad arrangement. Then you could look after the kids and then when the fish season was over we would all go back to the farm and grow vegetables.

Jehova Witnesses are having a get-together in Berlin from all over the world--100,000 of them. Henry, I find, is a kindred spirit so far as religion is concerned but he says he likes the Witnesses' world view and the people and at his instigation we went to the Olympic stadium where they were congregated. It was organized for the instruction of Witnesses so it was 100% pure nonsense. The theme was 'pure language' and I found it difficult to listen and Henry took pity on me and suggested we go home. He has gone again by himself this morning. I have my new pamphlet in the office where Christina is to look it over before giving it to Margot to set up and translate.

The pamphlet is called 'the political invasion of Poland'. I laughed heartily when I thought of it and I was pleased that Henry appreciated the humor of the proposition. It commits me to flying to Warsaw again. We will campaign for a month at Schoenfeld Airport before we fly, tentatively set for August 31st. Thus, we will get our message into Poland without the .50 postage that it would require from Canada. We are launching this on the faith that housing will be found for us.

As usual I am very pleased with my pamphlets. I may have a copy by the next letter. We went to Schoenfeld yesterday to buy a ticket but they didn't accept Visa cards. I must go to the bank again.

Henry was translating "The USA of Eurasia" and he had 3 pages of translation and two of them have disappeared from the confines of our room without a clue. I set up outside the cafe to pass leaflets and a Pole who usually makes a point of embracing me when we meet, greeted me. I was able to convey that I need English translated into Polish. He took my pamphlet and indicated he would meet me in the same spot tomorrow.

I took some pictures of them paving over Checkpoint Charlie and I saw a woman taking a video of it. So I asked her if she knew who I was. When I enlarged on myself, I still drew a blank, and when I asked about her, she was from Los Angeles and was doing a documentary on the development of democracy in Europe and Asia. I saw that she was in the same field as myself but she seemed on the defensive. I gave her a pamphlet and let her go. I might see her again.

THE POLITICAL INVASION OF POLAND Berlin, 30.08.1990

John Runnings and his friend, Henry, will leave Schoenfeld Airport at 15:45 hours on Friday 31st, 1990, to fly to Warsaw. They will assume the status of International Politicians and will engage to cross customs into Poland without passports.

By this action they hope to draw attention to the fact that militarily imposed borders forbid the political integration between states that is the pre-condition for civil law.

We also propose that a world campaing to bring civil law to international states might make such dangerous confrontations as that that now terrorizes the world in the Persian Gulf unnecessary.

It is proposed that militarily imposed divisions are achieved by an agonizing, desperate contest in threat, terror, and deceit.

The militarily imposed line has been drawn by a victor state and it has been imposed arbitrarily upon an unconditionally defeated state.

Drawing the lines of peace under such conditions leaves such permanently unsatisfactory relationships between states that armed threat must permanently keep the lines and relationships in place.

These military lines achieved by military contest must be corrected by political contest to become political lines to the end and effect that civil law be established between international states.

This effort will demonstrate how political action might be initiated across militarily imposed borders to bring the institutions of civil law (legislature, courts and penal system) to the settlement of international disputes.

If Runnings and Henry are successful in entering Poland they will campaign there briefly before they proceed on their attempt to circle the globe without passports to Moscow, USSR; ulan Bator, Mongolia; Beijing, China; Pyongyang, North Korea; Seoul, South Korea; Hiroshima, Japan; Vancouver, Canada; Boston, Massachussetts, USA; London, England; and Berlin, Germany.

While I was passing out literature, a woman from the Daily Mirror in London came by with a photographer who said that he had photographed me before but when I asked him if I was published in the Daily Mirror he mumbled something I took to be negative and he didn't photograph me again. In a few minutes a bunch from the U.of W. came by and one of them said she was from "The Daily" and took pictures and took a pamphlet but did no interview.

Harky has not contacted me and I have not contacted him. I had suggested in a Christmas letter that Harky might be able to get us all together but I am less than enthusiastic about getting together under the present circumstances. I have not been told how long Ethel is expected to live. I wrote her a letter, but she has not responded.

There is a place nearby which has been too historic to build on so far and is grown up in trees. It is a place that was pummeled level because the Nazis did some terrible atrocities there (Gestapo Headquarters-Berlin). It has a huge population of rabbits and there is a great crop of elderberries starting to get ripe.

I think you should get the name of the former owner and ask him if and where there is a water hook-up for your garden and there will be other questions. He might be happy to supply the information.

Sean had insisted on bringing bundles of copies of my press response and left them with Hans Jorgen. He didn't know what to do with them and gave them back to me, so I thought maybe Mirko could use them. But when I saw him last he gave them back to me. When I tried to put them in the garbage can, Henry would have none of it, so they are sitting here on top of the heater.

It is cool and sunny like September or perhaps "October's bright blue weather".

8:55 P.M.

We are back from campaigning at Tegel. We were stopped, talking to a young couple and their little boy. After a bit I found that I had to explain that we were unsure of the future that our place at the Museum was being taken over and that we might have to use sleeping bags. And the young woman said, "Well, there is a place you can use until the 1st of September when Kindergarten starts."

So it looks like both Henry and I will be able to have a place to live. The institution was set up by the Quakers who were involved in relief work after WWII. I came to Berlin to get help from the Quakers. Her name is Ruth Schwartz which is German for 'black'. Her husband, presumably, was Schwartz, too. When I realized that we probably have a place to stay, I felt like jumping up and clicking my heels. Flights of stairs is a chore. She said there is a direct route by U-Bahn to Frederickstrasse of about 15 minutes so that I will be able to use the facilities of the Museum.

Dr. Hildebrandt is back from Moscow. He looked fresh and groomed. He said his trip had been highly successful. They are to place artifacts in Moscow and Lenningrad and in another town or city, I forget the name.

I find this morning that it is not as I had thought. We are offered the floor of a school that we will share with refugees and Henry says it would be a worse situation than here. We will look at it, so if we have to move out we will at least have shelter. Henry did the arranging, knowing German.

Later:

Ruth called to say that what we would get would be an empty dormitory with shower and toilet, but here we have table, chair surfaces and the beds are comfortable. The way Henry explained it this morning I was beginning to think that the 8 flights of stairs weren't all that bad in the Museum. So we will go and see the place for a back-up. I'll get this off.

Sir

 

July 27, 1990

Dear Louise,

Dr. Hildebrandt and Hans are back from Russia. They have arranged to have Museum pieces in several Russian cities but this will make a lot of office work and I had hoped to have Hans and the computer free for my new pamphlet.

The mask that Abner made is now arranged in the Museum. It is in a very good spot between the entryway and cafe. It is in a free area where guests can look around inside before they pay their 4 DM. I was very pleased and received some pictures for Abner and Dee.

I have developed a place to pass out literature outside the Museum door where I can get me a cafe chair and sit. There is a slab of wall with artwork on it behind which I can stack my things when not in use. So I am sitting out here today when a man comes pushing a hand organ right out of the 19th Century, with two monkeys and the carriage had the small wagon wheels with the iron tires. He stopped by me and the place became alive with cameras and video and I and my street display and the monkeys and organ got a lot of attention. I had never seen the man before, but he knew me and was doing me a kindness by stopping.

July 28:

The sun is streaming in my window. I have just had breakfast. The usual 2 beef patties and a croissant. I am waiting for Hans to show up to see if I can get my pamphlet computered. I asked Henry to make the arrangements about looking at the accommodation offered by Ruth. He called her and went to see the facilities, but he didn't keep the appointment but decided from the location and the outside of the building it was not for us. I had expected that I would be going with him, so I was a bit exasperated. He said the facilities were not Quaker facilities, but had been and the people were not Quakers. There must be something fishy about them wanting to help us out, so I made another appointment and we will go again this morning. Oh dear, I gained a day. It is still Sunday and my appointment is Monday.

Henry is as protective as a mother hen. I have to explain every now and then that I was looking after myself 20 years before he was born. "Put on a pullover, it is cold today"--"You should drink more water." He has been badgering me to get a hat because the sun has to be bad for my bald head. I forgive him, because he has so many other admirable qualities. I suspect his English vocabulary is greater than mine. He thoroughly enjoyed the "Flea and the fly in the flue" and "since our engagement you have become very dear to me." He'll ask how to say "sneeze" in English but has no problem with "impurity" and "placebo".

Monday, July 30, 1990:

I received your letter of July 18th this morning. I gather the waterbed planks were enough to hold all our books, and a raccoon sounds right for the culprit who stole your bread. What's this about a down payment on the house? We had someone who was glad to give us all the money. Now I suppose we are at the mercy of Dee Dee's and Jerry's financial health. I don't like it.

This is one of those days when I cannot get anything to go. The office is overloaded without any extra and when I tried to call Ruth the line was busy and then I received no answer when it wasn't.

This morning Henry got started on history again. He told all the forces at work that led to the selling of Alaska to the United States. My geography was not good enough to appreciate the panoramic view he gave me of Russia before and after the first and second wars. He had not read either Kon Tiki or Aku Aku, but he was able to contribute things about Heyerdal's work that I didn't know.

July 31, 1990

I had pretty well shaken my cold and now I have another, so I will continue the medicine that seemed to get the other one. Henry and I went out to the place where I was offered temporary shelter in case I lose the room. He was still talking negatively about it and keeping track of the time to show how badly we would "lose" by moving there. He was sure that one of the women involved in helping us was a security guard and that they were keeping track of us, so we went a long way on the train to a neighborhood where there were fabulous old mansions. Right across the street from the place we were looking for was a police station. It was too far out for us to use, so on the way back Henry saw that there was a botanical garden at one of the stops. We spent the rest of the afternoon, and Henry observed that the botanical garden was badly kept, not like former times when they had Italians for help, but the Turks were not good gardners, etc. I asked him, was he around years ago when it was well-kept? No, he wasn't. Well how did he know? Well he had read the literature. I thought this was strange information to be found in the literature of a botanical garden. Anyway, it was beautiful, with a lake and water lillies and flower beds arranged like troops of German soldiers. I thought someone must have been doing the weeding besides Turks.

With my effort to set up a campaign to invade Poland again, I was worried that Dr. Hildebrandt might discontinue his support as he had the opinion that my last effort would make people think I was crazy. I had to see him to find out where I stood. I asked in the office about an audience with him and Hans said that the way was to come in when he was there and wait until he recognized us. Then we found he was in the cafe, so I approached him there with Henry and introduced them. He said that he was involved, but made room for us at one of the tables. There was a Canadian mother and her two grandaughters from Alberta. The mother was buying some artwork. I heard Dr. Hildebrandt mention 500 DM. He then got the book to show who it was at the table with them and had me autograph it and gave it to them as a gift. He gave us no encouragement that he would be able to see us anytime soon, so we left.

Later, we went back to the office to contact him and we found he was again in the cafe. When we arrived there we took a conspicuous place and waited until he was finished talking to one of the clerks. Although he saw us, he busied himself with other matters and Henry restrained me when I was going to approach him again. He could come when he was ready and he even thought he would come back when he saw him going upstairs.

Hans Jorgen came in and when we asked him about it he called the office he was busy with a letter and nobody said, "Hey, Rainer, John and Henry are here." So we stood around waiting and Christina whispered, "Knock him in the head." I went over and stood beside him until he looked up, but he looked away again and I went and sat down. He then turned his chair away from the desk but still with his back to us and pretended to take a nap.

After a while he turned around and Henry addressed him. They spoke in German. Henry spoke with fervour, while Rainer assumed a "so what?" expression. Hildebrandt told Henry that there was a case in court for control of the top floor between him and the owner.

If it was settled in his favour he would kick us out and if the owner won he would kick us out. We would be allowed only 300 pamphlets a day and then only until the end of August. There was nothing said about cutting off my access to the cafe and he didn't say anything about Henry being in my room without permission. When I was going out he gave me a blinding smile, so I am sure he was playing with Henry. He can be a very nasty person and I think the office help may hate him. He gave me the means to campaign for free in a way that gave Henry the impression that he didn't support me.

Henry is taking an active part in the developing of my new pamphlet. His slashings have been painful, but his excitement over highlighting "my inventions" is soothing to the ego. I respect his scholarship.

August 1, 1990:

I have received your letter of July 24th and, speaking of Henry, don't write him off. He has the redeeming quality of not taking himself too seriously and of being able to laugh at himself. He can argue for the Establishment or the poor with equal eloquence.

Well, I think he argues Establishment best, but when it comes to common sense in practical matters he does very well. This morning I took him with me to face down the bank. We first went to the bank where Sean and I received my travellers' checks where I asked why it was impossible without a passport. I then tried to get money on my Visa card after he went home and was refused. Taken by surprise, I let it go. I now needed money to get a ticket to Warsaw.

We went first and asked for money on the Visa card and it was impossible without a passport. Henry argued that the manager would be in later. He said let's get the street display and occupy the bank. So we did. We stood inside the spacious waiting area. Henry is the most verbose person I have ever seen so he has to talk, but the employees make like we are not there. I lay down with my sign and the assistant manager came to ask us to leave. He came a second time to get a promise that if I receive the money, I will not do this again. With some satisfaction, Henry interpreted that the answer was negative, so they went to work. Henry counted four people he considered to be working on the problem. The cashier counted out the money very fast to register her displeasure. I wanted to tell her that I hadn't been nearly as nasty as I was able. One of the customers had a camera and he made use of it. Being the closest bank to the Axel Springer Building, he might very well have been the press. Anyway, it was a nice clean relatively uneventful action, and I have the money for my ticket.

John

 

August 4, 1990

Dear Louise,

In reply to your last letter on July 24th, I have been working on the enclosed pamphlet. As you see, it needed improving. We have found a good typesetter or computer operator. Her name is Stephanie. She is in a nice, spacious office, two train stops and a 1/4 of a mile walk away (or 1/2 hour). I worked with all stops out to get the pamphlet done yesterday so that I could get my copying done in the office before the office closed Friday night. Henry said, "Just stop where you are, it's late in the day and you'll make mistakes. Leave it until Monday." I saw two whole days without leaflets and went charging ahead.

We went last evening to Tegel with my old promotion material and Christina had left the new copies at the desk down in the cafe. We took them up with us last night and they looked just great. I plunged into reading one until I came to a gulf, an impossible mental leap from one paragraph to the next. I threw it down. I was sure there was a whole paragraph left out. That would mean redoing the last half of my pamphlet and all the 300 pamphlets would be useless.

Henry said, "Did you proofread it before you had it copied? You should always proofread your work before you send it." That was all I needed to hear, and gave him the sharp side of my tongue and threw the whole mess into the wastebasket. So to bed.

When I woke at 6:30 A.M. I got out of bed, put on my glasses and had another look at the copy. Henry had gone over my work very carefully to see if he could get the many ideas on the pamphlet but with fewer words. He emphasized universal civil law by making it the title of the next part. I had left out the three words, so I retrieved the 300 pamphlets from the wastepaper basket and went to work salvaging.

Henry doesn't talk too much about himself but when he brought to my attention that one of my "i's" was not dotted, suddenly it all fell into place. The contrast between him and the other men I have known (complimentary contrast) would suggest that he had been a school teacher. He admitted that he had taught school but it was to small children. He had also worked in a bank.

Incidentally, I received a letter from Sean with another song eulogizing me and he and Mark have it on a tape and on sale in the U-District. He is trying out for a better job that pays more than Ernst. He and Kumi are moving into an apartment. His parents are satisfactorily shocked.

Last night at Tegel I met a newspaperman and his wife. They were critical of my sign, "I burned my passport to campaign to politically abolish militarily imposed borders for the political integration of Homo sapiens- for universal civil law and a common market of the earth."

He said he considered himself reasonably intelligent and that he didn't understand any of it except "I burned my passport." He said there was NO WAY I could get my ideas across unless I used simple words. He suggested that President Bush should be on it somewhere. I told him that I had been trying for 12 years to say my piece in 25 words or less, and that there was NO WAY that I could shorten my message and use simpler words at the same time. The purpose of the sign was to get people to pick up my pamphlet and what better reason for picking up the pamphlet than that one did not understand the sign.

I have Henry here, saying that I should shorten my message so that people can get it quickly otherwise they will throw it away. At the same time he says I must write a book--a much longer message that they would have to pay for. It is, of course, a dilemma--and you have to be entangled in it before both sides of it become evident.

Anyway, I made the newspaper man read a short paragraph of my pamphlet, and asked him if he understood it. He said, "Yes, he understood and agreed with it." He took a picture of me and a picture of the sign and a picture of his wife kissing me and said he would submit it to his paper. He left with my two pamphlets.

I like your letters and you do not have to explain to me that there is no such thing as "women". It is astonishing to me that I have this intelligent and amiable friend who understands and is very supportive of my ideas. Yet I can say without reservation that he has more boxes to put people in than any person with whom I have been acquainted. He can tell East Germans waiting for a plane. There is no use offering a pamphlet to them for very few of them can speak English. Turks, of course, have very black hair and when they are waiting for a plane that place is black with them. There is no use in offering them a pamphlet because they do not understand either German or English. I can make him laugh at himself. He'll also claim he can tell by looking at a person whether they are intelligent enough to appreciate my pamphlets. Incidently it is my experience that a person looks more intelligent after he/she has picked up a pamphlet than before.

I liked the way you and Anna arranged to get me some money in the bank.

Warmly, John

 

August 6th, 1990

Dear Louise,

It is cooler, the sky is brilliant blue with large, fluffy clouds. Henry has gone to East Berlin to find someone who will translate to Polish. I have been to the computer to make changes in the master copy. After we had examined it, we saw things that should be excluded and things that should be included, but they were not the same things. When I would propose an inclusion, he would say, "We are not writing a book", and then he would see where an inclusion was vital and give a 1/2 hour lecture on its importance, and I would shout, "We are writing a pamphlet, not a book!"

In the early morning I came up with something I was sure he would like but he didn't. He was arguing that my statement on the passport was not clear. When someone asked him why I burned my passport he wanted a clear answer. I said we cannot give a clearer answer without using more words and we are not writing a book. We are writing a pamphlet! So he gave me a half hour lecture on the passport. He said among other things that few people of the earth could get passports, and these paid great sums of money plus bribes for passports and considered themselves very fortunate to have this declaration that they are the property of the state. In the heat of declaring that I was writing a pamphlet and not a book, and in the light of the things he had said, I laid it out so that even he would understand. He said okay, that is it, write it down. I had said it in less than 25 words.

THE INTERNATIONAL POLITICIANS WILL FIND A WORLD CONSTITUENCY OF DISAFFECTED PERSONS WHO WILL CHALLENGE THE RIGHT OF DIPLOMATS TO ARRANGE BORDERS.

This was a momentous breakthrough because now I had defined my audience. Now that I can define myself to my audience, I throw down the gauntlet to the establishments. There is something hilarious about this as there is about our political invasion of Poland. You will remember the first pamphlet was called the political invasion of the U.S.S.R. No one laughed. But I woke up laughing the other morning and thought it might be good title for my book.

August 9, 1990:

Rainer called me to the office and said I would have to move. Since nothing had been said since he returned from Russia, and since he agreed to pay for the pamphlets until August 31st, I had supposed that he had knowledge that I would be able to stay until that date. I was a bit taken aback. I asked him if I could stay until Sunday, and had Christina interpret and she said "two days". This would give me plenty of time to see if I could get the place that Ruth Swartz told me about earlier.

This morning Tony came to me and said that he was in great trouble because Rainer called him at 7:00 A.M. to tell him that he would have to throw me out of that room. Evidently, the owner told Rainer that if I was in that room at such and such an hour, he would turn him out of the building. He came up to the room later and he was "fit to be tied". He said we must get out NOW--IMMEDIATELY! Evidently, Christina had responded today, rather than two days.

Eventually, I soothed him down and told him I wanted to accommodate him anyway I could. That he had been so good to me that I didn't want to embarrass him in any way. He said that I was not to interpret this action as having any bearing on the other privileges I enjoyed and to go to a hotel and he would pay. Take a taxi and he would pay. He came to us later with a note to a hotel with 50 DM to pay the rent, so I called Ruth and arranged to see her tomorrow. Rainer had arranged for us to have the hotel for three nights.

Early in the morning before the storm broke, I had been leisurely experimenting to see if I could get all my stuff into my suitcase and I was pleased that I could except for the pamphlets which we could easily carry in a plastic bag. Henry came with what he could carry, on a bicycle and brought food that didn't require preparation. He had quite a stock of groceries. While he is neater than I, he was accumulating, but we managed to get it all in the taxi.

The room is very large and on the second floor of an old hotel that escaped the bombing. It was nicely furnished--130 DM for the two of us. I see no particular reason why we should use it for more than one night if things work out with Ruth's people.

We had not yet settled in the hotel when I received a phone call. It was the American Forces Radio. A young woman came presently to interview me about my plans. Henry, who was not so silent a witness, was greatly impressed with my ability to get all my ideas out in so short a time, but we had just spent a week trying to get it all in a pamphlet.

Two letters came yesterday, July 26 and July 29. Your warning not to spread it about how rich I am was well taken. I only received 400 DM. I wonder what the 65.81 was all about. Elaine's letter should have gotten back to you by this time. You should direct my mail to the Museum. I receive phone calls so you can call me.

August 11/90

We have just had the hotel breakfast of egg in an egg cup and three kinds of bread buns and three kinds of meat, strawberry jam and tea or coffee. Henry has not only given me Bush's speech in English from the German newspaper, he set it in the context of the relationship among the states involved. He was very convincing in his assessment of the various forces at work. He has a high regard for Bush, but knows that events have manipulated him into a very dangerous position.

I went to see Ruth and she showed me a small gym with mats to sleep on with windows looking out into a nice backyard. This was behind the house and she said we could have kitchen privileges before 10:00 A.M. and after 7:00 P.M. so we are all set up. The children come back on the 20th, so we still have a place to find until the 31st.

With the upheavals in Saudi Arabia they may be able to use my invasion of Poland as comic relief in the media. In any case it is a climate where alternatives will be looked for, and I have an alternative. Henry would have me involved in this mess of military confrontation, but I argued him down. He wanted me to write a letter to Bush and I said I have no message for Bush. That if I were in the trap that Bush is in, I would do the things that he is doing. Leaders do not do as much to manipulate events as events do to manipulate leaders. The discussion did help to develop what I would say when people ask me what I would do if I were Mr. Bush.

August 11th:

After 11:00 we took a taxi and drew a young fellow for a driver that evidently didn't know the city very well. This, together with the fact that there are two streets of the same name, he of course got on the most familiar Koenigstrasse and we went miles and the bill was getting outrageous. Henry was in the back seat kibitzing, he is so verbose and once he gets started there is no stopping him. He jumped to the conclusion that the taxi driver would insist on full fare, and even though I showed him that the driver had shut the meter off he still kept devising ways to see that we were not overcharged. The taxi driver had only a little English and I certainly didn't want to have him thinking that Henry was speaking for me. I am having second thoughts about having him accompany me to Warsaw. We did get moved and then I went back to the C.P.C. to get something to eat. We had breakfast at the hotel and as it is now afternoon I filled up the cavity and when I was on my way to the U-Bahn who should hail me but Maurice. He had been finalizing a divorce from his wife and it had taken all his time. He talked of his progress on his own book on the Wall which will include me. He felt me out on the possibility of me financing the book he is doing on me, but I let him know that all the costs and all the profits were his. He wants to video me tomorrow and he will come to Schoenfeld with us on Monday. He is very pleased with the material he has on me so far. He tried to sell Hildebrandt an idea of taking slabs of the Wall and having an artist do paintings on them. When he came back he found the cafe posts all decorated with his ideas and thousands of marks are involved. I gather that a piece of the Wall so decorated will bring 5,000 DM. These Museum craftsmen are now becoming stone workers. Maurice has blood in his eye for Dr. Hildebrandt come Monday.

Henry is sitting out on a hammock between the apple trees in the orchard here. It is a very nice place here. The house next door is undergoing alteration. It is a mansion. This is just as large a house as where Ruth lives.

Love, John

 

August 13, 1990

Dear Dear,

By some strange working of the fates I have not been able to get my campaign started until today, which is the birthday of the Wall. It looks like nothing should impede our doing it today. Then quite by chance Maurice is back. He had been back earlier but his schedule was so tight that he didn't see me. He received a great array of pictures for a book "The Last Days of the Wall." He set up a time for video, and as we were driving to the site who should be going down the sidewalk by my friend with the hand organ.

He was easily persuaded, and Maurice was able to get about 15 minutes of video with me among the things that happen when you have 2 monkeys and a hand organ and the kids and me cranking the machine. Then we went out to where Maurice is staying in a Polish settlement where he lives, when in Berlin, among the Polish trailers and a garden on "squatter" property. Here I was in great form, but the batteries gave out, so we came back to the Museum as it was getting dark.

August 14, 1990:

I am still eating at the Museum 3/4 hour from where we live by train. I left my street displays in the Museum shop, but when we did the several chores before going to Schoenfeld I found I had left the pamphlets at Ruth's place, so I told Henry to watch for Maurice, that I would be back at 1:00. He took it in good grace and we went to the airport about 3:00, which was all right. It is a small airport and we didn't give out many pamphlets. The police came and wanted us to read the rules for the airport, but I declined. I bought two tickets for 450 DM to fly August 31st.

When we returned to the cafe it was closed and they were setting up the cameras that came from East Berlin to record the speakers arranged in the cafe. There were 8 including, of course, Dr. Hildebrandt. When Rainer saw me outside he waved frantically for me to come in, so I was conducted in by Tony who was getting me a chair. Dr. Hildebrandt took the chair and I followed him around to his table and he sat on the chair himself. As I was a bit non-plussed, I sat down at an empty chair at the same table and Dr. Hildebrandt ignored me. Later on I saw myself on the monitor on a close-up and that was all the recognition I received. If he didn't want to emphasize his relations with me, I didn't want to emphasize my relations with him, so it worked out very well.

It is overcast today. I am looking out into the backyard on a tree loaded with small apples. It is 8:43 so we can get on the train as I am hungry already.

John

 

August 15, 1990

Dear Louise,

It has been quite a good day. I left this morning with some laundry for the laundromat and Henry was to join me at the cafe at 1:00 P.M. He had his translation of my pamphlet on the political invasion of Poland into German rejected by the computer operator, as too much work left for her to do and he doesn't want to take it to her again. I thought she was pretty good to work with. Anyway, I had my work done and had breakfast (three burger patties and a croissant !) and then I went to the U-Bahn station called "Friedrichstrasse" which is only 3 train stops away, but there are 6 or 7 railway lines and great gobs of people on the platforms between the trains and some of the trains pouring people into Poland.

I took my street dispoay, and on the larger sign it says, "I BURNT MY PASSPORT TO CAMPAIGN FOR THE POLITICAL DESTRUCTION OF MILITARILY IMPOSED BORDERS FOR THE POLITICAL INTEGRATION OF HOMO SAPIENS FOR UNIVERSAL CIVIL LAW AND A COMMON MARKET OF THE EARTH."

And on the lower sign it says, "and for the political invasion of Poland." This is in German on one side and English on the other. I set up on the area between the trains where people are getting on and getting off and waiting for their train. Through this throng four police appeared, two on each side, to discuss this with me. Later, two others came to tell me something in German. One of them appeared to be unhappy about my being there, but apart from that I was not bothered. The best part of it was the great audience--I had a sea of faces reading my sign. Well, that's overstating it a bit, but compared to Tegel and Schoenfeld, it was. There would be a space between me and these people and I am there offering my pamphlet. No takers and then a daring individual comes forward and takes a pamphlet and then another and another until sometimes I can hardly give them out fast enough. Then another long spell when there are no takers.

When I returned to the cafe I went to the shop to do some reconstruction on my signs and folded leaflets at the cafe and autographed books and pamphlets. Henry showed up as agreed upon but before we went back to Friedrichstrasse he wanted to see a great massing of farmers who were to be in Berlin to request or protest something. He would meet me at the U-Bahn at 4:00. He took a good load of pamphlets so that I wouldn't have to, so I just took what I thought I would need if he were delayed. He didn't turn up, so I gave what I had away rather quickly. I came back to the cafe and had something to eat and one of the tour guides engaged me in conversation. He was there with his family who all wanted a signed pamphlet and a picture with me.

I have been trying to leave my signs and some of my pamphlets and other props for my campaign at the Museum but the only place I feel welcome to leave anything is in the shop and since Mike left on vacation you cannot depend on it not being locked up. So I spend time looking for someone with a key, but all in all things are going very well. My plan for the 31st of August is to do my sack of potatoes trick if they refuse me entry to Poland. They will have the choice of deporting me or letting me into Poland. I can fly to Moscow. I am counting on my "art of happy accidents" to get me accommodation in Poland if I am let through.

I have told you in an earlier letter about my facing down the bank here so presumably I have access to all my funds through the Visa card.

August 16:

Henry did not come in last night so I don't know what to think. His mouth has gotten him locked up once for two hours and the police interviewed him a second time since I have known him, so it must have happened again. He doesn't drink so that is ruled out, and I don't know what I could do to find out what happened. I will see if Tony will do some calling at noon. It is now 4:30 and Henry has not shown up. I went to Friedrichstrasse station and passed out everything I had folded and went to see Christina in the office about more pamphlets. She said the machine was out of order, and could not be repaired until later in the week, so I took my master copies to Stephanie at 10 Pfennigs a copy or 100 DM per M. Then as I came back to Zahlendorf train station of the area where I live I met a young well-wisher who turned out to have been in Seattle and who could speak good English. Another man came up and shook my hand and hugged me, but knows no English. He had on a T-shirt with a bear on it with an air hammer saying, 'I am a bearliner' breaking up the Wall and took it off and gave it to me. Then a woman of 55 or so came up expressing her deep appreciation of me. So I had the young man tell her about my problem after the 20th, but there was no way she could find accommodation, until I remembered that it was only a limited stay until the 31st and then she said there would be no problem. After she had left I remembered Henry also needed a place too. When I returned home, I tried to contact Ruth whom I had not seen since I arrived. I wanted to have her call this lady and explain, but it turned out that Ruth is on vacation and will not be home until Monday. Hopefully, Henry will have shown up by then.

Christina handed me your letter of August 8th. A report on Ivy's birthday party, and I am glad that Bryan has been able to articulate his problem with me. He could have said it earlier. He hit the nail on the head. As you know I had a background of Hayakawa and Stewart Chase.(Language in Action and the Tyranny of Words) I feel it was this background that allowed me to see that I would have to throw out a lot of words that people used to describe the problem. I was making a departure from cultural thought patterns and if I had the room I could write a chapter on why peace is a bad word to use. Why 'military threat' is a better focus than anti-war and goodwill. The things I am trying to say desperately need support but there just isn't room on an 8 x 11 sheet of paper. I will send a couple of my latest pamphlets and you can send one to him. If I had his address I might write him but my future is not very secure for correspondence. So, I will get this off tomorrow.

John

 

August 17, 1990

Dear Louise,

Henry has not appeared. I went to Friedrichstrasse station and passed out all the free pamphlets and Stephanie was to have the others ready by 2:00 this afternoon, so I went to Herties and bought a Coke, scotch tape and body lotion. When I got to the copy shop Stephanie said that she had quoted me the wrong price and that it was 10 Pfennigs a side, so she had not done anything until this was straightened out. It was 200 DM for 1,000 copies, but I had nowhere else to go so I ordered 2,000 copies and came home. I had intended to spend the rest of the day folding and then spend a lot of time at the train station tomorrow, and here I was unemployed until Monday afternoon at 2:00. I bought a 'European', the English language newspaper.

I had it in my pamphlet that the breakup of Colonialism was a step backwards in the development of a politically integrated world. Today one of the editorials was making a similar point. During the week things had been very quiet here with nobody around. When I returned home this afternoon a 'Bill' was here fixing a tricycle and when I mentioned my problem of the copy shop he said, "We can print your stuff for 80 DM." That is not as good as I was getting at Green Lake but is is better than the other price. In either case we don't know the quality of the work.

What do you mean Bryan brought the saw back? Which saw? Back from where to where? I am still trying to deal with Bryan's complaint that I do not write plain English. I have been trying for years to be as plain as I know how. I am trying to put complex ideas across that the culture has not yet entertained. If I started in the context of present thought, I would never get my ideas on my scrap of 8 x11. I have presented the ideas themselves as concisely as I know how. It is hard to believe that Bryan does not understand what I have in mind. He just doesn't like the concept of universal civil law through vulnerable aggression. It offends his cultural background as it probably does for 90% of the persons who read my material. This is why I think going to Warsaw is more important at this time than writing a book. We must first develop a market for the book. Frankly, I would like to be deported back to the U.S. I need a rest from campaigning.

Henry is back. He was invited to stay overnight with some East Germans who thought from the color of his shirt that he was a Socialist. We went together to Friedrichstrasse station this morning and on the way we talked about where we would be moving from here and it had slipped upon me that we had only two days to find another place. We called the lady that had offered accommodation but she wasn't in until late tonight. On the way home, Henry was drawing attention to the several kinds of architecture in this area. I asked him if he had taken architecture in College and he said he had and that his father had been an architect.

I am writing this from a table in the gym covered with white vinyl and I am looking out on the lawn and the apple trees. Henry is sleeping on his mattress. I had a rest but I didn't sleep. I am getting apprehensive about the 31st and wondering if I can pull it off. I haven't felt any hostility toward me for my promise to invade Poland. One lady objected that what I was doing could not be called an invasion, but reading the 'European' destroys all my drive for changing the world. The war in the Gulf makes my efforts too absurd for me to carry on but I will go to Warsaw and hope for a better climate to materialize in the next few weeks.

I may not have told you about the young man whom I met at Zellevolorf station who had spent some time in Seattle. While I was talking to him, a woman came up pleased to find the Wall Walker close up, so as she evidently had very little English, I asked the young man to tell her about our need for accommodation. She responded negatively until I said it would only be until the 31st and she said she could arrange it and gave me her card.

Today I went to the cafe for breakfast and Henry agreed that we would meet at noon at the house and call this lady, but noon came and then 12:30 and no Henry. I looked in the mansion to see if I could find someone who knew about the place who could call this lady and explain that we needed accommodation for two.

I entered the building and found about six people around a table and one got up to recognize me and I was invited to sit down. Two of them were fairly proficient in English. Their ages ranged from middle aged to elderly. This was the Quaker meeting in Berlin. They rented the space and there was no Quaker meeting house. A gentleman about 50 interpreted for me. Two or three of them seemed pleased with what I was doing. They called the lady for me who said she had made the promise on impulse and that it would be impossible, that she and her husband were going to Italy next week, so the meeting broke up assurring me that there was a Bill Biter who helped people out and that he would be informed of my problem. (Thank God for Bill Biters). They were sure that I would be all right until tomorrow. I went for a walk over in the business district. It was very quiet--being a Sunday. Berlin closes down on Friday nights and opens again at 8:00 Monday morning. The restaurants are open and I think the food stores.

I like the transportation system in Berlin. The street busses are much like our own except they are double deckers instead of tandem. But the U-Bahn and S-Bahn are trains of six cars. They range in age from the 19th. Century to very modern but they are all commodious. People take their bicycles into them and there is nobody in the car to object to the amount of freight you can take with you. During the day there is a train every five minutes or less. In the station there is a simplified map showing where you are and there are similar maps on the roof or sides of each car at appropriate places.

As we were leaving a train the other day, a woman put her hand in Henry's pocket and Henry recognized three men he identified as her accomplices. Before we had gone a block he had worked out their strategy, what they would do if she was caught red-handed, what they would tell the cops if they were called, how they would deal with you if they got you alone. He urged me to change the pocket where I carried my purse, but I reassured him that I had got away with carrying it there since I had a purse and had never had my pocket picked. Later, when I was getting out of my seat on the train, I found that my billfold was halfway out of my pocket which gave me pause. There was over 400 DM in it and Henry warned that I would lose my Visa card as it would be stolen and sold.

August 20:

Since Hussein has made hostages of the Europeans in Iraq, Henry and I are going to Baghdad to give ourselves up as hostages. How is that for a project?

John

 

August 23, 1990

Dear Louise,

Henry and I are sitting at a corner table of the cafe. It is 10:00 A.M. The clouds are blowing away and the sky is quite clear after the rain. People are wearing coats and sweaters.

Yesterday afternoon, Henry took me to see the Reichstag. It is within walking distance from the Museum and close to Brandenburg Gate. It had been identified to me, but I had never been even curious about going inside. With Henry as my guide, it was a real experience. I don't know if any of it is devoted to administrative work but what I saw was a museum. Henry comes across like a history buff, so he started about the fire that Hitler's people set and that nobody dared try to put out, and then he gave a lecture on German government that extended to include Europe and his lectures were anything but dull. But I got exhausted before he did. It is a spectacular building, the Reichstag, both inside and out. It has been rebuilt inside with pictures of the way it was before and pictures of the fire and the damage done during the war. Brandenburg Gate is covered by a web of scaffolding and close by is a market where the Wall is sold in small pieces and where the public buys up large quantities of DDR army paraphernalia.

I am elated and distressed by turn by my acquisition of Henry. He is a warm and pleasant companion, and most of the time talks good sense, but at others he talks just plain drivel--like arguing the importance of writing a personal letter to the President, or sending him my pamphlets. After I have explained to him, and he agreed heartily that Bush is a victim of circumstance, that events are manipulating him, and that I have absolutely nothing to say to him even if he were prepared to listen.

This is a common problem I have with those who wish me well (Lothor, the American businessman) wanted to call the President for me. He was trying to get me an audience with the Mayor of Berlin and I wonder what I have said in my pamphlet or if they have read my material at all. As for Henry there is no question in my mind that he understands, perhaps better than anyone else, what I am trying to do and the rationale for it. He slips into arguments that he has never thrown away after he got smarter, like as if he carried around tapes of several different positions and played them when the proper issues were raised. He complains about the Turks who have all the privileges of Germans and who put their kids begging at the laundromat where they know people will have change in their pockets and their fathers buy fancy cars. (They do put their kids on a mat on the street with a bowl). The Poles, they can come to Berlin without a passport and start up a business, but a German in Poland has no rights at all and is not protected by any law while there. This fact is exploited by the criminal element in Poland.

I am finding what it is like to be homeless. From 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. we have to be out of the gym and we have to find a place to spend the time. Today we went to the library, a huge place where you could easily get lost. We weren't able to find an English department, but we found some current newspapers and read some more about the simply awful position that Bush has gotten us into or maybe I should say Hussein. I just cannot think of any way that a satisfactory solution could be achieved. The best we can expect would be a permanent stalemate where arms manufacturers would have a field day. My perspectives and my proposals have come 100 years too late, or maybe they never could have worked on so large a planet and with such a species.

Love, John

 

 

August 21/90

Dear Louise,

Your card got here in plenty of time. Thanks for your attentiveness and I got your letter Aug. 9th in which you explained the re-negotiation of the arrangement of the house. It looks like it will be all right. You probably need the full share worse than I do with the forest taking over the yard. Hopefully, it will not be that expensive. Who paid for the move? Are you getting Social Security?

I had been stewing about the Gulf situation and that the participants were acting so predictable and stupid. I read in the "European" that Bush is under pressure to do a preemptive strike and I couldn't think of a thing I could do to impinge on the problem. When Hussein said he was going to use the foreign population for hostages, I thought for one day that maybe I could stop what I was doing and go to Baghdad and give myself up. I was pretty high all day and even stopped the order of pamphlets for Warsaw. Henry was 100% with me and I proposed to pay both fares. I had a very bad night and when I tried to write a press release I found I couldn't even convince myself that what I would be doing would be understood. After a bad morning I decided to go back to the invasion of Warsaw. We have the tickets for Aug. 31.

The Baghdad enterprise was far too ambitious and on too short a notice as I perceived in the sober thought of day. So Bush will have to make his mistakes without any counsel from me. The military approach organizes all your enemies and their Allies against you, but it is a rational approach in the military perspective. All the experience of sanctions should teach that to punish a nation firms up the community support for government. Then you know all this yourself. I used to think that there was some small hope for the survival of the species.

This campaign has been full of stops and it may be that the fates are trying to tell me something. I got a letter from Rossander to tell me he had set me up as a tentative speaker for an organization of which he is a member.

It has been cold and windy and wet today, the 20th. So we went to arrange for a hotel, Henry and I. Henry found an agency that finds accommodations, so we went there. The accommodation was in East Berlin and below 50 DM a night which is considered very cheap here. When the agency wanted to charge 120 DM for 15 minutes service, it offended Henry's concept of economy. When he told the agent, the agent flew into a rage.

As we walked away Henry told me he was a typical Berliner. The price was for a stay of 10 days and it was well below 50 DM even with the agency charge, I was prepared to take the room (the room, I gather had no bed linens). But Henry, being a typical Berliner, would have none of it. We went back to Bill Biter who explained that the gym was only used in the daytime and we could arrange to move out during the day. He said we could leave our stuff in the corner. We have a place to sleep before 7:00 and after 6:00 until the 31st. So I am writing this at the American House, a library for soldiers with enormous writing spaces. There are four guards and little arches for detecting metal at the door.

It isn't much of a library but there are newspapers and since I had no passport and no police clearance, they made hostage of 10 DM until the book is brought back.

Aug 22/90

My birthday so far has been deeply satisfying. I woke up to review the hostage proposal. It was such a good idea for the practice of Vulnerable Aggression, to show that political action can be taken against the military.

The evening before I had met Dr. Hildebrandt in the cafe and he asked me about my press release. I said I would get it to him as soon as possible. He was very eager to get me stopping the war in the Gulf. If the Museum would get behind me, all kinds of good things would be possible.

First, I would be taken seriously and the announcement would go all over the world and have an immediate effect. The resulting publicity would protect your husband from many of the hazards of this undertaking. This was the happy proposal I contemplated on the floor of the gym this morning. It is now noon and Rainer will be in about 2:00 if he is as usual. I have a note to him on his desk.

I asked for the Museum's sponsorship and that they arrange my flight. Also, that I have accommodation provided before the event and after I get there. I agreed to pay the fare for myself and Henry and half the cost of an ad in the European calling for others to join me in this enterprise. Henry got his Polish translation of my pamphlet today but Stephanie could not set it up because she does not know Polish.

Henry sits beside me in the cafe (he eats from the grocery store) and introduces me to the patrons and tells them it is my birthday. I had a birthday song sung for me at Henry's instruction. That's all for now,

John

August 24, 90

Dearness,

I am now at the cafe. I wrote a response to Rainer's response. He wanted a detailed account of what I wanted to do in Iraq. I told him it was to occupy a jail. Henry went into gales of laughter when I read this line. I said that the threatened killing of hostages could be justified to the supporters of Hussein in that they belonged to nations who were preparing to destroy Iraq.

Our proposal was to fill Iraq with unqualified hostages. I told him that when you put a politician in jail you give him or her a platform. That to be in jail in Iraq would be to have a political beachhead there. We wanted to confer with him on how to set up such a beachhead there. I also told him of the 10 months work I had done preliminary to my breaking the Wall, so that the East German administration would protect me lest they be embarrassed among their own people for shooting someone such as myself.

Your unattentive servant, John

 

August 26, 1990

Dear Louise,

It has been a nice day. Henry took me to East Berlin to show me the center of the city as it was before the war. When the city was divided, the main part of the city went to the Russians, so we walked 'unter der Linden', the street that goes under the Brandenburg Gate. There was a map of buildings on display and I became oriented in Berlin for the first time. We saw the embassies that line the street where the Soviet is the most prominent and the U.S. Embassy is the most insignificant. Then we went again to the Reichstag where we saw a war film of the WW II and why or how Bush could be induced to even consider instigating a war anywhere in the world is a puzzle to me, but know of course it is a contest in desperation.

I was in the war but I didn't see the war until I saw that film. Anyway, we came home or back to the cafe and had some soup. Then on the train ride to Zahlendorf, Henry initiated a conversation on the train as naturally as though the passengers were all next door neighbors and usually the exchange is in German so I don't know what is going on, but we were sitting by a couple of boys from Michigan, so the exchange was in English.

His skills in repartee were very entertaining this morning and he provoked a conversation with a couple at the next table. I was wanting to do other things, but the couple were so entertained by Henry that they kept getting cups of tea, to keep things going. I broke in every now and then and asked Henry what was going on, and he gave me snatches of the conversation, and I laughed with them. I have run out of paper, I will get some tomorrow.

John

 

August 28, 1990

Dear Louise,

I received your letter of August 15th. I gather you like better chasing the deer out of the garden than running a computer in the office. I was glad that you had gained a little weight but 2 pounds will hardly show. I would like to see Kathy's garden, but my first attempt to get deported has not worked out.

I have been buying some meals for Henry. Some of the clerks cheat a bit to make it easy, but I needed some money this morning. We decided to paper the Axel Springer Building and we came home from there past the Berliner Bank where we had coerced money by threatening or performing. After we passed out leaflets for 2 hours and the police had come and gone, the manager told us the day before that we would not be bothered. Nearly everyone took a pamphlet. We went for breakfast. As I was passing the Berliner Bank I went inside to get 200 DM on my Visa card. The girl that took my order did not know about my burning my passport and when she looked in the computer my account showed to be negative. When the manager was approached he said, "Yes, he could get me no money.", so Henry and I brought our street displays into the bank and I lay on the floor and screamed and the police were called. I was taken first to the police station and after half an hour I was taken to Tiergarten and dropped with my street signs.

Henry, in the meantime, did the supportive things like arguing with the police and the bank staff and alerting all the people in the Museum to call the police department on my behalf. We will go again tomorrow to the bank and see how long this can go on. Henry is indignant that the police are allowed to drag me around without charging.

August 30, 1990:

We went again to the bank and this time I sat in the president's chair and Henry took a picture of me while we waited for the police to come. Henry went outside to see what bank security could call into play on such an occasion and his investigation took him to the Polish Embassy. In the meantime the police came and I resisted with all my voice and muscles. I put on a very agonizing show, but this stopped at the door as I had nothing against the police. They took me the short distance to the police station. There I was held less than 1/2 hour and I was let go with the warning that if I went to the bank again they might have to lock me up for a while, so of course I went back to the bank and the president's chair.

This time there was an extended conference before I was taken out. This time I gave all my energy making my point and when I was exiting again in the police van, I couldn't contain my exuberance and I said, "What a wonderful day!" We will ask for money on the Visa card again today and if we are held in jail until we miss our flight to Warsaw I have an excellent out for giving this up for this year and provoking our deportation home. If we get to Warsaw? Well, that will be a victory too. Each time we went to the bank we went first to Axel Springer Building next door to ask for a reporter and oddly enough all the reporters were out each time.

The weather is fine, cool in the mornings, hot in the afternoon. Hans was as busy as a bird dog for Rainer last night when I approached with my press release. He said you will have to get it typed up, so a woman said she would type it for me and give it in at the desk. When I came this morning nothing had been done. Hans, in spite of the fact that Rainer had loaded him with work this morning, took time out to put my press release on computer and it has now been faxed out.

I am now at the Visa desk in the bank where I await the police.

Later:

We were having breakfast at the cafe this morning and four young people came along to inquire about me. Before long, Henry had them roped into going to the bank with us. One of them had a camera, and I had forgotten to bring mine. We took pictures of all of us outside the bank and then went inside where I was ignored at the Visa counter, so I went around into the private side of the bank. This time the president occupied his chair. The police came and there was a long conference and then the youngsters were called into a private room where they were questioned and required to give up their film. Then they carried me out to the van and I was held 3 hours and let go, but the bank was closed by the time I got out, so I could not invade again. I intend to do so tomorrow. The manager wanted me to agree, if he gave me funds on the Visa card, not to come into his bank again. I told him I would come to his bank as often as I liked. I think the police think it is a good joke. I am packing for tomorrow, when we will have to be at Schoenfeld airport at 3:45.

When I decided to go West-East over the Wall I found that I was doing it in an exceptional year--the 25th anniversary of the Wall. Inadvertently, we are going to Warsaw on August 31st, the day WWII started. I am going to get this away on my way back to the cafe for supper. Lovingly, John

August 31, 1990

Dear Dearest,

I am on the train to Schoenfeld airfield. We have the section behind the driver all to ourselves.

This morning started badly when the cafe was closed for unknown reasons but I was let in at the back and later a clerk that does not like me came and was too busy to notice me. Then an East German reporter turned up and took any number of pictures, and taped responses to his questions.

I went back to Zehlendorf to find that Henry was busy doing helpful things. We went back to the cafe to get lunch and nothing got in the way of us making the train on time. When we got to the airport Henry tried our Visa card and it worked. I am trying to get this letter written en route. We are now 800 meters up and it is -40 outside. We can see the ground in places. We have had lunch: bread, butter, salami, cheese, salad of tomatoes and lettuce, orange juice, yogurt, four squares of chocolate and tea. Henry is vocal about what he is seeing outside. It is his first plane ride.

Sept. 1, 1990

Henry and I enjoyed the view. There were thunderheads all over shining in the sun. When we got to customs it was immediately evident that we weren't going to get through. We had come too early, and the process for deporting us had not closed down for the weekend, so we were flown back on the next flight and we enjoyed another meal. I made them carry me on the plane and made them carry me off and I was at last deposited in the Schoenfeld waiting area. We decided to set up our office by the seats where I was left by the police and where I am doing a semi 'lie-in'. These seats are designed for reclining and sleeping while waiting and backpackers can sack out here. They are comfortable. Henry engages people in conversation and sees that I am comfortable, but I find that I attract flies. At first I thought it was that I looked or smelled dead, but I had a happy thought. They enjoy the taste of my sweat and they joyously skip about from my hands to my face to see if I am equally good all over.

We are doing a political occupation of Schoenfeld airport. So far we have been ignored, but come Monday, I think things will be different.

Our office desk hasn't come yet, so this is written on my knees. Last evening Henry contacted a girl from Ulan Bator in Mongolia and they must have conversed for three hours. Henry carried the weight of it but the girl seemed to be enjoying herself.

There was a storm that caused a Korean plane to have to land in Dresden 200 KM away. It was a wild storm with much rain, thunder and lightning. It lasted several hours.

The desk has arrived! Henry came back from an exploration with a standup ashtray and with a part of our street display, created me something to write on.

Previous to our flight to Warsaw Henry did a strange thing, when I sent him to try to buy some food with the Visa card. He is aware of the amount of bribery that one has to do to get about in Poland. So he thought this is the last opportunity to get things the Poles can't get. He bought 56 Marks worth of things he thought would be good, and he came back (I was watching the bags) to have me sign the card receipt since it was mostly food anyway and the plane was due to fly.

So I told him, what he really knew already, that I couldn't buy my way around the world and prove "Vulnerable Aggression".

Sept. 1/90

I have been going over my plans since this morning and I think I am about ready to go home. I want to continue to insist that the bank honor my Visa card. And then I will buy a ticket and go to Seattle where I will confront the court and Northgate. I feel sure the embassy will find a way to overlook that I have no passport.

At the moment I feel like quitting active politicking and trying to write the book. I have currently no place to live, but we could probably go back to the gym for a few days and this place is open 24 hours a day and I fancy, since we have not been turned out so far, we could stay here for a few days.

Mark and Sean have an apartment where Sean says I can stay at cost of food. I want to go home as soon as possible.

Sept. 2/90

I decided that we will go now to the Museum and lean on Dr. Hildebrandt's hospitality until I can go home.

Yours lovingly, John

 

(comment)

Letters stopped when I returned to Louise at Qualicum Beach on Vancouvour Islamd.

I had been doing "Vulnerable Challenge" as I now called it, (at Rainers advice) at Northgate Shopping Mall in Seattle to challenge their right to forbid political action where shoppers congregate as had been the right throughout history before the event of the shopping mall.

Before I left for Berlin in May 1990 there was a court action pending So when I arrived to my new home I found that I was charged on two counts by Washington State Superior Court, failure to appear, and leaving the state without permission. So I let the court know i would be in Seattle if they wanted to arrest me. And they did.

  VULNERABLE CHALLENGE IN BAGHDAD

While I was in jail awaiting trial Sean Taeschner called to say that President Bush had given Hussein of Iraq until January 15th to get out of Kuwait. The action that I had proposed to do with Henry Brueck came alive. Henry, in the meantime, had disappeared so I would have to do it alone.

I knew that it was unlikely that I would live to have another opportunity to go through the motions of the Ghandian political action that could be used by "International Politicians" to get in the way of and or de-fuse military action. So I told Sean that I would bail myself out of jail and I would go to Baghdad and make myself available to Hussein as an 'uncoerced hostage' to be put anywhere a pre-emptive strike might be expected. The media as well as Hussein and Bush would be informed and word would be sent to the representatives of all the nations in the world through the United Nations.

Later in the day I began to regret that I had been so hasty in committing myself. And I tried to get Sean on the phone to tell him I would like some time to think about it. But he was on the phone calling the media so there was no way to back out.

The purpose would be to get my perspective considered by as many people as possible. The means would be to intrude a political action 'Vulnerable Challenge' into a military contest. Without any response from the media this action would get my perspective (my pamphlet) in the hands of international and local media persons, persons representing nations in the U.N., and the principals in the conflict, George Bush and Saddam Hussein. I would also attract again the attention (to the degree that the media responded) of many of those who had read one of the many thousands of pamphlets that I have passed out over the years. As it turned out I presumably got all of this plus the opportunity to pass out leaflets containing my perspective to a Muslim culture, and to get the following unique material for my book.

So I paid the $1100.00 bail that initiated the slow agonizing process of getting out of jail. That done I was quickly on my way back to my new home in Canada and hence to Baghdad.

 

  THE POLITICAL INTERVENTION BETWEEN IRAQ AND THE UNITED NATIONS

 

I, John Runnings (better known as the Berlin Wall Walker) will leave Vancouver, Canada on December 20 at 7:55 P.M. to arrive in Baghdad, Iraq on December 25th. at 2:05 A.M. to offer myself to Hussein of Iraq as a volunteer hostage.

My purpose in offering myself as a volunteer hostage to the Iraqi leader is to show how individuals the world over might interpose themselves into a military confrontation.

Such volunteers would not qualify as enemies, but as international politicians with no ties to East or West, and could be placed, in this case, near potential military targets.

Such volunteers would put their bodies in the way to give pause between hostile states for the political integration of nations formerly segregated by militarily imposed borders.

In this case the action would be to give pause to the world forces that would return Iraq and Kuwait to the former relationship of military segregation rather than to the legislated union of these two culturally similar political entities.

 

A LEGISLATED UNION BETWEEN IRAQ AND KUWAIT THAT WOULD BE SATISFACTORY TO KUWAIT, IRAQ AND THE REST OF THE WORLD SHOULD BE THE GOAL FOR A SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS. TOWARD UNIVERSAL CIVIL LAW

After WWII Germany was divided into two hostile states by a militarily imposed line.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1990, AFTER 44 YEARS OF ALIENATION, I SAW THESE TWO GERMANIES TAKE CONTROL OF A MILITARILY IMPOSED LINE FROM THE CONTROL OF THE RUSSIAN MILITARY AND THE ALLIED COMMAND BY POLITICAL ACTION, THUS SENDING THE BORDER GUARDS HOME TO FIND EMPLOYMENT ELSEWHERE.

This solution may not be applicable to the situation between Iraq and Kuwait, but a change of focus by the international community toward the political integration of these states, to build the mutual institutions for civil law to unite them, could set the course of history toward the political integration of the globe for Universal Civil Law, a common market of the earth, and a world without a military.

 

Seattle, Washington, USA, November 3, 1990

 

Dear President Saddam Hussein and US Ambassador Al Mashatt,

Because of our mutual desire to avoid armed strife in the Persian Gulf and World War Three, I, John Runnings, a US citizen, better known as "The Berlin Wall Walker", plan to arrive in your country on December 25th to offer myself to you as a volunteer hostage.

Such volunteers would not qualify as enemies, but as INTERNATIONAL POLITICIANS with no ties to East or West, and could be placed at potential military targets.

Through this symbolic act, I hope to show the world how people the world over can offer themselves as volunteer hostages and provide you with an embarrassing foil to prevent a pre-emptive strike against your nation by the West. The West seeks to terrorize your country into surrender, something that need not happen.

Sincerely,

John Runnings,

THE BERLIN WALL WALKER

 

THIS LETTER IS BEING SENT TO:

President George Bush of the United States of America

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia

All Arab and Israeli delegates to the United Nations

The New York Times, USA Today, The Associated Press

United Press International, Reuters, and ADN (Allgemeine Deutsche Nachrichten: United German News Agency)

 

LETTERS

 

December 20, 1990

Dear Louise,

The bus ride to Nanaimo was pleasant but uneventful. The snow lay on the ground 6" deep. The ferry ride to Vancouver was very scenic, the sky and sea cooperating but the temperature was down inside as it was outside. When we arrived in Vancouver I thought I would perish waiting for the airport bus, real Ontario winter weather. The timing was good, I didn't feel hurried and the waiting was no strain.

I was surprised to hear the pilot was talking of stopping in Seattle, but the man in the seat next to me showed me the one stop, so we are stopped in Seattle taking on passengers for London. It is very slow and I am getting very warm in my down jacket. They turned on the news. They will fix a 'little problem'.

It is now after 11:00 and we are still in Seattle. We were in the air again at 11:30. I woke up at 5:00 and the sun was shining brightly in the window, so I put on my earphones and looked at the movie. We had a small supper of beef. It was good. (That was before I went to sleep).

We arrived in London an hour late so the waiting time was shortened, but when I arrived in Berlin there was no one to meet me. I didn't have Hildebrandt's phone number. I called the other number but got no satisfactory response. I adjusted to spending the night in the airport. The German engineers had spent considerable thought on how to make sleeping in the airport as uncomfortable as possible. When a guard found I had such a purpose in mind, he started herding me to the door. I told him that I had no place to go and that it would take considerable force to get me out into the cold. He asked me if I had a ticket and later another guard asked me for a passport. Even though I was able, in spite of the German engineers to achieve a fairly comfortable position for sleeping, I couldn't get to sleep.

When I went to C.P.C. in the morning, I saw that Wolfgang was in charge of the kitchen. He always makes me pay full price for my meals, so I went elsewhere for my breakfast, where I paid 12 M for an omelette. Later, I came back to C.P.C. and Lisa Lotta was in charge. She gave me a hug and Alex told me that he had read about my effort in the 'Der Spiegel' and all in all I felt quite welcomed.

I called Hildebrandt from the cafe and he apologized that he was filled up but would come in and try to find me a hotel. He later said he could get me a room but it would cost 85 DM a night. I told him I would have to pay whatever the price. I have a very comfortable little room where every need is anticipated.

Two nights for 150 DM, bed and breakfast. I have just had breakfast, a great selection of cheese, meats and jams and breads, rye bread I could eat and tea, a brown egg in a cup. You would have enjoyed it, I did. The managers, a young couple, are very obliging and we have been trying to get a call through to you, but without success, on a very modern phone with an extra four buttons to confuse me. Another day and I will be on a plane to Frankfurt.

Lovingly, John

 

December 24, 1990

Dear Louise,

I tried repeatedly to call you from Berlin, but I could not get to you. The hotel manager tried, and handed me the phone. A woman's voice responded, who asked what I wanted, she said, "Well, I'm in Winnipeg." I gave up and tried again when we were waiting, disembarking on Lufthansa.

As a Christmas gift from Lufthansa, a lady gave me a small hamper of goodies. Most of it was bread products but there was a chocolate Santa Claus and I ate him as well as a chocolate bar. That with some tea was welcome. Frankfurt was just getting from one plane to another by moving sidewalk and by bus. We are now on another Lufthansa flight at 6,555 meters, 462 miles per hour, outside temperature 34 C. We have a little plane on a video screen that will keep track of how we progress.

There are young women passing out food. Bread products, but it is just a snack, hopefully something more substantial will come later. It is cute little animal cookies in a foil wrapper, and some apple juice.

The sun is shining out there. I have taken off my colorful jacket and my suit coat, and I find my turtleneck a little warm. We are now flying over that little country east of Italy. I think it is Albania. I am finishing my lunch. I didn't recognize the meat. It looked like fish and had the texture of fish but it wasn't fishy. We had rice and green peas, cheese, dessert and a kind of custard with prune plums in it.

I woke up yesterday or, rather, later in the day and discovered I didn't have my hearing aid. I looked for it on the nightstand by my bed but it wasn't there. I couldn't quite remember if I had taken it out of my ear, when I went to sleep. I just couldn't see where I could have lost it. It has now occured to me that I may have put it into the pocket of my trousers when I was trying to get comfortable in Tegel airport and I changed pants while at the hotel. They are checked to Cairo in my suitcase.

The sun has gone down at 4:45 Berlin time. Evidently, the Mediteranean is overcast some of the time, I can't believe it !! The clouds are black and the sky above is clear. I cannot tell where we are as the video is taken over by a musical. They have given out the customs forms.

Christmas Day:

Well, the plane load of us disembarked at Cairo and I saw some official looking persons as I was getting in line to go through customs. I asked if there was anyone here who spoke English and a man said, "We all speak English here." They asked where I was going and I said to Baghdad. They looked surprised and said there are no flights to Baghdad.

On the strength of the ticket they took me in charge. A young woman took my papers to the front of the line and I was hustled off to an office. They read my pamphlet and then I was taken to a chair outside of the office. I waited for about 3 hours and they stamped my passport and attempted to get rid of me by turning me loose in the city. I knew I was helpless unless they could help me, so they sent me to Egypt Air. I took a taxi. An old unmarked vehicle which cost me 4 pounds, and I was thinking of the English pound which is more than twice the cost of the dollar.

It turned out that you can get 2 1/2 pounds for a dollar. Anyway, I was told that I would have to go to Jordan taking a plane to Amman which is 500 miles from Baghdad and then take a bus. The trip would cost $310. I think that is Egyptian dollars. I asked about a hotel and the man mentioned $110.00 a night, and I leaned on him, that I was no tourist, I didn't have a lot of money and I hoped he would be able to advise me where I could find cheap housing (that I was thinking of $50.00 a night). He said you would want the Egyptian Hotel.

I would take the limousine from such and such a place. This sounded pretty expensive to me. He indicated a general direction out of the airport and when I got to the entrance there was a guard there. I asked him where the limousine was and he took me to a line of badly painted black and white old cars. He talked to some men and one of them detached himself and came to me and said I have a $15.00 taxi. He had in tow another couple and we walked a couple of blocks to his taxi where he let me off at a large building and I asked him if he would come in so that I could be assured I had accommodation before I let him go. We went in and the attendant said the rooms were $20.00 a night. A young porter took me up to a room with full bath, T.V., telephone, plain but very adequate.

Hugh, at the travel agency, said that he would get me money back on any unused part of my ticket and I won't be able to use my Egypt air ticket. I was advised to go to Jordan and the attendant said that it would take an hour by taxi to where I would get my Visa. I also had to get money for my fare, and then buy the ticket. He offered me a man and a vehicle for a flat fare of $10. Considering Egyptian bureaucracy, and people ahead of me at the ticket counter, a man and a vehicle for less than $5.00 was pretty hard to beat.

The difficulties we encountered with a man and a vehicle made me see that there would have been no way I could have accomplished it by myself. That I ran into these people was one of those rare pieces of luck that makes me believe in a benevolent God who happened to notice me for a fleeting moment.

Egypt is another world architecturally as well as the way people dress. There is a sprinkling of western clothes and the odd woman goes by in a veil. Just as strange is the way the Arabs drive cars. My taxi driver was trying to get my work done as quickly as possible to save me money. I would have appreciated it if he had cost me more money and had let my heart out of my mouth. The traffic was the best example of pure chaos I have ever seen. There were lines on the street but they were not the least bit regarded. Liberal use was made of the horn. This was particularly the case with my driver. It should be noted that the horns are not tooted in anger. Where there are no rules there is no offence. When someone threw a car door open in front of us and I said, 'Watch it!' He gave me a look like he was offended that I thought he couldn't handle it. On top of all this, jay walking is the rule, people stroll, walk, run, dart through traffic with complete disregard for their life and limb. Through this maelstrom, a tall lady on a motorized three wheeler will go flying up the street with her Arab dress flying in the breeze. My driver was parked by an alley. The traffic and the cars parked on each side of the road were all pointed one way, my driver backed out into the traffic turned the car to face into the traffic and drove two blocks and nobody tooted or cursed, to draw attention to this peculiar action. Some evidence of control are of either police or soldiers. They carry a rifle with the nastiest looking knife on the end you ever saw, with a needle-sharp point. I think I would give up Vulnerable Aggression in Egypt. Anyway, because of the interest taken in me by the hotel staff, I will be leaving for Jordan tomorrow at 11:00. I found my hearing aid.

Affectionately, John

 

December 27, 1990 I think, or is it the 26th?

Dear Louise,

I'm all processed for my flight to Amman. A full hour early. Yesterday I tried to explain an omelette to the waiter of the hotel and I wanted some cheese with it and perhaps some onion and other goodies and I was brought two eggs fried over easy and some small cheeses together with some slices of tomato and carrot in a bed of undressed, shredded lettuce. So today I explained about omelettes again and how it was eggs stirred up. And I was brought two eggs stirred up sprinkled with grated cheese. It was not very satisfying. I ate a good deal better in jail.

I had proposed that Egypt would be more negative about my mission than Baghdad. And that if I wasn't stopped in Egypt I would get through all the way. They didn't charge for the Visa stamp in my passport and I was turned loose in Cairo. And someone said, "Welcome to Egypt." But I went back and sat down because I needed more information and these people could talk English.

When I asked how I would get to Baghdad they said, "Ask at Egypt Air." "Where was Egypt Air?" "Just take a taxi." So I said, "Write down what I need to know in Egyptian." And I handed the attendant an envelope and he made a couple of little squiggles that didn't seem enough to convey all the things I thought I should know before launching myself out into Cairo. But a man took my envelope and my bag and we were soon hurrying to his car and before long I was at Egypt Air.

I was confronted by a gate with an attendant behind which was a vast tiled area that was being washed down by about a dozen men in fatigues. Beyond an impenetrable fence I saw a building with a large sign Egypt Air. So I came back to the entrance for instructions and I was waved back. On the other side of the area was a small office that said "Egypt Air".

I still didn't know what I wanted to do. I couldn't use my ticket to go via Jordan and it was $300 away. And I would still be 500 miles from Baghdad--so to do nothing until I had slept on it.

I am now on the plane to Amman awaiting takeoff. The $300 were Egyptian dollars. The bus ride may not be that much. It is rather cool here even with the sun shining and I am glad to have my down filled jacket. There are very few on the plane that would be conspicuous on a Seattle street.

It is very flat here with sparse growth. The general effect is a prairie scene. We wait for our turn on the runway to the sky.

We are now in the air and I can see a town spread out in the sand with lines as uncompromising as on a checkerboard. There was an empty window seat so I asked if I could move--and all there is to see is desert and sky so far. It will be about one hour flying time.

We are passing over water as unrippled as a pane of glass (and lunch is served) and as barren of vegetation as if it were glass. And now there is a mountain range in the desert. It too appears to be barren of life. And along this lifeless edge between sand and sea, I see towns and roads and other evidence of civilization and roads stretch for miles through the sand, the only evidence of life on the planet. Clouds are starting to form like blobs of smoke and there is much more evidence of Homo Sapiens.

I am now in the bus station in Amman. I came here from the airport, ten miles by taxi. I had no notion for prices. When I go out at the bus station a man took over that was evidently in charge and I inquired about a ticket and when he said, "$65.00", I was relieved as it sounded about right and then there was the taxi fare. So I handed him $100 American. He looked at it suspiciously, complained that the signature on it didn't look right. But he gave me some change.

And I then met a Kuwaiti who was going home to visit his parents. He had become an American citizen. So we got to talking and then a bunch of men came in. And one of them pointed at me a couple of times so I asked this American what it was all about. And he said there was doubt as to the authenticity of the $100 bill. They had torn one end off it to test it and they were in the process of taping it together again. I got the bill from the bank in Cairo which would be a good cover for a counterfeiting operation.

As I had an hour to kill I went for a walk along the street. The buildings are crudely built, square, flat roofed and utilitarian. Vegetables and fruit were on display. A merchant hailed me and as the tangerines looked good I elected to buy one but he would not sell me one, I must take it for free. There were carcasses of meat hanging up and a huddle of sheep here and a huddle of goats there. When I came back it was pretty close to leaving time. And as I was a little uncomfortable I thought I should find out what the facility was like in Amman. It was a device set in the floor for squatting on and the flush was a valve and a piece of hose.

We are on our way on the bus. The trip will be 22 hours. I got a couple of pictures of Amman through the bus window. One side the windows are so dirty you cannot see through. On my side the windows are just very dirty. The area we are going through is as barren as the moon and as flat as Saskatchewan. The kilowatt Martians that stride across the desert seem to be the same species as we have at home. When we were on our way we were given a chocolate bar and a Pepsi. I don't know how long that will have to do us for. It is very cool weather. They had a gas heater brought in to heat the station. Everyone is in heavy clothes. The bus is virtually empty. It is now 4:30 and the jolly round red sun is sinking into the desert.

We are now stopped at a grocery store (a stack of concrete block and corrugated roof, no doors, just a fence to close it up). The driver is getting me some food, I guess it will be on the company, since my offer to get it myself was declined he came back with bananas, milk and whey juice in cardboard boxes with straws.

8:57:

We have just gotten our passports checked at the Iraqi border. We have been stopped three times for passport checking. At a stop a young Arab named Sam bought me supper. I was invited to have supper with all the people on the bus (there were four of us). Two bowls and two plates were placed before me but I was not sure if they were for me or for all of us. So I waited to see what the others would do. And after the food for the others started coming on, Sam asked why I was not eating and I told him the food and process was unfamiliar and that I was waiting to see how Jordanese would handle it. The food was very good and there was nothing that I couldn't eat.

I arrived at the checkpoint and the soldier came in to say that as I was an American I should not be going to Baghdad. And I showed him my pamphlet and he seemed to be molified. But then we had to leave the bus to have our passports checked and my bus driver was trying to put me on the bus back to Jordan. So I went on and the young Arab I first mentioned whose name was Sam came on and said I should be in getting my passport checked. He was interested in helping me get to Baghdad. So we both went into a crowded room where about 200 people were getting passports checked. We spent about three hours there and in the end I was told that I would have to go back to Amman to get a visa. When I asked around how I would get back to Amman, several persons took an interest in my problem.

And one of them contacted a man who was taking a load and passengers to Amman and I was referred to him, who contracted for a reasonable sum for the trip. He looked like they were preparing to go right away. He loaded my bags and I got in the car and waited and waited while he made last minute preparations.

It was freezing cold and I waited and I waited. It must have been several hours. And at last he came to the car and touched the starter. Nothing happened. He then lifted the hood and got jumper cables and eventually got the thing running. It is now one in the morning and three men got in the back seat and the driver and I and another man got in the front seat. The rack was piled high on top and the trunk was overflowing the back seat.

But after three hours we eventually got out on the road. After being stopped at three checkpoints, several hours later we arrived at the Jordanian border where refugees were required to unload all their goods for inspection. It is now 8:34 A.M., there is ice forming on the water and I saw the sunrise rise out of the desert, and I don't know why my driver isn't going anywhere. There are lots of cars around to get a jump start if he wanted and I assume he is as anxious to leave as I am.

By standing on the sunny side of the building I was able to get nearly comfortable. My driver is now getting the jumper cables out and the boxes to being put on top of the rack again. After several attempts, the first Samaritan gives up and then a second one gets it going. It stops later and we all got out and pushed and we were on the road.

Between the sun and the car heater we were soon warm. The desert is much more interesting at ground level. By one o'clock we are in Amman. These people have their own concerns to attend to, but I was shown a bank where I might get money on my Visa card, the Bank of Jordan. I was able to leave my bags with them. When I got to the bank I was told that they didn't deal with the Visa card but there was a British bank further on on the same street that did. But it was closing time and I wouldn't be able to make it to-day and tomorrow is the King's birthday and so I wouldn't be able to get money 'til Saturday morning. I had dreamed of getting the money and the Visa and getting on a bus and saving a night's hotel charge as I would spend the night on the bus. I could still afford to get to Baghdad if they had a British bank there. But, no, there would be no British bank in Baghdad.

I nearly got lost coming back from the bank. With all the millions of miles of flat desert to build on, the Jordanians chose to build Amman on hills--and hills don't lend themselves to a neat grid layout. And nearly all the signs are in Arabic, and the few Arabs that know a little English have difficulty with the American accent. The streets are crowded and the motor traffic is chaotic with few traffic lights and not protected or marked crosswalks. I was in a very busy business section of the city. When I found my way back, I asked about a cheap hotel for two nights. And I was told that there were plenty of these right where I was. I got a room around the corner. I am not yet sure of the relative value of the dinar to the dollar. But the room seemed very cheap compared to elsewhere.

December 28-King's birthday.

All shops are closed and barred. But the street vendors are out and the street cleaners are at work. Men sit or stand around fires in a drum or can warming themselves and gossiping. I went out and took some pictures. Everything is so new and different to Western eyes that there are no end of interesting subjects. I wanted to get some slides when I finished the final roll, but the camera shop is closed too. Well, it has later turned out that I was just too early. Many of the shops did open later and I got some slide film. So I am going about looking for good subjects when a man dressed in Arab costume approached me to show me the city--but most--he wanted to show me the Roman ruins, he didn't want to mention prices. But he wanted first to take me up the hill so I was easily persuaded. And, sure enough, I got a marvelous perspective and there were many interesting places of building and an enormous amphitheater. What I had seen of Amman had led me to believe that it was a relatively small place but I was mistaken as will be shown by the slides I took. And then he wanted to take me to the place where Moses stood to look into the Promised Land before he died. They have built an elaborate building that is known as the Church of Moses. And they had everything there except the burning bush. The wind was so strong it was like to blow one away.

Before we left on the hour's bus ride and a 15 minute taxi ride we had agreed on a price. It was very reasonable and when I told him about having to find the Iraqy embassy and a British bank and get a bus ticket, he offered to help me with all those. But I should not get a bus ticket because it would "be better for me" to see his cousin who had a travel agency and could fly me into Baghdad.

So I have an appointment with him at 8:30 when we will try to get a visa.

I finish up this letter and see if I can get it in an envelope.

Lovingly, John

 

December 29, 1990

Dear Louise Ann,

The man giving me the tour mentioned in the last letter was to cost $25.00 but much of the attraction of the tour was in what he offered to do for me today. He would go with me to the embassy to help out in language problems. He would then go with me to the bank and then his cousin who had a travel agency would get me a flight to Baghdad. I was not too interested in the flight because I felt I would impinge on a lot more people by going by bus and it would be a good deal cheaper. Anyway, he cut the price to $20.00 and kept telling me how fortunate I was to get him. He bought me a nice dinner and paid a taxi fare and a bus fare and I couldn't see why he kept selling a good thing. We were to meet at 8:30 in the morning, go to the embassy and then to the bank, and just about when he was leaving for the night, he said, "I want my $20.00 now." He wanted the $20.00 American money I had in my purse. I said that while I was quite sure he was on the level, yet he had promised me help tomorrow, and that I didn't feel comfortable about letting loose of the money until he had done the things he said he would do. He said he understood, but could I let him have 10 dinars? This sounded fair enough, and several times on the way back he spoke about the time and the place of meeting on the following day.

I waited for 3/4 of an hour for him this morning and then caught a taxi and went to the Iraqi Embassy. I was let off at a building where a guard with a rifle stood outside. A small door gave you access to the desk to present your passport and after I was done, I was invited inside. The room was furnished with two enormous upholstered chairs and a sofa to match. There were three office persons but no one else. There was a small stack of newspapers on the floor. I was asked why I wanted to go to Baghdad? I presented my pamphlet along with my passport , which disappeared into another room and I was asked to sit on the sofa.

I picked up the papers but there were no clues as to what could be read from them. The pictures were mostly people sitting around in chairs; there were pictures of demonstrations but I couldn't tell where. A cartoon showed Santa Claus (presumably Bush) giving out teddy bears to fair-haired children.

After I had waited about an hour I was presented with the Visa form. It was quite simple and a place for my picture which I had conveniently in my purse. In a short time I was told I must come back in five days.

When I came out there was a taxi conveniently unloading, but I knew neither the name of the hotel nor its address. I had hotel cards but which one was mine? So I frantically rummaged through my clothes as the first card I had seemed to be taking took me in the wrong direction. I had the cab driver stop, and in time I worked out which was the right one.

After I got home, I went to get some money from the bank. I had asked the day before at the Bank of Jordan if they serviced the Visa card and they said go upstairs. There they said no they didn't, it could only be used at a British bank. There was one 200 meters down the street, but when I had gone about 100 meters, the road Y'd, so that each leg of the Y had an equal chance as the continuation of the road I was on. There was an "Arab Bank Ltd." which sounded a bit British so I went in there and they showed me upstairs. No they didn't service the Visa card butin about 200 meters there was an international exchange bank and they would get me money. I looked for this and eventually got a taxi and got introduced to two more banks that didn't handle Visa cards. The international exchange didn't handle Visa cards but they had a branch in the city that did! I got another taxi and with the address in my sweaty little hands we found the Bank of Credit and Commerce. With the difficulties of getting money with a Visa card in mind, With difficulties of getting money with a Visa card in mind, I ordered $500 worth of money, dinars (pronounced like dinners). But the dinar is worth a good deal more than the Egypt dollar and I paid $775 for them. I have all this money on me now and I don't like it. I went to find a post office to get a stamp and mail your letter. I had someone write out in Arabic what I wanted, and I would show people on my way to the post office. I found people very obliging. Yes, it is about 200 meters that way. So I walk what I thought must be 200 meters and ask again, Oh, yes about 200 meters maybe three indicating then a right turn and a return on another street. Eventually, I met a young man who said he was going to the post office so I could come with him. He went to another street and started going the other way, and we walked and we walked and we dodged cars and crowds of people.

He bought two shot glasses of coconut juce and gave one to me and when he got to the post office he bid me goodbye and took off. By some freak accident I ended in a hill where there should have been a street. I retraced my steps until I was in familiar territory. I came home and paid the hotel 40 dinars for five days.

December 30/90:

It is cold but the sky is clear at 8:32 in the morning. By afternoon it will be warm enough to shed a coat of two. I have on my long johns, two pair of pants, my suit coat, my down jacket, and my turtle neck. My room has no heat but the water comes in warmish in the mornings. I have two beds so I can use the covers of both beds and with my down jacket and suit coat on top I am quite comfortable. Last night workmen came in to fix the telephone but it is not working yet.

I might comment on the toilets in general here. All the devices for relieving oneself abroad that I have seen are inferior to the American flush toilet. In Iraq there was a real room with four stalls with floor-level toilets. The place stunk to high heaven, I do not know how they were flushed. Two of them were not, and I made a third while I was desperately looking for a means to get back to Amman to get a Visa. The first I used had a hose for flushing and it was a relatively clean toilet. The facility here has a conventional water seal from sewer gas but it has to be cleaned after a movement. In Berlin a brush is supplied and here a flexible chrome hose is supplied to assist with the cleaning. We are not supplied with toilet paper. I don't know how others make out. I use a newspaper. In the general toilet area of the hotel I saw where someone had tried to squat on the toilet and overshot and there was probably a debate going between the maid and the management as to who would clean it up.

Today I plan to pass out some leaflets on the street. I will take 25 with me and if I get them passed out before I am stopped by the police I will go back and get 25 more. I have already had confrontations with the police who challenged me when I was taking pictures. They asked me for my camera. I said no I would not give them my camera! They demanded my film. I said, "No!" They laid hands on me and I slumped to the street and screamed. I had a great audience! The police then asked me for my passport. I told them the hotel had it but if they would follow me I would show it to them. So they did and I did. End of incident.

Later:

I went out this morning and gave away 100 pamphlets. Several persons seemed excited over it and asked me where I was from.

I met an English speaking Palestinian at the hotel who had worked for Canada Bell Telephone. He seemed to like my pamphlet but the Palestinian issue has always been confusing to me, so after he had spent some time explaining it I was no more enlightened than before. He asked me if I agreed and I said yes for diplomatic reasons.

Affectionately, John

December 31, 1990

Dear Louise and all,

I bought a Guardian and read the news and the English columnists are apparently just as enthusiastic about Bush's adventure in the Gulf as are Americans. I went out today and gave out 100 leaflets and on the way back I asked at the newsstand for the Guardian and the attendant said: come back at 4 o'clock. When I came back at 4:00 I was intercepted by Basil Kayyaa who looked to be about 25 or 30. He took me into his father's shop and introduced me to his father and offered me tea or coffee. I had recognized him from the previous day (or rather from this morning) when he had responded positively to my pamphlet. He wanted to visit Canada and he wanted me to go with him to the Canadian Embassy in Amman and help him argue his case. I told him that I had nothing whatsoever to offer. I would be as helpless as he was, that I was alone and had no influential friends. He would not hear these excuses. I told him that I would go with him to the Embassy and tell them what I planned to do in Baghdad, and I would ask them to let him come to Canada. I liked the boy, but I also saw it as a bit of an adventure to let the Embassy know I was around.

When I got to the newsstand there was no Guardian but there was a Sunday Telegraph. I am reading it now.

January 3, 1991

In a couple of hours I will know if I have a visa to Baghdad. If I don't get a visa I might stay here until the 15th. anyway.* I think it is costing me about $20.00 a day to live here. I got Sean on the phone and he will tell the media that I am waiting for a visa to Amman.

In case Morgan wants to buy the barge, I want to make it clear in writing that you have my permission to loan him the money.

Hello! Dear,

I have my book stamped for Baghdad. And I will be leaving here by bus at 1:00 so I will get this letter to the P.O.

Warmly, John

* The 15th of Jan., 1991 was the date set by President Bush for Hussein to get out of Kuwait.

 

Januray 4, 1991

Dear Dear,

The bus station in Amman was within spitting distance of the hotel I had occupied for a week. It wasn't a conventional bus but an 8 passenger car, and part of a fleet. I have arrived in Baghdad about 1:00 A.M. It was a 600 kilometer trip from Amman. The sun went down about 4:30 P.M. The first part through Jordan and Iraq was on a 2 lane 2 way highway and the desert held continuous interest for me, but later the terrain flattened out, and there were puddles along the road. A couple of places had water over the road, but not a smidgeon of vegetation at the water's edge. As we got closer to Baghdad the prairie type growth became more abundant and we saw the moon come up out of the desert. We followed it until it was lost over the car.

We saw lots of oil trucks and found one on its side. The crews of several trucks were making preparations for righting it. The trucks travel in groups as there is no service stations along the way and if they get in trouble they need each other. They are top-heavy, so I expect it is not a rare accident. As we approached Baghdad the road became one-way and in perfect condition. The moon showed a very flat perspective and I saw the big dipper in the place I would usually look for it.

Iraq is at the end of the Mediterranean and I think if you follow the parallel around, it will come on someplace between New York and Florida. It is warmer here in Iraq. I might be able to leave my down jacket off long enough to have it washed. I asked about laundry and the manager said just give it to the floor boy. The floor boy is about 50.

I went to a restaurant for breakfast in the hotel. It was empty except for three employees. One of these set me at a table and he said we have omelettes. I said that sounds good and I would like tea. He brought me two eggs scrambled and a small kind of roll which came to 3 dinars. As I mentioned, Jordan marks are $1.50 and when he found I had Jordan marks he took me out to the office. The manager was honest enough to put it on the hotel bill in Iraqi dinars which go 4 for 1 in Jordanian currency.

The hotel was once a palatial place but now neither the plumbing nor the wiring seems to work very well. The owner, a very old man, said the workmen were coming to fix the lift and asked me if I were comfortable. The staff are friendly and accommodating. I called Sean to tell him I had arrived at my destination. He said I was to visit the post office here. I will also visit the Canadian Embassy to let them know I am here. Maybe I will go to the American Embassy too. I feel like I am straddling the Canadian/U.S. border.

While I was in Jordan and tried to find some dates, as I think these are about the finest things produced in the Arab world, but nary a date could I find. Here they have dates put up in a little snack-sized package and they are as good as I expected.

The hotel has a huge dining area with ornate chairs and a balcony along one side. Nobody seems to eat there. I had to support four waiters and a cook when I ate supper in the hotel. I cannot work out the economics of the thing. They told me the room is 16 dinars a night. That is Iraqi dinars!

In Jordan they had these round, flat loaves of bread about 16" in diameter. I would have liked to be able to eat one. But my belly disorder gets in the way. There are many bread products in Jordan that made me drool. The disks of bread were puffed. It was used as a pocket bread or for picking up greasy or sticky food. They have a kind of gray scone that serves the same purpose but doesn't look near as appetizing. This, like the Jordanian bread, is served automatically when you order a meal.

The hotel has no menu and the waiter comes and asks you, "What will you have?" I found I could have chicken or meat. The meat was broiled on steel skewers. It was so so. The person who took my money gave me instructions in counting dinar fractions. One dinar is 1,000 filis. There are 500 filis and 250 filis that would correspond to our quarter.

 

January 5, 1991

I will try to call you again. We tried to get through yesterday morning. I called Sean and told him of my arrival. I will call him again to ask him to draw me a cartoon of the adulterous woman in the Bible. She will be labled "Iraq" since most other nations acquired their property by the same means as did Iraq. He will send it to me and I will rearrange my pamphlet to accommodate the cartoon. I saw a sign of a printer around the corner here that I will investigate this morning.

Lovingly, John

 

January 6, 1991

Dear Dearest,

I called Sean. I wanted him to draw a picture of the biblical woman caught in adultery and to label the woman Iraq. Nearly all nations have established their borders in exactly the way Iraq has. What nation is qualified to cast the first stone? Sean responded promptly. The picture is in the mail. I will find a place in my pamphlet for it. I have been shopping around for a place to get my pamphlet printed.

Looking for a copier I tried three places where the prices were too high or there were other problems. So having nothing to do this morning I methodically worked the grid in this area looking for a photocopy shop. One of the windows of a shop had pens and as I am always losing my pen I thought I would go in and stock up. Inside were several photocopy machines. I ordered 500 pamphlets for a start. So far as I can make out I am getting them at about .07 each U.S. Tomorrow I will try my hand at leafletting in Baghdad. Perhaps the U.N. sanctions are having an effect here that I am unable to assess, but to my eyes Baghdad looks as prosperous and the shops and markets seem as abundantly stocked as in Amman which is not penalized by U.N. sanctions. The prices also seem reasonable.

Sean told me to come home, that the U.S. was going to bomb the hell out of Baghdad. He spoke quite desperately and implored me to come home. You would never know from anything one can see or hear here, that such a calamity was imminent. I asked the hotel manager about it and he said vaguely, well there might be a war but they were meeting in Geneva.

Last summer Maurice, the artist, took me aside and explained the situation in detail and advised me to go home while I could because there would be a war in less than 2 weeks. Now wars are chancy things, and I don't set myself up as a prophet, but if Bush starts this war with his present faltering support, he's not nearly as discreet as I give him credit for.

January 8, 1991:

I went to the U.S. Embassy this morning. I wanted to find out where I could use my Visa card and where the Associated Press office was. Sean said I should contact them. The American at the Embassy directed me to a hotel where all the news agencies were, but what he most wanted to tell me was that if I didn't leave the country tomorrow that there would be nobody at the Embassy to help me get out. The Embassy would be gone. I told him I planned to leave when my visa expired (or unless Hussein has a job for me). The receptionist was an Iraqi and she was very pleased to meet me and said many complimentary things. I took a cab to this hotel where the news agencies hang out, but the Associated Press was not there. I got them on the phone. Yes, they had heard about me. They would get together with me sometime.

The manager here was concerned that I had no T.V. in my room. He said there was an English newscast at 9:00 and some other English programs. There are 6 buttons to push on my T.V. but only two stations and then they are only part-time. He also got me a supplementary heater. I had made no complaints, but it was welcome.

I have been counting up the money I have against the time I must leave and it looks like I am all right. If I can get back to Amman I can get money on my Visa card. The young man at the Embassy said that one dinar costs $3.00 U.S. and on the market they're worth about $.35.

I have heard about 'peace' people who are camped between the Americans and the Iraqi armed forces, but I haven't been able to find out who they are. The American at the Embassy indicated that one or some of them had made last minute decisions to leave. For myself, I know that I might have to suffer the consequences if I did this rash maneuver, but I am in no more danger than the kids on the street here who do not have the option of moving. This goes for babies, kittens, and puppy dogs. If Bush decided to go to war, he will have to use everything he has to end the war in a week or so and Baghdad will not be a good place to be. I will die in bed, as Ethel did, if I don't die here, and in any war there are survivors. I might be one.

While I was at the Embassy I read an article in the English "Baghdad Observer". It was authorized by a man in Vancouver. Half a page and they printed it all. It covered all the points against American efforts in the Gulf. I hope it is getting printed in Canadian and American newspapers.

My T.V. is working pretty well. I saw a film on Australian wildlife in English. Of course the army and military commentators are getting a good deal of space and Hussein showing his people what a nice person he is.

January 9, 1991

I went to a British Airlines office to see about my return ticket. It seems to be a breeze. The return was changed to Amman and there will be no booking charge. I found that my visa is for three months, but I will have run out of money by the first of February, and I will have completed my mission. I will wait until after the 15th before I fill in the date of departure. I passed out 100 pamphlets today. Much more interest than in Seattle. Two of them I picked up rumpled and one was thrown away. I read it as some strong negative feelings. I expect I will be visited by the establishment before long. The manager was apprehensive when I told him about my leaflets. On the face of it, back in Canada, it seemed like a preposterous proposition that I could go to the principle city of a dictatorship and pass out anti-military literature. Yet, here I am doing it! I do these things that just can't be done.

I am going to set my time of departure for February 1st. I don't think Mr. Bush is going to launch his Blitzkrieg before that. I will try in that time to pass out 1,000 pamphlets. I will buy a ticket home after I get to Berlin.

January 10, 1991:

After I slept on it I decided to get my return ticket arranged right away, so I went to British Airways again and was referred to Iraqi Airways. She got me to Amman and sent me to Jordan Airways to get me to Cairo. Then I went to Lufthansa to get me from Cairo to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Tegel. Fortunately, fate dropped me within walking distance of all these agencies. If you can't walk you take a taxi here and Baghdad taxi drivers double the price when they pick up an American. One of the staff at the hotel told me what the price would be for a taxi to the post office, 1 1/2 dinars. The taxi to the post office charged me 2 dinars and the one that brought me back to the hotel charged me 3 dinars, so you see the cost of postage here.

It looks like I at last have a real live issue by the tail. My leaflets are being picked up faster than I have ever experienced. A few people ask for several, and a little boy raced back again and again taking several each time. He might even be selling them. He asked "No Bush?" and smiled broadly at my affirmative.

The hotel manager got me a "Baghdad Observer" (English), and an account of the Geneva talks. There was a speech also by Connelly, former U.S. Navy chief, a graduation speech at the University of Texas. He came out strongly against the war advocates and I thought that Bush's grim faced response was an improvement over his former promises or threats, as I think they will turn out to be. Anyway, I am going to post this letter today. Phoning from here is not only expensive but it is very difficult. I hope to deliver myself to you early in February.

Affectionately, John

XXX (these are kisses)

Januray 10, 1991 (6:45 P.M.)

Dear Louise and all,

I took your letter to the post office. I walked as far as I was sure of the way, and I came to a bridge. I was pretty sure we had crossed the bridge, so I tried to hail a taxi but evidently taxis couldn't stop on the bridge. I walked across the bridge about half a mile and there got a taxi and he took me to another bridge across the river and pointed out a building he said held the post office and collected 2 dinars. When I went to the building and inquired about the post office I was told I would have to take a taxi, so I got in another taxi and we went across the river and found the post office. I got another taxi and, well, it cost me 6 dinars to post the letter exclusive of the stamp.

When I turned on the T.V. tonight, they had something besides army, a cartoon that was clever and amusing concerning a cow and her udder and later a woodpecker doing the things that Woody does. Also a short skit that looked like it might be Dickens in Arabic.

The manager told me there was English news on at 9:00 but all I can get at that time is Army. I have a contest going between my desire to economize and my appetite. I want to stay here the full month and my ticket has now committed me so I have to stretch my funds accordingly. The hotel is only 16 dinars a night, and if I can limit my other expenses to 10 dinars a day, I can make it, but everything is unfamiliar and I don't know how to order a meal and I don't know the best buys at the market. I picked up an apple and a small banana and the merchant said 3 dinars, yet a pound of dates is 1 dinar. There are lots of date plants along the streets of Baghdad. One wouldn't want to eat the windfalls as the street is usually pretty dirty, but I picked some off the top of a wall. They were dates, but they were dried out not like the ones you buy in the store. I haven't done any sightseeing but Baghdad seems a more finished city than Amman and the traffic control is better but, like Cairo, the automobile has the right of way. You watch yourself. They tend to use their horn rather than their brakes.

There is a list of Baghdad Observer agents in the paper and all of them refer you to a landmark rather than a street number or close to such and such. The cartoon shows Bush embarrassed. He was trying desperately to hang onto the dove but it got away. There was a sum up of troubles in India in the last year that made the point that drastic as they were, there was no threat to India as a country. I think the Soviet Union will hold together with the possible exception of the Baltic states. I have been hugging myself looking back over all the doubts I had about this trip. The fears of missing connections and how I would be received. Would my pamphlets be confiscated somewhere along the line. In retrospect, it has been a breeze all the way through. I have been limiting myself to 100 pamphlets a day for economic reasons because if they are read, understood and approved of, there are hundreds and probably thousands of duplicating machines in the city and the pamphlets will be translated, duplicated and distributed with no further help from me.

People can tell from a distance that I am no Arab and also that my pamphlets are in English or a non-Arabic language. I see no reason why they would pick up a pamphlet that they cannot read.

Having nothing to do today (Friday, this is the Arab's day of rest), I thought it discreet not to campaign on this day, I went back to bed and slept soundly. I woke up at 7:55 supposing I had slept overnight. I thought it pretty dark for this time of day, so to check I turned on the T.V. and there was Saddam Hussein speechifying. I watched him in pantomime dressed in his uniform and I thought there was nothing in his manner to suggest the fanatic some would like to paint him. His head went back and forth making eye contact with his audience. There was nothing to suggest the Hitler-type emotionally charged verbiage. His pose was confidence and reserve "we have all the chips, no sweat".

January 13, 1991:

I lost my hearing aid again and the help found it in the bathroom. It was wet and I dried it as much as I could but when I put batteries in, it didn't work, so I will leave it to dry out and hope that that is the problem.

The time is getting short until day of doom if Saddam fails to face down Bush. Having last year faced down the D.D.R., the Allied Command, the Axel Springer complex, and the West Berlin police department I am betting on Saddam Hussein.

Lufthansa called to say that my flight on February 2nd had been cancelled and I was booked February 3rd, late in the day. It will get me into Tegel by 10:00 P.M. February 3rd. I will have to be in Cairo two nights and I will have to make a hotel reservation in Berlin or buy a ticket home. Since I might be going home via London, I would like to make contact with my contact in England and maybe arrange a stopover, or buy a ticket to London from Frankfurt. (I'm thinking this out as I write.) I will have lots of time in Cairo to make plans and I am getting the notion that while I am on this side of the ocean, I should visit England and fly home

January 21, 1991:

We have a map of Baghdad on the stairs in the hotel. I took it to orient myself for directions and had my directions backwards as I often do. Anyway, it looks like the war will be here before too long. The war in the North seems to be moving farther away, but as the terror from the North diminishes the terror from the South increases. There is no destruction in this area, so far as I can see. I took a good look to the North and there was a low rumble and flashes of light in the sky all along the horizon, and what looked like sparks in the air. It had been a good deal closer than this.

I discovered that by going up four flights of stairs a door opened onto the roof of the hotel where there were clotheslines and a laundry room, toilet and quite a bit of unused hotel equipment that had been discarded, but a great view of the city. I went out there during the first of the three raids from the South and there were flashes from the ground where the anti-aircraft guns were going off, and many balls of light scurrying about the sky. There were heavy reports from many guns, but I could see no planes whatsoever, nor could I hear any planes. It was a very clear night and, when the moon went down, brilliant starlight.

January 21, 1991:

Best wife. I will finish up this letter. The hotel manager is here. We are all leaving for Amman.

John

 

January 23, 1991 (7:24 A.M.)

Best wife,

To my great surprise I have been able to check into my old room in this hotel at the same price as before. The people of Baghdad started fleeing to Amman. What the Americans are doing is chasing with bombs, the people of Baghdad, out of their city. The flight routes are left open and Baghdad is becoming deserted. With this in mind I thought the prospects would be bleak for finding accommodation in Amman. On the 21st the couple I told you about in yesterday's letter (that I will post in Amman today), Betool and Hish Kodi, told me they would be leaving on the following morning so I said I would like to leave with them. The owner and his son-in-law left messages with me to deliver to people in Toronto and Detroit that they were all right as the Americans were not bombing civilian areas.

It was arranged by the owner, the Kodis and I would leave in the same taxi, and he would help me arrange for a bus out of Baghdad. Later in the day another man came to me to tell me that they were closing the hotel and that I could get a room in the Baghdad hotel close by. When I realized that I was not to be included in the escaping party, I decided to leave immediately. Hish offered to tell the taxi driver what I wanted.

The traffic on the streets both pedestrian and mobile is reduced to a trickle, but I found a cab immediately. In a short time I was also on a bus that was, I supposed, leaving for a trip all the way to Amman. I had just paid the hotel bill and I was unsure if I had the fare to Amman. It took all my dinars exactly and I had $100.00 still in travelers checks, so I can very well escape to Amman where I have access to my funds. The bus was filling up as I boarded. The luggage compartment on the top was piled high and much luggage was squeezed into the narrow space between the seats so that the passage was non-negotiable except by stepping on luggage. Shortly after we got underway, the engine stopped and the driver ground the starter again and again, we all held our breath but finally it caught and we were on our way.

We had been travelling for hours when the driver stopped after pulling off the road. The lights are out, and while I cannot hear anything I can see the familiar tracer shell in the sky and shells bursting up there too. After a relatively short time the sky clears and there is evidently a hole in the road. I am the only white man on the bus, but I felt included.

The Arabs turned out to be very gregarious. Everyone talked as we traveled so by this time it became one party.

The driver of the bus had the assistance of about 50 very vocal Arabs for advice on how to get the bus over the hole in the road. With great skill and dragging of the front end and then dragging the rear we got over the hole.

I had assumed that I had bought my way all the way to Amman, but we stopped for the rest of the night among a vast crowd of busses all heaped with luggage as well as many farm-type trucks. We had been given blankets as the night was cold. I must have slept for I found myself refreshed and the driver started to maneuver the bus as the dawn developed and I anticipated him getting underway as the other busses pulled out. But, after the sun was well up everyone started getting off the bus! It was in order that the bus driver could collect our passports at a checkpoint and have them examined at the entry. Here everyone was unloading their luggage from off the top of the bus, and I couldn't find a person to tell me what was happening. I thought we must be moving to another bus so I will just follow the crowd. The whole area was just one big turmoil and I could make no more sense from watching the crowd than I could watching an anthill.

The people who were with me on the bus were taking off in every direction, and nearly all of them were carrying enormous suitcases on their shoulders, as well as something in their other hand. I asked many persons I recognized from our bus if they were going to Amman, and I would find where their group met and stayed with them and saw what happened. Then I realized that my passport had been taken! I asked desperately about it and was assured everything would be all right. I stayed with a small group waiting by the side of the road. There was a young couple with 3 kids about 1 1/2, 2 1/2, and 3 1/2. There was a cold wind blowing from the west over a cold desert. We are along a roadway, hopefully pointing to Amman. The kids are playing among the luggage except one, the littlest, who is protesting loudly and the others take turns with the mother in trying to get the littlest to accommodate to this awful situation. The persons that I have attached myself to are evidently communicating with the driver and eventually I get my passport. Then I ask again about when a bus will come, and about Amman, and someone with enough English to realize what I needed, pointed to a bus that was loading about a 1/4 mile away and said it went to Amman. We were at the Iraqi-Jordanian border, about 240 miles from my destination with $100.00 in travelers checks.

I had to go through the checkpoint which was no problem. I was led to a white vehicle by a young, small, slightly-built man. He said, "I will take you to Amman for $1,000.00." I told him that I had no money on me, but that if he could get me to Amman before the bank closed I could get him the money and I showed him the receipt from the bank where I had drawn $750.00.

Well, after some false starts in getting onto the right road we were on our way. He was a chain smoker and between changing tapes and lighting cigarettes he sped down the highway. The traffic was light, and I was soon to see the rewards for having money and someone the checkpoint guards were familiar with. All the checkpoints were backed up with people who had to wait while the trucks and busses were unloaded for inspection, while I was breezed through after a quick look at my passport. I found in difficult situations he was really a skillful driver. We were stopped and people were importuning him to fill the back of his car with them, but he turned them down. When a policeman or soldier asked for a ride, no problem. Thinking of the crowds of people I had seen at the border that had been escaping into Amman since the war started and that I would get into Amman late in the day, I wondered where I would sleep that night as all the hotels would be filled with Baghdadders.

When my driver reached the city he visited a friend and they were all in a hostile frame of mind as the banks would be closed and the possibility that they had been taken was bothering them and the driver said, "I want my money now! I want to go back to the border tonight!" I said, "Call the hotel where I stay and I will get a room and tomorrow we will go to the bank and get you your money. I don't carry $1,000 around on my person." So he called the hotel and my room was available.

They found that the bank had not yet closed, so we took a taxi to the bank but we were too late. The people inside responded to his frantic appeal through the window. They came to the door. No, come at 8:00 tomorrow. Still he kept at me to find the money he was sure I had somewhere in my clothes.

The next morning we went to the bank. On the way he explained that he should have more money because he was inconvenienced by having to pay for the night and laughing said he thought $500.00 would be about right. The bank could only draw $400.00 a day. I told him that since he was working between Amman and the border that I would collect the money as I could and he could pick it up at the bank later. No we would go to the American Embassy. The Embassy would give him the money. I would owe the Embassy until the bank could produce the money.

The Embassy people said that it could probably be done, but it would take several days. They argued with him for about 1/2 hour and in the meantime I had occasion to show my ticket home. Here was the answer. The ticket was worth $1,000. I wouldn't need it until Febuary 1st, so we would go to Lufthansa and they would give him $1,000 and hold my ticket hostage until I reimbursed them. We went to Lufthansa with the results I expected. We went back to the bank where, to a crowd of astonished bankers, he demanded a voucher for $1,000 against my account with Visa. The bank told him at my request they would hold the money for me to be given to him when the bank was able to get it, so it was left at that.

The banker asked me what I was paying for my room and when I told him $20, he said, "Isn't that pretty expensive?" I said I didn't know. He directed me to a hotel where he thought I could get a room for $5.00. The place was close to the post office and the place where I get my English newspapers is just across the street.

On a side alley and up several flights of marble stairs, through a side door, I saw an Arab sitting in the traditional Arab dress. He spoke to me in English and made me comfortable in the lounge and told me kindly that the room would cost me $10.00 a night, so I went and checked out of the other hotel.

When I returned the Arab took me to meet his brother who was the owner of a clothing store below. I had a cup of tea with the owner who spoke tolerable English and then I met the clerk who also spoke English. They all welcomed me when they found I was for 'peace' and had been in Baghdad. The place seems to be a conclave of Palestinians who want a political settlement of the Iraqi crisis.

There was an English journalist who didn't like my pamphlet and was sympathetic with Bush's point of view, and an Australian journalist that liked what I was doing.

I was shown the room. No heat, no hot water, but a good shower elsewhere. The place is a labyrinth of passageways and stairs. The Arab insisted that I should get my pamphlet translated into Arabic and sent me to the "Jordan Times" where they ignored my request for translation but sent me a nice young female reporter who asked good questions and took many notes. She said there would be a story by tomorrow, January 26th. We sat around and talked and drank tea and listened to Bush on T.V. saying that it was unreasonable to expect victory in one night after promising us just that. Today is very cold, overcast and wet--a poor day for bombing Baghdad.

There are about 300 youngsters marching down the street today, rooting for Saddam Hussein. When I went to eat, a nice looking fellow wanted me to share his plate, so I did. He had picked up my "paper". He talked fair English.

I went to Jordan Airways to see about getting a flight to Cairo and there is one on Monday, but I wanted to stay here as long as I could, so I will go back tomorrow to see if a later flight develops. If not, I will have them book me for Monday. I will post this letter tomorrow morning.

Lovingly, John

Januray 27, 1991

Dear Louise,

I am preparing to leave Amman tomorrow at 10:00 on Jordan Air to Cairo. I sent a letter off to you last evening. It is still cold but the sun is shining brightly. It is too bad that my government will rejoice that it is great weather for bombing Baghdad.

January 30, 1991:

My banker inquired as to what I was paying for my hotel room and thought I was paying too much. I took his advice and moved. I had just settled into the new environment when I found that there was a plane out of Amman, so yesterday morning I took a taxi to the airport. The taxi driver, a loquacious fellow, stopped to get me a cup of coffee and entertained me on the way by telling me some of the history of Jordan, as it related to the things we saw along the way, such as the desert farms that had been given to the Bedouins.

When he left me at the airport, a man took me in tow and stayed with me until I was ready to board the plane. I had expected that since I had a return ticket that I would need no money until I got to Frankfurt, except that as I was scheduled to leave Cairo on February 3rd, there would be hotel bills until that time. I had the bank get me $400 of Jordan dinars, but when I tried to use my ticket for my flight to Cairo I found they had a war tax of 100 DJ or $150 and they also had an insurance policy I must buy, 10 DJ or $15. I happened to have enough after paying my food and hotel costs in Amman, but it pretty well cleaned me out.

We arrived in Cairo in about an hour and there I had no one to help me get around. I was thoroughly confused. It was not the airport that I arrived at when going the other way. Someplace in this vast area thronged with people was a place where I would pick up my suitcase. In the process of looking for it, I found I would have to get a visa to get out of the airport and in the process of finding where I got a visa I found my bag. So as I am working my way out of the airport, a short, stoutish man approached me. I was looking for a taxi to take me to Lufthansa to see if I could get my flight changed to an earlier date. He took me to a small office, where he inquired about my plans. In no time at all he had everything worked out for me and I had given him 100 Egyptian pounds (about $33). A taxi would take me to a nice clean hotel in old Cairo which would cost me $14.00 U.S. for one night and tomorrow we would go to Lufthansa to inquire about my ticket. Then we would go to the bank where I could get money on my Visa card, and I would have a driver and a taxi to explore Cairo the rest of the day. It was too good to be true, and I kept examining the proposition, as we drove from new Cairo to old Cairo, to see if I wasn't being set up for something.

The hotel faced on little better than an alley, but it was nicer than anything I had been living in. The next morning the driver and taxi were there on appointment. We went to Lufthansa first and to my great delight they got me a flight for Frankfurt at 2:00 A.M. for the following morning. I'll tell you about the rest of this remarkable day when I see you at home.

I am now, January 31, 1991, at the top of Tim Willis's place at Leeds, England. I arrived in Frankfurt at 8:00 A.M. yesterday and I was on a flight to Gatewick, London by 11:00 where I called Tim and then took the 2 1/2 hour train trip to Leeds. He lives in part of a rowhouse three stories high, and sublets. He has set up a date with Amnesty International for February 13th, and I talked to the editor of the Leeds University student paper who appeared to be excited about my efforts and promises to be at the meeting which will take place at the Student Union Building.

The young women and the men of the house were having a standoff on who would do the dishes. There were a lot of dishes and they were all dirty, so I broke the standoff by doing them myself. It took me all day. I am provided with perhaps the cleanest and most uncluttered room in the house. It was prepared for a new occupant, but this has been delayed due to my arrival. I am given every indication that I am welcome and that I am no inconvenience.

Tim took me again to Leeds University where they serve great meals and where I met the two young girls who were working with their Amnesy superiors to get me the go-ahead for my talking to the organization. I felt in conclusion, that they were quite pleased with me, but we will have to wait two days before the final go-ahead and before I can put the announcements in my pamphlets. Tomorrow I have been invited to go to Hull where Tim will introduce me to some people. It is great to have people developing my program where I don't have to do any pushing.

This is February 1, the day I had arranged to leave Baghdad on an Air Iraqi flight to Amman. I am glad to be done with my adventure in Arabia. My visit to England promises to be much more satisfying. The weather is trying to make up its mind, whether it wants to rain or snow.

February 4, 1991:

The two days in Hull were a bit boring. It was a seminar on people with debilities. The subject matter would probably be interesting enough but with my hearing difficulties and the very unfamiliar accent of the people here, I was not able to follow. When I talked to individuals I was able, with difficulty, to converse. Several were nice enough to give me this opportunity, and Tim also let people know about my mission.

It is now after 12:00. Tim is helping one of his many female friends to do the final draft of a 3,000 word essay. He will take me to see an editor at 1:30 today, February 5th.

I had potatoes, eggs, and Spam from the store across the street. We use the store as a kind of pantry. The people of the house, several young women and Tim's brother, are responding very positively to my endeavor, and are interested that I get as much exposure as possible. When I came to England I expected snow in February and there was none. This is no longer the case. It has been snowing since the day before yesterday--a cold front that has come down from Siberia they say. And, it feels like it.

Another thing, Amnesty International can not, within the framework of their rules, sponsor me to speak at the Student Union Building here. This, together with the cold weather, urges me strongly to come home, but there is a strong possibility with the way the snow is piling up that we will be snowed in for a while.

February 18th:

Tim has me set up to speak to the Green Society. There was a nice piece about me in the student newspaper, so I will get this in the mail and it might beat me home. There is to be about a week of this weather. The taxis are charging three pounds to the University and three pounds back. The way by bus is cheaper but quite difficult.

Affectionately, John

 

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