Interview with Lilias Gordon, May 14, 2004

Nevada Test Site Oral History Project University of Nevada, Las Vegas Interview with Lilias Gordon May 14, 2004 Las Vegas, Nevada Interview Conducted By Suzanne Becker © 2007 by UNLV Libraries Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews conducted by an interviewer/ researcher with an interviewee/ narrator who possesses firsthand knowledge of historically significant events. The goal is to create an archive which adds relevant material to the existing historical record. Oral history recordings and transcripts are primary source material and do not represent the final, verified, or complete narrative of the events under discussion. Rather, oral history is a spoken remembrance or dialogue, reflecting the interviewee’s memories, points of view and personal opinions about events in response to the interviewer’s specific questions. Oral history interviews document each interviewee’s personal engagement with the history in question. They are unique records, reflecting the particular meaning the interviewee draws from her/ his individual life experience. Produced by: The Nevada Test Site Oral History Project Departments of History and Sociology University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 89154- 5020 Director and Editor Mary Palevsky Principal Investigators Robert Futrell, Dept. of Sociology Andrew Kirk, Dept. of History The material in the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project archive is based upon work supported by the U. S. Dept. of Energy under award number DEFG52- 03NV99203 and the U. S. Dept. of Education under award number P116Z040093. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in these recordings and transcripts are those of project participants— oral history interviewees and/ or oral history interviewers— and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U. S. Department of Energy or the U. S. Department of Education. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Lilias Gordon May 14, 2004 Conducted by Suzanne Becker Table of Contents Introduction: birth ( 1938) childhood in Michigan, family background, education, early work with General Motors 1 Education and travel in Europe, marriage and family 3 Atmosphere at the Presidio ( San Francisco, CA) during the Cuban missile crisis ( 1961), move to Las Vegas, NV ( 1963), children, description of Las Vegas in 1963 4 Memories of underground tests at the NTS ( after 1963) and of atmospheric testing ( 1952- 1954) 6 Work for Adjutant General’s Office, Sixth Army Headquarters ( Presidio, San Francisco, CA) 7 Education: return to college ( late 1960s) 8 Formulation of thoughts concerning war and the NTS, and solidification of resistance to nuclear testing 9 Involvement in NTS protest movement and ERA: Mother’s Day, the Nevada Lenten Experience, Peace Links, People of Faith for Social Justice, Catholic Worker, Pace e Bene 11 Talks about Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament ( 1980s) 17 How activism influenced career as teacher and librarian at Bishop Gorman HS 19 Opening channels of communication: Peace Links and visit of Soviet women to Las Vegas, NV 21 Political beliefs of her children, military service of Jeffrey Allen Gordon 23 Opinion of general consensus of Las Vegans re: work at NTS, her “ apolitical years,” and growth of political thought 27 Evolution of beliefs from Cold War advocate to peace activist 29 Impressions of peace activist Louis Vitale 31 Thoughts on resumption of nuclear testing 33 Arguments against nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain 34 Conclusion: opinions on apathy and need for involvement in antinuclear protest movement 36 UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 1 Interview with Lilias Gordon May 14, 2004 in Las Vegas, NV Conducted by Suzanne Becker [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 2, Disk 1. Suzanne Becker: Great. So I guess I just wanted to begin by getting just a little bit of background about you, where you grew up, where you came from, family, basically your roots. Lilias Gordon: Well, I grew up in Michigan. I had a mother who lived to be almost ninety- five. She was a Canadian citizen ‘ til the day she died. Where in Canada was she from? Edmonton, Alberta. My father was born in Revere, Massachusetts but his family were mostly Canadians, so they went back to Canada after his birth. And I was born in 1938. I’m sixty- five years old. And I was born in Michigan. I’m the only one of the family, I tell them, of my other two sisters that can be president, because they were both born in Canada. Are you making that run soon? Not soon. My father died, when I was about five- and- a- half, in an industrial accident during the war and my mother remarried— During World War II? World War II, yes, the war. During World War II, he was working on the gyroscope project actually. And an interesting sideline— I don’t know if you want to include it— Absolutely. My mother wanted an investigation done into his death because she suspected and several other people suspected sabotage. But my father’s brother, one of my uncles, talked her out of it, saying that since she was at that time in the country illegally they would probably deport her. We think UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 2 since then that he was a Nazi sympathizer and that that’s why he did not want the investigation made. But that’s family lore and I don’t know that there’s any justification for that. What was he involved in? What was he doing? In the military? My father? Yes. He was working on the gyroscope project. He was a journeyman steamfitter. He was working and he was blasted out of a steam tunnel and burned rather severely and died a few days later of his injuries. My mother remarried. I had a stepfather for the rest of my growing- up years after about age eight or nine. We moved from the country into town. I went to California for two years for my first two years of high school because I had a lot of allergy and ear trouble. Went back to Michigan, finished high school. I worked a year at General Motors tech center and then went back to California to start college. What were you doing at GM? Just— I was pretty much a messenger girl with the styling division. They made us dress up and look good because it was a tourist attraction. Not a tourist attraction so much as they had a lot of industrial people going through because it was new then, the General Motors technical center, and the styling division was kind of the pearl there. What is the styling division? That’s where they designed the cars, in secret studios that we were never allowed in. Only to bring messages to. Only to bring them to the door. Yes, it was all very hush- hush. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 3 When I graduated from high school, I was an exchange student. I left home and I was in Germany for ten days with a host family but they ran out of host families for all of the students so I went to Denmark and spent six weeks with a student group there called Lisle Fellowship. The sponsor of my exchange program was Youth for Understanding, which started in Michigan and was very small at the time. Now it’s quite a large group. Then I spent the six weeks in Denmark with Lisle Fellowship and another week in Copenhagen at a girl’s apartment, just kind of walking the city, and then a week in Stockholm, Sweden, walking the city again, mostly because we didn’t have any money to do much else. That started my lifelong desire to travel and I’ve been doing it ever since. I went to California, went to college for a year, left college and got married and had three children, and they were all born in the San Francisco Bay area, one in Oakland, two in San Francisco at the army base, the Presidio there. What is your husband’s name? [ 00: 05: 00] My husband’s name at the time— I’m divorced now— my husband’s name was Henry R. Gordon. He was in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the United States Army. Had worked for the Atomic Energy Commission before he went into the army, and when he decided to resign his commission he sent out resumes to most of the Atomic Energy subcontractors. An interesting sideline, again I don’t know if you want to include it, is the fact that he had several appointments for interviews and one day we came home late from visiting my sister across the bay and I looked out my kitchen window at the headquarters building. I had worked for the Adjutant General’s Office in the Sixth Army headquarters building and so I knew what the rooms were, and there was a light on up on the third floor and I said to my husband, Either some janitor’s in trouble for leaving the light on or we are because that’s the war room. And the next day the Cuban Missile Crisis broke. All leaves were cancelled so UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 4 we were a little concerned about what was going to happen when Hank got out of the army if we did not have a job. Fortunately, that was just a short- term thing, but then he was able to go ahead and have his interviews. I was just curious about, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, how the atmosphere on the base was and— Well, for the first time since World War II there was a guard on the gate. There had not been a guard on the gate during the Korean War. The base was still open. It at that time was part of the tourist route in San Francisco, but they had huge spotlights that if you came in at night they shone right on you and you were looked over fairly carefully. However, most people entering were not stopped. But it was tense. We didn’t know, number one, if Hank would get any leave to go for his interviews or if, number two, he would even be released from the army. Of course, if things had escalated he probably would’ve been kept in the army. He was in the Judge Advocate General’s office at the time. But again, he did have his interviews. He was hired by Holmes and Narver. We spent two months in California, in the Los Angeles area, but we knew they were sending about two hundred people up to Las Vegas to open their office here and so I think Hank went in every day and begged them to send him to Las Vegas because we did not like Los Angeles. So he was transferred here. We spent a month back east while he went to a procurement law course, and then we came to Las Vegas and settled in. And at the time you had the three boys? I had all three of my children. What are their names? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 5 Their names are Jeffrey Allen, Scott Douglas, and Andrew Patrick. Jeffrey was born in Oakland and Scott and Andrew were born at the Presidio of San Francisco, Letterman Army Hospital. And they were quite young when we came here. Andy was nine months old. So this was 1963. I think it was March 3rd that we came here, so I count that as my anniversary year. We flew back from the Washington, D. C. area and lived in an apartment for a couple of months till our house was finished and then we moved into our house. What was Las Vegas like in 1963? It was very small. There was a two- lane highway out of town in four directions. I should say there were two- lane highways out of town. They were named after where they went and they still are, kind of: Boulder Highway, the L. A. highway, the Salt Lake highway, and the Tonopah highway. They were none of them four lanes; they were all two lanes. You could get almost anywhere in town in maybe fifteen minutes. After a while, you began to know so many people that you almost never went somewhere without running into someone you knew. And it was a fairly decent place to live. The humidity was much lower then. And I still consider it a good place to raise children. Our children were involved in school and athletic activities most of their lives, and two of them still live here. One of them would not move back here for anything. [ 00: 10: 00] You mentioned that you have a son that lives in New Mexico? He lives in Albuquerque, and he is also an attorney and does quite a lot of work for the Los Alamos lab. Really. Yes, he does most of their employment law. And so we’ve maintained our connection. Was he in the military also? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 6 No, he was not. My oldest son was the only one who was in the military, and he went into the army for two years, I believe it was, and then the Army National Guard. He is no longer in the guard and I’m glad. He is probably not but his wife was not very happy with the time the guard took so he resigned. Wow. So upon moving to Las Vegas, I’m just wondering what some of your initial impressions were and particularly like memories of the test site and activities and sort of what you thought about, all of that. I was very apolitical at the time. I was very concerned with raising three children and keeping a marriage together, so I did not do an awful lot then. My memories are of occasional tests. When we moved to Arabian Road and had a swimming pool, we used to go out and watched the water slosh back and forth in the swimming pool when there were tests. Really! And that was from the underground. Yes, I believe by then they were underground. In fact, they were all underground after we came. Yes. I’m not very good with dates so I don’t remember any— Nineteen sixty- two, I think, is when they stopped. Yes, we were just after that. Another thing I forgot, when I was in high school out in California I was living up on a ridge between Hayward and San Leandro area and Castro Valley, and we were right on top of the Hayward Fault. But I can remember early one morning before daylight having the curtains open in my bedroom and seeing the sky light up as if it were daylight, and that was an above ground test. It would’ve been somewhere between 1952 and 1954. I’m not quite familiar with the geography of California. How far is that from the test site or from Las Vegas? It seems like it’s pretty far. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 7 It’s a good long way because it would take, at that time without any freeways much, it would take about twelve hours to drive up there. So that’s a good distance. It’s a good distance. It’s probably over five hundred miles. But we were told it was a flash from an above ground test. Really. What did you think about that? I was just fascinated by it at that time. And you must remember then I went to work— I guess you don’t remember because I didn’t tell you. One of the things I did when I lived in California after I finished school, after I spent a year in college, I went to work for the Sixth Army headquarters. As I said, I had worked at the Adjutant General’s Office. One of my jobs there was to run a quarterly troop strength report, and that meant that I had a list of what troops were required in every unit in the Sixth Army area, and then I would get a list, a report in of how many actual people there were in each grade in each unit, and I would have to consolidate all that into a report that told us what units were up to staff and what weren’t. One of the units that I did a troop strength report on was Camp Desert Rock, and years later on Palm Sunday one year, and I don’t remember what year it was, we were down at— we used to be allowed to go in over the cattle guard and go down a ways on the road, and they had set up benches with just lumber and rocks and they set up a card table as an altar and we had a Palm Sunday service on the grounds of Camp Desert Rock. And I sat there thinking, my God, years ago I used to run troop strength reports for the unit that was here, and it was amazing to me to feel that I had come full circle. We had walked down that road carrying palm branches and singing, and there I was sitting on the grounds of Camp Desert Rock. And initially when you ran those reports, you probably thought nothing of it. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 8 No. I was a military employee, I had been, and that was part of my job and I was very politically [ 00: 15: 00] unaware, I guess is what you would say, at that time. How did you come to be a military employee? Those were the jobs that were available. I put in a lot of applications and that was one. And I’m assuming that that’s how also you met your husband. Yes, I did. I met him at the Presidio and we were married on the Presidio. Oh wow. So I guess I’m sort of curious as to what was the turning point when you sort of became a little bit more political and aware of things at the test site, and you also mentioned that you’re a former teacher and librarian? I went back to college after my children were born and I was very much a housewife and raising small children. I had my children fairly close together, like three within three years. Wow, you must have been very busy. Yes, I was, and moving to a totally strange community. I knew absolutely no one here when we moved here. So life was a bit of a struggle. And then I went back to college, and I had started out my first year in college majoring in political science, and I changed my major to English and education because I thought that would be a better profession for a mother with children. And I went in and I didn’t even know the local jargon. One of my first teachers kept talking about “ your bag” and the other students were talking about “ your bag” and I had no idea what they were talking about. Was this still in the 1960s? It was in the late 1960s, I believe. And I asked one day and he said, What are you, a housewife? And I said, Well, yes. And he said, Well, that’s your bag. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 9 That was my explanation. So I had a lot to learn. Students in those days would go down and picket the post office as antiwar demonstrators because that was the only federal building in town. The post office down by campus? Downtown. No, downtown. Right downtown. The old post office building right near city hall. And they would go down and picket the post office as their part of antiwar demonstrations. I had ideas in my head and I didn’t talk much about them and I just kind of kept them to myself, but I was formulating my thoughts regarding war and things like that. I had three sons and I was concerned about that. When I had worked at the Sixth Army headquarters, a couple of the officers that I knew there had gone to Vietnam as military advisors, MAGs. That was our involvement in Vietnam at the time. Again, as military employee and a military wife I was not particularly antiwar, although I was concerned. The turning point for me, I think, was seeing— I really don’t know; it was a gradual thing. One of the landmarks I remember is seeing the movie Coming Home. And I walked out of that and someone who was obviously very disturbed by the movie and was an acquaintance of one of the people I was with said, Well, what did you think of that? and I said— this was at a time when things were kind of hot in Central America, which has gone on— I could pick a year and it could be any year— but I remember saying, Well, I think if things get any tougher or any hotter in Central America, I want to take my sons and go to Canada. They were teenagers at the time, so it was quite a bit later. Now, did you have a dual citizenship because—? No, I’ve always had just American citizenship. I’ve often thought that I could probably go to Canada and claim citizenship based on my mother. I don’t know. I don’t know what their laws are. I’ve never looked into it because I would not give up my American citizenship. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 10 At that point, though, I was feeling very strongly about sending my sons off to a war that I didn’t agree with. I had a teaching assistant in one of my classes and her name was Cynthia Cunningham and I think, listening to her and talking to her and getting to know her as a friend, I [ 00: 20: 00] began to really solidify my feelings about the test site, especially the test site. One of the things that I was concerned about with the test site was the fact that when they did underground testing, if the wind was blowing toward Las Vegas they didn’t do it, and I thought to myself, Gee, that’s interesting. They cancelled the test today because the wind’s blowing toward us. What happens when the wind’s blowing in other directions? And I really didn’t know much about Downwinders at that time but I was questioning in my own mind what was going on. I also remember at the time that some time, and again I’m not very good with years, the dump at Beatty was open and they were putting a lot of things there, supposedly dry waste. There were rumors about the people of Beatty going down and digging up tools that had some radiation, and the fact that there was concern about— they used to say Beatty didn’t need street lights; it lit up on its own. And these were jokes but to me they didn’t sound very funny. And I do remember an incident when a truck went through town, supposedly carrying dry waste to Beatty, and it was found out to have been carrying wet waste and had been leaking. They said there was no radiation leak, but the fact that a truck that was supposedly carrying dry waste came through our town, number one, was carrying waste that shouldn’t have— that incident stuck in my mind for a long, long time because number one, I don’t trust big business to follow the rules, which they weren’t. Number two, in following the rules I don’t trust them to package waste as carefully as is required. Obviously if a load went through here dripping there was a problem. And it came through Las Vegas dripping? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 11 Yes, it went through on our highways. And again, I don’t remember what year that was but I remember reading it in the paper. Those were things that really solidified my resistance to not only nuclear testing but when they proposed the dump, and that’s why I’m opposed to it to this day. I started getting involved in the demonstrations at the test site, and again I don’t know what year that was. One of the first ones was the demonstration when we were allowed on the site and we carried our palm branches down. I don’t know that that was the first one I went to but it was certainly one of the earliest. That one stands out in my mind, and another one that stands out in my mind is one that was done on Mother’s Day. And my feelings were fairly well- known at Bishop Gorman High School where I taught and was the librarian. And one of the students came up and said, Are you going to the test site on Mother’s Day? And I said, Yes. And she said, Would you take me with you? And I said, If you have your parents’ permission. And I will not give her name because that young lady’s father was very involved politically in Nevada politics. They said she could go. I’ve often wondered what they felt about it because I don’t remember frankly what his stand was on nuclear testing, and I’m sure he’s opposed to the nuclear dump at this time. And is he still in politics right now? He’s not in public office now but he’s still, I’m sure, very involved. But he does not hold a public office at this time. So his daughter and I went out and it was a Mother’s Day demonstration. It was a Mother’s Day activity run by women for women, and one of the things that stands out in my UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 12 mind is that Martin Sheen, who has been very generous in lending his name to the anti- testing stand, came in to the tent. There was a big tent there that we were having speeches, and he came in very quietly and he came up the side and sat down on an empty chair, very unobtrusively, and I was so impressed because he did not take away anything from what the women were doing. He [ 00: 25: 00] very obviously was there to lend his support, not for his own aggrandizement, and I was very impressed with that, because he did come in so quietly. They called him up to the stand and introduced him but he very much deferred to the women that day. He was one of the first to walk across the cattle guard and be arrested. And as I said he was very generous in lending his name and his prestige to these— mostly what I did in the early days is I opened up my house to people who came for the Nevada Lenten. It was called the Nevada Lenten Experience or something like that in the early years [ Lenten Desert Experience became Nevada Desert Experience]. Nevada Lenten? It was run with Lent and they did a forty- days��� thing. And people came in and out of town and I offered what beds I had available whenever I could, and floor space. One day I was introduced to a young person and I said, Well, welcome to my house, and he said, Actually I slept here last night. He had come in after I went to bed and left before I got up that morning. So I never knew who was there. Sometimes I was even not in town. Because it was during Easter week, we had the week off usually from Gorman and I went to my sister’s in California quite a bit. Oh. But you had just opened your house for folks to use? Yes. This was after I was divorced. Do you mind if I ask what year that was? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 13 Nineteen seventy- six was the year I got my divorce. And I moved into a house on Palma Vista Avenue then. And it was a large house and as my children grew older and graduated and went off to college, I did have more room so I made that available to them. And I began to have back trouble so I didn’t do as much going out to demonstrate. And that was my way of supporting them. That sounds like it’s a very involved way, though. Usually, as I said, I quite often wasn’t home. In fact, one time they had a party at my house and I was in California. They had asked my permission to have people come over. It made a gathering place for them, kind of away from the center, and a chance to, I’m sure, relax more. How many people on average, do you know, used to come here? Used to stay there? Yes. Oh no, it wasn’t very many that would stay overnight. Maybe five or six. Again, I don’t know how many slept on the floor in the living room. That’s one of the advantages to being deaf in one ear. You don’t really hear a lot. I have a question, if we could go back for just a minute. Certainly. I’m just curious. You said the Mother’s Day demonstration, the one that you attended at least, was organized by women. Do you remember any of their names offhand and if they’re still involved and still in the area? No, I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t. That’s OK. I’m just curious. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 14 My biggest contact was with Cynthia Cunningham, and I was very involved. She would just kind of drag me into some few things. We worked on the Equal Rights Amendment. I didn’t do a lot. Then again I was struggling with a marriage and small children so I hadn’t learned yet how to budget time very well. I remember one demonstration, and this was after I was involved with Peace Links. Cynthia was the president of the Peace Links organization here in town and through my knowledge of her I joined Peace Links. And one time Betty Bumpers, who was the founder of Peace Links, came out and was part of a demonstration. And another woman, oh, what’s her name? Wasserman. I have it in my book. Is very involved with the UN, and I did not hear from her this year but in other years I’ve heard from her and she’s been very involved with the UN and antinuclear testing. Hannah Wasserman, from New York, came out with Betty and I’ve kept in touch with her through the years. Betty Bumpers is the wife of former Senator Dale Bumpers [ 00: 30: 00] of Arkansas. She’s still involved quite a bit. We’ve disbanded Peace Links. She felt that their mission was over and that other groups were able to take on some of their projects. But she still keeps a network going of people she’s in contact with, and I had a long talk with her this spring and as always she’s so inspiring. Of all the role models I’ve ever had, I think Cynthia Cunningham and Betty Bumpers were two of the major role models for me. They’re just women whom I admire extremely. Cynthia was also involved in a group that met on Monday mornings, and they started out working on the Equal Rights Amendment. They were called People of Faith for Social Justice, and it was a group of lay and clergy from many different denominations who would meet early in the morning and they were working to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. When that fell through with a great thud, they kind of drifted away. Most of the clergy were busy with other projects and things and there was a nucleus of mostly women who continued to meet, and I used UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 15 to hear stories about their meetings and the things they discussed and the books they read, and for years envied them tremendously. Since I’ve retired and after I had some family responsibilities, I’ve been able to join the group, and we meet Monday mornings. Not every Monday morning but as many as we can all get together. We read a variety of books and things and discuss them. And lately we haven’t been reading any books. We’ve been bringing in a lot of publications off the Internet and things and discussing them. And we do a lot of letter writing, phone calling. Some of the members have protested our involvement in the Gulf War, down in front of the Federal Building. And we’re all involved in different things but we still keep those meetings going. How long have you been involved in that group? With that group? Yes, with the Monday morning group. Probably about the last maybe six or seven years, off and on. I’m gone quite a bit. I’m trying to remember exactly but I really don’t. That’s OK. Time just runs on with me. I’m not particularly conscious of years. But I think it’s been a good five or six years. Do you want to turn that off for a minute? Can you stop it? I can— Pause it. Yes. I have to think back— [ 00: 33: 15] End Track 2, Disk 1. [ 00: 00: 00] Begin Track 3, Disk 1. UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 16 — got involved with it. Right. How many people are involved in the group at this point? At this point, we just lost one a few weeks ago, one of the long- time members, and we’ve gained a couple and we have some who come intermittently. The nucleus of us, I would say, is one, two, three, four— six or seven of us are the most faithful about being there and then maybe three or four more that come occasionally. And one moved away not too long ago to be near family. I’m sixty- five and for a long time I was the second youngest member of the group so you can imagine attrition is setting in. I think we have a couple of younger ones now. As people retire they can start coming to the meetings. So we have another teacher who came in this year who’s retired but she has a lot of family responsibilities so she doesn’t always make it. Most of them I knew through Peace Links, and many of our different projects I would run into them. And are they also involved with test site issues or—? Yes. Yes. Sister Rosemary Lynch is I’m sure a name you have. Sister Rosemary Lynch lectures and does workshops on nonviolent protests, and she goes all over the world doing that. I actually think Mary Palevsky talked with her last week, so— Oh, did she? She’s in the Monday morning group, and Sister Klaryta [ Antoszewska], who is another Franciscan nun, and she mostly works with refugees but she’s also involved in our group. Some of the names that I will give you later for you to contact are also in the Monday morning group, are also involved in other activities too, as well. A lot of us are involved with Catholic Worker, either as volunteers or contributors. That’s feeding the homeless but they’re also nonviolent people. And a lot of the people who work with Catholic Worker also work with Pace e Bene which is the Franciscan group. Sister Rosemary is on their board. Has that been a fairly large part of what influenced your activism as well? UNLV Nevada Test Site Oral History Project 17 The Monday morning group? The Monday morning group and sort of the social— The network. Yes. Yes. Yes, very definitely. When the Peace March came through— you would not remember that I’m sure— there was this grandiose march for nuclear disarmament. That was mid- 1980s, I thin