Live With Your Heart
John Wallach, founder and president of Seeds of Peace Camp, died this
summer. Following are excerpts from a letter sent by his son, Michael, to
the campers at Seeds of Peace.
I hope I can convey to you how deeply he loved each one of you, and how
passionately he believed in you. Many of you knew the dream he cherished,
that someday you would return to camp, as leaders of your countries, and
sign a final peace accord, once and for all. Of course, each of you knew him
from camp in your own way, and in the way that we shared him " as the
inspirational leader, the man who insisted you work harder, reach out more,
and believe more deeply in yourself and in your friends. He knew that you
were his dreams come true.
My father was not always a peace activist. He was the son of Holocaust
survivors, who had escaped from Europe only by the smallest margin of luck.
He used to share the story of my grandparents' escape with me, always ending
it with the phrase, "its amazing that we're alive!"
His first big story almost got him fired. He had heard that the American
President, Lyndon Johnson had considered stopping the Vietnam War, but had
decided against it. John wrote a front page story. President Johnson was so
upset at the bad press that he asked the head of the newspaper to fire him.
"Get rid of that whippersnapper" said Johnson.
Later in his life, more presidents, and the CIA wished he had been fired. In
the 1980's he broke a newspaper story in America about how the U.S.
government had illegally shipped weapons to the Contras in Nicaragua, and
how the CIA had secretly mined the Nicaraguan harbors. It was called the
Iran-Contra scandal, and he won the highest award you could win for
journalism, called the Overseas Press Club award.
In 1985, my father began working for peace in a different way, starting a
dialogue program between U.S. and Soviet diplomats, and an exchange between
American and Soviet artists. It was called the Chautauqua Conference, and
thousands of Soviet citizens came to a small town in New York to meet
Americans for the first time. Together, they listened to bluegrass music and
talked about the future, and shook hands for the first time.
Soon after, my father started a newspaper called "WE," which was the first
paper published in both the Soviet Union and the United States. He brought
American Jazz singers to Moscow. People were so excited that they filled the
thousand-seat auditorium night after night. By the end of each show, their
hearts had been so touched by the message, and their excitement so built up
by the music that they stood on the seats of their chairs cheering, and
demanding more.
In 1993, as the Soviet Union had begun to change, he was invited to Moscow
by Mikhail Gorbachev and given its highest award, the Soviet Medal of
Freedom.
In the middle of a cocktail party, he publicly asked the Israeli, Egyptian
and Palestinian ambassadors if they would send him 20 kids each to meet the
other side. My father had written three books about the Middle East and he
knew that to get some real progress he was going to have to put people on
the spot. Embarrassed in front of the crowd, and trusting my father, they
agreed.
That first year, Bobbie Gottschalk, Tim Wilson, and he put together camp
with 45 kids. That September the kids were on the White House Lawn. Yitzhak
Rabin said, "witnessing these young people standing here together gives me
hope that one day we will have peace."
Bill Clinton grew to know Seeds of Peace and my father very closely,
presenting him with a peace award in 2001. But in 1994, my dad had to make a
decision " he couldn't continue his career as a journalist AND run Seeds of
Peace. It was one or the other. He had been a journalist for 26 years. It
was all he knew. It gave him a good salary, with benefits for when he got
old. He was a member of the White House press team " the top of his
profession. His articles were printed around the country. Important people
spoke to him about their opinions.
Seeds of Peace was a summer camp with 50 kids. But it had heart. It promised
something that nothing else in the world could " a chance to end killing, to
end generations of sadness, to give people hope. He chose Seeds of Peace.
For the past 10 years he worked night and day to make Seeds of Peace a
reality. He called hundreds of his friends, asking if they could help in any
way. Some people donated sports items, some paintings, some time to live in
their homes.
Slowly, he built up enough money to run the program every summer. The
auctions got bigger. Musicians began to donate their time, and soon we had
concerts and shows. For the last three years, Seeds of Peace has sold out
Carnegie Hall " a two thousand-seat auditorium " in what is probably the
biggest American pro-peace rally.
And Seeds of Peace, of course, has grown. Indians and Pakistanis, Balkans,
Americans, Cypriots, Turks, Greeks. With each one of you coming to camp and
meeting kids from the other side for yourself, another spirit entered the
dream, another heart joined this incredible family. They were the most
exciting moments of his life. He had seen the violence up close while he was
a journalist. But now, thanks to your courage as well as his, my father was
looking out at Israelis and Arabs standing beside each other.
He cherished the coexistence sessions, understanding that everyone needed to
shout and to yell and to cry. "Its a detox program," he wrote, "to get rid
of all the hatred that we have built up inside."
As I grew closer to my dad before he died, I began to understand that the greatest gift he had given me was the ability to love. He taught me how to love Seeds of Peace, and he taught me how to love each of you. It was only through my dad that I slowly came to understand what it meant to live a life with heart. It is your job now to live with your heart. He can only urge you on saying again and again to "cherish your time here!" "You've only got three weeks!"
Back to Peace Talk Index, Autumn, 2002