Sunday, January 18, 1987 Marin Independent Journal

OPINION

Marin can host Soviet-U.S. effort

By Dwayne Hunn

Imagine that upon graduation from college, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan had spent three months in a college setting learning effective ways to work in lesser developed countries.

And then imagine that after those three months of training, Mikhail and Ron were roommates and partners working the following year in troubled spots such as Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Egypt or Cambodia to help improve the lives of the people around them.

Today, wouldn’t you be more comfortable knowing that those two guys have a bunch of memories that were reason enough to take advantage of low long-distance rates “to reach out and touch someone”?

How angry would those two have to be to forget those memories and “push the button”?

A generation from now, if the above scenario becomes reality for our leaders, the world will be better able to deal with the new set of problems that will then face humankind.

Marin can help the world become safer today and better able to maturely cope with tomorrow’s problem by wisely using its Buck bequest. In settling the Buck trial, Judge Homer B. Thompson stipulated:

“Twenty percent of the Buck Trust income (should) be permanently and irrevocably set aside for the purpose of funding a major project or projects (not to exceed three) in Marin County, and that the project(s) be of national and international importance and significance, the benefits of which will affect not only Marin County but all humankind.”

I will be asking one or more of the parties to the litigation to sponsor a model East-West Peace Corps proposal as one of the proposals that Judge Thompson funds.

The proposal would fund a Model East-West Peace Corps centered at a place like World College West which requires a year of study abroad for every student. The program would start with 25 Soviets and 25 Americans who model their training after the initial Peace Corps program. They would train for service in areas that are “hot spots” on the maps of both superpowers.

Soviets and Americans would work together in villages, slums, schools, medical centers, farming communes, recreation centers — wherever their host country requested. Colleges all over the world would be encouraged to emulate the program. In time, the model would grow into armies of Peace Corps volunteers — armies whose “invasion” the world would welcome.

Whenever a tear begins to appear in the fabric of the Earth — volunteers could be sent. They would be the young weavers of the world whose efforts would be the threads that would mend the tears and iron out the wrinkles until the world came back into shape.

Their desire to help would be more heroic than any Rambo. The bonds of friendship built through the team effort of living and working with individuals from the other side will make giant leaps for mankind easier on Earth.

The 1960s saw California revive the citizens’ initiative process. From California, it spread across the nation. Because of the Buck Trust, Marin can be the home base for a series of initiatives that can ease world tension between the superpowers while helping to alleviate poverty, famine, illiteracy and resource depletion.

Conferences and treaties between dignitaries miss the essential building block: intense, prolonged experiences between the participants that result in personal trust.

Wouldn’t it have been great if in 1980, Reagan could have said to Secretary of State George Schultz, “I don’t know what the Soviet Union is doing in Central America, but from living and working with Gorbachev for a year, I know I can trust him. I’ll call him tonight and we’ll straighten that mess out.”

If you feel having thousands of young people from powerful nations sharing time together working in lesser developed countries is a project of “international importance” that can benefit “all humankind,” contact the decision makers who can help support the proposal and send a letter to Marin Independent Initiatives Institute at P.O. Box 466, Novato 94948.

Dwayne Hunn of Mill Valley is assistant editor of Novato Ecumenical Housing.