U Magazine, Summer 1989

American children at Sea World are

A flanked by two paint– ings done by Soviet youngsters. BRIDGE

OF PEACE

By Jacqueline Genovese

Ir is the early 60s. The

war through citizen diplomacy. Her feelings are understandable. Six years ago the terms glasnost and per– estroika were unfamiliar to the general public. King was a full-time mother and volunteer and MEND was still a gleam in founder Linda Smith Kapstein's eyes. But the Pacific Beach resident's life began to change when she decided to rejoin the work force in 1983. The one– time Bishop Buddy Award winner first landed a job as director of development for La Jolla 's Mingei International Mu– seum. Three years later she joined MEND to direct international fund-raising efforts. "I had heard about MEND and I identified with their goals, " she says. When the job of executive director came open, King decided to "throw my hat in the ring." Her subsequent appointment has "led to more fulfilling experiences than I ever dared to

Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis and Russian Premier

Nikita Khrushchev's vow to "bury" the United States chill the nation. The Com– munist threat, in short, is a vivid part of Maureen (Pecht '64) King's every day life. It is September, 1988. Maureen King jogs along the Moscow River. She stops to admire the sunrise above the Kremlin and is amazed to realize how comfortable she feels running alone, without her passport or any identification. "If someone had told me, even six years ago, that in 1988 I would be in Russia , I would have thought they were crazy! " laughs King, executive director of the San Diego-based Mothers Embracing Nuclear Disarmament, an international non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to reducing the risk of nuclear

Maureen (Pecht '64) King and her colleagues at Mothers Embracing Nuclear Disarmament recently brought Soviet-American relations to a new and personal level.

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UMagazine 7