International Peace Center

Major components of the International Peace Building are:

• The International Peace Building would have office space for the Wholistic Peace Institute and a series of researches who would study the peace agreements and how the Nobel Peace Laureates achieved lasting peace in the areas they worked.  This would give a ‘body of knowledge’ that could offer new solutions to today’s conflicts.
• The Peace Building would also house offices for as many as 6 Nobel Peace Laureates to stay in Portland for anywhere from 2-12 months, doing research, conferences and empowering our University professors and inspiring our students.
• Major Universities in the state would have dedicated office space there where they could house professors; interact regularly with Nobel Peace Laureates; co-teach classes there with Nobel Peace Laureates. The Institute has regularly worked with Oregon’s Universities as partners and the following have hosted Nobel Peace Laureates with the Institute:
  • Lewis & Clark College
  • University of Portland
  • Portland State University
  • Reed College
  • Marylhurst University
  • Oregon State University
  • Linfield College
  • Other schools would be welcome
• The Oregon Department of Education and the Oregon Education Association could also have offices to further research the Nobel Peace Laureate messages and how we can educate our students to take them as role models and apply their messages in their school room relationships.
• Other peace international peace organizations such as Mercy Corps; Rotary International.
• Institutions such as Oregon Health Sciences University who pursue a path related to “global health’ would also have major office space.
• Professions such as the human rights attorneys in Oregon
• The Garden would be dedicated to the highest aspirations of humanity
• The Garden would be a place of beauty and would inspire all who visit it
• The Garden would become a signature aspect of Portland’s urban environment
• The process used to develop the Garden would be one of “peacemaking”
• The Garden would be dedicated to the highest ideals of humanity and the values which the Nobel Peace Laureates have used to bring aspects of world peace; they are:
  • The value of Compassion
  • The value of Reconciliation
  • The value of Compassion
  • The value of Self-Sacrifice
  • The value of Hope
• We intend to bring to Portland a special team of world peace leaders, the Nobel Peace Laureates to help develop the theme and bring national attention on the effort.
• A major question the Garden of Peace should ask is: What is Portland’s healing?
• The Garden of Peace should be focused on harmony, it should be in the present and forward seeking, rather than backward focused;
• It should define harmony as an integration of: nature & people and be Wholistic in approach;
• Peace for the whole means peace for every individual; peace for the whole comes from the individual journey of peace;
• Wholeness is an outgrowth of switching the focus from the “self” to the “other”, i.e. how can I help the other, rather than what can I get out of this for my self;
• The Garden should be positive, aspiring, and establish a new vision of peace; it should not be driven by the past, but what the future could be if our highest aspirations can be realized;
• It should start with at question: What are the foundations for peaceful coexistence in humanity?
• The Garden should create hope and demonstrate (with programs) how the average citizen can do something for the broader whole; it should be a “can do” Garden;
• The Garden should not be politicized but should focus on our highest aspirations for peace;
• It should encourage a sense of “Universal Responsibility” and a sense that all human beings on the Earth, are part of one large family, one Universal sisterhood and brotherhood

• The South Waterfront Area is the ideal place to locate it:
  • Near the Tram touch down point & served by the street car from downtown;
  • Near the River a transition zone between human development & the natural world;
  • to have space in a building that would be attached or nearby so that the on-going use of the Garden would have a program with a “peacemaking” component;
  • An area of the River could be created that would have a salmon pond, thus the healing of the human relationship with the natural world;
  • Certain design elements could reflect Northwest values: a long house and some involvement with Oregon Tribes; the symbol of the Native American “peace pipe”.

Overview of the Linus Pauling Square Concept:

Linus Pauling is Oregon’s only Nobel Peace Laureate and the only person to win two Nobel prizes in separate categories. His Nobel Prize in Chemistry has a foundation around it and is located at Oregon State University. His Nobel Prize in Peace also has a foundation around it and is located in the rooming house his mother operated at one time at Hawthorne Boulevard & 39th Avenue.  We wish to create a one acre square where large gatherings can occur and where Nobel Peace Laureates, such as the Dalai Lama can give talks.  The following is extracted from the Nobel Organization web page:
Linus Pauling (1901- 1994), the only person who has won two undivided Nobel Prizes, was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of a pharmacist, Henry H.W. Pauling, and Lucy (Darling) Pauling. He attended Washington High School in Portland but because of a technicality did not receive his diploma until 1962, long after he had received his bachelor’s degree from Oregon State College in 1922, his doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in 1925, and honorary degrees from universities in 7 countries.

The use of the atomic bomb near the end of the war turned Pauling in a new direction. As one who had long worked on the structure of molecules, both normal and abnormal, on their behavior in the human body, and on their transmission through heredity, he took an immediate and intense interest in the potentially malignant effects of nuclear fallout on human molecular structures, as well as in the forces of blast and fire released by an exploding bomb. From the late forties on, Pauling, as a member of Einstein’s Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, this was active from 1946 to 1950, as a supporter of many peace organizations, and as an individual, has waged a constant campaign against war and its now nuclear nature. He calculated estimates on the probable frequency of congenital deformity in future generations resulting from carbon 14 and radioactive fission products released by nuclear testing, and publicized them; protested the production of the hydrogen bomb; advocated the prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons; promoted the banning of tests of nuclear weapons as a first step toward multilateral disarmament.

In the early fifties and again in the early sixties, he encountered accusations of being pro-Soviet or Communist, allegations which he categorically denied. For a few years prior to 1954, he had restrictions placed by the Department of State on his eligibility to obtain a passport.  In 1958, on January 15, he presented to the UN the celebrated petition signed by 9,235 scientists from many countries in the world protesting further nuclear testing. In that same year he published No More War!, a book which presents the rationale for abandoning not only further use and testing of nuclear weapons but also war itself, and which proposes the establishment of a World Peace Research Organization within the structure of the UN to “attack the problem of preserving the peace”.

When the Soviet Union announced a resumption of nuclear testing in August, 1961, after the nuclear powers had voluntarily withheld testing for three years, Pauling redoubled his efforts to convince the Russian, American, and British leaders of the necessity of a test ban treaty. He spoke as a man of science. His intellectual position is summarized in a communication published in Harper’s Magazine in 1963: “I have said that my ethical principles have caused me to reach the conclusion that the evil of war should be abolished; but my conclusion that war must be abolished if the human race is to survive is based not on ethical principles but on my thorough and careful analysis, in relation to international affairs, of the facts about the changes that have taken place in the world during recent years, especially with respect to the nature of war.”  The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, outlawing all but underground nuclear testing, was signed in July, 1963, and went into effect on October 10, 1963, the same day on which the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Peace Prize reserved in the year 1962 was to be awarded to Linus Pauling.