The collection consists of some personal papers, together with papers pertaining to several organizations which Pickus was instrumental in founding: Acts for Peace, Turn Toward Peace, and the World Without War Council. The papers are arranged into two main sections: 1) correspondence and general papers, which include Pickus' personal mail and some organizational correspondence and which provide a chronological approach to research and 2) organizational files, which offer subject-oriented access. Types of documentation present include correspondence, memoranda, reports, minutes, speeches and articles, clippings, publicity, and a wide variety of publications and forms. A final category consists of photographs and ephemera.
Unfortunately the collection is not particularly revealing with regard to certain aspects of Pickus' career. Very little material pertains to his work in Chicago with the AFSC and though several items point to his differences with the majority of the anti-Vietnam War movement, there is little concerning his important thought in that regard. Internal evidence suggests that a fairly sophisticated organizational scheme existed for the records while they were stored in the AFP/TTP office in Berkeley. Unfortunately during initial processing in 1970 this order was destroyed and when work resumed later a new arrangement had to be imposed on the collection.
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL PAPERS form almost half of the collection, with the majority of the items occurring during the period 1958-1963. Though the correspondence is incomplete even for that period, it provides good material on the establishment and operation of Acts for Peace and on the cross-currents within the California peace movement.
Of the ORGANIZATIONAL PAPERS, about one-third concern Acts for Peace, one-third concern Turn Toward Peace, and the remainder concern the World Without War Council, the American Friends Service Committee and the Fallout Suits of which Pickus was a committee member. For AFP and TTP the files contain a great deal of similar documentation, particularly publications, and parallel arrangement schemes have been used for both. Administrative papers of Acts for Peace include incorporation papers, minutes, reports, and financial records. The affiliated peace center files contain material sent to AFP's Berkeley office and as a result are not complete. Of special note here is a house-to-house survey of peace attitudes in Palo Alto. Under the publications heading is a wide variety of printed matter, ranging from completed meeting report forms to press releases and publicity. Project files are arranged into two sequences: short term projects and on-going, undated efforts. Both types contain a variety of documentation including press releases, clippings, flyers, memoranda, and related printed matter distributed by AFP. Noteworthy among these projects are completed conscientious objector interview forms and reviews of current literature.
The Turn Toward Peace files divide into three sections: internal administrative files of the Pacific Central Office, which Pickus headed, material received from the national office concerning projects with which Pickus was directly concerned, and material received from various local and regional TTP offices. As might be expected, the first category contains the more valuable and unique documentation.
Administrative files of the Pacific Central office include minutes, reports, and financial records. Of the files on the local California affiliated centers, those on the Marin Peace Center are fairly extensive, even including some minutes and financial records, Project files indicate a continuation by TTP of many of the same efforts begun by AFP and much the same types of material are present.
For a detailed study of the national history of Turn Toward Peace, the researcher should consult the files at the Bancroft Library (a temporary folder listing for which is located in the Pickus case file in the Archives Division). Because of this collection, only national materials of particular research value or items with which Pickus was directly involved have been retained: a fairly complete set of minutes; files on early organizational matters and drafts of TTP policy statements; a copy of a Handbook for Community Centers and Peace and the American Community, a manual for peace instructors; and files on the youth arm of TTP, which organized the February 1962 Washington Project.
Among the local and regional affiliates the files pertaining to the New England and the Northwest office (and the Seattle Peace Center) are most complete. These include correspondence and printed matter. Material about the World Without War Council is rather fragmentary, consisting only of a few printed items deposited by Pickus, to which has been added items from the Social Action vertical file. The AFSC material consists of flyers and bulletins prepared and distributed by Pickus as head of the peace education program and a few internal administrative memoranda. About the other group with which Pickus was involved, the “Fallout Suits,” which was an attempt to prevent international nuclear testing by litigation, there are form letters, press releases, clippings, and legal documents.
MISCELLANY includes some correspondence of uncertain provenance (outgoing letters of Irving Laucks, a California activist); items which could not be identified by organization such as mailing lists, copies of literature distributed, and material relating to office operations; and research files. The research files, which have been sorted by subject, and the mailing lists were not suitable for microfilming. With these exceptions, the entire collection was filmed and then destroyed because of the deteriorated condition of the paper.
