Peace advocate Robert Pickus was born October 31, 1923, in Sioux City, Iowa. Not long after enrolling at the University of Chicago, his studies were interrupted by military service with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. After the war he returned to the university and in 1946 completed his undergraduate degree in political science. From 1949 to 1950 he studied at the University of London on a Fulbright Scholarship, and later, after an additional year's study, received an M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1957.
Beginning in 1950 Pickus became increasingly involved with the peace movement and from that point on his life has been focused on the ideas that contribute to peace and on making those ideas part of public policy. From 1951 to 1955
he was Chicago peace secretary of the American Friends Service Committee and he also served of AFSC's national staff. In 1958 he wrote the widely-circulated Speak Truth to Power. In addition, during the 1950's he was a founder of the Youth Council of Chicago and midwestern director of the Council for Cooperative Development, which sought to strengthen the urban cooperative movement.
Much of Pickus' activity with the AFSC focused around the question of what effect an individual might have on furthering the cause of peace. In 1958 his ideas on the subject led Pickus to initiate Acts for Peace, a northern California organization which coordinated the activities of ten regional peace groups and which was the first attempt in the country to build a coordinated peace organization. From its founding, Pickus served as executive secretary of the Berkeley-based group. In 1961 he assisted many national peace movement leaders in expanding AFP's education and action efforts into national perspective. He served as a national coordinator and west coast director of this new group known as Turn Toward Peace which succeeded Acts for Peace. In 1965 Turn Toward Peace reconstituted itself as the World Without War Council, and Pickus became its president.
Pickus has written extensively about his ideas. In addition to Speak Truth to Power, he authored the pamphlet Peace Politics, and New Left, and the Pity of It All (1966), which presented his controversial critique of New Left politics during the Vietnam War era. Other titles include The ABM and a World Without War (1969) and To End War (1970). He has also served as associate editor of Liberation and as a regular commentator on KPFA radio.
