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By
Kathryn Westcott
BBC News
Thursday, 20 March 2008, 10:49 GMT 
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It started life as the emblem of
the British anti-nuclear movement but it has become an international sign for
peace, and arguably the most widely used protest symbol in the world. It
has also been adapted, attacked and commercialised.
It had its first public outing 50 years ago on a
chilly Good Friday as thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off
from London's Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory at
Aldermaston.
The demonstration had been organised
by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC)
and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
joined in.
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 I
drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands
palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad 
Gerald Holtom
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Gerald Holtom, a designer
and former World War II conscientious objector from West London, persuaded DAC that their aims would have greater impact if they
were conveyed in a visual image. The "Ban the Bomb" symbol was
born.
He
considered using a Christian cross motif but, instead, settled on using
letters from the semaphore - or flag-signalling
- alphabet, super-imposing N (uclear) on D (isarmament) and placing them within a circle symbolising Earth.
The sign was quickly adopted by CND.
Holtom later explained
that the design was "to mean a human being in despair" with arms
outstretched downwards.
US peace symbol
American pacifist Ken Kolsbun,
who corresponded with Mr Holtom
until his death in 1985, says the designer came to regret the connotation of
despair and had wanted the sign inverted.
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Anti-Vietnam
protesters at a rally in New York
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"He thought peace was something that should be
celebrated," says Mr Kolsbun,
who has spent decades documenting the use of the sign. "In fact, the
semaphore sign for U in 'unilateral' depicts flags pointing upwards. Mr Holtom was all for
unilateral disarmament."
In a book to commemorate the symbol's 50th birthday, Mr Kolsbun charts how it was
transported across the Atlantic and took on additional meanings for the
Civil Rights movement, the counter-culture of the 1960s and 70s including
the anti-Vietnam protests, and the environmental, women's and gay rights
movements.
He also argues that groups opposed to those tendencies
tried to use the symbol against them by distorting its message.
How the sign migrated to the US is explained in
various ways. Some say it was brought back from the Aldermaston
protest by civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, a
black pacifist who had studied Gandhi's techniques of non-violence.
Vietnam
In Peace: The biography of a symbol, Mr Kolsbun describes how in
just over a decade, the sign had been carried by civil rights
"freedom" marchers, painted on psychedelic Volkswagens in San
Francisco, and on the helmets of US soldiers on the ground in Vietnam.
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The peace sign
was adopted by the counter-culture movement
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"The sign really got going over here during the
1960s and 70s, when it became associated with anti-Vietnam protests,"
he told the BBC News website.
As the combat escalated, he says, so did the anti-war
protests and the presence of the symbol.
"This, of course, led some people to condemn it
as a communist sign," says Mr Kolsbun. "There has always been a lot of
misconception and disinformation about it."
As the sign became a badge of the burgeoning hippie
movement of the late 1960s, the hippies' critics scornfully compared it to
a chicken footprint, and drew parallels with the runic letter indicating
death.
In 1970, the conservative John Birch Society published
pamphlets likening the sign to a Satanic symbol of an upside-down,
"broken" cross.
While it remained a key symbol of the counter-culture
movement throughout the 1970s, it returned to its origins in the 1980s,
when it became the banner of the international grassroots anti-nuclear
movement.
Power
The real power of the sign, its supporters say, is the
reaction that it provokes - both from fans and from detractors.
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In the UK, the
sign is still associated with the Ban the Bomb movement
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The South African government, for one, tried to ban
its use by opponents of apartheid in 1973.
And, in 2006, a couple in suburban Denver found
themselves embroiled in a dispute over their use of a giant peace sign as a
Christmas wreath. The homeowners' association threatened them with a daily
fine if they didn't remove it.
The association eventually backed down because of
public pressure, but a member told a local newspaper it was clearly an
"anti-Christ sign" with "a lot of negativity associated with
it.".
Commercial
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A US soldier
patrols a village outside Baghdad
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CND has never
registered the sign as a trademark, arguing that "a symbol of freedom,
it is free for all". It has now appeared on millions of mugs, T-shirts,
rings and nose-studs. Bizarrely, it has also made an appearance on packets
of Lucky Strike cigarettes.
A decade ago, the sign was chosen during a public vote
to appear on a US commemorative postage stamp saluting the 1960s.
The symbol that helped define a generation of baby
boomers may not be as widely used today as in the past. It is in danger of
becoming to many people a retro fashion item, although the Iraq war has
seen it re-emerge with something like its original purpose.
"It is still the dominant peace sign,"
argues Lawrence Wittner, an expert on peace
movements at the University at Albany in New York.
"Part of that is down to its simplicity. It can
be used as a shorthand for many causes because it
can be reproduced really quickly - on walls on floors, which is important,
in say, repressive societies."
And can its success be measured? Fifty years on, wars
have continued to be waged and the list of nuclear-armed states has
steadily lengthened.
But the cup is half-full as well as half empty.
"There are many ways in which nuclear war has
been prevented," says Mr Wittner.
"The hawks say that the reason nuclear weapons have not been used is
because of the deterrent. But I believe popular pressure has restrained
powers from using them and helped curbed the arms race.
And the symbol of and inspiration for that popular
pressure, says Mr Wittner,
is Mr Holtom's graphic.
Peace:
A biography of a symbol is published by National Geographic Books and is
due out in April, 2008.
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