Press release and photograph:
“A Couple of Presidents Chat.”
This press release from the Com-
mission on Public Relations and
Methodist Information (predecessor
to United Methodist Communica-
tions) accompanied photographs of
President Eisenhower and Bishop
Martin meeting in the White House
in 1953.
A veteran of World War I, Martin
developed a special interest in
peacemakingandmilitarychaplaincy.
He addressed both concerns by
making a two-week pastoral visit to American troops stationed in Japan
and Korea beginning on December 21, 1953. After spending Christmas
on the front lines of the Korean War, Martin shared these thoughts in the
February 18, 1954 issue of
The Christian Century
:
Peace in Korea will be an empty word if the people who live there
are allowed to starve, or to become so embittered by suffering that
their souls will be irreparably warped, or to feel that their land
and their lives are pawns in the hands of mighty world powers
that happened to choose their fields and cities as a battleground.
