In 1969 Yoko Ono and John Lennon decided to use the inevitable media publicity for their honeymoon to promote PEACE. They turned a very private event into a very public one: Bed-In For Peace.

Gerry Deiter photographed the Bed-In in Montreal, and here's how he remembers the event and its political background:

"It was June of 1969, only two years after the "Summer of Love," when hope was never higher, when an entire generation of young Americans, Canadians and Europeans believed they held the world's future in their hands. It was a time of idealism, of optimism, of pacifism. Yet the Viet Nam war was at its peak; there were more than a half million US soldiers in combat and support roles in Southeast Asia. Opposition to the war was coalescing, even in the USA; hundreds of thousands of people were joining peace marches there, despite all efforts by the government to suppress dissent. The evening news in most Western countries featured daily body-counts, which was the Pentagon's way of convincing the world it was winning the war. Yet every day, planes carrying young soldiers zippered into rubber bags arrived back in the U.S., and the people were beginning to suspect they were being misled and lied to by the US government. The United States was divided, the people were confused, and anger ruled. The fight for justice for the disenfranchised minorities across North America was every bit as violent as the undeclared war in Asia, and the forces of authority were responding to it with equal violence. And in the midst of it, along came John Lennon, this "pop star," beloved of young people, but seen by much of the world with as much suspicion, confusion and ambivalence as the war itself... a man with a "strange" Oriental wife whose art, although innovative and original, was universally misunderstood and largely ignored by the art world. And they were going to try to convince people that the war really was over... all you had to do was believe it. A simple message. So they took to a bed in a Montreal hotel in a very public manner, inviting the world to join them in discussing the pursuit of peace, justice and compassion and understanding for all people."

Gerry's Bed-In story

The AIU website created a homage for the Bed-In 35th anniversary in 2004 by collecting peace inspired thoughts and art pieces from the website visitors from all over the world. It's goal was to simply remind people of what they themselves can do to achieve peace, personal and global.

Go to the Bed-In 35 years event pages

© Gerry Deiter