Welcome to BASE21

September 4, 2001

Dear Yang Young-Mi,

I enjoyed meeting and beginning to work with you. I have finally begun to catch up with the work that accumulated during my absence and to begin taking some initiative. This is just a quick note to assure you that I am following up on the discussions we had in your office and at Yonsei University in mid-August.

As I hope you saw from copies of e-mail messages that I have been sending, after consulting with Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, I have posted an appeal for organizers across the U.S. and in other countries to consider involving Korean activists, voices and concerns in their events by means of amplified speaker phones. I have given them your e-mail address and also encouraged them to send solidarity messages to your October 11-13 conference. I hope there are some responses.

Alice Andrews returned from vacation today, and we discussed further the possiblity of finding the funds needed to bring Professor Lee Sam-Sung or someone of his caliber to the U.S. in early November. It looks quite possible, and I expect a decision on the funding to be made sometime next week by the appropriate people in our national office in Philadelphia.

Finally, in the coming days, I will be able to give some thought about organizations to which invitations to participate in the October 11-13 conference in Seoul should be sent. I believe I have the conference announcement here in my computer and will simply send it on to them, with a copy to you so that you are not surprised along the way. If you would prefer that I simply send the organizational names and e-mail addresses to you, so that you can send the invitations, I would be happy to do so.

With all best wishes,

Joseph Gerson
Director of Programs
American Friends Service Committee
New England Regional Office