Demonstrations United States

All the talk about peace marches back home had begun to get to Army Specialist Steve Wiersgalla. Then came the morning when the 21-year-old could pick up a phone and talk to his folks in Minnesota. Their message to him, like that reaching thousands of young soldiers here, was nothing if not reassuring. "My father told me the silent majority had begun to speak up and put down the protesters," Wiersgalla said with a grin shortly after the call. "That really made my day."

They say they are not anti-war activists. They are not peace activists. Alex Molnar and Judy Davenport are co-chairmen of the Military Families Support Network. Period. "It is only this war we're against," Davenport says of the war in the Persian Gulf. They oppose what they call an unnecessary military offensive when they believe a diplomatic solution should have--and still can be--found. Their message is simple: "Support the troops. Stop fighting. Start talking."

They wore black armbands decorated with white doves of peace. They marched in Washington and Northridge and Hartford, Conn. They picketed Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. And they blockaded the streets in Westwood and shut down UCLA. They were neither the ringleaders nor the storm troopers of the movement to stop the Vietnam War. But they were its body and soul.

They have been chastised by the polls and, much to their chagrin, thanked by Saddam Hussein. Now, after more than three weeks of protests, participants in America's anti-war movement find themselves in a lull, facing their own Catch-22. The dissenters want to stop the war by exerting political pressure through massive public demonstrations.

The grass-roots peace movement has gone high-tech with computer networks that link activists worldwide as they organize against war in the Persian Gulf, according to organizers of a network based in San Francisco. The activists have not stopped handing out leaflets to win followers, but many are typing summaries of their activities on personal computers and shipping the reports directly to PeaceNet, a network that claims 8,000 subscribers in 50 countries.

In a national survey taken before the start of the Persian Gulf War, a record number of American college freshmen responded that they were more likely than ever to participate in campus protests. The anti-war rallies of the last few weeks reinforced that the poll was correct, according to its sponsors at UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute and the American Council on Education.

Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators returned here for the second consecutive weekend, marching Saturday against U.S. involvement in the Persian Gulf and denouncing President Bush for waging war abroad as social ills flourish at home. The scene was repeated in a number of major European cities in the biggest wave of war protests in the West since the war began nine days ago. Bonn hosted the largest demonstration by far, drawing at least 150,000 people.

Actor ROBERT FOXWORTH of "Falcon Crest" fame does a weekly radio show airing on National Public Radio and has devoted five recent shows to the Gulf War. "There seems to be an effort to paint those of us who oppose the war as unpatriotic, unsupportive of our troops. It's a way of de-legitimizing opposition voices, and nothing could be further from the truth."

Thousands of anti-war protesters marched Saturday from the White House through the streets of downtown Washington to the Capitol, condemning President Bush for starting a war in the Persian Gulf. Some demanded an immediate end to United Nations sanctions against Iraq. Estimates of the number of participants varied. U.S. Park Police put the number at about 25,000, but some protest leaders estimated the number at close to 100,000.

The war wagon rolls on. Thursday's Iraqi missile attack on Israel "makes this war far more popular," ABC correspondent Cokie Roberts said on television, summing up the evening. She added that ABC's initial erroneous reports that some Israelis were being treated for exposure to nerve gas--even though later corrected--also may have served war supporters, presumably by further demonization of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.