A Letter From the Publisher

By John A. Meyers

Along with the 55,000 letters TIME receives from readers each year come occasional gifts of photographs, artwork and embroidery. But none in recent months was quite as surprising as the 3-ft. by 5-ft. by 1-ft. crate that contained 1,000 colorful paper birds folded, largely from pages of TIME, in Japanese origami style.

The gift came from Tina Koyama of Seattle, who had crafted the birds as part of the Million Cranes project sponsored by Ploughshares, a local peace group. The project's aim, Koyama explained in an accompanying letter, was to send 1,000 paper cranes to each of 1,000 influential leaders around the world as a gesture for peace on the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Koyama chose TIME's publisher, she wrote, because TIME is "a widely read magazine that informs many people every week." She added, "Please use your influence to make people realize there are no winners in a nuclear war, and one must never happen."

According to an old Japanese legend, anyone who folds 1,000 cranes will be granted a wish. The present project was inspired by Sadako Sasaki, a girl who survived the bombing of Hiroshima but died eight years later, at age ten, of leukemia caused by exposure to radiation. In the hospital, Sadako began folding 1,000 origami cranes. She could not finish them before she died, but her friends and classmates completed the task.

Koyama, 26, is an assistant editor at Seattle's Metro transit agency. In her search for an inexpensive supply of paper, she noticed the growing stack of TIME magazines in her apartment. "I didn't want it to be a gift of money, but of time," she says, in a deliberate play on words. "The TIME paper was just the right weight, and the car ads made really beautiful birds." Finally, Koyama made a special bird, gluing the signature at the end of this column to one wing and her own signature to the other. It was placed at Sadako Sasaki's grave in Hiroshima.

In a letter of thanks to Koyama, I quoted from Senior Writer Roger Rosenblatt's interview with Yoshitaka Kawamoto, director of Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Museum, in our July 29 cover story marking the Hiroshima anniversary. "Human beings are not likely to destroy everything," Kawamoto said. "We must leave our traditions to the generations." Including the tradition of folding 1,000 cranes and making a wish.