People Against Nerve Gas papers, 1969-1988

The collection consists of materials either produced or compiled by Gordon L. Kilgour in relation to his work as chair of the organization People Against Nerve Gas (P.A.N.G.), an organization that protested the proposed shipment of nerve gas from Okinawa, Japan, to Oregon. Materials include correspondence written or forwarded to Kilgour or written to P.A.N.G. as an organization; copies and drafts of correspondence by Kilgour; and fact sheets, petitions, statements, records, and ephemera. The correspondence includes letters from Oregon Governor Tom McCall and U.S. Senator Bob Packwood, as well as from people writing on behalf of U.S. President Richard Nixon and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. There are copies of statements by Tom McCall and letters that McCall and Multnomah County Commissioner Donald E. Clark wrote to U.S. government officials. Some of the fact sheets and petition forms in the collection, along with proposed legislation, were produced by the Eugene, Oregon, chapter of P.A.N.G. and its chair, Peter H. von Hippel. Records in the collection include financial records and ephemera; notes for meetings and events; lists of members; mailing lists; Kilgour's personal notes; and notes relating to phone calls, correspondence, and visitors to Kilgour's office that he had missed. Ephemera in the collection consists of flyers advertising protests or describing actions citizens could take, and the lyrics to a protest song written by Don Waggoner. The collection also holds some published materials about nerve gas and newspaper clippings about the proposed shipment, as well as one publication and a few clippings about nerve gas that significantly postdate the shipment's cancellation.