An artist named Gerald Holtom designed a symbol for the Aldermaston march. “I was in despair,” he remembered. He sketched himself “with hands palm out stretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle around it.” The lone individual standing helpless in the face of world-annihilating military might—it was “such a puny thing,” thought Holtom. But his creation, the peace symbol, resonated and quickly traveled around the world.
