Harold Willens (April 26, 1914March 17, 2003) was a Ukrainian-American businessman and political activist. Known for his advocacy of a bilateral nuclear weapons freeze, he was associated with the so-called Malibu Mafia who donated to liberal and progressive causes and politicians. Willens provided the Malibu base of the group by hosting meetings at his house on Malibu Beach.
Willins co-founded the military reform Center for Defense Information in 1972. In 1978, he served on the United Nations Disarmament Commission. In 1982, Willens headed Proposition 12, a successful California ballot initiative calling for a bilateral nuclear weapons freeze between the US and the Soviet Union.
Early life
Willens was born in the Chernigov region of the Russian Empire on April 26, 1914, the son of a tailor and a garment worker. He and his Jewish family barely escaped death in the Kiev pogroms (1919), and in 1922 they settled as refugees in the US, initially in the Bronx. His sister Doris Willens was born in 1924. The family moved to Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, in 1927. In 1932, Willens graduated from Roosevelt High School. He took a job at a food market to help support his family during the Great Depression. He started a food business with his wife Grace. Leaving much of the business to her, he enrolled in English literature classes at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Willens graduated from UCLA with Phi Beta Kappa honors in 1939.
World War II
Willens volunteered to serve in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He was taught to read, write and speak the Japanese language, and was sent to the Pacific War as a translator and interpreter. At the rank of captain, his service included a year in Japan during the occupation, interpreting for the local people and the occupying forces. He was shocked by the devastation of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
While on occupation duty, Willens was approached by a Japanese man who asked him to locate and guard his family's heirloom samurai swords to preserve them from being destroyed – all Japanese weapons in the Kumamoto area had been confiscated by occupying forces to prevent armed violence. Willens eventually found the four swords in storage, and displayed them in his California home during the 1950s and 1960s, hanging on the wall of his den. At home in 1973, while preparing to visit China on business, he abruptly decided to stop in Japan to return the vintage swords to their rightful owner in Kumamoto. He inquired ahead to locate the owner, who was now 60 years old. Willens and his family were met at the airport with a television news crew who had learned of the repatriation of the katanas. Willens formally handed the ornate swords to their grateful Japanese owner on a morning television program. The occasion was heralded in Japan as a healing of the wounds of war.
Business dealings
Willens bought two modest grocery stores on the outskirts of Wilshire Boulevard before he left for war. After he returned, the Wilshire business district expanded to include his properties, and he became a millionaire after a few years. He parlayed these holdings into a real estate fortune, including whole blocks of Wilshire commercial property. Willens also provided textile machinery to factories through his privately owned business, the Factory Equipment Supply Corp.
In 1989, Willens teamed with businessman Wesley Bilson to assist entrepreneurs in the newly opened Soviet Union. One of the projects was the transformation of a Leningrad military base into a factory making children's clothing. Raisa Gorbacheva was supportive of the mission. In Washington, D.C., California Representative Mel Levine spoke in favor, saying that such joint deals will help to "lessen the tensions that exist between our two countries."
Political donations
In 1961, Willens was inspired to begin donating money to charitable causes, after listening to Aldous Huxley and other speakers at Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. He donated $50,000 in 1968 to help anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy run for president, and he was able to convince ten other businessmen to do the same.