LOS ANGELES -- Anti-war activists used bed sheets early Sunday to change the first 'O' in the famed Hollywood sign into a 50-foot- high peace symbol, group members and police said.
Five members of the group calling itself Operation Hollywood Peace Sign began shortly after dawn, using ropes to lower the sheets and alter the sign that overlooks Hollywood, a spokesman said.
The group said in a statement that it selected the Hollywood sign because it is a 'universal symbol of the values that America exports to the world.
'We are members of the endangered of the endangered human race,' the statement continued. 'This peace sign is a symbol of our hope for peace in the Middle East and throughout our world.'
A Hollywood area police officer said park rangers removed the sheets.
It was the second alteration of the sign since U.S. troops were sent to the Persian Gulf following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait last summer. On Sept. 21, a group calling itself Artists for Social Responsibility also draped sheets over the landmark's 50-foot-high metal letters to spell 'OIL WAR.'
First erected on Mt. Lee in 1923 as a real estate subdivision ad and replaced by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1978, the venerable sign is the frequent target of vandals who had altered it with messages of protest, social comment and commerce.
