In January 1984, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was at its iciest. President Ronald Reagan had labeled the nation an "evil empire," and at times the two countries seemed on the verge of mutual annihilation.

In the Bay Area, Gerald Krumland and Ana Fatima Costa were conceiving both a baby and an idea. Upon learning that Costa was expecting, the couple decided to use the pregnancy to make a grand gesture.

They would have their first child together in the Soviet Union. He would be a living example of the common bonds between the Soviets and the Americans. A symbol of innocence. A child born in the faith that the people, if not the political leaders in each country, could be friends.

He would be a peace baby.

On Sunday, Alexander Krumland turns 25. He is tall and handsome with an easygoing patience. He smiles, chagrined, when someone calls him the peace baby.

"I never know how to respond to that," he says.

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Ana Costa and her family came to this country from Portugal, escaping a dictatorship, in November 1960. After traveling 11 days across the Atlantic, they arrived in the United States just days after John Kennedy was elected president.

Costa met Krumland, a Vietnam veteran and pilot, in 1982.

"He was a very unusual man," Costa says. "He had very different views from anyone I knew."

Krumland was living in Mendocino, exploring an

inner spirituality as part of the Human Potential movement. He soon opened a door into Costa's heart and her soul.

Their relationship was not smooth, Costa says. Their greatest difficulty might have been how much alike they were. Not two sides of the same coin, but the same side of two different coins. They mirrored each other, but had trouble fitting the image together.

If fate had not intervened, the relationship might have ended in late 1983, when they both realized that although they shared an intense faith in New Age thinking, they were not well-suited as partners.

But when Costa had a meditative vision of having a baby and Krumland had a vision of a baby born in the Soviet Union as a symbol of peace, the two united for a common purpose, the peace baby.

"He asked me how I felt about giving birth in the Soviet Union," Costa says. "I told him OK. What did I know?"

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Krumland began planning the trip, seeking donations to help pay for the travel expenses. He was able to get a $10,000 unsecured loan and made contacts with Soviet expatriates for travel tips.

But as miraculously as all the plans seemed to come together, they just as quickly fell apart.

Knowing that Costa would not be permitted to fly as she entered her final month, the couple left weeks early, traveling first to England and then making their way toward the Soviet Union by boat and train.

They eventually arrived in Leningrad, hoping to make contact with Igor Charkovsky, the leader of an underwater birth movement. But things were different in 1984. There was great tension between the nations, and foreign visitors to the Soviet Union were carefully segregated from the general public.

By today's standards, it seems absurd to think an average couple from the Bay Area would be spied on, their phone calls listened to, their comings and goings observed.

But Costa and Krumland feared they were — fears that had been reinforced by the State Department and their friends, who had urged them not to attempt the journey, as concerned for Costa's condition as they were that their actions would be misinterpreted on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

"We were citizen diplomats," Krumland says. "And we had a plan."

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When they were unable to contact Charkovsky, that plan seemed like it had gone horribly wrong. But that evening, having dinner at the Hotel Pribaltiysakaya, Costa went into the labor and they made a decision.

They would stay in the hotel and Krumland, armed with midwifery books and meager supplies, would handle the delivery himself.

Both Krumland and Costa treat the delivery with a casualness that is surprising. Costa trusted Krumland; Krumland relied on the belief that because Costa had given birth before — to a boy she gave up for adoption — this delivery would be similarly uncomplicated. Amazingly, it was textbook perfect.

Shortly before 6 a.m. on Sept. 6, 1984, Alexander George Krumland entered this life.

After making sure mother and son were well, Krumland ventured downstairs and told the night clerk that his wife had just had a baby. The night manager congratulated him and called the emergency medical personnel.

Although Costa wanted to remain in the hotel with only her son and husband, officials insisted she go to the maternity hospital.

"I knew to say no would be an insult to them," Costa says. "And that would defeat the purpose of us being there."

Within hours, news of the delivery leaked to a reporter for an 11-million circulation communist youth newspaper, and quickly, the world learned of the Peace Baby.

By the time Costa and Alex were released from the hospital, they were all being treated as celebrities, inundated by Soviet and the Western press.

When they left, Krumland says he paid $400 in extra baggage fees to bring home the more than 2,000 letters and dozens of gifts the Soviet people had given them.

Most touching to him was the gift from the staff of the hotel. Within a few hours of Alex's birth, the clerk knocked on Krumland's door with a stack of baby clothes. Staff members had gone out on their lunch hours to buy clothes for the baby.

"I just started crying," Krumland says. "It was a very odd experience. It was just so moving. This was an act not orchestrated by the government or an organization. This was just ordinary people who went out and bought these clothes."

The reaction was less enthusiastic at home. In the uncertainty of the Cold War, there was one definite. The Soviet Union was our enemy. Krumland says he was criticized by some for extending an offer of peace, accused of being a communist.

A month after returning, he was fired from his job, his trip to the Soviet Union the overriding factor. And within a year, the marriage was also over. The differences between them finally overwhelmed them.

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But the peace baby flourished.

Alex, who lives with his mother and younger brother in Concord, calls himself a bit of a contradiction — an environmentalist who loves cars. He once had four of them, plus a motorcycle, parked around the house in various stages of repair. He laughs and shrugs. He's comfortable with the dichotomy.

Fascinated by cars from an early age, Alex attended the Wyotech Institute of Automotive Technology, graduating with an associate degree in automotive technology. After working five years in the automotive field, he lost his job in a round of layoffs. He has now returned to school to study biotechnology.

And 25 years later, his parents still have no doubts about their actions.

"Did it make a difference?" asks Krumland, who now lives on a sailboat in Oakland. "It's hard to measure. The best analogy I can think of is throwing a stone into a small pond. If everyone throws one, sooner or later the water flows over. I don't really know if it had an impact, but I'm glad I did it, glad it happened. I felt I needed to do something."

"Future generations," Costa says, "will decide the relevance of our mission in the overall picture of human actions through history. In the meantime, if an American couple can consciously choose to disrupt their daily routine, take a risk, and travel to an unknown land thousands of miles away for the greater good of all people, then perhaps others may be inspired to make significant changes in their world in support of peace.

"Peace is always relevant."