<P> The phrase 's origins are unclear ; Gershon Legman claimed to be the inventor of the phrase , so did American singer Rod McKuen , and some credit artist , social activist , folk figure , and sometime United States Presidential candidate under the Nudist Party on the Hippie ' Love Ticket ' Louis Abolafia . Radical activists Penelope and Franklin Rosemont and Tor Faegre helped to popularize the phrase by printing thousands of `` Make Love , Not War '' buttons at the Solidarity Bookshop in Chicago , Illinois and distributing them at the Mother 's Day Peace March in 1965 . They were the first to print the slogan . In April 1965 , at a Vietnam demonstration in Eugene , Oregon , Diane Newell Meyer , then a senior at the University of Oregon , pinned a handwritten note on her sweater reading `` Let 's make love , not war '' , thus marking the beginning of the popularity of this phrase . A picture of Meyer wearing the slogan was printed in the Eugene Register - Guard and then a related article turned up in the New York Times on May 9 , 1965 . </P>
who came up with the phrase make love not war
The phrase 's origins are unclear