A Battle Looms over the Symbol for Neutrality

By WILLIAM DOWELL/NEW YORK

Marketing experts say you shouldn't mess with an internationally recognized logo, but one of the most famous may be on the way out: the RED CROSS.

Both the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Cross Federation, which represents more than two dozen Red Cross and Red Crescent societies around the world, want to adopt a new emblem with no recognizable religious or political connotations. Suggestions for a replacement include a pair of red chevrons, a red diamond or another symbol that resembles a pair of red brackets.

The roots of what is turning out to be an acrimonious dispute go back to the Red Cross Federation's exclusion of Israel's Red Shield of David society in 1949. The Geneva Convention mandates the red cross (originally an inversion of the Swiss flag), crescent and lion as the only acceptable signs of international neutrality, and thus bars the Israeli organization. While the American Red Cross has pushed forcefully for Israeli inclusion for 50 years, it does not want to drop the cross altogether.

The issue will come up at a diplomatic conference with the Swiss government as host this month. The question conferees will then face is whether combatants will find the new symbol resonant enough to hold their fire.

--By William Dowell/New York