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One of the running jokes among participants in the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation "Nuclear Abolition Immersion" trip emerged on our first day in New Mexico, when we set a deadline for abolishing nuclear weapons: August 11, 2006.
“Only two days ‘til we’ve rid the world of nukes, folks,” we asserted on August 9. “Okay, only 24 hours to go ‘til a nuclear weapons-free world!” we noted the following day. On the day of the deadline, we bandied about statements such as “By my watch, only 3 hours, 23 minutes to go, everyone!” and “Wow, what a relief – I feel safer already!”
Every joke contains a kernel of truth. While just as many nuclear weapons exist now as when our valiant team of seven “UC Weapons Inspectors” embarked on this trip to New Mexico, our activities actually were a concrete step toward nuclear disarmament – however small.
At a critical time in the history of the Nuclear Age, we ventured into the heart of the US nuclear weapons complex, injected a sense of creativity and life into the communities where resistance to the US’ suicidal plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons is arguably most critical, and departed with a strongly renewed sense of conviction and inspiration within ourselves as well.
Since it would be impossible to adequately encapsulate the most instructive two weeks of my relatively short life as a nuclear disarmament activist, what I offer here instead are but a few of the highlights.
Livermore – August 5-6
A scene from the music circle at the Livermore Peace Camp. |
Prior to departing for New Mexico, I and four of the Youth Empowerment Initiative’s most active interns and volunteers in Santa Barbara partook in a pair of events in that other nuclear weapons town, Livermore, CA, site of the University of California-managed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The first event, on August 5th, was a peace camp at Livermore’s Del Valle Regional Park. The following day was the “No Nukes! No Wars! Support Indigenous Rights!” rally outside LLNL, followed by a march to the lab main gate.
The peace camp was a well-organized gathering of 40-50 people, most of them Bay Area peace activists. The NAPF Youth Empowerment Initiative-sponsored team of five Santa Barbarians had a great time and -- true to the purpose of the event -- made lots of valuable personal connections. I helped organize a similar Livermore peace camp two summers ago; to my mind, this year’s camp was much more well-executed – a sure sign of progress for the Bay Area nuclear disarmament community.
Jackie Cabasso of Western States Legal Foundation and United for Peace & Justice speaks at "No Nukes! No Wars!" rally. |
The rally the following day drew 200-300 people, with speakers such as Pentagon Papers author Daniel Ellsberg, syndicated columnist/author Norman Solomon, and Hibaksha (atomic bomb survivor) Keiji Tsuchiya heading the bill, along with the excellent musicians Ras K’Dee (also the editor of SNAG, a Native American youth magazine) and Francisco Herrera. Ellsberg delivered perhaps the most timely and poignant comments of the morning, focusing on the likelihood that a nuclear war will occur in the imminent future due to escalating tensions over Iran’s nuclear (energy) program, unless civil society effectively intervenes in a dramatic way.
The ensuing march to the gate was relatively mellow, even reserved at times, in large part because most folks who would have otherwise brought the rabble-rousing energy to the proceedings were saving up for a non-violent direct action and attempted shut-down of Bechtel Corporation’s international headquarters in San Francisco three days later. For more information on what happened there, as well as other August 6-9 events around the country, please visit the excellent august6.org Web site.
LANL Pit Hearings (August 8-10, New Mexico)
For the duration of our stay in New Mexico, the “UC Weapons Inspection Team” (most trip participants were UC students or graduates) volunteered with the Los Alamos Study Group, a small but highly effective Albuquerque-based organization with a history of brilliant activism in New Mexico and beyond. Study Group Executive Director Greg Mello and Trish Williams-Mello have a formidable – actually, awe-inspiring -- command of the policies and practices of the global nuclear weapons complex, particularly those of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Their tireless devotion is infectious. If there’s a pair of disarmament activists who would have made better hosts of the first Abolition Immersion, I’ve yet to meet them.
The Study Group’s main current focus with respect to LANL is stopping production of new plutonium pits, the grapefruit-sized explosive triggers of modern nuclear warheads. LANL is the only site in the US nuclear weapons complex equipped to manufacture them -- and for the foreseeable future. Consequently, the US government’s plans to develop a vast generation of new nukes, under the auspices of its Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, entirely revolve around LANL pit output.
Officially, the DOE has slated the lab to begin producing 80 pits annually over the next five years, pending a legally-required Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) and associated public input process, which the DOE – or, more specifically, its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) branch -- regards largely as a nuisance, rather than an actual public input process.
LASG and other community groups have mobilized to stop NNSA pit production plans at LANL multiple times in the past. The forces arrayed against the New Mexico disarmament community have consolidated their power, but the Study Group is advertising for a repeat of its previous successful campaigns. At stake is, to a large degree, the future of the US nuclear weapons complex, which may not survive for long without a new nuclear weapons mission.
 Testimony at Espanola SWEIS hearing, August 9. Though we only obtained a handful of photos from the hearings, we have 9-10 hours of video footage for ongoing documentary projects.
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It was in this context that we arrived in New Mexico, just as the aforementioned sham of a public input process was about to begin in earnest, with three DOE-sponsored public hearings regarding pit production in three days.
I covered the “UC Weapons Inspection Team’s” sometimes-dramatic involvement in the hearings fairly extensively at the UC Nuclear Free web blog on August 17, so I’ll avoid doing so again in much detail here. Suffice it to say, public opposition to pit production was unanimous, the UC Weapons Inspectors’ contributions were greeted with overwhelming approval from the locals, and, to top it all off, we nearly got arrested at the third hearing (the National Nuclear Security Administration security team eventually thought better of hauling a group of young Californians, visiting the state for the first time, out of the building at one of its most high-profile public hearings of the year).
Other Action in New Mexico (August 8-18)
Our remaining time during the first three days of the Immersion was packed with meetings, nuclear sight-seeing, and interesting encounters of various kinds -- all ably guided by Trish and Greg.
Not the LANL grounds themselves, but nearby at the San Ildenfonso Pueblo. |
On the afternoon of August 9th, we conducted an independent tour of the accessible parts of the Los Alamos lab for over an hour. It reminded me eerily of my alma mater, UC Santa Cruz: another large campus on a forested mesa, adjacent to a state park (yes, LANL actually adjoins a state park). The grounds the lab inhabits are, in stark contrast to how I had envisioned them, majestic.
During the mornings and afternoons of the hearings, we visited LANL ’s Bradbury Science Museum (“The BS Museum”), scoped out various University of California-run facilities on the LANL grounds, took part in an illuminating meeting with long-time activist Gilbert Sanchez of the San Ildefonso Pueblo Native Americans, and made a trip to the LASG-managed Los Alamos Disarmament Center, among many other activities. All in all, an extremely intense and satisfying three days.
Once the initial whirlwind was over, we settled into the LASG office-house in Albuquerque for a full week of intensive projects, most involving various forms of community outreach. We made dozens of calls to Study Group volunteers and supporters, for example, to try to convince them to accept and display small LASG billboards in their yards. The billboards are an instrumental aspect of the Study Group’s larger strategy of breaking the public silence regarding the nuclear industry’s veritable colonization of New Mexico.
 A strategy meeting at the Los Alamos Study Group headquarters (photo by Trish Williams-Mello). |
Much of our other outreach revolved round setting up meetings with Congressional representatives to try to convince them to take an active stand against pit production, rather than leaving the final decision regarding LANL activites in the hands of NNSA Chairman Linton Brooks, a long-time neo-conservative. The first of these Congressional meetings was with Sarah Cobb, a staff member for Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM), and it took place on the final day of the trip, Friday, August 18. Cobb is on one of the LASG’s lists of supporters and volunteers, so she made an extremely sympathetic audience.
The jury is out on what impact the meeting will have, though the next step in this process seems to be to set up a meeting with Udall himself. Meetings with staff members of other New Mexico legislators, which Peace Foundation Research & Advocacy Associate Andrew Culp took the lead in setting up, will follow in the coming weeks.
One of the UC Weapons Inspection Team’s other main projects was organizing a panel at the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos for early-September. The panel will serve to initiate greater dialogue among leading members of American and Iranian civil society, while casting a critical light on the rampant violations of international law being carried out at LANL, thereby simultaneously exposing US nuclear hypocrisy at large (particularly in regard to Iran). Given the nature of the project, LANL will almost certainly make every effort to undermine it once the NNSA lords learn the full details (assuming they haven’t already), so I’ll refrain from revealing more here.
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On a personal level, the highlight of the trip was our many interactions with community members in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Espanola, Taos, and other New Mexican towns. One of the Study Group’s most dedicated volunteers, Astrid Webster, is the daughter of a former Nazi scientist who relocated to Los Alamos as part of Project Paperclip. She is now a relentless nuclear disarmament activist. We met a number of other people who shared rich and unique personal histories, often punctuated by long-time anti-nuclear and peace activism.
Nearly everyone we met was extremely excited by our presence, and they weren’t shy about telling us so. It’s always nice to get the feeling you’re making a difference in people’s lives.
On Sunday, August 13, the Los Alamos Study Group hosted a potluck for its volunteers and supporters, where the UC Weapons Inspectors were advertised as the main attraction. At one point in the gathering, Greg asked each of us to stand up and say a few words about ourselves. During my comments, I remarked that since the Los Alamos lab uses University of California science departments as a primary recruitment pipeline, it’s only appropriate that we as disarmament activists should create a different kind of pipeline, whereby UC activists and graduates pour into Los Alamos to work with Greg and Trish to try to shut down or utterly transform LANL.
On an even deeper personal level, I was overjoyed to witness the growth of the other Immersion trip participants. The community we formed was fun, supportive, and often loving. I couldn’t have asked for a better inaugural Immersion trip, or six better people to share it with.
When we really do abolish nuclear weapons, please don't be surprised.
Additional Photos
Immersion trip participant and fourth-year UC Berkeley student Sophia Ritchie was one of the MCs of the Livermore "No Nukes! No Wars!" rally.
The march to the Livermore Lab gate (August 6).
Back Row: Christy Escobar, Will Parrish, Lacy MacAuley (who organized; Front Row: Andrew
Culp,
Nams Gidwani, Steve Stormoen, Jamie Thompson, Jedidjah DeVries.
Christy excitedly displays her sign, while three UC Santa Cruz students, including
Steve Stormoen (far right), look on. Steve was one of the most active organizers of the August 6-9 events in the Bay Area.
On the evening of August 6th, Andrew and I attended a "Peace Lantern" ceremony in Berkeley. The ceremony is based on a similar ceremony that takes place annually in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Day One in NM: The Immersion Trip crew in the LASG van, prior to the Department of Energy hearing in Los Alamos. From left: Christy Escobar, Andrew Culp, Nams Gidwani, Kamara O'Connor, Sophia Ritchie.
Strategizing prior to the DOE hearing in Espanola, August 9.
We attempted to enter the University of California building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory...
...only to find that it had moved. A rare instance of the UC Weapons Inspection
Team being thwarted.
One of the UC campuses with its own building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is UC Santa Barbara. The UCSB students on the trip were displeased.
Trish and Greg lead the way on a weapons inspection of a facility in LANL.
The Immersion crew gathers around Gilbert Sanchez of the San Ildefonso Pueblo.
This was partly the scene at the DOE's second hearing, on August 9th in Espanola.
Plotting our next move, LASG headquarters. (picture by Trish Williams-Mello)
Gathered with our signs on the sidwalk, at a demonstration in Albuquerque against the war in Lebanon on Friday evening, August 11th. (picture by Trish Williams-Mello)
Andrew was kind enough to snap this picture of me networking with an Albuquerque resident during the anti-Israeli War protest.
Nams gathered over 13 hours of video footage of the trip, including here, at the Los Alamos Disarmament Center.
"The Atomic Museum" in Albuquerque was one of our stops on August 12th. One section of the museum is dedicated to convincing visitors that nuclear radiation is no worse than other forms of radiation, like solar radiation.
When nuclear weapons are abolished, this is what it will feel like. From Left: Trish, Andrew, Chelsea, Sophia, Will, Kamara, Christy, Nams, Greg. (picture by Trish Williams-Mello)
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