effective lessons. You can do it in one week . . . It’s non-partisan. It just gives them the basic information that before now they’ve never had. One of the reasons they’re scared, like the population in general, is that they know absolutely nothing about it. They don’t know what a nuclear weapon is. They don’t know what it can do. They don’t know who to believe about how many weapons we have and how many they have. So once you start giving them some basic information, they feel a lot better immediately.” Bob feels that communication is what’s required now. It’s most important to me to neighbors and friends and family. To me, it ’s a moral issue, at the base of it. It’s idolatry. We’ve let nuclear weapons become divine. The first thing a lot of people say, when you say that nuclear weapons are immoral, they say, “ But we’ve got to have them.” And that’s an incredible response, when you think about it. It just says, forget morality. And to me, that’s looking into the abyss.” Bob urged me to point out, “ because none of the other media have talked of it,” that the Trident system is basically a first strike weapon. “ I’m not saying that we intend to use them as first strike weapons, but that’s how the Russians have to think about them. They have to consider them effective in a pre-emptive, first strike way, because they certainly can be used in that way. There are definitely people in the Pentagon who want to do it. Who have always wanted to do it . . . I really am convinced, because of the new weapons that we’ve got coming on line, that we only have two years, at the most, to do something about what is going on. I don’t think we can wait until Reagan is turned out of office.” To me, it's a moral issue, at the base o f it. i t ’s idolatry. We've let nuclear weapons become divine." Bob Deweese VI Later that morning, my brother and I climb the hill above downtown Port Townsend to the private residence where self-professed activists Kathleen Hall and her partner Ed Terdal make their home. After taking a workshop in nonviolence and conflict resolution last spring in Ashland, Kathleen was invited to participate in the Mother’s Day Blockade at Lawrence Livermore Labs (where nuclear devices are designed) in California. She was arrested and soon thereafter Ed joined her for the June Blockade. Kathleen says, “ I decided that spending a week in jail was hardly any price to pay for making a statement that I don’t go along with what they’re doing at Livermore Labs.” Hearing of the planned Trident action, they eagerly moved north to Port Townsend. They arrived in a community that was actively preparing a campaign of civil disobedience. Two larger ships, the Lizard of Woz and the Pacific Peacemaker were planning to tow a number of one and two-person wooden dinghies to a spot in front of Trident, forcing it to confront them. After weeks of preparation, word came on August 12 that the Ohio was coming through the Strait and early that morning the protesters and their support groups gathered near Hope Bay. The Navy, fully aware of the planned action, had charged the normally pacific Coast Guard with sweeping the waters to allow unencumbered transit for the Trident. Before the submarine arrived, the Coast Guard surrounded the two vessels, spraying them and the small boat operators with water cannons, Kathleen Hall and Ed Terdal are partners in active anti-Trident resistance which in some cases swamped the smaller boats, and then moved in to make arrests. Kathleen, with the Lizard of Woz, was taken into custody and held 9 hours on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter. She remembers: “ I thought that all of us, the Coast Guard and the blockaders were all real surprised at the amount of force that they used. My big awakening was to look up and see a 50 caliber machine gun, it was huge, ready to start shooting, and I was just amazed that they were putting this thing together and loading it for a bunch of peacemakers.” Ed was in a small 14 ft. runabout with a 40 hp motor, serving as a tender for the Peacemaker’s miniarmada. When the Ohio finally came into view, and after being sprayed in the face by a water cannon, he and the two women aboard decided to “ go for the submarine.” They broke away, crossed the channel, and though they were warned away, intruded into the designated 1,000 ft. protective circle. Despite an array of larger boats and helicopters surrounding the Ohio, their crafts mobility allowed them to circle the sub and then run alongside it for a while, some 50 ft. away. Finally a helicopter succeeded in stopping the runabout’s forward progress with its prop wash. Though his boat’s venture had not been planned, and though Ed “ didn’t intend to perform an individual act of courage, or bravado,” he feels that it had some value. “ The fact that we did intrude on the space showed the public, at least, that the protesters didn’t lose the battle. We weren’t in there to have a battle. Our purpose, of course, was to make a statement from our hearts and souls and say no to this machine. And if that hadn’t happened, I think the Navy would feel totally justified in their acts.” Boatbuilder Ernie Baird was one of the first to enter the Bangor Base illegally Since that exhilarating period, and after Kathleen’s charges were dropped, along with all of those arrested, they settled into Port Townsend for the long haul. Their activities became much more mundane, such as leafletting the workers at the Naval Shipyard in Bremerton where the Michigan will be brought for fitting in early April. Kathleen feels that “ I’m still raising my own consciousness.” Passing out leaflets is “ a chance for me to look at these people and understand that they aren’t unlike us . . . they are us.” They have cut many ties to their admittedly comfortable former lives. “We don’t pay taxes,” says Ed. “ And we don’t pay taxes in a very legal manner. We don’t earn enough money to pay taxes. And so we’re learning a new lifestyle for ourselves. We’re living well below poverty level.” They are among the few who are planning a motor boat vigil for the Michigan’s arrival. Kathleen told the UPI: “ I can’t let something that destructive go by without pointing at it. I can’t be silent.” She concludes our conversation on that note: “ I think the most important thing people can do is talk about it. Talk to people who don’t agree, or who don’t have an opinion, because I think silence is what lets it happen. Silence is what will let the world end.” VII That afternoon, in a sunlit sylvan glade west of town, we visit the shed of boatbuilder Ernie Baird, who has been involved with the resistance for years. He is now totally engrossed in the construction of his own small sailing vessel, a double-ender known as a Crotch Island Pinkie. “ It’s probably the clearest political act I’m involved in,” he says, “ just trying to live as well as I’m able to. It’s true, I really am in a reactive stance.” He takes a precious half hour off to share some thoughts. In the early days of anti-Trident activity, in December of 1977, Ernie swam ashore at the Bangor Base, an act of civil disobedience which put him in the King County Jail for 10 days. “ I was persuaded early on that this weapon system destabilizes the balance between nations even further than the arms race currently destabilizes peace in the world. And that action at Bangor was my first response.” At that time he came to know Shelley and Jim Douglass, who founded Ground Zero next to Bangor and remain the leading lights of the nonviolent resistance against Trident. “ I have enormous admiration for them, in as much as they are able to be very consistent in their response to Trident, whereas I tend to run in cycles of enthusiasm and exhaustion. Also, I am likely to be distracted.” It’s a cause that has engaged him many times, most recently in preparing the plywood boats that were towed behind the Lizard and the Peacemaker. He invested “ maybe 20 or 30 work days” in the project, making 8 boats, “ figuring two days and $80 per copy. That represents the absolute rock bottom end of marine construction costs . . . really cheap.” But in August he drew back from actual civil disobedience, intent on finishing his boat and not totally convinced that the action would have the desired results. “ [Trident] is simultaneously the most threatening political reality I know of, and also the place where, realistically, I stand the "Trident is simultaneously the most threatening political reality that l know of, and also the place where, realistically, I stand the least chance f success." Ernie Baird least chance of success. It’s really hard to stay with that one . . . You have to almost suspend the kind of common sense judgment that threads through your day, and say, alright, this is a matter of survival, what I do is equally a pragmatic action and an act of prayer. It is sometimes absurd.” I asked if he feels the results of the August 12 blockade had met his expectations. “ I think we got a lot more coverage of the spectacle and a lot less coverage of the reasoning of the people who were involved in the act of civil disobedience than I hoped for. It will probably inspire some good poetry, but that wasn’t what I was after.” So Ernie is torn about participating in any upcoming demonstration, with a boat to finish and personal plans to consummate, he says, “ Besides speaking the truth, trying to do that peacefully, I really have no sense of what an adequate strategy is . . . I don’t know anyone who thinks that that weapon system is a good idea. The people that I know are divided between those who support one or another action, and people who feel the possibility of acting effectively is nil. Most of the people I’m talking about are my friends, and I respect their judgment.” His boat again beckoning, we depart to spend the last daylight hour at the Port Townsend municipal marina, visiting the “ boat people.” A couple of anti-Trident banners flutter from masts, one very tattered. People are working on their craft, readying them for the long trip to Alaskan fishing grounds or a summer in the Clinton St. Quarterly 7
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