1 CHARLES AND “ HIS DOG,"RENE . AWAIT THE ARRIVAL OF THE CROCUS PEOPLE FREE Spring 1983
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CLINTON ST. QU/,, "PLY vol. 5, No. 1 STAFF Spring 1983 CONTENTS Co-Editors Jim Blashfield Lenny Dee Peggy Lindquist David Milholland Design and Production Jim Blashfield Production Assistants Sharon Niemcyzk David Milholland Proofreaders Walt Curtis Theresa Marquez Stan Sitnick Ad Production Peggy Lindquist Stacey Fletcher Ad Sales Lenny Dee JoLynn Amstutz Public Interest Marketing Sandy Wallsmith Typesetting Barry Hertz Irish Setter Jill Wilson Camerawork Paul Diener Contributing Artists Kent Dixon Fay Jones Henk Pander Mary Robben Thanks Lynn Darroch Eric Edwards Martha Ezell Dana Hoyle Leo MacLeod Doug Milholland Bob Newman Ed Reckford Al Schwartz Steve Warner Charlotte Uris International Attache Pippo Lioni Advertisers call 222-6039 EDrTORIAL /f there is to be any hope for an economic righting of the good ship USA, the right kinds of questions must be asked. While Democrats and Republicans haggle over the morsels to be thrown to the jobless, multinational corporations are profiting to an unprecedented degree as they move our industrial base overseas. Tom Bender, in a recent issue of RAIN, points out, "Between 1945 and 1970, U.S. firms established more than 8,000 subsidiaries abroad, with an employment growth rate of 3.5 times domestic employment. Thirty three percent of the assets of our chemical and pharmaceutical industries, 40% of our consumer goods industry and 75% of our electronics industry have been moved outside of the country. Today, one out of three employees of U.S. firms is located outside the U.S." Is it no wonder that the U.S. jobless rate continues to rise? There is a new book out, Trading With The Enemy, by Charles Higham, which dramatically points out that this is not a new problem: “What would have happened if millions of Americans and British people, struggling with coupons and lines at the gas stations, had learned that in 1942 Standard Oil of New Jersey managers shipped the enemy's fuel through neutral Switzerland and that the enemy was shipping Allied fuel? Suppose the public had discovered that the Chase Bank in Nazi-occupied Paris after Pearl Harbor was doing millions of dollars worth of business with the enemy with the full knowledge of the head office in Manhattan? Or that Ford trucks were being built for the German occupation troops in France with authorization from Dearborn, Michigan? Or that Colonel Sos- thenes Behn, the head of the international American telephone conglomerate ITT, flew from New York to Madrid to Berne during the war to help improve Hitler's communications systems and improve the robot bombs that devastated London? Or that ITT built the Focke-Wulfs that dropped bombs on British and American troops?" Today with the enormous flight of investment capital overseas, we are again faced with corporations placing the security of the nation on the back burner. The immoral investment behavior of the multinationals does the rest of the world little good, what with their forced dependency on exportable one crop economies in lieu of balanced planned growth. Couple that with overseas investments being closely tied to repressive regimes and you have a situation that only benefits a select few. Is there any politician running for the White House in 1984 who would dare to suggest that these multinational giants are bringing the world economy to ruin? Yet, the facts speak for themselves. It leads one to ask who actually rules the land of the free and the home of the brave. Until this question becomes the overriding issue of the day, any hope of long-term solutions to our economic ills is for naught. f LD ■ t was shortly after being installed ■ in Washington that the Reagan Administration first trotted out its plans for El Salvador. They were going to make the place safe for business by shoring up the government there with guns and money. Reagan saw it as the exciting first test of America’s regained honor and strength. Alexander Haig could be seen stretching his wings and sharpening his beak. Virtually nobody outside of the “New Right" liked the idea. The public and press were outraged or wary. The benefits of helping the undeniably violent military triumph over a guerrilla force arising from the luckless peasantry were simply not overwhelmingly evident. And the press seemed, in general, not to withhold this view from the public. There were many reports on the gory details of the military’s way of doing battle: kidnappings, hideous tortures, routine executions that left bodies heaped in "dumps" every morning. Reagan then somewhat retreated from his original position when it became apparent that Americans weren’t buying this war. In fact, it now appears that what he was doing was digging in, re-educating the public through the press in order to make the proposition more palatable. We have been told that Nicaragua is a hotbed of Communism run by a group of tyrants who treat tribes of natives cruelly and deny their citizens such basic rights as a free press and political affiliation. And that that country is only a Soviet outpost, a foothold for grabbing the whole of Latin America while we sit on our duffs talking about human rights in El Salvador. Certainly, there have been several gaffs in Reagan’s public relations campaign, notably the captured Nicaraguan guerrilla who was supposed to confess all on national television and instead, told the damaging truth, Cover Jim Blashfield Thirteen Ways of Looking at Trident David M ilholland............ 4 Sonnet Pat Teeling .....................12 Windows of Vulnerability Richard Posner ..............18 Queen Elizabeth at the Q.P. Mary Robben...................20 Trojan Holiday Joseph Stevenson.......23 Nicaragua — Before and After Patty Somlo....................28 U.S. Bankcorp — Are They With Us? Rick Mitchell...............31 From Alchemy to Algeny Peggy Lindquist......... 36 Henk Pander The Clinton St. Quarterly is published by the Clinton St. Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202, (503) 222-6039. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright © 1983 Clinton St. Quarterly. and the doctored documents intended to prove a massive transfer of arms from Nicaragua to El Salvador. But all in all, it has been surprisingly successful. Reagan is asking now for an additional $110 million, in part to fund a major drive to destroy guerrilla base camps and to separate civilians from the guerrillas, a sort of "rural pacification" involving search-and-destroy missions, say the papers. The President tells us that the need for this program is urgent. "If El Salvador falls, no country in the region will be safe and our own security will be affected.” And if he has not won Congress over entirely to his point of view with his domino set, he has made them uneasy. House Speaker Tip O'Neill sounded like he was on a shaky fence when he said, "there's just a strong feeling around here that it's another Vietnam situation. At the same time, nobody wants to see that country go Marxist." The U.S. has pursued a policy in Latin America for over 50 years of installing and supporting governments for the benefit of U.S.-based business and it is a policy which has rarely resulted in any good for the majority of Latin Americans. If we now wish to separate the civilians from the guerrillas, I doubt that $110 million is enough. What are referred to in the press as "marxist rebels" and "the enemy" are the same desperate and fed-up citizens they were two years ago. Reagan is inventing the elements required for the real war he longs to tight: communist guerrillas, global strategies, massive weapons buildup on the other side and those ubiquitous dominos. And the previously skeptical press is now passing these chimeras along to the public as though it were reality. PL Clinton St. Quarterly 3
4 Clinton St. Quarterly
COUNTRY Douglas brother Salal fast at the Clinton St. Quarterly and I break- Cafe, after loading the we depart he buys which is ------- .. o rpnter to accom- draws open in. the^en than modate vesse fog slung, dreary. Trident. It |S 9 ^’qU up to the first o Minutes later, we roll up *bere the several ^K^ark-lt, in Poulsbo, bread is a staPJel^.ied on next page His customers live aTarea County, 25 miles to the^^.^ Naval Tiding o-r the Iasi;decade- * _ Mavv job as an act of high paying Navy ) the Port Milholland are activ ^P > « Submerging some the Trident I ?f San Juan de ™^cted to this visits waterways imagmapeaceful channel only . y^ nuc)ear tion’s furthes crew going I । pulse corseted in I d^ (ong home I petty conf icts Trident submarine I gather dust, on ting up to 192 | .o - I here nearby, 'n nce? And what I terms with its P done about it . I can, should, 'w« a .hUr that had I The car rockets P on our 10 I seemed the । can say Jack I speeds, and before^ port Town- I Robinson I ve ar fforn home, the I send '? moving whi'e । sleep' I USS Ohio moving ^on^o The USS ■ at the Bangor tde Bangor is di V Like many N b diving and Xee%sive Trident . The drive nor^ the lower Hood puts me ^February night begins Canal as a d^ F make my niece s its reign-Hurry y vening in Po birthday Par V nstruct ^e...'®anv I Townsend, I r most specifically scape from ^^’^three years | a bicycle trip autumn sun and | previous. Then had done much I ?he glitterina water h * Wnd of I to convince me \ Dan Ste’^^°‘®^Xj^Smanda Above: Dan 3 DoUg, Nancy o Thirteen ways c Looking atTndel ri Photos by David Milholiand ■manks to Wallace bte
Continued from page 5 serves many of the people who work and reside at Bangor. It has aisles filled with meats, fish cakes (“a Norsky treat for generations”), Perrier, specialty wines, baskets made in China, and full shopping carts. As we leave, I pick up The Trident Tides, the official Bangor publication, with its announcement of such hot tips as: “The USS Ohio recently received ComSubPac’s Ney Award nomination in the Small Mess Afloat category. Capt. William G. Lange, Com- SubGru 9, presented the mess specialist division of the submarine with a plaque, honoring them for being selected to represent ComSubPac in the competition.” It is filled with real estate ads, career- descrips of “Sailors of the Quarter,” and a photo spread on a boxing smoker “which draws 600.” Life goes on at Bangor. At the next stop, Doug moves bread while a headline in the P.l. beckons me to read: “Reagan Asking for Even More Tridents.” It describes a $60 billion program, with a request to up the number of Tridents constructed from 15 to 20 by 1993. The subs would carry up to 24 missiles, with 10-15 warheads per missile, each carrying 475,000 TNT impact. They would be capable of travelling up to 6,000 miles and of striking within 400 ft. of target, destroying a hardened, reinforced steel and concrete target. This is the Trident II, D5 missile. “It seems to be in the air,” I muse. Drip, drip, drip. The great Northwest. We drive up through the Suquamish Reservation, resting place of Chief Seattle, to a private home ... a food buying club... whose owner contends "This used to be a really rural, peaceful community. Now it's just the opposite — one o f the biggest war communities in the world.” David Kukkola “the Trident Base is not employing many from around here. And I’m not sure the people who come here for Trident appreciate the Sound.” Over tea at the Salt Water Cafe in Winslow, we chat with a local family. Coincidentally, they are among the founders of the Kitsap Peace Coalition which would soon be sending 2 delegates to Washington D.C. to lobby for the Nuclear Freeze. Their family-run school for mentally retarded adolescents, built in 1887, had lost its federal funding in March of 1982, a victim of the Reagan budget priorities. And they claim the growth caused by all the local Naval spending has raised their taxes 200-300% to pay for “infrastructure.” One family member, David Kukkola says, “This used to be a really rural, peaceful community. Now it’s just the opposite —- one of the biggest war communities in the world.” At another table, a Lutheran minister relaxing after Sunday service talks of his denomination's recent Peace Conference in Seattle. He refers to Romans 13 and the power of “I love you.” He says, “fighting is impotent . . . only out of fear of our own annihilation will much change happen.” He talks of the problems of ministering to those who work at Trident. “They have a real conflict.” Driving out of town, it still feels rural to me. As the road turns windy, my brother recounts: “It was Hiroshima Day, and I was driving the bread truck, and I was coming down this road to the food co-op. And there, walking along the road, beating their drums were about 60 people, led by these monks. So I drove ahead of Gyo Foku, a Japanese monk, speaks of Trident them, did my transaction at the co-op and then I picked up a tray of day old bread, set it on the ground and stood their bowing. Within a minute or two they had reached me, came over and in a whisper said, ‘Is this for us? Is this all for us?’ And I said, ‘Yes, please take it as a gift.’ ‘Ahhh!’” This has since come to be a regular practice. We suddenly drive off the road onto a scantly marked lane. We’re among Buddhists. Ill We are ushered out of the drizzle into a squat, primitive building, where we are warmly received and immediately served tea and Port Townsend Bread pudding. A number of people sit around the large table, some recent arrivals from the East Coast. Conversation flows to the subject of the Pagoda, a peace shrine constructed by this, the Nihonzan Myohoji order, at Ground Zero, a site immediately adjacent to the Bangor Base owned by peace activists Shelley and Jim Douglass. Unknown arsons had burned it to the ground on May 27,1982, and since that time the order has fought a legal battle to obtain the necessary permits to rebuild. They have been resolutely opposed by the Kitsap County Commissioners and a shadow group called Citizens Against the Pagoda (CAP, though it’s dubbed CRAP by someone at the table). The Pagoda-has become a symbol offering various constructs, and to some it’s an alien presence in a Christian world. The presence of these chanters of NA-MY MYO-HO- REN-GE-KYO, who have spread across the planet working and beating their drums for peace, has provided a target for those unable to understand or accept the peace movement. I talk briefly with Gyo Foku, a young Japanese monk. Gyo is awed by the connections that brought his orders holy text, the Lotus Sutra, into the hands of New Englanders Emerson and Thoreau 150 years ago, and thence to their local benefactors, the Kukkolas, who had allowed the order to reconstruct a residence and a shrine temporarily on family land after the Pagoda was burned. Gyo is Bob DeWeese, of the Portland Townsend Peace Coalition, in his downtown bookstore disappointed that there seems to be less energy being focussed on the arrival of Trident number two, the USS Michigan, due in the area in fate March or early April — “Though it will be big again.” He acknowledges that “many people have come to help” since the order was burned out of Ground Zero. “They are inspiring me.” The order has constructed another temple on the Kukkola land, its alter gilded and luminescent, piled high with pictures of respected elders, icons, Port Townsend Bread and strangely, Coca Cola. We genuflect and Gyo beats the temple bell for us. When my brother asks how long the order plans on being here, Gyo replies, “Forever.” IV Ashort distance down the road, we reach the Bainbridge Food Co-op. When I enter the place, the first person I see is reading the Clinton Street Quarterly — Dean Sinclair is dressed for church, and is watching his daughter while his wife buys food unavailable in Bremerton supermarkets. Dean tells me he works for Pan Am World Services, the prime contractor at Bangor for all non-defense operations. (They also operate the airline, this being one of those “corporate diversification” efforts.) Dean works in a program that is consolidating the variety of hazardous wastes used throughout the base into one bunker area, thus reducing damage to the groundwater and base environment. He is proud of Pan Arn’s “we do everything” role at Bangor, and describes their program as very cost-efficient compared to the Navy. His wife approaches and I ask her if people at the co-op give her a bad time for her association with the base. She replies, “One lady said, ‘You eat like this and you work there?’ I said, ‘I like to be healthy as much as anyone else.’ I have a very high view of our surroundings. It makes sense to take care of them.” Dean continues: “I wouldn’t want a nuclear attack on us. It’s become a cliche. Some people say, ‘Nuke ’em till they glow.” Others, ‘Ban the Bomb.’ Without Trident there would be nothing to prevent them [the Russians] from doing it Indiscriminately. People out there [Bangor] feel it is purely defensive. The Lord doesn’t ask us to lay down and let people walk over us. I would like to work so they wouldn’t come down.” “If we freeze,” his wife concludes, “I don’t feel another superpower would follow suit.” Dean and his wife are one, projecting their hopes and fears across a vast sea. So they live with Trident, eat at its table, and pray for peace. At the end of the day we arrive back in Port Townsend and swing by the abandoned Coastal Defense Battery at nearby Port Worden. It used to house guns that could fire accurately up to 20 miles across the straits. Built in 1909-10, as a big stick at the end of Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency, it’s from the time when the U.S. was becoming a naval and imperial power. Yet it feels like the Army, controlling the seas from the land. As my brother puts it, “it’s a peaceful defense battery ... in as much as it doesn’t project itself.” V Monday morning, I join my brother and his family for breakfast at the Quimper Inn in Port Townsend, and then the two of us stroll downtown. There we talk with Bob DeWeese, co-owner (with his wife) of Melville and Company Books. He presides over a store filled with used book “finds,” neighborliness and the tools of resistance. An early member of the Port Townsend Peace Coalition, he was active in the August "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." Bob Deweese boat blockade which greeted the Ohio’s arrival. Now, in its aftermath, he works locally and through the statewide network to foster a change in attitude. I asked him about the money it took to bring off the blockade. Did it come in from “outside”? “We never had any money . . . people do it because everybody realizes there isn’t any money, so you find a way to get beyond it. There were several hundred people doing support work ... a lot of people just dropped their own work for weeks. It’s a classic example of mutual aid in Kropotkin’s sense. People coming together outside of the institutions to create community, instantly.” Though energy is currently at an ebb, Bob does not feel that it has lapsed permanently. “Trident kind of sailed in and sailed into every one of us, kind of sailed into our hearts. It’s been internalized ... it has to sit in there for a while like a seed, and I think it will grow. I hope it doen’t grow into something evil.” The Peace Coalition has recently focussed much of its energy on education, both in the community and in the schools. “A lot of people have been so frightened and are so insecure about the issue, that they don’t want to talk about it at all.” They were successful in convincing the City Council to pass a Freeze endorsement, but their real success, this year, has been with high school seniors. “We’ve been using a curricula aimed directly at the secondary school level, developed by National Ground Zero, called The Nuclear Age. It’s five short, concise, tremendously 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
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 of it. it'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, l stand the least chance of 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
Islands. Not bringing it up, Trident doesn’t enter the conversation. Instead, we are told that Port Townsend was called in its youth, the “City of Destiny.” I wonder what it will be. VIII Tuesday, the third and final day of my investigation, I again drive the twenty miles south to Kitsap County, and eat breakfast in a greasy spoon in Silverdale. On one side of me, a table of military folk mull over their fate. “I shouldn’t have left California,” says one. Facing me, a middle-aged mobile home assembler tells me that “things are on the move here. They’re bringing in another big Naval squadron, 2500 by the end of the year.” He’s pleased to have work in this otherwise moribund economy. I pass a billboard declaring boldly “He’d Rather Fly For The Navy” on my way into Bremerton, and stop in a couple of places to get a fix on the local economy. At the CETA office, only four job seekers are waiting, and on the wall are posted hiring notices for many jobs at the local Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, for boilermakers, insulators, electronics mechanics, nuclear engineering technicians, etc., all at WG8 or better, a starting pay of $9.97 an hour. I’m told that though Kitsap County has around 8% unemployment, the lowest in Washington State, “Bremerton has no bright lights, it’s not booming.” Downtown, after visiting the Naval Employment Office, which is swarming with young men looking for those Shipyard jobs, I chance into the Armed Services YMCA. In the foyer is a picture of people rowing across a South Seas lagoon, under the message, “True religion has made civilization possible.” Outside, the streets are grimy, tired, filled with clipjoints, video arcades, a Domestic Military Scale Model store and "Most of the people here are churchgoing, but being Christian for them is too easy. There's no cost involved. Nonviolence is at the core of their belief, but they won't recognize that." Dan Stevenson innumerable taverns. The Anchor — “Famous All Over The World” — is burned out. Across the street, by the Bremerton-Seattle ferry slip, I find the person I’m looking for. Dan Stevenson is preparing his day’s business in the tiny Harbor Hut, where he sells burgers and fast food. The previous April, Dan had resigned a promising, high paying position at the Shipyard, the largest employer in Bremerton. Acts of courage are usually prompted by extreme circumstances, but for his friends and family Naval employment was the “status quo” and they considered the resignation ridiculous rather than courageous. For Dan and his wife Donna, whose father is a high official at the Shipyard who had helped Dan get the job, it was more of an act of faith. For months they had been working through the “conflict between the nonviolent gospel of Jesus Christ and working in Defense.” Before he quit, he often joined the all night vigils on the Post Office steps, led by fellow Catholics from the Jonah House who had come to Bremerton to protest Trident and engage with the workers. “These guys I worked with would come walking by at one or two in the morning, so drunk they wouldn’t recognize me. I'd go to work directly from the Post Office. I was always talking about it at work, how I didn't feel right.” Later, Dan admits that he had doubts, “not doubts about leaving but doubts about the timing. See my wife was pregnant and I lost all health benefits. It probably would have been easier if I had waited a few more months.” Though he was successful in contesting his unemployment claim, “because there was a conflict and I was sincere,” the first few months in the community “were pure hell.” People he’d known and worked with ostracized them, though “family never did that." Now the same people are “playing good Christians by accepting us ... we were brainwashed and now things are over.” Dan still feels it was a wise decision. “It puts our lives back in our control. I never wanted to do that job, and with all those things torn away and uprooted, you’re able to look at your life and decide what you want to do in life. It polarized the community and gave them something to discuss. Before there was no question. Now there’s a question. There’s no answers, but there are questions. It’s kind of neat.” Dan strongly feels that the principal force behind the peace movement should be the church, “not just a couple of bishops but from the church itself, because it’s against everything that’s in the Bible, if you believe in violence to that degree. Most of the people here are churchgoing, but being Christian for them is too easy. It doesn’t make any demands, there’s no cost involved. Nonviolence is at the core of their belief, but they won’t recognize that. That’s why we want to get into counsel-ministry, to see what we can to to bring that about. It’s got to come from within.” Dan and Donna are soon moving to Portland to take up their studies at Marylhurst College. “The hope we share together,” he tells me as he opens for the day, “and I think a lot of other people in the church share too, is that in the end, all things will work out.” IX Port Orchard, Kitsap county seat, lies across Sinclair inlet from Bremerton, and I take the Retsil, a foot ferry, for the 15 minute excursion. The ride takes one much of the length of the naval shipyard, which harbors dozens of military craft of all sizes and a handful of Polaris subs. The USS Michigan, is expected in early April for outfitting. The Retsil is primary transportation for the hundreds of shipyard workers who commute between the sister communities, and now, just off shift, they mostly sit alone, looking exhausted. Six block up the hill, I quickly find myself in Kitsap Commissioner John Horsley’s office, a seat he’s held since 1976. A youngish Democrat, he was born and raised on a strawberry farm near Silverdale, very near Bangor, attended Harvard (“to sort of balance out the brains”), and was in the Peace Corps in Peru. His wall sports photos of himself with Congressman Floyd Hicks, with whom he served as Administrative Assistant, Ronald Reagan and Scoop Jackson, who leads the delegation which has so successfully brought home those military plums. “Our delegation always worked as a team. We’ve been very successful. Used all our clout.” In 1973, when the Navy announced the creation of the Bangor Base, he claims the Washington delegation was surprised. “It was not sought after. The Navy did some 8 Clinton St. Quarterly
surveys — for strategic needs, moorage, public opinion, etc. We read about it in the papers.” Kitsap County has had the Navy for its “industry” since the turn of the century. So with the announcement of Trident’s arrival, its officials, working with the congressional delegation, organized a Trident coordination office to prepare for the impact. “We put together an estimate of our needs and our anticipated growth. The [U.S.] government made a $100 million contribution to the community. Our major industry pays no taxes. So during that surge of growth we were covered.” The project was immense. “Between 1975 and ’80, they invested a billion dollars. It’s one of the biggest bases ever built. The first sub arrived in 1982, and another one is scheduled to arrive annually over the next 10 years.” John maintains that there has been very little difference of opinion on the “issue” of Trident since the beginning. “A poll taken in 1974, at the tail end of the Boeing depression, showed 74% favorable ... of the remaining 26%, this has always been a retirment community, people who didn’t want to see it change. Only a small local minority opposed it outright.” He estimates the opposition has increased by 5% over the years. He feels the problem is basically lack of understanding. “Those of us in planning knew the impacts. They didn’t know.” I ask him if he feels comfortable being so clearly a target, for the ground zero designation seems most appropriate for Kitsap. “We were always one of the top targets. Thank goodness people are becoming more concerned about the arms race.” This man is a politician! I finally ask about the Pagoda. The Buddhists want to reconstruct at Ground Zero, and though the Commissioners have unanimously ruled against them, a Seattle judge has just recently declared the Commissioners’ The Ground Zero Dojo of the Nihonzan Myohoji order just before its dedication position of “non-conforming use” invalid. John speaks for the Commissioners: “Our conclusion was that it just wouldn’t fit in the community. The test of that is that the proposed use not be unreasonably incompatible.” I ask why a pagoda is incompatible. “It’s in a rural area, and a high volume of activity was anticipated. And number two, it’s avowed purpose was to in essence close down the Trident base. They wanted to wipe out their neighbors. They were seeking confrontation.” Conversation at an end, I walk down the hill to the Retsil. More people are on my return voyage, most of them going to work at the shipyards. They seem more social than those I'd seen going the other way. Many already wore their Naval Shipyard identification badges. There are many more minority people here than in other similar sized communities in the Northwest. The Navy makes a big thing about “Equal Opportunity” hiring. No one looks at the shipyard as we pass by. X Before leaving Bremerton, I pause for a bite and open the Dalmo’ma Anthology my brother had given me. Skimming through the pages, I land on the poem “Bangor,” by Tom Jay. It’s populated with people around here, a housewife in Poulsbo, a workmate in Bremerton, a young woman scuba diving in Hood Canal and a young man returning from Seattle on the ferry. Their problems are their own, their lives tranquil. It’s the mundane world we all inhabit. Yet Jay adds a twist: When it comes it will be quick. The heat will peel your old sweetheart like a grape. Light blinded she searches bravely for her moaning children. One by one they are destroyed, and the corporeal world we share with them is mutated beyond our wildest nightmares. Not one bomb, many bombs would fall. Yes, it’s true, the bottom line of all this activity is “wiping out our neighbors,” our fellow citizens on this, our only planet. It gives pause. XI Driving out of Bremerton, past the miles of fence that separate the citizenry from their employer, I begin to understand where our tax dollars are going. Commissioner Horsley had told me that Trident had precipitated an increase in Naval Shipyard employment from 7000 to 12,000. Overall county population has increased 60,000 in the decade since the Trident announcement. Stopping above a submarine bay, I get out to take a picture through the fence. Suddenly I feel like a spy, though I’m breaking no law and lack malicious intent. As my investigation proceeds, Trident is growing multifaceted before me, though it remains invisible. I drive toward the Bangor Base, passing by the exits to Trigger Avenue and to the Naval Undersea AMOR EL-KHAYAM RESTAURANT It took 2000 years to improve this bed. 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Warfare Engineering Station. An entire freeway system has been constructed to service these linked installations. As a concept, Trident seems evil, overpowering, dangerous. Yet in its As a concept, Trident seems evil, overpowering, dangerous. Yet in its midst one feels what Hannah Arendt described as "the banality of evil." Death made plastic. - midst one feels what Hannah Arendt described as “the banality of evil.” Death made plastic. I arrive at the Bangor gate, drive to the admission building, and wait for 15 minutes to gain clearance. Everything is spanking new and shiny. The attendants, all women, talk of their dates and mates. I finally make the right connection, fill out an endless admission form, and drive less than 500 yards onto the base, to a beautifully landscaped parking lot and the Administration Building. XII Lt. Commander John Woodhouse shortly will be transferred to the Pentagon. A schematic of that eminent building winks from his office wall. In his current job as a public information officer at Bangor, The Ground Zero Dojo, after it was reduced to ashes by unknown arsons he’s the military version of “a nice guy,” full of statistics, quotables and explanations. “The base employs 3200 military and 4000 civilians, mostly connected to Pan Am World Services. You're dealing with a large, reputable firm. It’s a $35 million contract, 5 years with 4 one year options.” He then goes into intricate detail on all the different “classes” of subs, adding that when the Ohio came into service, two Polaris subs were rendered nonnuclear. That is, they became tactical or attack subs, not strategic. In doing so, he says the U.S. is living up to the expired Salt I treaty, which requires the number of submarine born missiles to remain the same, despite the change in number or type of vessel carrying them. John is happy to have been at Bangor, located in “a beautiful part of the country.” Relationships with the community are “outstanding, just incredible. We have a close and smooth running relationship between the military and the community. They’re wonderfully receptive and tremendously supportive. People who live here try to make this a home for a little while. I’m active in a square dance club. I’m president of a Lions group.” He proudly mentions that “the big celebration in Kitsap County is Armed Forces Week.” He is also proud of the years of planning and thought that went into Bangor’s construction. “Initially the concerns about the base were environmental. An incredible amount of environmental care has been put into the construction of the base. The piers are situated 400 feet offshore to protect the fingerling salmon which run there. We’ve improved the environment over what it was 10 years ago.” I ask about the Trident protests. “We recognize the right to protest, to demonstrate. The Navy exists to protect that right, if done in a lawful manner. We’re concerned if they break federal laws. “We perceive the demonstrators as former anti-Vietnam guys looking for a new target. I can’t say where they come from. They're not Kitsap County residents. They come from Canada, Seattle, California and Olympia . . . There have been two sizable demonstrations at Bangor, one in 1978, with 4000-6000 demonstrators and over 200 arrests, a second in October, '79, 2000-4000 people, 120 arrests.” “Any weapon can be called a first strike weapon, it all depends on context. We are here to protect the country, we threaten no one.” XIII It is dusk on this last day of my investigation when I reach Gerald Partain, the minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, in Poulsbo. I have been told that Reverend Partain could explain the religious underpinnings for the acceptance of Trident. The church is on the edge of town and the parking lot is ample. He greets me in the dimly lit corridor, ushers me into his office and offers me tea and a comfortable seat. Gerald has been in Poulsbo 51/z years, after being assigned there by a group of Seattle churches. This is his first congregation, at approximately 50 years of age. Prior to his years at seminary in St. Louis, he’s spent nearly 20 years in aerospace research and development. “I was genuinely converted in 1968,” he recalls, “The HOWLONG HAS IT BEEN SINCE YOU’ VE HAD A REUBEN SANDWICH? • CARAWAY RYE • MELTED CHEESE • SAUERKRAUT • & SOYASAGE YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN VEGETARIAN REUBEN WITH SOYASAGE. Just slice the Soyasage into 1/4-in. pieces, place on bread with your favorite cheese, some sauerkraut, a touch of dressing and lightly grill. The best Reuben you've ever had! Soyasage is a flavorful and spicy soy product made from 1OO% wholesome natural ingredients only. Soyasage contains no meat. It is a complete protein and very high in dietary fiber. 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Bible has answers to every aspect of life.” I ask him about his specialty in those former years. “I worked specially in glass and ceramics . . . research into their use in aircraft and deep submersibles. I changed firms and was caught in 1969 by the recession. It’s been good. You need to take a bold new road sometimes.” I question him about his work with those people employed by the Navy. “I have seen people who were touched by the ‘guilt trip’ laid on them by the leafletters. They understand the ramifications of pushing the button. It’s the last thing in the world they want to see. I don’t know anyone who is a warmonger. They pray to God they never do. Both they and their opponents want the same thing.” He cites a number of Bible verses to back his convictions, so many that I cannot keep track. He admonishes me to doubt sincerely those who claim religious inspiration for their beliefs, if they can’t cite chapter and verse. “My view of human nature is based on the Bible. Mankind is tinged in every faculty of his being with sin. Where two different opinions exist in the world, there will very likely be a war. It may be yelling or fighting or a nuclear holocaust. “God has decreed the end. Whatever happens will work out for good. Not necessarily for the good of the world. I believe the world will be judged.” He asks me why all the focus on a nuclear base. “Why not a sword manufacturer? I don’t believe it’s morally wrong at all. They are obeying their government. It’s ordained of God. Mankind only respects force or threat.” Reverend Partain pulls out an article he wrote for the Bremerton Sun, “Protesters Defy Law of God.” An excerpt “There is no common ground (or shoul< we say ‘Ground Zero’) for commmication between such opposing philosophies except ‘total strategic preparedness.' Yes! The Ground Zero people should pray! They should pray for forgiveness for trying to dupe people into thinking theirs is a godly cause, and that they might be enlightened to know the true God and the true enemy. To all our military forces, we say, ‘Thank you for being there and for not bearing the sword in vain, but for being instruments of God to suppress chaos and maintain order until the King of Peace reigns personally, visibly and forever.” In a letter to the editor, he wryly notes, someone declared: “Surely Reverend Partain does not speak for all of Christendom!” I am ushered out into the night with this final message, “We get the government we deserve. Communists are no worse than capitalists. God will judge us all.” An hour later I’m on the Winslow Ferry to Seattle, brimful with impressions. So many people claiming the truth, so many praying for peace, and it has become as elusive as the Trident. The lights of Seattle hone into view, a city, like many in America, fueled by the spending we lavish on our “protection.” On this trip I’ve been dissuaded of my absurd notion of Portland and Oregon being a “sanctuary” in this twilight world of military madness, for on the wall in Bob DeWeese’s bookstore was a map that indicated the target area around Portland as being larger than Seattle’s. Credit is due to the “clean electronic industry” spread throughout Portland’s suburbs, much of which is vital to the space age military equipment built elsewhere. Yes, Trident is all of us, whether we work for it, pay for it or struggle against it. It serves as a convenient, genuinely terrifying symbol for this “nation of destiny.” Our staggering ingenuity has run away from us and must be brought back under control. Our control. Do what you must, for the Trident moves while we sleep. ■ WE’VE BUILT OUR REPUTATION BY HANOI When it’s handmade, it’s special. 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