 On July 25, 1898, the United States invaded Puerto Rico and recolonized the island nation, just one week after Puerto Ricans had established a semi-independent government from Spain. For the past 123 years, the United States has held possession of Puerto Rico as a colony in various forms; the official euphemism currently in use is “commonwealth.” Puerto Ricans on the island today are subject to federal laws, eligible for the draft, and technically hold US citizenship — but cannot vote in federal elections, have limited access to certain government services, and are not permitted to control their own trade policy. But to understand why some have called Puerto Rico “the oldest colony in the world,” we must first examine the history of the US-PR relationship.
Before the 1898 invasion, the island of Puerto Rico had a centuries-long history as a colony of the Spanish Empire, a longer history of indigenous Taino cultural hegemony before the Spanish, and an even longer history of periodic migration waves from South America before the emergence of the Taino culture. But by the mid to late 19th century, international affairs had changed drastically from previous eras. The success of independence movements across the Americas had reduced the Spanish Empire to a shadow of its former self. With Cuba and Puerto Rico as the last remaining crown jewels left in the Spanish “New World,” and a new ascendant ideology emphasizing the importance of naval supremacy, the Spanish Empire was desperate to do whatever they could to keep the two large Caribbean islands — including granting concessions to the residents. By 1898, Puerto Rico was on a path to independence from Spain: Puerto Ricans won the abolition of slavery after the 1868 Grito de Lares uprising, adopted a national flag after the 1897 Intentona de Yauco uprising, and in the same year convinced the Spanish government to grant limited self-government including a partially-elected bicameral legislature. On July 17, 1898, the new Puerto Rican government began operating. Eight days later, as part of the Spanish-American War, the United States invaded the island and ended the PR self-rule experiment before it had a chance to prove itself. In the two years following the invasion and the end of Spanish-American War, the United States ruled Puerto Rico by a military government, which was replaced by a civilian government largely appointed by the US government. Over the next five decades, Puerto Ricans struggled against US rule at every level, trying to establish self-governance on the island. During this period, the US government adopted the Jones Act which reformed both houses of the PR legislature to a fully democratic system and granted US citizenship and the attending Constitutional rights to Puerto Rican residents. But the Jones Act also made Puerto Ricans eligible for military conscription just as the United States was preparing to join the First World War — indeed, the PR legislature unanimously rejected the Jones Act for this very reason, but was overruled by the US government. For three decades after the Jones Act, Puerto Ricans would suffer heavily from a major earthquake, a tsunami, several hurricanes, the effects of the Great Depression, and perennially insufficient aid from the United States. Many Puerto Ricans were also killed or injured while protesting the clearly exploitative relationship with the United States, most notably in the Ponce Massacre in 1937 in which the US-controlled Insular Police killed 19 people and injured 200 more at an unarmed protest. Prompted by the demonstrations in Puerto Rico, US Senator Millard Tydings unsuccessfully attempted to pass bills for PR independence twice in this period. It was only in 1948 that Puerto Ricans were finally able to vote for their own governor. But that same year, the Puerto Rican Senate passed the infamous Law 53 AKA the Gag Law which imposed heavy prison sentences and fines and suspended Constitutional rights for those found to promote Puerto Rican independence and/or nationalism. This move unofficially cemented Luis Muñoz Marín, one of the US government’s major political allies on the island, as the premier politician in Puerto Rico. By this point, US banks owned about half of the arable land and many other railroads and harbors in Puerto Rico, and the United States government was motivated to protect those investments. In 1950, when nationalists led a revolt against the drafting of what they considered a new colonial constitution, the United States responded by deploying 4000 troops, 10 fighter planes, and several 500-pound bombs. US Armed Forces destroyed much of the Jayuya and Utuado municipalities, killed and wounded dozens, and imprisoned and tortured nationalists in secret prisons for over a decade afterward. Over the 1950s and 1960s, the United States government with the help of Muñoz Marín began Operation Bootstrap to accelerate the economic colonization of the island. The plan under Operation Bootstrap offered tax exemptions for US businesses, which siphoned much-needed revenue from public necessities like schools, roads, and hospitals. The traditionally agrarian society transformed into an industrial one very rapidly, with wages increasing for many who could get work in the new industries. But the new economy could not support as many workers as the old one and so unemployment rates dramatically increased. In an effort to sustain this new economy, Muñoz Marín and the United States government encouraged the unemployed to emigrate to the United States mainland. Nearly half a million Puerto Ricans moved to US cities, most notably to New York City where they became known as “Nuyoricans.” In another attempt to limit the PR population, Muñoz Marín and the US government also conducted coerced sterilization programs, which were so effective that, according to one scholar, over ⅓ of all Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age had been sterilized by 1969. By 1970, Luis Muñoz Marín had retired from politics, but the economic system he had helped to engineer would continue to accelerate over the next few decades. With Operation Bootstrap, Puerto Rico was much more thoroughly integrated into the American economy, making exploitation even easier. The island would never be the same again. When we return to this story of the recolonization of Puerto Rico in a few weeks, we will examine the more recent troubles the island has faced, as well as some ways that Puerto Ricans have come together to support each other, to overcome (or at least cope with) many recent hardships, and to forge a new path for the island and its people. -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust -- Sources Cheatham, Amelia. “Puerto Rico: A U.S. Territory in Crisis.” Council on Foreign Relations. 25 November 2020 [Accessed 21 July 2021]. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/puerto-rico-us-territory-crisis Darder, Antonia. “Colonized Wombs? Reproduction Rights and Puerto Rican Women.” The Public i. December 2006 [Accessed 21 July 2021]. http://publici.ucimc.org/2006/12/colonized-wombs-reproduction-rights-and-puerto-rican-women/ Guisado, Angelo. “It’s Time to Talk About Cuba. And Puerto Rico, Too.” Current Affairs. 15 October 2020 [Accessed 21 July 2021]. https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/10/its-time-to-talk-about-cuba-and-puerto-rico-too  Last week, we examined Donald Rumsfeld’s legacy of lies and utter disregard for human rights, which led to the United States government committing torture and waging unnecessary wars, as well as the subsequent undermining of American credibility, destabilization of an entire region of the world, and the deaths of countless people. With complicity from the leading American news sources and both major political parties, Rumsfeld planned a disastrous invasion of Afghanistan and engineered a ploy under false pretenses to make an equally disastrous invasion of Iraq. In recognition of the founding of the International Criminal Court on July 17, 1998 and its entering into force on July 1, 2002, we ask today: despite the myriad manifest war crimes directed by Donald Rumsfeld, why was Rumsfeld never tried in the international court?
First, we must look at the history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the United States’ relationship to it. Since the end of the First World War, many prominent Americans have both supported and rejected calls for a permanent international court to prosecute persons for committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other violations of international law. Especially after the Second World War, Americans were some of the most vocal proponents of an international court to arbitrate war criminals of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. But until 2002, all international courts were ad hoc tribunals, including the famous Nuremberg trials that indicted the Nazis. During the Cold War, trying to establish a permanent international court seemed impractical while the United States and the Soviet Union divided the world; but starting in 1989, A.N.R. Robinson, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, reintroduced the idea of such a court to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. As the statutes for this new court were being drafted, the United Nations was confronted by two events that further underscored the need for an international court system: the mass atrocities of the Yugoslav Wars and the Rwandan genocide, both of which were handled by separate ad hoc international tribunals before the establishment of the ICC. From 1989 to 1998, the International Law Commission (ILC), the UN General Assembly, and a coalition of NGOs worked on drafting a statute for the proposed International Criminal Court, drawing heavily from and expanding upon US civil liberty and constitutional law. On 17 July, the General Assembly adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court with an overwhelming vote of 120 to just seven (21 countries abstained). Along with China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar, and Yemen — countries with well-documented histories of human rights abuses — the United States voted against the Rome Statute. What was the main reason for the nay vote from the United States? US Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, objected due to the high possibility that American citizens, especially U.S. military personnel and public officials, could be investigated or prosecuted under international laws — the same laws that would equally apply to all signatory states. Even in the pre-9/11 years, the primary concern was that Americans would be charged with war crimes, even as the United States supported the international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The United States did not want to play by the same rules that they happily helped to impose on others. This transparently hypocritical perspective seemed to rule from the late 1990s into the 2000s, such that when President Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000, he did not even submit it to the Senate for ratification. In 2002, the year that the Rome Statute reached its requisite 60 ratifications to go into force, President Bush clarified his open hostility to the ICC and international law overall. By that time, the United States had been in Afghanistan for a year, the CIA/military prison torture program was well underway, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was putting the finishing touches to his Iraq invasion plan. While US objections to the Rome Statute were originally more generalized, the Bush-era hostility to ICC authority was clearly meant to shield Rumsfeld and many others in the Bush administration, as well as the military they directed, from well-substantiated accusations of willfully violating international law. To that end, Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act in 2002 in order “to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party.” The US government then pressured its allies to sign bilateral immunity agreements to never transfer US citizens to ICC authority, undermining the ICC further. Unwilling to challenge the United States government on the matter, the ICC simply sent “regrets” that the United States had taken such a hard line. It was not necessarily the existence of an international court to which the United States government objects; the United States has enthusiastically participated in every major ad hoc international court since the end of the Second World War, and has at times actively supported the ICC when it suited US interests. For example, during President Bush’s second term, the United States took a pause from its anti-ICC hostility and refrained from using its veto power in the UN Security Council to prevent the ICC from investigating alleged atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan, allowing the process to move forward. On the softening of US hostility to the ICC, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher stated, “The United States believes very firmly in accountability for the crimes that have been committed in Sudan… [T]here is a mechanism that many members supported in terms of doing that… the International Criminal Court. And so we abstained because we think it is very important that these crimes are prosecuted.” Under President Obama, the US-ICC relationship was “reset” and the United States began actively cooperating with the ICC, although the United States never officially joined. Predictably, President Trump was openly hostile to the ICC, renewing the Bush-era sham complaints and even imposing sanctions against ICC officials. Now, under President Biden, those sanctions have been revoked, but the basic objections remain: the US government is absolutely unwilling to accept international jurisdiction or follow international laws — except when they serve American interests. This obvious hypocrisy and sense of entitlement sets a dangerous precedent of “might makes right” — and what will happen when another country becomes mightier? — Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust — Sources Stompor, John. “The Darfur Dilemma: U.S. Policy Toward the ICC.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, vol. 7, no. 1, 2006, pp. 111–119. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43133667 Trahan, Jennifer and Andrew Egan. “U.S. Opposition to the International Criminal Court.” American Bar Association. 1 January 2003 [Accessed 14 July 2021]. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/human_rights_vol30_2003/winter2003/irr_hr_winter03_usopposition/ Reeves, Teresa Young. “A Global Court?” U.S. Objections to the International Criminal Court and Obstacles to Ratification.” Human Rights Brief, vol. 8, no. 1, article 6, 2000. American University Washington College of Law. https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1472&context=hrbrief “Q&A: The International Criminal Court and the United States.” Human Rights Watch. 2 September 2020 [Accessed 14 July 2021]. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/02/qa-international-criminal-court-and-united-states  (Content Warning: war, mass death, brief mention of torture including sexual abuse)
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the catastrophic US invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, died last week on June 29 at the age of 88. His death marks a terrible loss for the United States and the world: not for the loss of the man himself, but for the missed opportunities to bring the man to justice. Our collective failure to make Rumsfeld face accountability for the incredible damage he orchestrated in Afghanistan, Iraq, the United States, and the world has reverberated through the Trump ascendancy, through the proliferation of QAnon and other nonsensical conspiracy theories, and through Biden’s continued expansion of the military budget — to say nothing of the now largely ruined countries of Afghanistan, Iraq, and many other areas of the region touched by the American war machine. Donald Rumsfeld was the worst Secretary of Defense in American history: an unrepentant war criminal who lied to the American people and the world to justify war, encouraged the use of torture for interrogation, and who oversaw the destruction of two nations and the deaths of millions of civilians. For the past 20 years, the United States has been at war in Afghanistan; it is by far the longest war this country has ever waged. Within a day of the September 11 attacks, US intelligence had apparently determined that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attacks (the evidence has never been publicly revealed). Within a month, the United States was invading Afghanistan, ostensibly because the Taliban regime in power there refused to extradite bin Laden (for lack of direct evidence). Soon, Rumsfeld, others in the Bush administration, and even major US media outlets would conflate the Taliban regime with the non-state terrorist group al-Qaeda, suddenly making a government that “harbors” a terrorist group into an enemy indistinguishable from such a terrorist group. But even as late as May 8, 2002, seven months after launching the invasion into Afghanistan, FBI Director Rober Mueller would testify to Congress that “we have not yet uncovered a single piece of paper either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot.” The decision to invade Afghanistan was concluded from inconsistent and ambiguous secret evidence which, even if they ultimately bore out to be true, were insufficient at the time to merit an aggressive invasion. The official grounds for invading Iraq were even shakier. Within hours of the September 11 attacks, Rumsfeld was already seeking a way to use the attacks to justify an invasion of Iraq, a country which US intelligence was certain had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda, or the Taliban. Over the next several months, Rumsfeld would invent bizarre conspiracy theories and outright lies to create the impression that Saddam Hussein was in league Osama bin Laden (he was not), and that Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction (he was not, as attested by the American inspectors and the lack of any evidence found in Iraq). The real US interest in the country had always been oil; knocking out a major regional rival to the US ally Israel was a major bonus. On March 30, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq; when the US Armed Forces officially withdrew in 2011, the country was mostly in ruins and primed for the rise of ISIS/ISIL three years later. Perhaps the most infamous aspect of Rumsfeld’s legacy, however, is his unapologetic enthusiasm for and encouragement of torture. An unknown number of victims were tortured in military prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere throughout his tenure. While CIA blacksites were also conducting unconscionable torture, Rumsfeld integrated the practice into the military, inventing the euphemism “enhanced interrogation.” Methods of torture included waterboarding, stress positions, sexual abuse, and more — methods meant as much to mentally destroy the victims as they were meant to dehumanize the victims in the eyes of American soldiers. Torture is widely known as an unreliable method of interrogation, and little usable information was derived from this program. Meanwhile, the institutionalized use of torture severely degraded the United States’ reputation on the world stage: how can a country credibly claim to stand for democracy, freedom, and justice when it systematically kidnaps, imprisons, and tortures people for years without due process or a trial? The material effect of these invasions on the peoples on the ground cannot be overstated. In April of this year, the Watson Institute at Brown University reported that over 71,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians had died as a direct result of the War in Afghanistan; in 2020, the United Nations reported that the annual Afghani civilian casualties count exceeded 10,000 for the sixth year in a row. In Iraq, nearly 209,000 civilian deaths from violence have been documented since the invasion in 2003, including the unstable years following the American departure from the country. That figure does not include the untold numbers of civilians who have died as a result of the incredible amounts of radiation left behind by American uranium weapons or any of the attending catastrophes that follow a country’s destruction. And as for the United States, more than 4000 US soldiers and civilian contractors were killed in Afghanistan, and more than 4500 Americans were killed in Iraq. The War in Iraq alone has cost US taxpayers over $8 trillion. In Afghanistan, the number is roughly $2.3 trillion. And these numbers say nothing about the fatalities suffered by US allies, the tens of thousands permanently injured as a result of the wars, or the incalculable loss of cultural works, historical artifacts, and stable community. But even beyond the incredible amounts of death, destruction, and torture Rumsfeld orchestrated upon these countries, he also wrought a largely underappreciated amount of damage on the United States homefront. Rumsfeld’s transparent lies about Saddam Hussein and Iraq were a clear precursor to Trumpian lies and “alternative facts.” The deep suspicion with which much of the American public views the major media outlets stems largely from the fact that the major news companies did not strongly challenge Rumsfeld’s lies but instead uncritically repeated them. Nor did either major political party strongly question him. Have no doubt: Donald Rumsfeld was an unrepentant war criminal many times over who led the United States and the world down a delusional and horrifically violent path — one that we still mindlessly follow today. Despite the existence of the International Criminal Court whose very purpose is to prosecute those who commit such crimes as outlined above, and despite both American and German lawyers having prepared cases against him, Rumsfeld was never tried in court for any of his myriad heinous acts. Next week, by examining the International Criminal Court system and the status of the United States vis-a-vis the international community, we will address why Donald Rumsfeld escaped justice. -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust -- Sources “Afghan Civilians.” Watson Institute International & Public Affairs: Brown University | Costs of War. April 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan Auken, Bill Van. “War criminal Rumsfeld dies, but his militarist legacy lives on.” World Socialist Web Site. 1 July 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/02/pers-j02.html Burgis, Ben. “Donald Rumsfeld, Rot in Hell.” Jacobin. 30 June 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://jacobinmag.com/2021/06/donald-rumsfeld-obituary-iraq-war Dimaggio, Anthony. “Rehabilitating Rumsfeld, Erasing Empire: On All Those U.S. War Crimes in Iraq.” COUNTERPUNCH. 2 July 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/02/rehabilitating-rumsfeld-erasing-empire-on-all-those-u-s-war-crimes-in-iraq/ Freeman, Robert. “The Crimes of Donald Rumsfeld and a Reflection on the Iraq War.” Common Dreams. 5 July 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/07/05/crimes-donald-rumsfeld-and-reflection-iraq-war Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. (accessed 7 July 2021). http://icasualties.org/ Kanalstein, Eric. “Afghanistan: Civilian casualties exceed 10,000 for sixth straight year.” United Nations: UN News. 22 February 2020 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1057921 Mueller, Robert S. “Reforming the FBI in the 21st Century: Reorganizing and Refocusing The Mission. [Time and Room Change].” United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary. 8 May 2002 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/050802mueller.html Packer, George. “How Rumsfeld Deserves to Be Remembered.” The Atlantic. 30 June 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/how-donald-rumsfeld-deserves-be-remembered/619334/ Wolffe, Richard. “Rumsfeld’s much-vaunted ‘courage’ was a smokescreen for lies, crime and death.” The Guardian. 1 July 2021 (accessed 7 July 2021). https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/01/donald-rumsfeld-defense-secretary-lies-crime-death (The week’s post is excerpted from a longer article written by lifelong peace activist Frida Berrigan about some of her reflections living in a community so strongly shaped by the military-industrial complex. General Dynamics Electric Boat in New London-Groton, Connecticut is one of the biggest employers in the area, has been the primary submarine builder for the US Navy for over a century, and was the first in the world to build a nuclear missile submarine. In direct reaction to the construction of these super-weapons, the Committee for Nonviolent Action organized a summer of protest and education in New London-Groton in 1960. The organizations that were founded in southeastern Connecticut in the wake of Polaris Action Summer have over the decades established a legacy of resistance to nuclear arms, militarism, and all other attending social issues. The excerpt here describes in plain language how nonsensical the continued production of nuclear arms clearly is, and how that industry has shaped the immediate area around it. To read the whole article, including the deeply personal and complex feelings caused by living and working in such a community, visit the following page: http://tomdispatch.com/meatball-subs-not-nuclear-subs/)
Groton and New London, Connecticut, are home to about 65,000 people, three colleges, the Coast Guard Academy, 15 nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines capable of destroying the world many times over, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat, a multi-billion-dollar private corporation that offers stock options to its shareholders and mega-salaries to its top executives as it pockets taxpayer dollars and manufactures yet more of those stealthy, potentially world-ending machines. Whew! That was a long sentence! Naval Submarine Base New London stretches along the east side of the Thames River, straddling the towns of Groton and Ledyard. Occupying at least 680 acres, the base has more than 160 major facilities. The 15 subs based there are the largest contingent in the nation. They’re manufactured just down the river at Electric Boat/General Dynamics, which once built the Polaris and Trident nuclear submarines, employs more than 12,000 people in our region, and is planning to hire another 2,400 this year to meet a striking “demand” for the newest version of such subs. Some readers might already be asking themselves: Are submarines still a thing? Do we really still put men (and women) far beneath the ocean’s surface in a giant metal tube, ready to launch a nuclear first strike at a moment’s notice? At a time when the greatest threats to human life may be viruses hidden in our own exhales, our infrastructure is crumbling, and so much else is going wrong, are we really spending billions of dollars on submarines? Yes! Back in 2010, the Department of Defense’s Nuclear Posture Review called for a “recapitalization of the nation’s sea-based deterrent,” as though we hadn’t been spending anything on submarines previously. To meet that goal, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and now the Biden administration all agreed that, on a planet already filled with devastating nuclear weapons, the U.S. must begin construction of a new class of 12 Columbia ballistic missile submarines. The Navy’s 2021 budget submission estimates that the total procurement cost for that 12-ship class of subs will be $109.8 billion. However, even a number that big might prove nothing but rough back-of-the-napkin figuring. After all, according to the Navy’s 2022 request, the cost estimate for the first submarine of the 12 they plan to build, the lead ship in its new program, had already grown from $14.39 billion to $15.03 billion. Now, that may not sound like a lot, but string out all those zeros behind it and you’ll realize that the difference is more than $640 million, just a little less than what Baltimore — a city of more than 600,000 people — will get in federal pandemic relief aid. Swirling around those submarines are descriptions citing “strategy” and “capability.” But don’t be fooled: they’ll be potential world killers. Each of those 12 new subs will be armed with 16 Trident D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs, which have a range of 4,500 miles and can carry 14 W-76-1 thermonuclear warheads. Each one of those warheads is six times more powerful than the atomic bomb that the U.S. military detonated over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Start multiplying 12 times 16 times 14 times 6 and there isn’t enough world to destroy with math like that. After all, the single Hiroshima bomb, “small” as it was, killed an estimated 140,000 people and turned the city into rubble and ash. The best way to understand the Columbia class submarine, then, is as a $100 billion-plus initiative that aims to deliver 16,128 Hiroshimas. Submarine Capital of the World My family and I live in New London and evidence of the military is everywhere here. There’s a cannon planted amid the roses at the entrance to the motel right off the highway near our house. And another in front of the laundromat. Huge American flags flap at the car dealership that offers special financing to Navy personnel. Signs declaring New London/Groton to be the “Submarine Capital of the World” festoon the highways into town. The huge naval submarine base and the General Dynamics/Electric Boat yards dominate the Groton side of the Thames River. There’s a massive garage for half-built submarines, painted a very seventies shade of green, that chews up most of the scenery on the Groton side of the river, alongside cranes and docks and industrial buildings in various hues of grey. It’s dismal. New London’s waterfront homes and private beaches look out on three generations of military-industrial-complex architecture. We wouldn’t want to live in Groton, but at least they feast their eyes on our quaint downtown and the parks that stretch along our side of the river. On the New London side, General Dynamics/Electric Boat looks more like a corporate campus than a shipyard. It employs a lot of people, but there are still plenty of New Londoners who work at jobs that have nothing to do with the military or the business of building and designing submarines. Unfortunately, that seems to be changing, because General Dynamics is ramping up its engineering and manufacturing operations in order to build that new fleet of submarines. Local developers smell money in the air, which means that our downtown is getting a makeover intended to attract the sort of young professionals who will design and oversee the production of those subs. A new development right near New London’s General Dynamics complex is now renting studio apartments for $1,300 a month, even though ours is the fifth poorest city in Connecticut… (Read more here: http://tomdispatch.com/meatball-subs-not-nuclear-subs/) -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organiz.../Voluntown-Peace-Trust  (This week’s post is a condensed version of an essay Marco Frucht wrote in 2009 for the University of Connecticut. You can read the full version at his blog: http://muffinbottoms.org/?p=395)
Committee for Nonviolent Action and the Highlander Center share so much in common throughout their distinct experiences in Connecticut and Tennessee respectively, that this essay will only attempt to survey the ideas and events around one important year in their common history; 1960. CNVA was founded nationally in 1957 by A.J. Muste, a veteran labor agitator and Christian pacifist and David Dellinger who had been a conscientious objector since at least as early as World War II. Many chapters were started around the country in the next few years, including the New England CNVA which began in 1960. Today, the New England CNVA is known as the Voluntown Peace Trust. Highlander Folk School was established in the 1930s by Myles Horton to train labor and Civil Rights activists. Nonviolence and music were always common themes there but didn’t come into primary focus until the late 50s and early 60s. Some of this was at the inspiration of Mohandas Gandhi because he had taught non-violent direct action as a tool the people in India could use in their struggle against British rule. Horton says the following about music in the movement: “Song, music and food are integral parts of education at Highlander. Music is one way for people to express their traditions, longings and determination. Many people have made significant contributions to music at Highlander. In the early days, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger came to visit. Later on, Frank Hamilton and Jack Elliott spent time with us. More recently, the Freedom Singers, Bernice Reagon and Sweet Honey in the Rock, as well as Highlander’s former codirector, Jane Sapp, have been regular contributors. There were also those who stayed at Highlander for longer periods, such as Lee Hays, one of the original Almanac Singers, and Waldemar Hille.” One of the times Martin Luther King, Jr., was at Highlander, he was a keynote speaker at their seventh annual College Workshop, April 15, 1960. In this speech he called for a nationwide campaign of selective buying and said he wished for people to hold their money from places all over the south that were violent and racist. “There is another element that must be present in our struggle that then makes our resistance and nonviolence truly meaningful. That element is reconciliation. Our ultimate end must be the creation of the beloved community.” 1960 was a very busy year for Folksinger Pete Seeger too, singing everywhere from the Nevada Test Site to protests of the Polaris submarine launchings in Groton, CT., not to mention making all the time necessary to coproduce television pilots with his wife Toshi that eventually became the weekly show Rainbow Quest on WNJU-TV in New York and New Jersey. Marj Swann printed the following in Polaris Action Bulletin #4. 13jun60: “Four Canadian young people asked why Americans are so afraid to speak out against Government policies or to be different. At the festival, Pete Seeger, who had visited the New London office earlier, dedicated “The Hammer Song” to the Satyagraha, a sloop named after some of Gandhi’s famous nonviolent direct actions.”[...] When Seeger wasn’t singing in Connecticut, home in Upstate New York on the Hudson river, or playing a gig somewhere else in the world he was at the Highlander Folk School. (Over the years, Highlander came to be called the Highlander Research and Education Center). Highlander was where Guy Carawan spent years teaching countless people to sing many songs, but notably “We Shall Overcome.” Nashville Public Library has a Photograph of a meeting at Fisk University, where Guy Carawan leads song on his guitar, April 21, 1960. That song was fast becoming a staple for folksingers all over America. It’s still very popular today. So who taught Carawan to play that song? Pete Seeger of course; but who taught it to Pete? Zilphia Horton showed him the tune as her all-time favorite song when she was Highlander’s music director. Where the song originally came from and how it changed over time would easily be a good topic for anyone’s PHD thesis, because it changed so much over the decades like a well worn shoe; but Pete Seeger is credited with changing “I” to “We” and helping spread the song all over the deep south. Many consider that song to be the earliest primary link between the following movements, Abolition, Labor, Civil Rights, Peace, No-Nukes, Anti-Globalization and all points in between. Some could even argue Pete Seeger himself was that link. Nevertheless, that song was being taught at CNVA, Highlander, and anywhere else people were discussing American social justice in 1960[...] What was happening in New London County, that would call for songs, and people like Carawan, Seeger and Joan Baez to drop in often? Polaris[...] New London County is very close to New York and Boston but it’s also just a short drive from Newport. Of course that means the annual Jazz fests and Folk fests can be an easy visit for someone with a local gig; but oftentimes they would stay there at CNVA instead of booking a hotel room. And of course that made them an excellent guest teacher for a day or three. While the members of Polaris Action were at the Newport Folk festival, they and Pete Seeger brought the project to the attention of Joan Baez, whom they had heard was a pacifist. That was the first time that Joan sang at the festival, and her extraordinarily clear, wide-ranged, powerful and moving soprano voice propelled her into the stature of perhaps the country’s premiere folk singer[...] Nonviolence and music carry on year after year helping maintain memory within the various different aspects of the peace movement. Take a quick look what CNVA was up to in the late 1970s as well. The call went out on February 16, 1977. Charlie King, Joanne McGloin, Joanne Sheehan, and Rick Gaumer, at the Community for Non-Violence in Voluntown, CT had evidence, from participating in the Continental Walk for Disarmament and Social Justice that others were also singing and collecting songs that gave voice to people’s struggles. The group wanted to do what came naturally — bring these folks out of the woodwork and see what happened. Odetta should be mentioned as well. She may not have ever been to Connecticut or Tennessee but her songs sure have. She almost lived long enough to sing for Obama’s inauguration this year; but she died just last December not too long after saying how proud she was “that we now have a black man as president of the United States.” Giving voice to people’s struggles is what so many people around the United States hope the current President will do for them, but people like Odetta, Seeger, Baez and Carawan have always known it’s something we will always have to do for ourselves and for each other[...] -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust  Recently, we heard a claim that Pete Seeger’s famous song “Bring Them Home” was inspired by the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), specifically when a mob of students at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) confronted and threw rotten eggs at CNVA members Marge Swann, Bob Swann, and 23 others in 1966. Seeger had already been acquainted with the CNVA for at least 6 years, having participated in the Polaris Action in New London, Connecticut in the summer of 1960. Seeger first started playing the song “Bring Them Home” in 1966, not long after the CNVA-UNH incident. In the song, Seeger argues that supporting the troops means demanding that they be brought back to their own communities that need them, not encouraging them to go kill people halfway across the world. The lyrics contain a few lines that strongly resemble CNVA antiwar concepts (“Show those generals their fallacy… / They don't have the right weaponry… / For defense, you need common sense… / They don't have the right armaments”). But what actually happened at UNH in 1966, and why might it have inspired Pete Seeger to write this popular song?
On April 21, 1966, twenty members of the New England and Boston chapters of the CNVA led by Marjorie Swann and Bob Swann attempted to hold a peace vigil for “the war dead of all participants in the Vietnam war” outside the Memorial Union Building at the University of New Hampshire. According to a 2012 post from UNH Today, when the CNVA members attempted to approach the building, they were met by a hostile mob of 2000 students. The CNVA members withstood eggs thrown at them for a while, but were eventually turned away by the mob. This incident evidently caused a great spiritual examination within the faculty, staff, and students of UNH. Starting almost immediately after the incident, members of the UNH community grappled with the meaning of what had happened. They were still talking about it when famous folk musician Pete Seeger came to the university to play a concert a couple weeks later. When Seeger arrived, he found that a petition had been circulating the school since the day after the incident, demanding the administration denounce the acts of the student-mob and to invite the CNVA back. By the end, the petition had over 700 names attached to it. After learning about what happened, Seeger penned his name to it, too. The UNH administration did invite the CNVA back for May 10, to which the activist group agreed. Before they arrived, however, the Durham Board of Selectmen banned all demonstrations by protesters who had previously been arrested for nontraffic-related incidents. This stipulation clearly targeted many CNVA members, several of whom had been arrested multiple times for nonviolent antiwar actions. In reaction to the arbitrary ban, several professors decided to lead the protest in the CNVA’s stead, marching ahead of about 120 Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) members and sympathizers, turning the demonstration into a protest both of the war in Vietnam and what the professors considered an unconstitutional restriction of freedom of speech. Meanwhile, 23 members of the New England and Boston CNVA chapters marched separately from the rest of the demonstrators, in defiance of the ban against them. In the official CNVA statement about the targeted restriction, the organization asserted: “To say that no person can participate in this parade who has been convicted by a court for other than traffic violations would ban from the streets of Durham many of mankind’s finest leaders, among them Jesus, the Apostle Paul, Socrates, Voltaire, Robert Browning, Thoreau, Dostoyevsky, Gandhi, Nehru, Martin Luther King—and a veritable army of others.” The statement then went on to mention other cities in both “democractic” and “communist” countries that have variously permitted CNVA demonstrations. “On the other hand,” the statement continued, “CNVA demonstrations have been prevented in some cities. Noteworthy is East Berlin, under the Ulbricht government; and Albany, Georgia, a notorious hard-core segregationist city. Just a few weeks ago it happened in Saigon, under the leadership of Premier Ky, who has avowed himself an admirer of Hitler… It is the policy of opponents of liberty everywhere to deny the right to demonstrate.” Several of the CNVA members would subsequently get arrested for violating the ban, but the rest ultimately made it to the Memorial Union Building and successfully held an hour-long silent vigil there. The arrested CNVA members were released after 11 days and all charges dropped for lack of evidence. Whether the CNVA-UNH egging incident really inspired Pete Seeger’s “Bring Them Home” or not, the story itself became a popular one told within many antiwar circles; the story has stuck in the minds of many older members of the antiwar movement to this day, as evidenced by the Seeger connection claim that was recently shared with us. The drama of the incident, which was the subject of many articles in The New Hampshire for weeks, did exactly what the CNVA wanted: to heighten the unjust contradictions in society and force people to reconsider the values that they had been conditioned to accept. “Success” for the antiwar activist may sometimes look like the opposite to the outsider, but the massive attention and targeted restrictions that the CNVA attracted all over, not least of all at the University of New Hampshire in 1966, demonstrated just how much of a threat to the status quo groups like the CNVA had come to be. -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust -- Sources Gregonis, Peter. “PEACE WALKERS JAILED, BEATEN.” Direct Action for a Nonviolent World, 15 May 1966, pp. 2-3. Mayberry, David T. “Seven Pacifists To Be Arraigned For Parade Violations Tomorrow.” The New Hampshire, 12 May 1966, pp. 1-9. https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3040&context=tnh_archive Salstrom, Paul. “CNVA’ers ARRESTED.” Direct Action for a Nonviolent World, 15 May 1966, pp. 1-2. Swann, Marj. Prospectus For a History of New England CNVA (unpublished), pp. 124-143. Vreeland, Peg. “Pacifists Invited Back to UNH.” The New Hampshire, 28 Apr. 1966, pp. 1–8. https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3038&context=tnh_archive Woodward, Mylinda. “The Way We Were: In 1966 a Mob Tried to Stop a Peaceful Protest.” UNH Today, 12 April 2012 (accessed 16 June 2021). https://www.unh.edu/unhtoday/2012/04/way-we-were-1966-mob-tried-stop-peaceful-protest  June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month, commemorating the 1969 Stonewall Riots that are largely credited as the beginning of the “gay pride” movement. Every June, queer organizations and individuals recount the story of Stonewall, or at least evoke the powerful images of Black and Brown transwomen and gangs of young gay runaways finally refusing to accept the constant and targeted harassment they had previously endured from both the police and the public. But our annual observance of Pride today was not an inevitability; Stonewall was not the first “gay” riot, and it could have been buried under the homophobic hegemony like other ones that preceded it. Instead, several queer groups already operating in New York City and around the United States made Stonewall the catalyst to join together, to articulate a new vision of queer liberation, and to act to manifest it.
By so many measures, 1969 was a watershed year: no less so in queer circles across the United States. Organizations of “homophiles” had existed for some years before, especially in the major cities, but were largely led by an older generation. In 1962, groups like the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis, and the Janus Society formed the East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) and, later, the larger Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) to coordinate their political efforts. One such effort was the Annual Reminder: a silent picket held on July 4, 1965-1969 outside Liberty Hall, Philadelphia to remind the country that queer people were still denied the most basic rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” At the insistence of one of the organizers, Frank Kemeny, there would be a strict, gendered, formal dress code and any behavior that might be “shocking” to the public was forbidden. But by 1969, a new generation of queer people were less interested in silent pickets and trying to prove their respectability, but was instead looking to the dramatic actions of the antiwar, feminist, and civil rights movements — the “counterculture.” Even before the Stonewall Riots began, this mostly younger generation of radicals started forming small, independent queer groups like the Mattachine Action Group with the intention to “spark public consciousness.” Then, in the early hours of June 28, 1969, somebody fought back during a police-raid of the popular Manhattan gay bar Stonewall Inn and riots mostly led by transwomen broke out for the next several days. Those small groups of queer radicals started organizing, producing leaflets and flyers exposing the bar’s Mafia owners as well as the corrupt deal they had with the police. Then they began organizing public meetings and merged to eventually form new groups like the militant New Left-oriented Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and eventually the more moderate single-issue Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). These new groups were much more diverse than many previous groups, with many more Asians, Latinx, and Blacks as well as more trans people. Over the next several months, these groups would develop “zaps” as a direct action tactic to force important figures to publicly address the issue of queer oppression. After the riots had ended, some ERCHO members who had been radicalized by Stonewall, including organizer Craig Rodwell, went down to Philadelphia to participate in what would be the final Annual Reminder. There, a lesbian couple purposely defied the order for “lawful, orderly, dignified” behavior and broke ranks to hold hands. When Frank Kemeny tried to separate them, Rodwell became furious; and when Kemeny was later speaking to the press, Rodwell interrupted to denounce the “gay” leadership’s meek pleas for acceptance, pointing to Stonewall as evidence. The Annual Reminder was over, but in the next few months, Craig would join with others to convince ERCHO to endorse the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee (CSLDC, named for the street where the Stonewall Inn was), which was to organize a commemorative celebration of the Stonewall Riots. Announcements were made to the various ERCHO groups, as well as sister groups across the country encouraging them to organize their own festivities in tandem. It was decided that the celebration would not have any commercial ties, but that it would be permitted and well-organized. The CSLDC began monthly meetings in January 1970, but moved to weekly meetings in April. They raised the money, appointed marshals, planned a route for a “march for freedom” through midtown Manhattan up to Central Park, and organized events at the march’s end. They produced and distributed advertisements, bulletins, and press releases to every publication that would print them. A sister celebration was announced in Los Angeles. And they got the permits, even if the last of them arrived just hours before the opening march was to begin. On June 28, 1970, exactly one year after the beginning of the Stonewall Riots, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day was celebrated. A delightful, colorful procession of fabulous drag queens and transwomen, members of GAA and GLF holding banners, and gaggles of gay men and women marched up the center of New York City unharassed. The New York Times reported on its front page the next day that the march extended about 15 blocks. Thousands took part; for some, this was the first time that they had ever expressed their queer identity publicly in daylight. The cathartic, catalytic rage from one year prior had been forged into comradery, hope, and joy. And the changes in queer communities stemming from the 1960s counterculture that inspired the formation of new action groups and spurred the Stonewall Riots was now undeniable. Now, through the work of all those queer people radicalized one year before, more people than ever could feel it, too. Over the next few years, the GLF would collapse and more white and trans-exclusionary elements would come to dominate the Christopher Street Liberation Day celebrations (which would later be renamed Gay Pride), leading prominent trans members of the NYC queer community like Marsha P. Johnson to publicly break with the group in 1973. And although Pride celebrations are now generally as inclusive as possible, racism and trans-exclusionary prejudice are still major problems in many queer communities today. Despite these obstacles, as well as the devastation of the AIDS epidemic years later, the movement that started 52 years ago has accomplished an incredible amount in a relatively short period. And much of what has been accomplished owes a great debt to those small initial groups of young queer radicals who defied the prescribed wisdom and boldly asserted their right not just to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” not just to acceptance, but to PRIDE. -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust -- Sources Baumann, Jason, ed. The Stonewall Reader. Penguin Books, 2019. Clendinen, Dudley and Adam Nagourney. Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America. Simon & Schuster, 2001. Duberman, Martin B. Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America. Plume, 2019.  About 63 years ago, the small sailing vessel the Golden Rule became the first civilian ship to ever attempt to disrupt a nuclear weapons test. From July 1946 to August 1958, the United States detonated 23 of its largest nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, directly killing at least one person through radioactive fallout, irradiating the ecology of the atoll to fatal levels, and directly causing the world’s first nuclear diaspora (read our post on it here: https://www.facebook.com/VoluntownPeaceTrust/posts/1959579410859051). By 1958, calls for a ban on atmospheric and other nuclear weapons testing had been ringing out for years worldwide, but no one had yet attempted to actually stop the largest of these tests with direct action. Part of the challenge was that Bikini Atoll and the rest of the US Pacific Proving Grounds were in the middle of the largest ocean on Earth. But by the late 1950s, a new generation of activist groups, including the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) began experimenting with novel forms of civil disobedience to protest unjust government policies. On June 4, 1958, the four-person crew of the CNVA-sponsored ketch the Golden Rule attempted such an experiment: by risking their lives to sail into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, into the middle of an active nuclear weapons testing site, to try to halt their own government’s belligerently provocative testing of these weapons of mass destruction.
The planned Pacific voyage was not the first nuclear protest the CNVA had organized. On August 6, 1957, the twelfth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, about 35 people gathered outside of the gates of the Nevada Proving Grounds and held a group prayer, a conscience vigil, and an act of civil disobedience by crossing the line into the restricted zone. Among those arrested in the action was Marj Swann, cofounder of the Voluntown Peace Trust, as well as Albert Bigelow, a former lieutenant commander in the US Navy. The story of Swann’s involvement, and the sexist chastising she experienced from the judge of her case, inspired an article in the popular women’s magazine Redbook titled “You Are a Bad Mother.” Bigelow had resigned from his position in the US Navy soon after learning of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima, just one month from eligibility for his pension, and in the years after the Second World War, Bigelow joined the Quakers and became a pacifist. Within the next few months, Marj Swann, Albert Bigelow, and others came to form the Committee for Nonviolent Action, which over the next several years became known for several of their dramatic actions in resistance to nuclear arms. When the announcement for another round of nuclear weapons tests at Bikini Atoll came in September, just a month after the action in Nevada, the newly formed Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) and National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), as well as the Religious Society of Friends began a protest campaign to halt them. Albert Bigelow joined the effort, ultimately delivering a petition of 17,500 names against nuclear weapons testing to the office of President Eisenhower. Because no one actually wanted a nuclear war, and President Eisenhower himself had called for “a giant step toward peace,” the petition argued to cancel all planned tests, to allocate those funds to the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development (SUNFED), and to challenge the Soviet Union to do the same. But when the petition disappointingly received no response from the White House, the CNVA began planning a new action the government could not ignore: to sail a ketch into the test site and disrupt it themselves. After some hesitation, due to his nautical experience, Albert Bigelow was convinced to captain the little boat. They named the Golden Rule for the principle they requested their government apply to its nuclear arms program and spent the first few months of 1958 in preparation for the voyage. Around the same time across the Atlantic, the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament held their first public meeting in London. There, artist Gerald Holtom presented a circular symbol with a vertical line through the center and two diagonal lines falling at 45° from the center, meant to be a stylized combination of the semaphore signs for N and D: nuclear disarmament. The symbol originally debuted to the world at the first Aldermaston March for nuclear disarmament on Easter 1958. The American antiwar and civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin participated in the march and, when he returned home, shared the new symbol with his cohorts in the various US antiwar and racial justice groups. At some point, it was introduced to the crew of the Golden Rule, who eventually got a flag with the ND symbol to fly from their mast, spreading the symbol even further. In March 1958, Skipper Albert Bigelow, First-Mate William R. Huntington, and Crewmembers George Willoughby and Orion Sherwood set sail from San Pedro, CA to Honolulu. As the CNVA informed President Eisenhower of their plan beforehand, the US Atomic Energy Commission issued an injunction against all Americans sailing into the testing zone while the Golden Rule was en route to Honolulu. The little ketch successfully sailed across the open ocean, but by the time they arrived in Hawai’i, the US Coast Guard was waiting for them. On May 1, the Golden Rule set sail from Honolulu towards the Marshall Islands, but was stopped just five nautical miles from shore. The US Coast Guard arrested the four men and tugged the boat back to port, but released them quietly, hoping not to add to the significant publicity the endeavor had already generated. Just over a month later, on June 4, the crew tried once more. They were again stopped and arrested, this time receiving a 60-day jail sentence. After their stint in jail, the crew returned to the mainland and continued in the peace and civil rights movements for some years. And although the crew of the Golden Rule was unable to complete the action that they had set out to accomplish, they inspired another crew to do it in their stead. Within a month of the Golden Rule crew’s sentencing, the Phoenix of Hiroshima successfully sailed into the testing zone near the Marshall Islands. The combined public exposure of the Golden Rule’s dramatic saga and the successful, surprise conclusion of the project by the Phoenix of Hiroshima inspired a new wave of global calls to limit nuclear weapons testing. Five years later, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, banning all atmospheric, underwater, and outer space tests of nuclear weapons. But the Golden Rule and the Phoenix of Hiroshima did not just try to sail into restricted waters and kickstart the antinuclear movement: they invented a whole new method of protest. Within a couple years of the voyage, many others would copy and expound upon the idea of protest sea vessels such that by 1960, peace activist Scott Herrick would be sailing his sloop Satyagraha up and down the Thames River in Connecticut to protest the construction of the world’s first nuclear-armed submarines at General Dynamics - Electric Boat near the mouth of the river: the words “End the Arms Race” in big letters on one of its sails and the ND “peace” symbol on another. In the late 1960s, activists in Vancouver, British Columbia organizing against underground nuclear weapons testing at Amchitka, Alaska decided to try their own version of the 1958 project. Starting in 1971, the group that would become known as Greenpeace began to attempt disruptions to the tests using civilian sea vessels, successfully forcing the United States government to cancel the rest of the tests after the government received immense criticism from the first. Today, Greenpeace is far from the only organization using protest vessels to take action and spread a message. But in 2015, members of the organization Veterans for Peace completed the restoration of a particularly special protest ship: the original Golden Rule. Today, Veterans for Peace operates the vessel to “advance… opposition to nuclear weapons and war, and to do so in a dramatic fashion.” -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust -- Sources “1958–1961: Nuclear Protests.” Phoenix of Hiroshima Project. (Accessed 2 June 2021). https://phoenixofhiroshima.wordpress.com/our-history/pleasure-yacht/ Bigelow, Albert. The Voyage of the Golden Rule: An Experiment with Truth. Doubleday, 1959. “Friends Journal 1958 coverage of the Golden Rule.” Friends Journal. 31 July 2013 (accessed 2 June 2021). https://www.friendsjournal.org/golden-rule-1958/ “The Golden Rule and Phoenix voyages in protest of U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, 1958.” Global Nonviolent Action Database. (Accessed 2 June 2021). https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/golden-rule-and-phoenix-voyages-protest-us-nuclear-testing-marshall-islands-1958 “History.” VFP Golden Rule Project. (Accessed 2 June 2021). https://www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org/history/ Little, Jane Braxton. “Restored Anti-Nuke Sailboat Launches Again on a Peace Mission.” National Geographic. 19 June 2015 (accessed 2 June 2021). https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/150619-golden-rule-ketch-restoration-nuclear-weapons?loggedin=true Miles, Barry. Peace: 50 Years of Protest. Essential Works Limited, 2008.  For this week's A Peace of History, we are sharing this memorial post honoring Linda Thurston, who unexpectedly passed away last weekend. Linda was a dedicated police & prison abolitionist and Operations Coordinator for our friends at War Resisters League. As a WRL staffperson, Linda stayed at VPT numerous times for retreats, national committee meetings, and more. As an historical archivist, Linda also advised us invaluably on what to keep and preserve from the many documents of Marj Swann. As we share some staff with WRL, Linda's passing comes as a shock to many in our community who worked closely with her for many years. Please be patient with us as we at VPT process this tragedy and work through how to move forward. Linda's family has organized a HomeGoing fundraiser to cover the funerary expenses. If you can give to ease some of the financial burden for the family of this amazing woman who gave so much of herself to social justice causes, please visit the following address: https://www.gofundme.com/f/homegoing-for-linda-m-thurston...  To our dear community,
We are grieved to be sharing with you all devastating news: Linda Thurston, War Resisters League's Operations Coordinator passed away unexpectedly this weekend. Linda first organized with WRL for the Day Without the Pentagon action in 1998 and later joined the national staff collective in 2007 where she was responsible for maintaining daily operations, our office space, the website, technology, and was known to geek out about tech things. She held much WRL history and institutional knowledge. Linda leaves a big void in our hearts. Linda dedicated her life to movement and radical antiwar politics, particularly prison and police abolition ("before it was cool," she would often say ❤️). She fought tirelessly to end the death penalty and wrote to many political prisoners over the decades. In addition to being an abolitionist, Linda was many things: archivist, historian, radio host, Star Trek nerd. As we organize in memory of Linda, we want to invite you to share the memories of the Linda you knew and the pictures you have of her. Leave them publicly in the comments here, or reply back to this email. There will be more information regarding a memorial, which we will share with you soon. In grief and love and solidarity, War Resisters League  On May 21, 1956, the United States performed its first air drop of a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb. While the Soviet Union accomplished a similar feat the year before with a fraction of the payload, the success of the U.S. test touched off a new chapter in the nuclear arms race. But that historic and consequential test was just one of 23 nuclear weapons tests that the United States performed over 8 years at and around Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. In honor of Asian-American / Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we offer a brief overview of U.S. nuclear weapons testing at Bikini Atoll, the fallout caused by the tests, and the trauma inflicted on the local people that persists to this day.
The tests that made up Operation Crossroads were decided in early 1946, just a few months after the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The weapons used were atomic bombs similar in scale to the ones used on Japan. The 167 Bikini Atoll inhabitants were told of the decision after the fact, and were convinced by U.S. Army officials to temporarily evacuate the atoll to the uninhabited Rongerik Atoll 120 miles away. The Bikinians soon found that the new atoll could not be adequately farmed, but it was not until anthropologist Leonard E. Mason visited Rongerik Atoll in January 1948 that the U.S. government realized the Bikinians were starving. By then, the United States had completed two weapons tests but canceled the third due to the overwhelming radioactive contamination of the area from the first two. The Bikinians could not return. Testing resumed in 1954 with Operation Castle, a series of experiments to test designs for new thermonuclear (hydrogen) bombs many times more powerful than the ones used on Japan. This series began with the now-infamous Castle Bravo test, the largest nuclear explosion the United States has ever caused. The blast was twice as powerful as scientists had predicted, completely vaporizing three islands, and produced enormous amounts of radioactive fallout that spread across the Marshall Islands and fell upon the people living there, including the displaced Bikinians on Rongerik Atoll. Over a thousand people ultimately came down with symptoms for acute radiation syndrome, and one Japanese fisherman died as a direct result, causing an international public outcry. But testing continued through the rest of 1954. Two years later, the United States started a new round of tests under the name Operation Redwing, including one specifically ordered by the Department of Defense to intimidate the Soviet Union: Operation Redwing Cherokee. This was the only test of the series not expressly for weapon development, and the first time the United States had successfully detonated a thermonuclear weapon dropped from a plane, demonstrating to Soviet rivals the U.S. capability to deliver such a weapon in war. All the tests in the Redwing series were named for Indigenous American nations -- following the longstanding American tradition of claiming and militarizing Indigenous names. Despite being dropped 4 miles off-course, the United States made its point. The Soviet Union, however, responded with an acceleration of their nuclear weapons program that would not slow for several more years. While the literal nuclear fallout from the tests irradiated the islands, the metaphorical fallout came in the form of an international public outcry to end all such nuclear tests forever. As the destructive power of these weapons increased, and as the influence of the anti-nuclear movement in the United States grew, it became clear that the arms race would likely only end in one of two ways: disarmament or death. Then, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, forcing many on both the U.S. and Soviet sides to reevaluate the international strategies they had been pursuing. Thus, in 1963, the United States and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibiting the vast majority of nuclear weapons tests and significantly slowing the arms race. In the decades since, Bikinians have made a few attempts to resettle their old home, but have suffered severe effects from the radioactive contaminants as a result and were forced to evacuate. Although some studies suggest that human habitation is now possible on Bikini Atoll, because the radiation has worked itself into the ecology over the ensuing decades, no food grown or caught there is safe to eat. Just a handful of people live on Bikini Atoll now as caretakers: testing the soil for radiation, leading dives for tourists, and keeping the atoll for the time when Bikinians can return. Until then, the surviving original Bikinians and their descendants, which now number in the thousands, are scattered across several other Pacific islands, the United States, and other countries -- victims of what might be called the first nuclear diaspora. Today, as the People’s Republic of China has replaced the Soviet Union as the United States’ greatest rival, concerns are rising over new Chinese nuclear reactors and the possibility of developing weapons from them. US ambassador Robert Wood recently said at a UN conference, “Despite China’s dramatic build-up of its nuclear arsenal, it continues to resist discussing nuclear risk reduction bilaterally with the United States,” signaling the possibility of a reduction of US nuclear arms as well. But despite the rhetoric, the United States has taken no steps to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in January of this year. As the nation who first brought these doomsday weapons into the world, as the only nation to ever use any of these weapons in war against a foe, and as the possessor of the second-largest and arguably most sophisticated nuclear arsenal on the planet -- the United States is morally obligated to dismantle its nuclear arms, to join the United Nations’ call to ban all such weapons, and to help to forge a path to a new chapter of international peace and cooperation. -- Support Us We commit a significant amount of research and writing to produce A Peace of History each week. If you like our weekly posts, please consider supporting this project with a one-time or recurring donation. Your gift will be used to continue producing more A Peace of History posts as well as the greater mission of VPT. You may type in however much you would like to give; contributions of all sizes are appreciated. Click this link to learn more about what we do and how you can donate: https://www.mightycause.com/organization/Voluntown-Peace-Trust -- Sources “Castle Bravo.” Atomic Heritage Foundation. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/castle-bravo “Concerns grow over China nuclear reactors shrouded in mystery.” Al Jazeera. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/19/concerns-grow-over-china-nuclear-reactors-shrouded-in-mystery Niedenthal, Jack. “A Short History of the People of Bikini Atoll.” Bikini Atoll. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://www.bikiniatoll.com/history.html “Operation Redwing.” Nuclear Weapon Archive. Accessed 18 May 2021. http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Redwing.html “Operation Redwing: 1956.” United States Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests: Nuclear Test Personnel Review. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://www.dtra.mil/Portals/61/Documents/NTPR/1956%20-%20DNA%206037F%20-%20Operation%20REDWING%201956.pdf “Revisiting Bikini Atoll.” NASA: Earth Observatory. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/83237/revisiting-bikini-atoll “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” United Nations: Office for Disarmament Affairs. Accessed 18 May 2021. https://treaties.unoda.org/t/tpnw |
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