Almost two months ago, we recounted the story of the first modern protest ship, the Golden Rule, which in 1958 the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) sponsored to sail from Hawai’i into the sea around the Marshall Islands (read about here: https://www.facebook.com/VoluntownPeaceTrust/posts/1970864523063873). The goal of the four-crew vessel was to disrupt the ecologically-devastating and belligerent US nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific Ocean. Although the Golden Rule was prevented from achieving its goal, the peace vessel’s crew inspired the crew of another ship, the Phoenix of Hiroshima, to attempt the mission. The “Forbidden Voyage,” as the Phoenix’s captain Earle Reynolds would call it, changed his life and the lives of the other four on his yacht, made history as the first civilian vessel to ever disrupt a nuclear weapons test, and possibly influenced the US to accept the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 

Anthropologist Earle Reynolds had not planned to become a peace activist: not when he left Antioch University to work for the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in Japan in 1951, nor after studying the effects of radiation on Japanese children for three years, becoming one of the world’s experts on health and radiation. Instead, Earle followed his dream of having a yacht built in which to travel the world with his family. In 1954, a native Hiroshima shipbuilder Mr. Yotsuda finished the 50 ft two-sail ketch to Earle’s specifications. Inspired by the mythical bird that rises from its own ashes, shared by both Western and Eastern traditions, and also by the fact that the East Asian variety symbolizes peace, they christened the ship the Phoenix of Hiroshima. Earle Reynolds completed the first part of his report to the AEC and, on May 5, 1954, he, his family, and three Japanese crewmen set sail.

Earle, his wife Barbara, son Ted (16), daughter Jessica (10), and three young Japanese yachtsmen from Hiroshima, Niichi ("Nick") Mikami, Motosada ("Moto") Fushima and Mitsugi ("Mickey") Suemitsu first sailed to Hawai’i before looping down to the islands of the South Pacific, New Zealand, Australia, and Indonesia. They continued on west, stopping in South Africa rather than attempt the northern route during the Suez Crisis, stopping in Brazil, doing a tour of the east coast of the United States, visiting the West Indies, and crossing through the Panama Canal. There, Motosada and Mitsugi flew home. By that point, about four years into their journey, the Reynolds family had become well-experienced sailors themselves.

When the Phoenix finally returned to Hawai’i, they found the Islands abuzz about the Quaker pacifists of the Golden Rule — the day before the Phoenix had arrived, the crew of the Golden Rule had made their first attempt. Earle, upon first hearing about the attempted action, thought that they sounded “a bit like crackpots” but also that “it’s about time somebody did something about those tests.” But after Barbara urged him to attend the Golden Rule crew’s trial, Earle quickly became fascinated by these men and tried to learn everything he could about their case. Ted, now 20 years old, also researched what he could about the legality of the injunction the US government had imposed while the Golden Rule had been en route from San Pedro to Honolulu. Meanwhile, Earle investigated his old employer, the AEC, discovering that the government agency had “been playing false with the American public” with regards to the extreme dangers of radiation. Father and son determined that the injunction had no legal precedent, actually contradicted international maritime law, and could not hold up in “an honest court.” Barbara, for her part, was almost immediately moved by the men’s moral conviction. In a newsletter to their hundreds of friends and fans, they condemned the AEC and announced their support for the Golden Rule.

Only intending to stay for a couple weeks in Hawai’i before heading back to Hiroshima, the Reynolds family quickly realized that the nuclear tests blocked their route home too, and the bureaucratic process to pass through the zone legally seemed interminable. Meanwhile, the Golden Rule crew continued to impress the Reynolds family. On the evening of June 3, the day before the Golden Rule made its second attempt, its crew Albert Bigelow, Jim Peck, George Willoughby, and Orion Sherwood had dinner with the Reynolds family and Niichi, during which Earle expressed his desire to help the Golden Rule somehow. A few days after the crew of the Golden Rule were stopped and jailed for the second time, the Phoenix crew debated whether to take on the Golden Rule’s mission in their stead; they decided to sail as far as they could toward Hiroshima and to make the ultimate decision at sea, as they neared the restricted zone. Earle himself did not like to break rules and was also not eager to end his professional career — he knew that the AEC would never accept him back, and that he would likely be blacklisted in academia. But the coincidences were too great not to consider: the Phoenix was built in Hiroshima, the first victim of a nuclear attack; Niichi was a Hiroshima citizen whose family members had suffered and died as a result of the bombing, and was wholly supportive of the endeavor; Earle was one of the world’s foremost experts on the effects of radiation, and was personally concerned about it; they were intending to head back to Japan through that route anyway; and finally, as Barbara impressed on Earle, they were there at the exact time and place with the exact means to help. The Golden Rule crew gave the Phoenix crew their supplies. Earle and Barbara considered leaving Jessica, now 14 years old, in Honolulu and sending for her grandmother to take care of her, but Jessica fiercely refused to be left behind, arguing, “Remember, it’s my world too, and I have a right to fight for it just as much as you have.”

On June 11, the Phoenix left for the restricted zone, but unlike the Golden Rule, no one tried to stop the Phoenix at first. After sailing for 20 days, as the Phoenix approached the edge of the restricted zone, the decision was finally made. Around noon on July 1, 1958, Earle announced by radio that they were crossing into the zone “as a protest against nuclear testing,” and at around 8:00pm that evening, the Phoenix did just that. The next day, Earle was arrested. 

Earle Reynolds was convicted of trespassing in the restricted zone, but he appealed and eventually had the conviction overturned. As he and his son Ted had suspected, the injunction had been illegal after all. Ultimately returning to Japan, the Reynolds family were hailed as heroes and the Phoenix as a national shrine. Niichi Mikami was praised as the first Japanese yachtsman to circumnavigate the globe, and moreover as an exemplary Hiroshima citizen in crossing into the restricted zone with the Reynolds family. Due to the experience, both Earle and Barbara became peace activists and continued to do actions. In 1961, the family sailed to Nakhodka, USSR with hundreds of letters appealing for peace from Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors, but were turned away by the Soviet Coast Guard. In 1962, Earle sailed to the Soviet Union again, this time as the captain of another CNVA vessel, Everyman III. Meanwhile, Barbara traveled around the world with two hibakusha (people affected by nuclear explosion) as Peace Pilgrims, urging world leaders to ban nuclear weapons. After their divorce in 1964, Earle and Barbara separately continued to work for peace, with Earle attempting “friendship and reconciliation” voyages into China in the late 1960s, and Barbara founding the World Friendship Center in Hiroshima 1965 to share the stories of hibakusha to foreign visitors. Years later, Barbara would assist Cambodian refugees fleeing Pol Pot. Their daughter Jessica went on to write many articles and three books about their experiences as peace activists on the high seas over the years, and their granddaughter Naomi Reynolds has been involved in raising and restoring the original Phoenix of Hiroshima. Regardless of the future for the Phoenix, the legacy of the Reynolds’ initial “Forbidden Voyage” reached far beyond the restricted areas around the Marshall Islands and provides inspiration for us today. 

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Sources

“1951-1954: Origin of Phoenix.” Phoenix of Hiroshima Project. (Accessed 28 July 2021). https://phoenixofhiroshima.wordpress.com/our-history/building-the-boat/ 

“1954-1958: The Reynolds’ Family Voyage.” Phoenix of Hiroshima Project. (Accessed 28 July 2021). https://phoenixofhiroshima.wordpress.com/our-history/1951-1958-the-reynolds-family-voyage/ 

“1958-1961: Nuclear Protests.” Phoenix of Hiroshima Project. (Accessed 28 July 2021). https://phoenixofhiroshima.wordpress.com/our-history/pleasure-yacht/ 

“Friends Journal 1958 coverage of the Golden Rule.” Friends Journal. 31 July 2013 (accessed 28 July 2021). https://www.friendsjournal.org/golden-rule-1958/ 

Reynolds, Earle. The Forbidden Voyage. David McKay Company, Inc., 1961. 

“The Golden Rule and Phoenix voyages in protest of U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, 1958.” Global Nonviolent Action Database. (Accessed 28 July 2021). https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/golden-rule-and-phoenix-voyages-protest-us-nuclear-testing-marshall-islands-1958 ​

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.

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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 

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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

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(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.

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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 

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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 

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(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…
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(Read more here: http://tomdispatch.com/meatball-subs-not-nuclear-subs/)
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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