A new spirit of anti nuclear activism is growing in the United States, after several years of declining interest and involvement. This new activism is motivated by increased concern over issues of nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and nuclear waste shipments. Here in Los Angeles, several groups of activists came together in May and June to protest the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons tests, and we invite y'all to a vigil at the Westwood Federal Building, Veteran and Wilshire, and teach in at the adjacent Westwood Park, from 2-4 pm on Sunday August 9, the 53rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. Nuclear weapons have not been used in war for 53 years. Many authorities believe that we will not reach 54 years without nuclear war unless the nations begin now to make a real effort to abolish all nuclear weapons. There is a 50% chance of nuclear war between India and Pakistan within the next year, according to international experts.

How many of us know how close the world has come to nuclear war? Most often cited is the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, where the Cubans wanted to launch the Russian nuclear missles but Khrushchev withdrew them instead. Less often cited is the Norwegian incident in 1995. Norway had launched a rocket carrying a weather satellite, but the information did not get to Moscow. The Russian generals told Yeltsin the launch looked like an American submarine attack. Yeltsin was advised to order a nuclear counterstrike on the United States. Yeltsin opened the "nuclear football" carried by military attaches to the United States and Russian presidents, to get the launch codes for nuclear war. This had never happened on either side before, and we were five minutes away from nuclear war when the Norwegian missile was identified and the "counterattack" on the United States, called off. Then there are the Trident submarines. The United States has several dozen of these billion dollar ships carrying the equivalent of 600 Hiroshimas, each. These submarines are not dependent on launch codes from Washington to fire their missiles. Because communications would most likely be disrupted in a nuclear war, each sub commander has the power to fire his missles, whenever motivated to do so through madness, error, or instructions from higher authority.

The United States did not explode any nuclear bombs under the Nevada desert from 1992 to 1997, and the existence of and threat from nuclear weapons seemed to have receded from the peoples thoughts. Nuclear protests that brought thousands of people to the Nevada Test Site in the 1980s dwindled to a couple hundred or less in recent years. The United States and the Russians reduce their nuclear arsenals from 60,000 at the height of the cold war to about 23,000 today. The reductions to the world's nuclear arsenals were negotiated by President's Bush and Reagan. Despite the Democrats historical reputation as being more of a peace party than the Republicans, no new negotiations leading to reduced nuclear threats has been proposed in the six years of the Clinton administration. Instead of trying to end the nuclear threats from bombs or radiation, the Clinton administration has been the most pro nuclear government the United has had in a generation. Nuclear bombs are again exploding under the Nevada Desert. These subcritical test violate the spirit of the comprehensive test ban treaty. Clinton ignores world opinion by maintaining a policy of nuclear weapons forever, and recklessly plays with the health and genetic heritage of all life, by promoting sales of nuclear power plants all over the world.

The biggest secret about nuclear weapons is that there are no secrets. The modern hydrogen bomb in the United States or Russian arsenals was perfected in the 1960s. Plans on how to build a hydrogen bomb have been published in general circulation magazines. The United States was unable to stop publication of such materials because the courts found that all the essential information was available from unclassified sources. Nuclear reactors were invented to create plutonium, which is an artificial substance used to make the first atomic bomb and the Nagasaki bomb, and is used to make the triggers for all the hydrogen bombs. Plutonium is the deadliest substance you can conceive of. One pound, evenly distributed, is sufficient to kill every man, woman and child on planet earth. Human beings are the creatures that are most subject to radiation damage, and thousands of pounds of plutonium from bomb tests or leakage from nuclear powerplant smokestacks, contaminate the soil all over the world. Every nuclear reactor produces enough plutonium to make a bomb, about every ten days. At one time it was very expensive and difficult to separate plutonium from the other ingredients in a nuclear reactor, but modern technology has made reprocessing much simpler and cheaper.

The United States has spent billions in recent years digging massive holes and caverns under New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. More massive excavations are to take place under Texas. The government's plan is to take all the reactor waste from American reactors sold all over the world, and to bury it under the United States. The United States doesn't want other countries extracting the plutonium for their own bombs, so we've agreed to take back the waste from Bechtel and Westinghouse's nuke plants from all over the world. Proponents of United States policy will tell you this is "national security" - we don't want the Philippines or China to extract the plutonium to make their own bombs. What kind of a guarantee do we have that our customers won't cheat and keep plutonium for themselves? Nuclear radiation is deadly for hundreds of thousands of years. Anything we put into the ground, is going to leak into the water and the air. What right do we have to manufacture poisons that will be deadly for hundreds of thousands of years, for the sake of being able to run all the electric appliances we want, all at the same time? Nuclear waste shipments are coming into California at Concord in the Bay area, and will be shipped by truck all the way down Interstate 5, through Los Angeles then out I-10 to New Mexico. How are you going to like thousands of nuclear waste shipments, mobile Chernobyls, coming down spilling their loads and catching on fire, like so many of the trucks now on our freeways?

The Los Angeles Ad Hoc Committee on the Nuclear Dangers was convened by Jonathan Parfrey of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), and brings together activists from PSR, the LA and Orange County Alliance for Survival, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Peace Action, Committee to Bridge the Gap, the LA No Nukes project of the Alliance of Native Americans and free lance activists concerned about justice, peace and a clean environment. The only thing that keeps nuclearism going is public apathy. We invite you to join us or get involved in your own way. As Margaret Mead said, "Never doubt that a small, committed minority can change the world. It's the only thing that ever did", and the only thing that ever will.

John Owen

LA No Nukes

213 344-8084