Civil Disobedience
By Kennette Benedict
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
9 August 2012
http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/kennette-benedict/civil-disobedience

It was the 82-year-old nun who caught my attention. In
the early morning hours of July 28, Sister Megan Rice,
Michael R. Walli, and Greg Boertje-Obed of the peace
group Plowshares cut through fences at the Y-12 nuclear
weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The group spray-
painted protest messages, hung banners, and splashed
blood on the national facility, which manufactures US
nuclear weapons and stockpiles highly enriched uranium.
This act of civil disobedience is the latest in a series
of such protests since 1980 when the group was founded
to raise public awareness of the continuing dangers of
nuclear weapons.

Small protests at nuclear and military facilities rarely
get much media attention. But this one is raising more
concerns than others have in the past, because at Oak
Ridge the protesters were able to break through security
at one of the most significant and oldest bomb-making
plants in the country. It was at this plant where highly
enriched uranium was manufactured for use in the
Hiroshima bomb dropped on August 6, 1945, at the end of
World War II. The "Oak Ridge Three," as the activists
will come to be known, marked the Hiroshima anniversary
with vandalism -- and an extraordinary breach of
security at the Y-12 plant. In their statement, the trio
also protested the planned construction of a new $6.5
billion uranium-processing facility next to Y-12.

The National Nuclear Security Administration has
acknowledged the seriousness of the action, which
involved the protesters walking into a high-security
zone of the plant, calling the security breach
"unprecedented." The government response, so far, has
been to commend the independent security contractor,
WSI, for its subsequent actions, including a weeklong
"security stand-down," a halt to weapons production, and
mandatory refresher training for all security staff.

Nonproliferation policy experts, on the other hand, will
draw attention to the relative ease with which these
unarmed, unsophisticated protesters could cut through a
fence and walk into the heart of the facility. They will
point to the event as further evidence that nuclear
security -- that is, the securing of highly enriched
uranium and plutonium -- should be a top priority
because it is the only way to prevent terrorist groups
from acquiring nuclear bomb-making material. They will
question the use of private contractors to provide
security at facilities that manufacture and store the
government's most dangerous military material. In fact,
the Oak Ridge intrusion took place just a few days after
WSI announced plans to eliminate about 50 security jobs,
including 34 security police officers at Y-12. I presume
that others will also question, as I do, the need for a
nuclear bomb-making plant at all -- especially at a time
when the United States, Russia, and other countries are
talking about vastly reducing their nuclear arsenals and
when former government leaders, and even the US
president, are calling for a "world free of nuclear
weapons."

I was struck by the image of three white-haired
activists from a movement that began in the early 1980s
at the height of the Cold War. Some might find it odd
that an 82-year-old nun and her companions -- aged 63
and 57 -- are protesting nuclear weapons. In a way,
though, the weapons themselves are just as odd these
days. They are aging, too. But, unlike the protesters,
nuclear weapons are no longer relevant, and they need to
be quietly laid to rest. Instead of creating new
materials to renovate old warheads, it is time to let
them go gently into that good night. In other words, it
is time for nuclear weapons to retire and, in time, to
be buried.

And who better to bury them than those who grew up with
them? Aging baby-boomers are also Cold War babies. We
remember civil defense drills in school, the tense days
of the Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear bomb shelters, and
the fear of a nuclear war from which no one could hide.
We still have memories that stir horror and a sense of
helplessness.

Before we too go gently into that good night, perhaps
Cold War boomers should make sure nuclear weapons go
with us to the grave. For those of us in our 60s and
70s, still active and with time on our hands, the
abolition of nuclear weapons is a worthy goal. We claim
to have ended the Vietnam War with our protests and our
marches. Perhaps we have one last act of social justice
in us. Perhaps we could bring about the end of nuclear
weapons and remove the prospect of nuclear war for our
children and grandchildren.

___________________________________________

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