The Best of Edward Abbey (45 page)

In a soft, gentle voice, with a slight Southern accent, Dr. Morgan reviewed for us what should be familiar stuff by now: the invisible and insidious effects of low-level radiation, intangible to the senses, measurable only by instruments, but potentially fatal all the same, given sufficient exposure, to any organism unlucky enough to inhale or ingest even the most minute particles of
plutonium or its derivative, americium. There is no such thing, he maintained, as a safe or “permissible” dose of internal radiation; the slightest quantity can be enough, in a susceptible human, to cause some form of cancer.

He is not, said Dr. Morgan, against nuclear power, nor would he support unilateral nuclear disarmament; but he thinks present safety standards are dangerously inadequate. Accidents are inevitable, he said, given human fallibility, and he mentioned (over objections from the county attorney) the three deaths at Los Alamos and the three at Idaho Falls that resulted from nuclear mishaps. People living near or downwind of Rocky Flats are subject to a 3 to 6 percent greater risk than those in other areas; he accused the Environmental Protection Agency of failure to enforce uniformly even its present inadequate safety standards; the Rocky Flats installation should never have been built so close to a city, and should be shut down or relocated as soon as possible, “preferably deep inside a mountain.”

Did he think the dangers posed by Rocky Flats justified the demonstrations, protests, and railway sit-ins staged by the defendants? Since ordinary political means have so far failed to produce the needed changes (Colorado’s governor and Congressional delegation have been advocating removal of the Rocky Flats plant for years), Dr. Morgan thought that yes, any nonviolent action that served to publicize the problem was justified—even though, he added, the railway trespass would not “miraculously” decontaminate the estimated eleven thousand acres stretching from the plant grounds toward Denver that were already poisoned by plutonium leakage from waste-storage barrels.

Dr. Morgan’s testimony required three hours for its detailed elaboration. Two more days of similar testimony by other defense witnesses followed. Dr. Alice Stewart from Oxford University, an epidemiologist by trade, and Dr. John W. Gofman of the University of California at Berkeley, a specialist in physical chemistry and, like Dr. Stewart, an M.D., reinforced Dr. Morgan’s fears of the long-range effects of nuclear contamination in
the Denver area. “Protest is always justified,” said Gofman, “when it is the only means to make a deaf government listen.”

Local scientists from the University of Colorado, the Colorado Department of Health, and the Atmospheric Research Center appeared on the stand to back up Drs. Morgan, Stewart, and Gofman. Dr. Anthony Robbins testified that he had “serious concerns as to whether one could believe or trust the statements of the Department of Energy” about radioactive emissions at the plant. Dr. Edward Martell, a nuclear chemist, said that Rocky Flats officials had “resisted suggestions” that they make tests for nuclear contamination in the soil beyond the plant boundaries. Therefore Dr. Martell made the tests himself and found, in Jefferson County and the Denver area, concentrations of plutonium—”hot spots”—more than 250 times greater than normal background levels of radiation.

Dr. John Cobb, a member of a governor’s task force appointed to investigate the safety of the plant, said that he had made sixteen recommendations for improving safety operations, but that none, so far as he had been able to find out, were put into effect. As for nuclear power in general, Dr. Cobb said that he was in favor of it but only if reactors were confined to a safe distance from human habitation, “about 93 million miles away … on the sun.”

Like the other witnesses and most of the defendants, Cobb opposed unilateral nuclear disarmament, given the present state of international affairs, but did think it would be worthwhile, from the point of view of human survival, for the U.S. government to take a significant initial step toward such disarmament; world opinion, he felt, as well as its own best interests, would compel the Russian government to follow. The present course, he said, is one of premeditated suicide.

The trial was adjourned for four days of official Thanksgiving. After the recess some of the defendants were allowed, through a constant barrage of united objections by the judge and prosecution, to make their statements directly to the three men and three women of the jury. Said Roy Young, age thirty, a Boulder geologist: “I was on those tracks not to commit trespass
but to prevent random murder on the population of metropolitan Denver.” [Objection, your honor! Objection sustained.] “And if I thought,” continued Young, “that by staying on those tracks … I could close that plant tomorrow, I would be willing to stay there for the rest of my life.” [Objection! Sustained.]

Said Nancy Doub, age forty, housewife and child-care worker from Boulder, who with her seventeen-year-old daughter had been arrested on the night of May 8: “It was a pretty far-out thing. I’m not accustomed to going out at night in two feet of snow to stop a railroad train.” They waited two hours for the train to emerge from the plant. “When we saw the light we walked up the tracks together … singing ‘We Shall Not Be Moved.’” [Objection! Sustained.]

Skye Kerr, age twenty-three, a registered nurse and student at the University of Colorado, said that she had received her training at Boston Children’s Hospital and was familiar with the effects of radiation-caused cancer and leukemia. She said, “There were three-year-old children with their hair falling out. They were getting sick from the medicine they were taking and didn’t understand.” [Objection! Sustained.] She said, “The children keel over and die. They gush out blood from all over.” [Objection! Objection! Inciting sympathy in the jury, Your Honor! Sustained.] “It happens years later. You can’t see or feel or touch radiation, but it’s as real as a gun.” [Objection! Sustained.] “I felt the only thing I could do … was to bodily put myself on the tracks. I knew that laws much, much higher [than trespass] were being broken.” [Objection! Sustained.] What kind of laws? she was asked. “Laws of human—of life. You know—violations of rights you have as a human being.” [Objection! Objection sustained.]

The defense rested its case a day later, after a summation by chief defense attorney Edward H. Sherman that appealed to the jury as “the conscience of the community.” (The ancient and traditional role, in Anglo-Saxon law, of any jury.) The prosecuting attorney, Steve Cantrell, summed up his argument by saying that this was “a case of simple trespass. We are not here to change the policy of the U.S. government….”

The judge read his instructions to the jury. It took him twenty minutes to guide—or delimit—their deliberations. He reminded the jury that he had ruled as irrelevant the choice-of-evils defense, as well as a defense based on the First Amendment right to assemble peacefully for redress of grievances. The members of the jury were to disregard “emotional appeals” and consider only, and nothing but, the formal charges of obstruction of traffic on a public right-of-way and trespass against U.S. government property.

The jury went into deep seclusion. It emerged five hours later to confess inability to reach a decision. The judge excused the jury for the night but put it back to work next morning. After another five hours, the jury announced its verdict: All defendants guilty of trespass, innocent of obstructing traffic.

The jurors explained that though in sympathy with the defendants, they could not, under the judge’s instructions, acquit them of the trespassing charge. One juror wrote a note to the defendants: “My support and prayers are with you all.” Another, Diana Holman, said to defendant Jack Joppa, “We support you and your cause.” Another juror tried to explain her decision to reporters, faltered in midsentence, left the courtroom weeping.

The judge looked glum and a little bored. The defense attorneys looked weary, sad, disappointed, the prosecuting attorneys tired and exasperated.

Both sides claimed a moral victory but the divided verdict satisfied no one. No one, that is, but the defendants and their supporters; they alone seemed pleased by the results of the trial—not jubilant, but serenely happy. Linking hands and arms they sang “We Shall Overcome,” about seventy of them there in the crowded little courtroom, while the flashbulbs flashed, the high-intensity video lights glared, the cameras clicked and clashed.

The judge set a later date for sentencing; penalties up to six months in jail and/or a fine of $500 were possible. The defense attorneys announced, as expected, their plans for appeal to a higher court.

I spoke briefly with a few of the defendants, including Daniel
Ellsberg, who now lives in San Francisco and makes his living, he told me, as a writer and lecturer, devoting most of his efforts to the antinuclear crusade. I met Steve Sterns and Ellen Klaver, both students at the University of Colorado; the latter supports herself by working as a seasonal ranger with the National Park Service. I met Peter Ediger, about age fifty I would guess, who is the minister of the Mennonite Church in nearby Arvada, another Denver suburb.

The defendants impressed me not so much with what they had to say as with their manner. They are happy people, these crusaders, at ease with themselves and with others, radiant with conviction, liberated by their own volition from the tedious routine and passive acquiescence in which most of us endure our brief, half-lived, half-lives. One single act of defiance against power, against the State that seems omnipotent but is not, transforms and transfigures the human personality. At least for a time. For a while. Perhaps that is enough.

I had come to the Rocky Flats affair in a state of mind vaguely sympathetic with the protesters, but basically skeptical, burdened by the resigned cynicism that passes for wisdom in contemporary America. Like some people I know, I could sometimes settle for the belief that our most serious problems are finding a place to park the car, the ever-rising costs of gasoline and beefsteak, and the nagging demands of the poor, the old, the disinherited.

Now I felt a guilty envy of the protesters, of those who actually act, and a little faint glow of hope—perhaps something fundamental might yet be changed in the nature of our lives. Crusaders for virtue are an awkward embarrassment to any society; they force us to make choices; either side with them, which is difficult and dangerous, or condemn them, which leads to self-betrayal.

While the glow lasted, one of the defendants—Robert Godfrey, transplanted Englishman, mountaineer, filmmaker, writer—and I walked down the streets of Golden (golden Colorado!) to the Coors Brewery where visitors are always welcome for the free beer. We had been denied entrance to the Rocky
Flats nuclear-weapons plant; here we were admitted by cheerful ladies wearing red-and-white uniforms and genuine simulated Disneyland smiles. Which was gracious of the Coors Corporation, I thought; people like Godfrey and myself have never felt or said anything nice about Adolph Coors and Company—a highly influential right-wing force in Rocky Mountain and now national politics.

We took the official “short” tour of the plant, direct from front door to free-beer dispensary, and sampled the product, generously offered, liberally taken. If we could not celebrate exactly a victory, then—as César Chavez has said—we would celebrate our defeat. The beer tasted fine, I am happy to report, despite what seemed to me a strange Day-Glo phosphorescence in the foaming head.

Yes, I had come by now to imagine particles of plutonium 239 and americium 241 everywhere I looked, floating on the air, settling on my shoulders like microscopic flecks of dandruff, lodging in my lungs, where they—the particles—could carry on, undisturbed, their peculiar half-life of twenty-four thousand years. Nevertheless we drank the beer.

Drank the beer and carried on. Driving home to Boulder that evening, Godfrey and I were happy to see Patrick Malone and his wigwam, flags flying, still firmly and symbolically obstructing traffic on the nuclear railroad. Can one man derail a train with nothing but his will? Can a few thousand human beings armed with nothing but audacity and purpose bring to a halt the mighty freight train of government, industry, power, war, that overwhelming vision of a future charged by pride and ambition?

The only answer we know is the most comforting and terrifying of answers: anything is possible.

Author’s Note: The defendants received six-month suspended sentences. Patrick Malone maintained his stand, violating probation, and served three months of a six-month jail sentence before friends paid his fine. In April of the following year fifteen thousand people took part in the protest at Rocky Flats. The nuclear-weapons plant remains in operation.

W
e met one evening in the streets of Santa Fe (Holy Faith!), New Mexico, in the springtime of 1959. A good year that one, excelled—at least in my experience—only by 1960 and each succeeding year. My friend Debris was staggering down Palace Avenue, supported on the arms of an artistic woman named Rini Templeton, whom I had met a short time previously in the editorial offices of a Taos newspaper called
El Crepúsculo de la Libertad
. I had not yet learned how that name was translated into American but I did know that I was supposed to be the paper’s editorin-chief. As proof of my newfound dignity I carried in an inside pocket of my 1952 Sears Roebuck wino jacket (burgundy corduroy—threads of the king) a bona fide paycheck for
one hundred dollars
. A powerful sum of money in those subbohemian, underground-beatnik days. And all for only one week’s work.