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abolition-usa-digest       Monday, May 15 2000       Volume 01 : Number 302




----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 15:51:44 -0700
From: "David Crockett Williams" <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) FIRE-ALERT: Global Peace Walk 2000

"We are concerned about our future. We are concerned about our human life."
- -- Global Peace Walk 2000 http://www.globalpeacenow.org


Today again I spoke to Reverend Yamato on the phone from New Mexico
about the Global Peace Walk plans concerning what he feels is a Global
Emergency Situation resulting from the fire that has ravaged the Los Alamos
area including outlying areas of the Nuclear Weapons Lab reportedly
aerosolizing in the smoke decades of radioactive contamination from areas
surrounding the Lab, smoke now settling as potentially very dangerous ash
over several States so far and moving eastward. (details/evidence on this
point below)

Yamato has asked me to sound a Global Emergency Alert on this matter to call
on supporters everywhere to take media publicity actions to get the facts
known to ameliorate potential present dangers, to prevent any future
such dangerous nuclear radioactivity threat situations, and to focus the
current national and global public attention on this tragedy towards
increasing public support and activism for the global abolition of
nuclear weapons.

Please forward this post to your lists.

Tomorrow, Sunday, May 14th, Mother's Day (originally called Mothers Day for
Peace) Reverend Yamato (zen buddhist monk and initiator of the Global Peace
Walk project) will be conducting a global peace prayer and healing ceremony
at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Hall in Angelfire near Eagle's Nest, New
Mexico, caravaning there from Kit Carson Park in Taos, New Mexico, after
gathering at 9AM.

In the afternoon, the Global Peace Walkers and support kitchen bus and
shuttle vehicles will be going to the Los Alamos area, in spite of reported
dangers mentioned above and evidenced below, to offer their help in any way
possible to the community ravaged by fire and, if needed, in firefighting
efforts.  Please keep them in your prayers.  Depending on how long their
help may be of value there, the walk's next schedule of May 29th ceremony at
the Oklahoma City National (bombing victims') Memorial may be postponed.

This Mother's Day ceremony is in solidarity with the prayer gathering being
held this weekend near the Nevada Nuclear Test Site in support of Western
Shoshone Spiritual Leader Corbin Harney and efforts to abolish nuclear
power, testing and weapons globally, stop uranium mining and waste
contaminations especially such as the proposed Yucca Mountain, NV,
nuclear waste repository http://www.shundahai.org

Yamato specifically asked for all those dedicated to the cause of Nuclear
Abolition 2000 to write letters with their messages about the dangers of
nuclear weapons and their production's contamination of the land, and send
these letters of support to their local media and to the Global Peace Walk
to distribute to New Mexico and the national/international media on site in
Los Alamos to address the need for Abolition 2000.

Closing the weapons lab after this fire would be another idea.

Such letters/messages may be emailed (asap) to
<[e-mail]> for forwarding to the walk, and/or signed
copies (on letterhead if available) faxed to 561-658-2735.

He feels strongly that this situation at Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab now
has the national and international media attention which should be utilized
quickly by the Abolition 2000 network to inspire public support for ending
the danger of nuclear weapons.  He feels that it is not just a "coincidence"
that the Global Peace Walk is now in a position to help facilitate this by
being on site in Los Alamos starting tomorrow afternoon for, if necessary,
an extended period of time.  If you have not already, you may join the
Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons (in response to
whose call for such cross-country peace walk this year Reverend Yamato is
conducting Global Peace Walk 2000) at http://www.abolition2000.org

An easy way to email your letters to your local or Statewide media all in
one email send, is via the Media Guide at http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd (also
same for government leaders indexed at that site by your zip code)

Excerpts of recent emails received discussing the radioactivity danger in
the smoke from the Los Alamos fire (don't expect to see this in your media
unless they are pressured by you since from history we know that the US and
DOE will try to keep this kind of information from the public as long as
possible to "avoid panic" -- and outrage)

Remember, one microgram of plutonium can be lethal if inhaled.

I leave it to your best judgement and hope the fears are overblown but
"better to be safe than sorry", etc.

One thing I do feel fairly sure about from past history of US/DOE on
reporting nuclear accidents/dangers, if there is a radioactivity danger in
the smoke it will be kept as secret as possible on orders from on high to
prevent public panic and outrage.  Details will only filter gently into the
media over many years in the future.  If you feel the info below is worth
investigating, I suggest we need to get media folks to look into it and what
can be done to ameliorate potential problems (eg, wearing dust filters when
in the smoke to prevent breathing ash, treat ash as hazardous waste just in
case, etc.)

- -----------------begin forwarded related posts/evidence------

From: "Gary Vesperman" <[e-mail]>
To: "David Crockett Williams" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 5:58 PM
Subject: Get out of the Los Alamos smoke plume!

> Tell your walkers to go indoors or get out from under the
> Los Alamos smoke plume! It's radioactive!
>
> See http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a391ba0417204.htm

[Gary Vesperman, in Las Vegas NV, regularly follows nuclear issues including
the Low Energy Nuclear Transmutation advanced technologies to neutralize
radioactive wastes and related Emerging Energy (ZPE, etc.) technologies to
replace nuclear and fossil fuel power.  His extensive summary on this info
that he submitted as public comments last month on DOE Strategic Plan are
among others on these topics archive for public review at
http://www.egroups.com/group/strategic-plan ]

Another, very long, important compilations of posts by Gary on the Los
Alamos fire situation, with a map and satellite photo, I am not including
due to length but you can see it at
http://www.egroups.com/group/global-peace-walk/360.html


From: "Stephen Dunifer" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 9:32 PM
Subject: Re: NM Fire = Nuclear Emergency Alert, Global Peace Walk

> Check out these two web sites.  The first one is a DOE site that details
> some of the contamination present.  The second site is a local citizens
> monitoring group.
>
> www.em.doe.gov/bemr96/lanl.html
>
> www.lasg.org
>
> Stephen Dunifer  [e-mail]
> [Free Radio Berkeley (CA)]
> www.freeradio.org
- ----------------


From: "Paul" <[e-mail]>
Date: Saturday, May 13, 2000 6:59 AM
<snipped>
I got the photo of Bush and Yamato which I used in our page at
http://globalcircle.net/mm.htm . More on the Peace Walk
http://globalcircle.net/peace1.htm and the fire
http://globalcircle.net/losalamosfire.htm . I live right under that cloud.
 I see the Peace Walk is doubling back to this area because of the fire,
but I can't find any verification of radioactive cloud, though our fire
page has several major media questioning the monitoring of above ground
contaminants.

- --paul, webmaster
http://globalcircle.net


From: "Paul" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Los Alamos
Date: Saturday, May 13, 2000 12:53 PM

Peace Walk will meet at Kit Carson Park in Taos at 9:00 am tomorrow Sunday
May 14, to go to Angelfire for their ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial. We get that from Mike and Rev. Yamato in Taos when we talked to
them on the phone this morning. Then they plan to come down here to the
Espanola area to volunteer help for evacuees etc. and revise their OK City
schedule as a result.

I think we all know better than to believe anybody in government that says
there's no radiation danger. Lie and coverup is SOP for "national security"
(read: saving agency costs and discrediting opposition), from 3-mile Island
to every nuclear plant in the country. We do not have verified radiation
readings so we are not claiming proof. We just know. After all, they lied
to the Navajo uranium miners all those years, and all the lab workers
exposed to Beryllium etc. for decades.  We have more of this now on our
fire page at http://globalcircle.net/losalamosfire.htm .  There's a great
deal of source information linked there now, and people can make up their
own minds. But "national security" always demands that those officials
stonewall and coverup.

We've seen everybody who could get his face on TV go on Channel 4 in
Albuquerque and claim the air monitors show nothing but "background"
levels. They go on and on about no loss of life, and the outpouring of help
from around New Mexico. Too many flaws in that to even count them. Reports
tell us the original monitors burned up around the lab before getting any
readings from them. What they've installed afterward won't tell us what was
in the smoke to start with. And who exactly is reading those monitors? Not
me or you. Why weren't monitors put out in the 700 places where depleted
uranium was exploded for decades? Or where all the outdoor storage of
contaminants could burn? I could go on and on. And who is monitoring for
all the other toxic materials?

My real concern now is for the work crews that have to go in hot and do
all kinds of stuff up there because it's their job. Whatever it is, they'll
take the brunt of it. What will they die of 2 or 20 years from now?

Barb and I are taking the position that the Lab should be decomissioned,
boarded up, fenced, abandoned, and guarded for the next 100 years, minimum.

And none of it's functions should be transferred elsewhere. Everybody who
worked and lived there should be compensated and taken care of for life.
The whole mountain should be a memorial to the people who suffered, and the
animals killed without a thought.  Besides, it's sitting on an active fault
line.

One microgram of plutonium is lethal. The lab has 2.7 metric TONS. And the
Manhattan Project was over 50 years ago.

It all started here. It has to stop here.  The world is watching.

- --paul


> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>
> To: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
> <[e-mail]>
> Cc: [e-mail] <[e-mail]>; [e-mail]
> <[e-mail]>
> Date: Friday, May 12, 2000 10:46 AM
> Subject: [downwinders] Radioactivity at Los Alamos fire, will authorities
> own up to doses to public?
>
> Thanks for the update Scott.                                May 12, 2000
>
> Our Radalert nuclear radiation monitor pegged out to it's maximum reading
> following the RFETS prescribed burn a month ago, and finally settled down
> about a week afterward. It has picked up and has steadily climbed higher
> in the past 2 days here in Denver, Colorado again to 12,105 cpm total
> count, and still climbing.
>
> Unfortunately, our local authorities and DOE people can't seem to pick up
> anything. Maybe it's due to their monitors being calibrated to the Rocky
> Flats local high background, so it doesn't pick up anything of note as
> "it's all background" here. You have to wonder how much the people in
> New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado are being exposed to in
> that massive plume.  Will we ever know - officially that is?
>
> We're trying to minimize going outside as much as possible to avoid it.
> The satellite photos of the huge plume from the Los Alamos fire shown in
our
> daily papers shows most of the main plume headed east, with some portions
> headed NE. There may be some portion coming all the way up to Denver,
> following the mountain range up to us. Question is, Just how much crap is
> in that huge plume from the 50 years of immediate fallout to the
surrounding
> environs that has been settled into soils, taken up into the burning
> vegetation, etc.? Any citizens with monitors should be logging daily
> readings for comparisons.
>
> I hope this disaster teaches DOE and the U.S. Forest Service to stop
> prescribed burning near any of the DOE facilities. It probably won't. But
> we can hope.
>
> Yours,
>
> Paula Elofson-Gardine
> Executive Director
> Environmental Information Network
>
>
> In a message dated 5/12/00 9:02:31 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
> [e-mail] writes:
>
> << Subj:     radioactivity at Los Alamos fire
> Date:  5/12/00 9:02:31 AM Mountain Daylight Time
> From:  [e-mail] (Scott D Portzline)
> Sender:    [e-mail]
> Reply-to:  [e-mail] (Scott D Portzline)
> To:    [e-mail] (nukenet)
>
> Radioactive materials, including plutonium, uranium and DU, might be
> dispersed into the atmosphere at Los Alamos due to 50 years of ground
> contanimation. So far, reports from the media indicate that there is no
> increased radioactivity. Their focus is on the nuclear weapons materials
> "safely" stored in fire resistant buildings.
>
> But, a man 40 miles away in Sante Fe is recording radioactivity levels 3.5
> times greater than the safe level. He is not in the wind path.
>
> The report came from Richard Hoagland on Coast to Coast radio last night.
>
> http://www.em.doe.gov/bemr96/lanl.html >>


From: "Chris Shine" <[e-mail]>
To: "David Crockett Williams" <[e-mail]>
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 4:37 PM
Subject: NM Fire = Nuclear Emergency Alert, Global Peace Walk

> I heard about this NM disaster from Richard C. Hoagland on Art Bell's show
> last night! What a melt-down and it's being blacked out for the most part
> even though people as far away as Santa Fe are taking geigercounter
> readings of 30-40 millirems! There's plutonium and depleted uranium in
> those smoke plumes!
>
>  A while back I sought the media support team that works on shooting the
> Global Peace Walks, got busy and have since lost that link. I would like
to
> collaborate in shaping a piece with these people-can you put me in touch
> again?
>
>  Thank's for your ceaseless vigilance...
>
> vaya con gaia,
>
> Chris Shine
> Imaging Director
> Michele Shine Media
> San Francisco, USA
> [e-mail]
>

- ----------------end forwarded posts---------------

David Crockett Williams   661-822-3309 [phone]
Chartered Life Underwriter
Bachelor of Science, Chemistry
http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000/prepaidlegal.html

Co-coordinator, Global Peace Walk 2000
http://www.globalpeacenow.org
Updates/Voicemail 415-267-1877

Initiator, Global Emergency Alert Response
http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000

dba General Agency Services  [e-mail]
http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000/genagency.html

USCampaign  [e-mail]
D C Williams for President, Leonard Peltier for VP
http://www.egroups.com/group/williams-peltier

Science & Technology in Society & Public Policy List
http://www.egroups.com/group/dcwilliams

The Vision of Paradise on Earth, DCWilliams
http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000/vision.html

Nuclear Disarmament & Economic Conversion Act
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html

Easy way to Email Media and Government
http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd

"An Agenda for Peace", one Global Peace Walk support letter
http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000/agenda.html







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 To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
 with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
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------------------------------

Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 08:26:15 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NY, May 18-20!!: "the next step after dc--re-imagining politics and society at the millennium" - Riverside Church

From: [e-mail] (Lola Perniciaro, Mark LeVine)=20

Dear Friends,

My name is Mark LeVine, and I am a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the
Department of History at Cornell, Chair of the Foundation for Ethics and
Meaning and a contributing editor at Tikkun magazine.  I am writing after
this incredible weekend of protests, celebrations, and teach-ins, to inform
you about an important conference being convened this spring by the
Foundation, Tikkun, and numerous other co-sponsoring organizations, with
the hope that you will join us at this historic event.

Entitled "Re-Imagining Politics and Society at the Millennium: Creating a
Just, Caring, and Sustainable World," and scheduled for May 18-20, 2000 at
the Riverside Church in NYC, this conference will bring together numerous
organization and thousands of individuals committed to the following basic
principles:

=85 To reawaken and foster the simple yet transformative belief that people
are yearning for meaningful connection to others and to a purpose greater
than themselves; to challenge our prevailing cultural emphasis on material
self-interest by encouraging a spirit of caring and a process of mutual
recognition that will nourish inclusive, sustainable, and just communities

=85 Our belief is that we stand today at a crucial juncture in the history=
 of
our political culture and economic life. The corrupting influence of big
money, the intensely partisan spirit, the lack of any meaningful mainstream
response to frenzied globalization, and the failure to address seriously
the long-term environmental health of the planet, all reveal an increasing
emptiness of spirit at the center of political power that cries out for
meaningful change and renewal.

=85 Thus this conference seeks to challenge the accepted values of
selfishness and materialism and develop an approach that emphasizes the
creation of a loving, just, spiritually and ecologically sensitive society.
In contrast to the often narrow agenda of traditional progressive and
conservative politics, we seek to explore how our psychological and
spiritual needs can be integrated into an agenda of human rights, corporate
and political ethics, and the healing of our relationship to nature. We
seek to bring together people who embrace holistic and ecological values,
and who have often felt excluded from the existing liberal/conservative
political debate, to discuss how ethics, a concern for the common good, and
a community spirit of caring can begin to replace the cynical self-interest
and corporate-technocratic worldview that currently dominate public
discourse.

As the email flyer below demonstrates, this conference is without a doubt
the biggest event of the year for people opposed to the WTO/IMF vision of
the world and for a just and sustainable globalization (over 200 speakers
from around the world, thousands of participants expected). I would like to
invite you all to come and participate in this conference, and to send us
materials/flyers/other information that we could distribute to our
attendees and to the press covering us about you and your organizations.
Like the movement behind this weekend's activities in Washington, we are a
totally grassroots enterprise, with no funding from anyone other than
registrations, so we appreciate any help you could give to spread the word.
Volunteers in the NY area are also eligible for scholarships to the
conference.

Finally, If any of you have interesting stories and/or perspectives about
this weekend or the larger events surrounding the protests, I would like to
invite you to write an article about your activities to publish in Tikkun
magazine, one of the most important progressive intellectual journals in
the United States, and a early leader in the fight against corporat-led,
consumer-driven globalization.

I can be reached at [phone], or email me at <[e-mail]>.
I hope to hear from you soon and that we can work together.


Best,

Mark LeVine, PhD
Chair, FEM
- --------------

Re-imagining Politics & Society at the Millennium
Creating a Caring, Ethical & Sustainable World
May 18-20, 2000
Riverside Church, NYC
www.meaning.org

We stand today at a crucial juncture in the history of our political
culture and economic life. The corrupting influence of big money, the
intensely partisan spirit, the lack of any meaningful mainstream response
to frenzied globalization, and the failure to address seriously the
long-term environmental health of the planet, all reveal an increasing
emptiness of spirit at the center of political power that cries out for
meaningful change and renewal.

The protests against the WTO in Seattle have demonstrated the potential for
challenging the dominant neo-liberal, amoral, consumerist paradigms that
dominate our culture. Yet as Newsweek magazine commented about the
protests, "One thing that seems to be lacking today is a mission statement,
a credo, that gives the movement, such as it is, some focus."  This
conference seeks to achieve just such a focus, to create a new language and
credo that can unify the disparate movements who realize the long-term
damage to our personal and planetary well-being by the political, economic,
and cultural status quo.

We challenge the accepted values of selfishness and materialism and develop
an approach that emphasizes the creation of a loving, just, spiritually and
ecologically sensitive society. In contrast to the often narrow agenda of
traditional progressive and conservative politics, we seek to explore how
our psychological and spiritual needs can be integrated into an agenda of
human rights, corporate and political ethics, and the healing of our
relationship to nature. We offer an opportunity for those who embrace
holistic and ecological values, and who have often felt excluded from the
existing liberal/conservative political debate, to come together to discuss
how ethics, a concern for the common good, and a community spirit of caring
can begin to replace the cynical self-interest and corporate-technocratic
worldview that currently dominate public discourse.

Re-imagining Politics and Society is envisioned as a successor to the
historic National Summit on Ethics and Meaning held in Washington, DC in
1996, which was attended by over 1,800 people and co-sponsored by Tikkun,
Sojourner's, Mother Jones, Utne Reader, the Center for Visionary
Leadership, People for the American Way, The Unitarian Universalist
Association, the Reconstructionist Federation, and numerous other
organizations.  We encourage interested individuals and organizations to
work with us to help shape the political and cultural debate at the turn of
the new millennium.

The conference agenda and speaker roster is still in the planning stages
and will be available soon.  Confirmed speakers include (see our website,
www.meaning.org, for a full description) Nobel Peace Prize nominee Wei
Jingsheng, David Korten, Michael Lerner and Peter Gabel, Riane Eisler,
Matthew Fox, Moctar Tayeb, Eugene Gendlin, Saskia Sassen, Arianna
Huffington, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Patricia Ireland, Hamilton Fish, Cherie
Brown, Moctar Tayeb, Mark Green, C. Virginia Fields, Rev. James Forbes,
Rev. Jim Wallis, John Dalla Costa, Gar Alperovitz, Fernando Ferrer, Rep.
Major Owens, Danny Goldberg, Arturo Escobar, Bill Stephney, Randy Shaw,
Alisa Gravitz, Jay Rosen, Alan Gerson, Jerome Segal, Tracie Morris, Andrew
Ross, Jason Hill, Elizabeth Lesser, Michaele Wucker, Michael Sorkin, James
Gordon, MD, Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Mark Kingwell, Redwood
Mary, Samuel Epstein, MD, Richard Falk, Rev. Emory Searcy, Tim Keating,
Raphael Kellman, MD, Naomi Klein, Paul Wapner, David Loye, Douglas Sloan,
Ron Miller, Brent Blackwelder, Heidi Mills, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Ralph Moss,
MD, Kathy Davis, Elizabeth Dribben, Richard Schwartz, Arthur Waskow, Mark
Ritchie, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, Sharon Perez-Abreu, Ajani
Benjamin. Catherine Keller, Mike Flynn, Katherine Kurs, Dr. Frank Kirkland,
David Orr, Russell Hemenway, Rick Jarrow. Many other speakers are in the
process of confirming,  and will be added when confirmed.

Numerous organizations have already signed on as co-sponsors, including
UTNE Reader, WBAI (Pacifica Radio, New York City), COOP America, NYC
Friends of the Clearwater, Wetlands Environmental & Social Justice Activism
Center (Wetlands Preserve), YES! Magazine, Tikkun Magazine, The Nation, The
Riverside Church, The Interfaith Center of New York, Amnesty International,
The National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers,
Christian Peacemaker Teams, Claremont Seminary, The Center for Process
Studies, The Center For Visionary Leadership, The Positive Futures Network,
The People Centered Development Forum, Progressive America, The Employment
Project, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, the NY State
Labor-Religion Alliance, The Shalom Center of ALEPH, Healing the
North-South Wound, TJWalker.com, ONN (Online Noetic Network), The Kellman
Center for Progressive Medicine, The Centre for Ethical Orientation, and
Ithaca Hours.  More are being added weekly, and if you know of an
organization that should be joining us, let us know! or better, let them
know!

To register, call 212 219 2527, x.110 or email <[e-mail]> or visit
our website for full information: www.meaning.org

Mark LeVine, Ph.D.                       Lola Perniciaro
Dept. of History                         87 Uptown Road
Cornell University                       Apt. A206
450 McGraw Hall                          Ithaca, NY 14850
Ithaca, NY 14853                         607 266 8386
607 266 8386
fax - 607 255 1422

************Please note, if in the future this email does not work, please
email me at <[e-mail]>, but only if it does not
work.**************


____________________________________________________________

* Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! *
____________________________________________________________

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 To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
 with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
 For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 08:14:03 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 00/05/15 - Daybook

May 4, 2000 Washington Times / Agence France Presse Daybook
http://www.washtimes.com/national/daybook-2000515215450.htm

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE=20

Travels to Philadelphia and to Nashville, Tenn.

SENATE=20

      Meets at 1 p.m. for morning business until 3 p.m. At 3 p.m. the
Senate will resume consideration of S. 2521, the Military Construction FY
2001 Appropriations bill. Contact: Republican Cloakroom, 202/224-8601, or
Democratic Cloakroom, 202/224-8541.

HOUSE COMMITTEES=20

      6:30 p.m. =97 House Rules Committee holds a meeting to consider the
rules for floor debate of laws making appropriations for military
construction, family housing, and base realignment and closure for the
Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2001, and for
other purposes. Location: U.S. Capitol, Room H-313. Contact: 202/225-9191.

 GENERAL AGENDA=20

      Global economics conference =97 all day =97 Economic Strategy Institut=
e
hosts the Global 2000 Forum, "The World To Come: Value and Price of
Globalization =97 How Technology and Globalization Are Changing Economics,
Politics and Society."
      Highlights =97 8:10 a.m. =97 President Kim Dae Jung, Republic of Korea=
,
"Present at the Creation: Building a New Economy for a New Era."
      2 p.m. =97 Sen. Chuck Hagel, Nebraska Republican, "A Tale of Two
Cities: Washington and Brussels."
      Location: Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1300
Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Contact: Global Forum Office, 703/548-4662.

      Trade briefing =97 11 a.m. =97 The Foreign Press Center holds a briefi=
ng,
"Permanent Normal Trade Relations With China." U.S. Trade Representative
Charlene Barshefsky participates. Location: FPC, Room 898, National Press
Building, 14th and F streets NW. Contact: 202/661-8944.

      China lecture =97 2 p.m. =97 The Woodrow Wilson Center holds a lecture=
 on
China. Gov. Paul Cellucci, Massachusetts Republican, participates.
Location: WWC, 1 Woodrow Wilson Plaza, Ronald Reagan Building, 1300
Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Contact: 202/691-4000.


____________________________________________________________

* Peace Through Reason - http://prop1.org - Convert the War Machines! *
____________________________________________________________

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 To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
 with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
 For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 12:21:12 -0400
From: ASlater <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) 2000 BY 2000: 18 MORE ENDORSERS NEEDED!

Since the last notice on the 2000 by 2000 Campaign, 13 more organizations have
enrolled in Abolition 2000 for a total of 1,982 organizations!!  Fifteen more
to go to meet our goal of 2000 before the final day of the PrepCom this
Friday.  Please help us so that we can let the world know that the people of
the planet want nuclear abolition at the last press conference for the NPT
Review on Friday.  Reach out to another organization and let them know how we
are working in 93 countries for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.  Send
your replies to Carah Ong, the Abolition 2000 coordinator at [e-mail]
Many thanks for your support!  Peace,
Alice Slater
Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE)
15 East 26th Street, Room 915
New York, NY 10010
tel:  [phone]
fax:  [phone]
email:  [e-mail]
http://www.gracelinks.org

GRACE is a member of Abolition 2000, a global network for the elimination
nuclear weapons.

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Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 11:06:44 -0700
From: Andrew Lichterman <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) U.S. considered nuke blast on the Moon

From the Observer (UK)




                    US planned one big
                                          nuclear blast for
                                          mankind

                                          Antony Barnett, Public Affairs Editor
                                          Sunday May 14, 2000

                                          The US Air Force developed a top-secret
                                          plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the
                                          moon as a display of military might at the
                                          height of the Cold War.

                                          In an exclusive interview with The
                                          Observer, Dr Leonard Reiffel, 73, the
                                          physicist who fronted the project in the
                                          late Fifties at the US military-backed
                                          Armour Research Foundation, revealed
                                          America's extraordinary lunar plan.

                                          'It was clear the main aim of the proposed
                                          detonation was a PR exercise and a show
                                          of one-upmanship. The Air Force wanted a
                                          mushroom cloud so large it would be
                                          visible on earth,' he said yesterday. 'The
                                          US was lagging behind in the space race.'

                                          'The explosion would obviously be best on
                                          the dark side of the moon and the theory
                                          was that if the bomb exploded on the
                                          edge of the moon, the mushroom cloud
                                          would be illuminated by the sun.' The
                                          bomb would have been at least as large
                                          as the one used on Hiroshima at the end
                                          of World War II.

                                          'I made it clear at the time there would be
                                          a huge cost to science of destroying a
                                          pristine lunar environment, but the US Air
                                          Force were mainly concerned about how
                                          the nuclear explosion would play on
                                          earth,' said Reiffel.

                                          Although he believes the blast would have
                                          had little environmental impact on Earth,
                                          its crater may have ruined the face of the
                                          'man in the moon'.

                                          Reiffel would not reveal how the explosion
                                          would have taken place. But he confirmed
                                          it was 'certainly technically feasible' and
                                          that at the time an intercontinental
                                          ballistic nuclear missile would have been
                                          capable of hitting a target on the moon
                                          with an accuracy of within two miles.

                                          Reiffel was approached by senior US Air
                                          Force officers in 1958, who asked him to
                                          'fast-track' a project to investigate the
                                          visibility and effects of a nuclear explosion
                                          on the moon. The top-secret Project
                                          A119, was entitled 'A Study of Lunar
                                          Research Flights'.

                                          'Had the project been made public there
                                          would have been an outcry,' said Reiffel.

                                          Many Cold War documents are still
                                          classified in the US, but details of Project
                                          A119 emerged after a biography of
                                          celebrated US scientist and astronomer
                                          Carl Sagan was published there last year.

                                          Sagan, who died in 1996, was famous for
                                          popularising science in the US and
                                          pioneering the study of potential life on
                                          other planets. At the Armour Foundation
                                          in Chicago - now called the Illinois
                                          Institute of Technology Research - he was
                                          hired by Reiffel to undertake mathematical
                                          modelling on the expansion of an
                                          exploding dust cloud in the space around
                                          the moon. This was key to calculating the
                                          visibility of such a cloud from the Earth.

                                          At the time scientists still believed there
                                          might be microbial life on the moon and
                                          Sagan had suggested a nuclear explosion
                                          might be used to detect organisms.

                                          Despite the highly classified nature of the
                                          work, Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson,
                                          discovered that he had disclosed details
                                          of it when he applied for the prestigious
                                          Miller Institute graduate fellowship to
                                          Berkeley.

                                          Yet, until today, the full nature of Project
                                          A119 has never been revealed. Friends of
                                          Sagan believe he never would have wilfully
                                          revealed classified information, but Reiffel
                                          has come forward to put the 'historical
                                          record straight'.

                                          Reiffel continued: 'It was well known that
                                          the existence of this project was top
                                          secret. Had Sagan wanted to make any
                                          disclosures to any party, as his boss at
                                          the time, I would have had to take forward
                                          any such request and Air Force
                                          permission would have been extremely
                                          unlikely in those very tense times.'

                                          In a letter to the science magazine
                                          Nature, Reiffel said: 'Fortunately for the
                                          future of lunar science, a one or two horse
                                          race to detonate a nuclear explosion never
                                          occurred. But in my opinion Sagan
                                          breached security in March, 1959.'

                                          Reiffel produced eight reports between
                                          May 1958 and January 1959 on the
                                          feasibility of the plan, all of which were
                                          destroyed in 1987 by the foundation.
                                          Reiffel would not discuss details of these
                                          reports, believing they were still classified,
                                          but it was clear the conclusion was that
                                          the explosion would have been visible from
                                          Earth

                                          He does not know why the plans were
                                          scrapped, but said: 'Thankfully, the
                                          thinking changed. I am horrified that such
                                          a gesture to sway public opinion was ever
                                          considered.'

                                          Dr David Lowry, a British nuclear
                                          historian, said: 'It is obscene. To think
                                          that the first contact human beings would
                                          have had with another world would have
                                          been to explode a nuclear bomb. Had
                                          they gone ahead, we would never have
                                          had the romantic image of Neil Armstrong
                                          taking "one giant step for mankind".'

                                          Lowry believes Project A119 has
                                          relevance today with the US proposing a
                                          missile defence system in space. He
                                          said: 'The US has always wanted to
                                          militarise space and some of the fanciful
                                          ideas currently being put forward will
                                          seem as incredible as the idea of nuking
                                          the moon in the Fifties seems today.'

                                          A Pentagon spokesman would not confirm
                                          or deny the plans.

                                          ò [e-mail]





















                       Guardian Unlimited ⌐ Guardian New
- --
Andrew Lichterman
Program Director
Western States Legal Foundation
1440 Broadway Suite 500
Oakland, CA 94612
USA

phone:  [phone]
fax:      [phone]
e-mail: [e-mail]

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