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abolition-usa-digest     Tuesday, January 30 2001     Volume 01 : Number 417




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

Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 15:15:41 -0600
From: "Boyle, Francis" <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) FW: [du-list] PROF CALLS DU ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

and if you believe NATO on this, you also believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth
Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. fab.





  http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-25-15.html

NATO Says No Link Between Depleted Uranium, Cancer

BRUSSELS, Belgium, January 25, 2001 (ENS) - There is no link between the
depleted uranium munitions used in the NATO led Balkans wars and the rash of
cancers that have been reported by soldiers who fought in the conflicts,
according to the chairman of a multinational committee convened to study the
matter.

Daniel Speckhard, the U.S. Ambassador to Belarus and the chairman of NATO's
ad hoc committee on depleted uranium (DU), said Wednesday that "based on the
data today, no link has been established between depleted uranium and any
forms of cancer."

"To date, no nation has found evidence of an increase in incidence of
illness among peacekeepers [who served] in the Balkans compared with the
incidence of illness among armed forces not serving in the Balkans,"
Speckhard said at a news conference. "None of the nations reported finding a
link between health complaints of personnel employed in the Balkans and
depleted uranium munitions."



NATO Spokesman Mark Laity, third from left, discusses the possible health
effects of depleted uranium with several military experts at a recent news
conference in Brussels, Belgium (Photo courtesy NATO)
Speckhard's committee, which represents about 50 nations, was formed earlier
this month to investigate the alleged link between the adverse health
effects that have been reported by NATO soldiers and the DU munitions that
were used in the wars waged in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Kosovo. Speckhard
said on Wednesday that the committee intends to bring "maximum transparency"
to the inquiry, which he said was undertaken to ensure that there is "no
health risk to our troops or civilians in the Balkans" as a result of the DU
munitions used there.

The United States and a host of other allied nations have for years supplied
their armed forces with machine gun rounds and rocket like projectiles
tipped with depleted uranium, which by definition contains statistically
insignificant amounts of radioactivity. The Pentagon and NATO both maintain
that DU munitions are essential war fighting tools, because of their ability
to pierce through armor plated tanks and other heavily defended targets.



Depleted uranium munitions are effective at piercing heavily armored
vehicles, such as this tank (Photo courtesy NATO)
The Pentagon acquires much of its DU at no cost from nuclear weapons plants,
which are generally eager to get rid of the tens of thousands of tons of
wastes that are piling up at their facilities. Both the Pentagon and NATO
have long denied that DU munitions pose any health risks from residual
radioactivity.

DU munitions were used widely in the Persian Gulf War as well as the more
recent conflicts in the Balkans, and thousands of veterans who fought in
those campaigns disagree with NATO's conclusions. Many of these veterans
have been plagued by a rash of unexplained health effects, including chronic
fatigue, paralysis and death.



Gulf War veterans gathered in Washington, DC, last year to demand
recognition and treatment for their illness (Photo courtesy American Gulf
War Veterans Association)
DU, which is regulated in the United States by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, is supposed to contain no other radionuclides other than
uranium. But critics charge that the substance often contains other
dangerous elements associated with nuclear power plants, such as plutonium,
radium and americium.

That fear was at least partially borne out earlier this week, when a
Pentagon spokesman acknowledged that traces of plutonium were inadvertently
incorporated into DU munitions that were made some 30 years ago. The mistake
came about because of contaminated equipment at a domestic power plant, the
spokesman said.

NATO spokesman Mark Laity, appearing at the Brussels news conference on
Wednesday along with Speckhard, was quick to downplay the significance of
the Pentagon's revelation. Laity said that it was "quite possible" that
traces of plutonium or other radionuclides will turn up in soil samples now
being taken in the Balkans. But such findings, he said, would not constitute
a threat to public health or the environment.

"These contaminants are known about and are in minute amounts," Laity said.
"Those trace elements have been found to be too small to add to the existing
low level health risk that there is."

"If they find [traces of plutonium or other radionuclides], we will not be
surprised, and I will not be worried," added Laity, who delivered his
remarks with a DU round sitting nearby.

That point was echoed by NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe, U.S. Air Force
General Joseph Ralston. Ralston, speaking in Athens, Greece, told reporters
that he would not hesitate authorizing the firing of DU rounds "tonight,"
should such action be called for.



U.S. Air Force General Joseph Ralston, NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe
(Photo courtesy NATO)
But a team of scientists at the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Wednesday unveiled a study that found that DU of
the type used by the U.S. military can cause cancer in laboratory animals.

Fletcher Hahn, a senior scientist on the project, told the Reuters news
organization that the study represents a "warning flag that we shouldn't
ignore."

Still, Hahn emphasized that the study "doesn't mean that [DU] is
carcinogenic to humans."

Meanwhile, two international organizations today announced that they may
take action to assist the World Health Organization (WHO) team of
researchers, which is currently studying the matter of DU use in the Persian
Gulf. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) may launch "fact finding missions" to the Balkan
region, their respective officials said.

UNEP officials will decide soon whether to dispatch a team of researchers to
Bosnia Herzegovina for the purpose of studying the public health and
environmental implications of the DU munitions used there, officials said.

The IAEA is considering holding a training course to help researchers in the
Balkan region to better understand the complex measurement and assessment
methods associated with conducting analysis on depleted uranium, officials
from the group said.

That is of little comfort to Francis Boyle, a professor of international law
at the University of Illinois at Urbanna/Champaign. Boyle, who consulted on
a 1994 documentary film that linked a host of health effects to DU, said
that the IAEA was only getting involved in the project to do "damage
control."

"The IAEA is a front organization for the nuclear power industry, so you
can't believe anything they say," Boyle said. "It is an unfortunate sign, in
my opinion, that the WHO and UNEP would be coordinating anything with the
IAEA. They're going to try and cover this whole thing up."

Boyle, like many critics, maintains that DU poses far greater risks to
public health and the environment than the Pentagon and NATO are letting on.
He said that DU munitions are teeming with plutonium and other radionuclides
that should not be exempted from regulatory oversight.

When DU munitions hit their targets, Boyle noted, they typically release
particles which can contaminate air and nearby water.

"Even a speck of plutonium can kill you," Boyle noted. "But there's a lot
more in DU munitions than just depleted uranium, and in any event, once it
vaporizes . and people are breathing it and eating it, it kills people."

Boyle, like many others, believes that DU played a causal role in mysterious
"Gulf War Syndrome" that affected tens of thousands of veterans who fought
in that war.

The Pentagon flatly denies such charges.

Boyle and other legal experts have also long maintained that DU munitions
are illegal under a host of international laws, such as the Hague Convention
of 1907. The U.S. government is party to the convention, which prohibits
weapons that are "unnecessary," as well as those that cause cruel, long
lasting or uncontrollable effects.

Boyle argues that DU munitions are "unnecessary" because weapons made with
another metal - tungsten - are equally as effective. The Pentagon does not
use tungsten, Boyle said, because it would have to pay for it.

"They get the DU for free, and this is basically a question of money," Boyle
said. "DU is an unnecessary weapon."

The Geneva protocol of 1925, to which the U.S. is also a signatory,
prohibits the use of radiation as a weapon, Boyle noted. And a protocol to
the 1977 Geneva Convention contains a provision that bans weapons and
techniques of warfare that cause severe, long term environmental impacts, he
noted.

The U.S. is not a signatory to that agreement.

NATO has posted a detailed map on its website showing where DU munitions
were targeted in Bosnia and Kosovo. The map can be viewed at
http://www.nato.int








⌐ Environment News Service (ENS) 2000. All Rights Reserved.








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

Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 16:20:51 -0700
From: Carah Lynn Ong <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) Fwd: Navy Completes Successful Theater Wide Missile Defense Test

>X-Remote-Host:
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>Approved-By:  [e-mail]
>Date:         Fri, 26 Jan 2001 18:50:01 -0500
>Reply-To: [e-mail]
>Sender: DOD NEWS LIST <[e-mail]>
>From: [e-mail]
>Subject:      Navy Completes Successful Theater Wide Missile Defense Test
>To: [e-mail]
>
>NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense
>
>No. 043-01
>[phone](media)
>IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>January 26, 2001
>[phone](public/industry)
>NAVY COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL THEATER WIDE MISSILE DEFENSE TEST
>The U.S. Navy moved another step closer yesterday to developing a
>Navy Theater Wide (NTW) capability with a successful flight test of
>the newly developed Standard Missile-3 (SM-3).  The Aegis cruiser
>USS Lake Erie conducted the Aegis Light Exo-Atmospheric Projectile
>(LEAP) Intercept Flight Test Round (FTR-1A) mission in the
>mid-Pacific using the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii.
>Equipped with Aegis LEAP Intercept (ALI) computer programs and
>hardware, Lake Erie launched a SM-3 missile demonstrating third
>stage airframe stability and control through nominal kinetic warhead
>fourth stage separation.  The SM-3 is the Navy's new exo-atmospheric
>missile developed to counter theater ballistic missile (TBM) threats
>outside the atmosphere.  The primary mission of the Navy Theater
>Wide Ballistic Missile Defense system is to provide defense in depth
>from the threat of TBM attack for U.S. and allied forces overseas,
>including vital areas, critical military assets, population centers
>and large geographic regions.
>Assistant Chief of Naval Operations (ACNO) for Missile Defense, Rear
>Adm. Rodney P. Rempt, deemed the FTR-1A test "a major positive
>event" in the ALI program.  "It's time to deliver what we've
>promised on the test range," Rempt said. "The engineering data we'll
>derive from this test will definitely move us along the SM-3 path to
>intercept."
>The FTR-1A mission flew a guided trajectory within the range safety
>boundaries.  The test was strictly an evaluation of SM-3 airframe
>stability and control through nominal warhead separation. A target
>was launched to verify launch procedures for future firings; to
>verify Aegis Weapon System fire control data and tracking
>performance; and to collect engineering data from the missile,
>including the kinetic warhead infrared seeker, all in preparation
>for follow-on flight missions.  Program engineers will analyze the
>data and incorporate changes based on their findings, as required.
>Yesterday's test was the third in a planned series of nine test
>flights.  The ALI Project's ground test program has already
>conducted significant testing of elements of the SM-3 missile.  The
>ALI project, a part of the Navy Theater Wide Ballistic Missile
>Defense program, builds upon the well-proven SM-2 missile family and
>the Aegis Weapon System, including its vertical launch capability.
>In conjunction with the Area TBMD Program, the SM-2 Block IVA
>missile maintains the capabilities of earlier variants of the SM-2
>missile while adding a capability against short to medium range
>TBMs.  Both Aegis and other variants of the SM-2 missile are
>currently at sea in more than fifty Aegis cruisers and destroyers,
>with more than 25 ships in the production/planning pipeline.
>The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization is the sponsor of the
>Navy Theater Wide capability.  The Navy's ACNO (Missile Defense) is
>the Navy lead on requirements and related matters.  The program
>executive officer for Theater Surface Combatants manages the
>development of the NTW Program.  Raytheon Missile Systems, Tucson,
>Ariz., is the prime contractor for the development and production of
>the SM-3 missile.  Lockheed Martin Naval Electronic and Surveillance
>systems manufactures the Aegis Weapon System installed onboard Aegis
>cruisers and destroyers and is also the prime contractor for the
>Vertical Launch System.
>-END-
>
>-- News Releases: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/releases.html
>-- Defense News: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/defense.html
>-- Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/defense.html#e-mail
>-- Today in DoD: http://www.defenselink.mil/today


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

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 17:03:05 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) Reminder - Say No To Star Wars/NMD Letters on Abolition, BASIC, websites.

SAY NO TO NMD/STAR WARS - WRITE/FAX BUSH NOW

(Apologies for multiple postings - delete the excess copies, but do pass
this on to all who might be interested)

Dear All who are concerned over NMD:

One of the best ways to say 'NO' to NMD/Star Wars is to send President
Bush, if you are in the US, a fax or a letter.  If you are outside the US,
especially in a US-Allied country such as the UK, France, Germany, or
Australia, the best way is to press your own government to make
representations to the US.

The letters I have been urging you all to send to President Bush (if you
are in the US) and your own governments (if you are outside the US), are
now to be found on the websites of Abolition2000 and BASIC.

You are strongly urged, if you are outside the US, to write in the manner
suggested below to your government, taking care, if your government has
already taken a position against NMD, to acknowledge and thank them for it
and to ask them to keep doing it.

(If you are in Australia, there is a national model letter being
circulated, as well as an organisational sign- on letter)

If you are within the US, do write as per the model letter below and on the
Abolition website, to Bush, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld.
You may also wish to copy it to your congressperson, or to the entire US
congress by email.  If you do, you will get lots of autoresponses back -
they should be deleted.

(There is a list of congressional emails at the VERY END of this email)

Of course, if you are outside the US there is no reason not to write to
Bush also, but it is important to write first to your own government.

The abolition 2000 website is:

http://www.abolition2000.org/action/saynotostarwars.html

The BASIC website is:

<http://www.basicint.org/NMDpage.htm#Debate in European Governments>

An online petition to stop star- wars is to be found at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Jules/

BASIC's revised version of the letter for non-US folks is also reproduced
below,(1) followed by the letter to Bush.(2)

A sample letter to Australian foreign minister Downer is also included for
those in Australia, or in other US Allies who might find it useful to adapt
to their own situation.(3)

The list of congressional emails is (4)

(Thanks to Mark Bromley of BASIC.)


(1) BASIC adaptation of letter to Non- US governments please customise
creatively

To: Presidents, Foreign Ministers. Defence Ministers and Prime
Ministers of US Allies [Delete as appropriate]
Re: Please Convey Opposition to Missile Defence Scheme


Dear President, Prime Minister or Foreign Minister [Delete as
appropriate],

I am writing to you after the inauguration of the new U.S.
President, George W. Bush, to express my dismay at his administration=92s
desire to proceed with an enlarged version of the ill-conceived
'National Missile Defence' (NMD) network.

The deployment of NMD will have serious implications for the
proliferation of nuclear weapons. Russia and China have made it clear
that they will increase their own nuclear offensive capabilities in
order to counter NMD. This will set back attempts to reduce nuclear
weapons severely and may lead to another nuclear arms race.

In addition, the deployment of NMD will either completely destroy or
fundamentally weaken the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, seen
internationally as the cornerstone of international arms control. This
would have serious consequences for maintaining and strengthening other
international agreements such as Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

NMD has been opposed by a wide range of organisations and groups,
ranging from 354 major NGOs representing millions of people worldwide,
to 50 of the US Nobel prize-winners in physics, to generals and church
congregations. It has also been opposed by every major international
grouping represented in the UN General Assembly.

=46or all of these reasons, I urge you to use all the diplomatic influence
at your disposal to impress upon the incoming Bush administration your
opposition to the NMD system. I also urge you to make clear to the
incoming Bush administration that your government will refuse to
cooperate in any way with the NMD scheme. [If they are already doing
this you may wish thank them for doing it]

NMD is a scheme that is unlikely ever to work, against a threat that may
never materialize and that, in any case, is better dealt with in other
ways. It will cost billions better spent elsewhere, and will make
further progress toward the total and unequivocal elimination of nuclear
weapons - an objective to which the United States as well as all other
governments are committed - much more difficult, if not impossible.

I therefore urge you to oppose NMD, and instead to focus your efforts on
the vital objectives of deep reductions in warhead numbers, and
reductions in the alert status of weapons, to which you are committed.

(Signed)

(Your name)


(2) Letter to Bush, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld.   Customise and adapt this
creatively please.  You may wish to email it to the entire congress (email
list at the very end)

TO:
GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT,
1-202-456-2461, 1-202-456-6218, 1-202-456-6201,

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE, [phone],
CONDOLEEZA RICE,
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER,  1-202-456-2883,
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE,
[phone],

RE: PLEASE CANCEL MISSILE DEFENCE SCHEME

Dear President George Bush, Secretary for Defence Rumsfeld, Security
Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and Secretary of State Colin Powell,

I am writing to you to convey my dismay that your administration may
proceed with an enlarged version of  the ill-concieved 'National Missile
Defence' ('Star Wars') scheme.

The deployment of NMD will make it much harder, if not impossible, to
achieve vital arms control objectives. Russia and China have made it clear
that they will increase their own nuclear offensive capabilities in order
to counter NMD. This will set back attempts to reduce nuclear weapons
severely and may lead to another nuclear arms race.

National Missile Defence in its current form,  has failed two out of its
three operational tests and has been critiqued by the US scientific
establishment as fundamentally flawed.

More importantly, Russia and China as well as the US's own allies have made
it clear that they regard the preservation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty as paramount.   The ABM treaty cannot be modified in a way that
would allow the deployment of NMD, and the US should not walk away from it.

NMD has been opposed by groups ranging from 354 major NGOs representing
millions of people worldwide, to 50 of the US's Nobel prizewinners in
physics, to generals and church people.

Non-US governments  worldwide,  including close US allies, have strongly
opposed NMD.

NMD is a scheme  that is unlikely ever to work, against a threat that may
never materialize and that is in any case better dealt with in other ways.
It will cost billions better spent elsewhere, and will make further
progress toward the total and unequivocal elimination of nuclear weapons -
an objective to which the US as well as all other governments are committed
- - much more difficult if not impossible.

I therefore urge you to drop the NMD proposal and to focus your efforts on
the vital objectives of deep reductions in warhead numbers, and reductions
in the alert status of weapons, to which you committed yourself during your
campaign.
(Signed)  (Your name)


(3) LETTER TO AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ALEXANDER DOWNER

(Even if you are not from Aust, you may wish to cannibalise parts of this
letter and adapt them to your own situation)

ATTN
=46OREIGN MINISTER ALEXANDER DOWNER 02-6273-4112
MINISTER FOR DEFENCE PETER REITH 03-5979-3034   02-6273-4118
PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD, 02-9251-5454, 02-6273-4100
CC
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS LAURIE BRERETON 02-9349-8089

Dear Foreign Minister Downer, Minister for Defence Peter Reith and Prime
Minister John Howard,

I am writing to urge the Australian government to have nothing whatsoever
to do with the Bush administration's National Missile Defence (NMD) scheme.

NMD has been opposed by the US's own NATO allies, by the United Nations
Secretary General, by China and Russia, and by a large portion of the US's
own population, including by 50 Nobel laureates.

It has been opposed by a coalition of 354 NGOs and parliamentarians worldwid=
e.

NMD threatens to push Russia and even more so, China, into reversing the
reductions in nuclear armaments that have been happening over the past ten
years, setting back attempts to eliminate nuclear weapons by decades and
threatening a new nuclear arms- race.

Australia has at the last session of the United Nations General Assembly,
supported a series of resolutions aimed at facilitating nuclear arms
elimination.

Support by the Australian government for the US NMD scheme will undercut
these worthwhile and responsible efforts.

As a close and valued ally of the US, Australia's clear duty is to inform
our  ally that NMD is ill- advised, that it should drop the idea,  and that
the Australian government will in no way support it.

I urge you to ask  the US not to proceed with NMD, and not to do anything
that will facilitate it.

(Signed) (your name)

(4) EMAIL LIST FOR THE US CONGRESS

Warning! All of these emails have autoresponders, so you will recieve lots
of messages back.

Don't let that discourage you - just delete them.

[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],
[e-mail],[e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],
[e-mail],[e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],[e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],[e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],[e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail],  [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],
[e-mail], [e-mail],


John Hallam
=46riends of the Earth Sydney,
17 Lord Street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, 2042
=46ax (61)(2)9517-3902  ph (61)(2)9517-3903
[e-mail]
http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd




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

Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:35:13 -0500
From: ASlater <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) War Games in Space Against China

Dear Friends,
What are we doing to stop this?  I think we need some inspiration!!  Alice

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58813-2001Jan28.html



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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 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: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 12:05:17 -0700
From: [e-mail] (Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa)
Subject: (abolition-usa) Sam Day Dies

It is with great sadness that I share the news of the death of my dear
friend and colleague, Sam Day; writer, activist, coordinator of the U.S.
Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu, past editor of the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists and past managing editor of the Progressive magazine,
past director of Nukewatch and recipient of the U.S. Fellowship of
Reconciliation's Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Prize.

As a long-time activist who had himself spent time in prison as a result of
his anti-nuclear convictions, Sam felt the rightness of Mordechai Vanunu's
truth-telling to the very core of his being, and worked tirelessly on
Mordechai's behalf and for their common vision of a nuclear-free world,
with great dedication and hope.  Shortly before his death, he was in
Washington, D.C. for his trial with eight others who were arrested at the
Israeli embassy in September demanding nuclear abolition and Vanunu's
immediate release - this arrest being the last entry on a long rap sheet in
his distinguished activist career.

After several weeks of travel, he was home in Madison, Wisconsin for a week
before suffering a massive stroke on Friday, January 26.  His passing is a
tremendous loss for the peace and disarmament movement.

If anyone would like to send a message to put into a booklet at Sam's
memorial on Saturday, February 3, you can email it to me by Thursday night
at [e-mail], or to Nukewatch at [e-mail].

Peace,
Felice Cohen-Joppa

SAM DAY, Peace Activist

October 5, 1926 - January 26, 2001

        Samuel H. Day, Jr., was a reporter, editor, and political activist
whose exposures of governmental wrong-doing, as he saw it, brought
journalism awards and other citations, including police citations leading
to frequent jailings and months of imprisonment.

        Born October 5, 1926, at Media, Pennsylvania, into an American
diplomatic family posted to South Africa, he began his journalism career as
a copy boy at the Washington (D.C.) Evening Star in 1949. He went on to
become an Associated Press writer, a reporter and editor in Idaho, and
editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in the mid-1970s.

        Day served as managing editor of The Progressive in 1979, when the
monthly political magazine based in Madison, Wisconsin was legally enjoined
from publishing an article about secrecy in the U.S. nuclear weapons
program. He was a defendant with Editor Erwin Knoll, free-lance writer
Howard Morland, and the magazine itself in what came to be a historic First
Amendment case.

        The U.S. Department of Energy, which designs and manufactures
nuclear weapons, secured a Federal Court injunction based on its claim that
Morland's article, "The  H-Bomb Secret," contained classified information
restricted by the Atomic Energy Act. The magazine insisted that all the
information came from public sources. After six months the Federal
Government dropped the case and the article was published intact.

        Day moved to The Progressive in 1978 after four years in Chicago as
editor of the Bulletin, a monthly journal established by World War II
scientists concerned about the failure of governmental leaders to
understand the dangers of atomic weaponry.

        He had been a crusading reporter and editor in Idaho in his earlier
years. His work on The Bulletin and later The Progressive shaped his later
career as a writer and activist focusing on the need for greater public
awareness of nuclear dangers.

        In 1990 he left The Progressive's staff to work on his own,
assisting the American Friends Service Committee and the U.S. Fellowship of
Reconciliation on a project organizing resistance to U.S. nuclear weapons
production. His work then and in later years often involved a combination
of reporting and political organizing.

        In 1982, traveling in South Africa on assignment from The
Progressive, Day reported without qualification that South Africa had
secretly built a small quantity of atomic weapons as a bulwark to protect
apartheid. Eleven years later, on the eve of Democratic elections in that
country his "scoop" was confirmed by the South African government.

        Through the 1980s, as a director of Nukewatch, a public interest
group now based in Luck, Wisc. he organized two national programs to raise
the visibility of nuclear weapons transportation and deployment.

        One program, the "H-Bomb Truck Watch," enabled anti-nuclear
activists to track and follow the unmarked convoys which transport nuclear
warheads and their ingredients on the nation's highways.

        The other Nukewatch program targeted the 1,000 Air Force Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missiles in unmarked underground launch sites
scattered over the Middle West and Great Plains, each capable of raining
nuclear destruction around the world. Volunteers mapped the missile fields
and organized vigils and demonstrations at the fences of the underground
missile silos.

        As an outgrowth of the missile silo campaign, Day and others
occasionally risked arrest by entering the silo enclosures and standing on
the concrete silo lids in symbolic opposition to the launching of weapons
of mass destruction.

        In 1988 he joined 13 other Midwesterners in the simultaneous
occupation of ten missile launch sites in Missouri. For his part in the
"Missouri Peace Planting" he served six months in federal prisons.

        Day was imprisoned again for four months in 1991 for entering the
Fort McCoy army base in Wisconsin to distribute war crimes literature to
the troops the day after the start of the U.S. bombing of the Persian Gulf.
In 1993, he was jailed for six weeks for pulling up stakes at the
construction site of an Air Force communications tower near Medford,
Wisconsin.

        Day suffered a series of strokes in prison which left him partially
blind, unable to read or drive. But with the help of his family and friends
he continued his political activism.

        In 1992, following an international peace walk in Israel, he and
other peace activists formed the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu,
which he served as national coordinator. The campaign was part of an
international effort to secure the release of Vanunu, a former Israeli
nuclear technician serving 18 years in solitary confinement for telling a
British newspaper about Israel's secret nuclear weapons program. Day
believed, with others, that Vanunu should serve as a model for nuclear
weapons workers everywhere. In 1994 Day was arrested seven times for taking
part in sit-ins in support of Vanunu at Israeli diplomatic posts in the
United States.

        Day edited two books, "Nuclear Heartland," 1988, detailing the Air
Force's missile silo program, and "Prisoners On Purpose," 1989,
incorporating the prison writings of anti-nuclear activists, both published
by Nukewatch. His autobiography, "Crossing the Line: From Editor to
Activist to Inmate -- a Writer's Journey," was published by Fortkamp in
1990.

        Day received the Distinguished Reporting Award of the American
Political Science Association in 1962 for investigative stories in the
Lewiston (ID) Morning Tribune exposing abuses in Idaho's child welfare
program. In the 1960s and early '70s he was regularly honored by the Idaho
Press Association for his editorship of The Intermountain Observer, a
muck-raking Idaho weekly newspaper. He also served briefly as editor of the
Salmon Recorder-Herald, an Idaho country weekly.

        In 1992 the U.S. Fellowship of Reconciliation awarded him its
annual Martin Luther King, Jr., Peace Prize.

        A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, and
Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, Day served in the U.S. Army
during the Korean War. He edited "The Grape Leaf," newspaper of the 43rd
Infantry Division in Germany, and wrote for the European edition of the
army newspaper "Stars & Stripes."

        Day is survived by his wife Kathleen (Nee Hammond, married in March
of 1957), a teacher and Democratic
Party activist; a brother, Christopher R. Day, Barnegat Light, New Jersey;
a sister, Mayflower Day Brandt, Berkeley, California; three sons, Philip
and Joshua, both of Madison, and Samuel III, Chicago, and six
granddaughters.

        A memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 3 at 3 p.m.
in the Pres House chapel on the University of Wisconsin Library Mall in
Madison, 731 State St.  In lieu of flowers, the family suggests
contributions to the Progressive, Nukewatch, or the U.S. Campaign to Free
Mordechai Vanunu.





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