The rally is peaceful, and at noon brightly colored balloons are released to the sky, with written warnings of how far radiation from Rocky Flats can travel attached to their strings. Some reach as far as Canada. Between speakers and music sets, or whenever there is a pause in activity, the crowd begins a low chant that grows louder with each repetition, fifteen thousand people in unison: Close Rocky Flats. Close Rocky Flats. Close Rocky Flats.
On Sunday, 286 men and women are arrested and charged with trespassing in violation of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. They offer no resistance. As they’re loaded into school buses to be taken for booking, they toss flowers out the windows at the security guards.
When the first three protesters appear before the judge, he calls them “arrogant,” finds them guilty of trespassing, and, in a lengthy statement before sentencing, quotes U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens: “If a religious, moral, or political purpose may exculpate illegal behavior, one might commit bigamy to avoid eternal damnation, steal from the rich to give alms to the poor, burn and destroy, not merely public records or perhaps buildings, but even public servants as well, to implement a utopian design.” He then issues formal instructions to all Denver federal judges that “the morality or immorality of nuclear weapons or nuclear power is not something to be tried.” He rejects the trio’s request to do community service rather than pay their $1,000 fines and, he adds, if they don’t pay their fines on time, they “can stay in jail forever.”
Most of the defendants are convicted.
BY 1979, nearly 3,500 people work at Rocky Flats. The plant bills itself as one of the safest government facilities in the country, with the number of “continuous safe hours”—work hours during which no reported accidents occurred—posted proudly on a sign near the plant entrance.
But signs can lie.
Fresh out of high school, in 1970 Don Gabel was working as a fry cook when he got the call that he’d passed the security check and could begin working as a janitor at Rocky Flats. A year later he transferred to Building 771, the notorious plutonium processing building, where he could make an additional fifteen cents an hour in “hot pay.” Like most employees, he was told that the plant was the safest place he’d ever work.
Don learned to operate a furnace that melted plutonium, and a good part of his workday was spent with his head a few inches below a furnace pipe with a sign more appropriate for a shopping mall: DO NOT LOITER. Monitors showed the pipe to be highly radioactive, but Gabel was told that he was not in danger and that levels of radioactivity were well within government standards. One morning, just a few weeks after his transfer, he was instructed to tear construction tape from a contaminated tank. “That tape was really hot,” he recalled later, and sure enough, his hands, face, and hair measured 2,000 counts of alpha radiation per minute. He had to wait at the plant nearly an hour for help, which was not unusual, he later testified, as “incidents” in the hot areas were common. When Gabel was tested again in January 1976, after working at Rocky Flats for six years, radiation levels on his body measured 1 million counts per minute. Chromosomes in his blood and brain cells had been altered by radiation. He developed a tumor on the side of his head the size of a grapefruit. On September 6, 1980, Don Gabel died, leaving behind a wife and three young children.
On his last day of work he was making $8.60 an hour.
Within hours of his death, Don’s wife received a surprise call from the DOE. They wanted to examine her husband’s brain. She gave permission for them to analyze the brain and there was an autopsy. The DOE took the brain, and she heard nothing. Finally the DOE admitted they’d lost the brain for three months. When it was rediscovered, it had deteriorated to the point where it could not be tested for the presence of plutonium.
Only a few of Don’s friends at the plant know the circumstances of his death, and many employees continue to stick to the company line regarding safety. Rocky Flats engineer Larry McGrew is one of them. He makes public presentations on the safety and desirability of nuclear energy and the products that are manufactured at the plant. “It’s ludicrous to call it a trigger,” he tells a local Optimist Club. “We’re not making triggers, folks. We’re making fuel cans.” Those fuel cans have to be shipped somewhere else to become nuclear weapons, he says. The term fuel can sounds innocuous enough. As to what’s in those cans, he says they’re nothing more than “two or more subcritical masses of fissionable material processed into a classified configuration that would allow them to be triggered into a nuclear explosion by being violently shoved together to form a critical mass.” Few people understand the jargon.
In response to the negative publicity surrounding the April demonstration, some Rocky Flats workers and retirees form a group called Citizens for Energy and Freedom, and they decide to hold their own rallies. Kathy Erickson, a spokesperson for the group, tells the press that she and other workers and supporters want to dispel fears about plutonium production. “We aren’t dying of cancer and our children aren’t deformed,” she says. “And we’re not murderers.” Although not as large as the anti-Rocky Flats rally, the counterrally has a strong turnout and speakers include Peter Brennan, labor secretary during the Nixon administration. The crowd is served popcorn, soda, and sandwiches along with miniature American flags. T-shirts are sold with “Power for the People” printed below an image of an atom. Bumper stickers read “Save Rocky Flats—Move Denver,” “Pro-Nuke and Proud,” and “Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark.”
To this group, the nuclear industry means patriotism, freedom, and equality.
As families spread out picnic blankets and rub on sunscreen, a rock band ironically blasts out the 1960s song “Wipe Out.” One organizer says, “We want the world to know that the pro-nuclear supporters are fun-loving people.”
Most employees feel that Rocky Flats is a good and safe place to work, and if it weren’t, they say, they obviously wouldn’t have bought houses and raised their families in the communities surrounding the plant. In commemoration of its thirtieth anniversary, Rocky Flats hosts a Production for Freedom celebration, and thousands of employees and retirees attend with their families.
ON THE cold morning of September 26, 1979, when the sky is still pitch-black, seven people “experienced in pacifist civil disobedience,” as the press later referred to them, use a pair of pliers purchased at a local hardware store to cut through the barbed-wire fence along Indiana Avenue, the boundary of Rocky Flats. Carrying lighted candles, they walk until they’re about a mile from the secured area surrounding the plutonium processing buildings, where they are confronted by guards and arrested just as the sun hits the mountains.
“It’s a good thing we were nonviolent,” says one of the arrestees later. “I could see the plant quite clearly. I realized that any terrorists could have had their way with that plant.”
At least one Rockwell official feels the activists got off too lightly. “I’m pretty liberal,” he says, “but if I’d been guarding out there, I’d have shot them. And if I were a terrorist trying to get into the place, I’d dress like a hippie pacifist. I don’t know why the guards didn’t shoot those people. They were lucky.”
One Sunday morning, as I drive down from the college to meet my mother for brunch, I pass by the prayer group that meets just outside the gate. I slow down to take a look. I cautiously pull my Volkswagen bug over to the shoulder of the road until the tires crunch on the gravel. The protesters smile and wave their signs. “Hey!” a woman yells. “Come join us!”
I’m curious, and I stop and get out of the car. Who are these people, really? What are they saying? The air is fresh and cool and the sky cobalt blue. I feel the breeze ruffle my shirt and the wind lifts my hair. There is a boy standing there who could be Mark. The same color hair, the same jeans, the same boots.
But no. He turns and I see it’s someone else.
I get back in the car. I can’t join those people. I lack courage or conviction. Or maybe I need convincing. I don’t know if those people a
re crazy or heroic. If we’re contaminated, if I’m contaminated, maybe it’s better not to know.
I just want a glimpse of Mark. I would give anything to see him again.
KARMA HAS no such qualms about her feelings concerning Rocky Flats. She begins to attend anti–Rocky Flats meetings and attends a screening of a film about Rocky Flats, Dark Circle, in the basement of a church with a group of activists. Even though the film has won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and an Emmy Award, it’s not shown on television or widely distributed because it’s considered sensational and too antinuclear. My friends and I have heard of it but no one’s seen it. It’s a big secret that everyone whispers about, like an X-rated movie.
One sunny weekend in October 1983, Karma drives out to the plant with Karin, Kurt, and her friend Laurie. It takes them a while to find a place to park. Thousands of cars—as well as bikes, motorcycles, and scooters—line the highway.
It’s the day of the Rocky Flats Encirclement. Protesters from all over the country are planning to link hands around the plant’s perimeter. Organizers estimate they need at least twenty thousand people to reach all the way around the seventeen-mile border of the plant. More than six hundred people have been arrested at the plant in the past five years, but no arrests are anticipated today. Organizers want “a legal protest with no civil disobedience … a good day with good spirits.” The encirclement is planned so as not to interfere with workers coming in for the 3:30 p.m. shift change.
Karma believes in closing the plant and saving the environment. Laurie’s father still works at Rocky Flats, and, even though he disapproves, she wants to protest on behalf of workers and residents. Karin and Kurt are mostly curious and think it might be fun, although Kurt is disappointed that his best friend, Shawn, refuses to join them. Shawn’s father, sister, and mother all work at the plant.
They get out of the car and put on their jackets—the day has turned cool. They’re greeted by volunteers in purple bandannas who wear shirts saying “Link Arms to End the Arms Race.” The volunteers help them get into line and prepare to link hands. Police are everywhere. State Trooper Dave Harper tells a reporter, “Bombs have been around before I was born and they’ll be around after I’m dead—that’s the way I see it. This,” he says, waving a hand toward the growing circle, “isn’t going to do anything.” Security guards from Rocky Flats patrol the road with loudspeakers. “You won’t make it,” a guard shouts as Karma, Karin, Kurt, and Laurie walk along the road. “You don’t have enough people.”
They join the circle along with thousands of other people: high school students, a political science professor, a small child in a gray jogging suit with his hood up to shield him from the wind. Some people wear gas masks and dust filters, or scarves tied around their noses. A tall man in black clothes and a Grim Reaper mask walks along the line.
“Listen for the trumpets,” the peacekeeper says, and hands them a flyer. At precisely 1:55 p.m., trumpet players stationed at intervals around the circle play “Taps,” meant to signal the end of nuclear proliferation. Karma reaches out for the hands of those standing next to her. She looks across the landscape. The human chain runs for miles, snaking up and down hills, people lined up against the barbed-wire fence. Blankets, ropes, jackets, backpacks, baby strollers, and bandannas are used to fill in the gaps. American flags wave in a rainbow sea of balloons, and signs and slogans are everywhere: “Freeze or Burn,” “No Nukes Is Good Nukes,” “It’s Hard to Hug a Child with Nuclear Arms.” Across the road, signs held by counterdemonstrators read “Nuke the Liberals” and “When Nukes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Nukes.” The spinning rotors of four news media helicopters are nearly deafening.
The trumpeters play the first two measures of “We Shall Overcome,” and then the entire crowd sings, in unison, the verses printed on their flyers. After the third verse, brightly colored balloons are released from the four corners of the site.
Near the gate, a group of about a hundred counterdemonstrators from the Colorado Conservative Union chant, sing, and burn miniature Soviet flags. “Where is your circle?” a man taunts. “You don’t have enough people!” Many employees share their sentiment. Jack Weaver, a plutonium production manager, notes, “Well, the peaceniks are back.… Don’t you have something better to do in life than to just stand out here and hold hands and chant around the plant site?” As he drives past them on his way to work, he thinks, “I’m doing something that I think is valuable to the country. And oh, by the way, the reason you’re out here able to protest is because I’m doing what I’m doing.”
The circle does, in fact, fall short on the southeast corner, despite people stretching the line with jackets, sweaters, and anything else they can come up with. But few people seem willing to stand in the southeast area anyway—the area that leads to our neighborhood—which is directly downwind from the plant, and where soil contamination is reputedly the most severe.
Eventually, both Shawn and Laurie lose their fathers to cancer linked to their work at Rocky Flats, although nothing can ever be proven for sure. Rocky Flats seems to touch the lives of nearly everyone we know, in one way or another.
Not long after the encirclement, Dr. LeRoy Moore, an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado and a protester who had been arrested at Rocky Flats in 1979, joins five other protesters to create the Boulder Peace Center, later known as the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, in rented space at a local church.
Karma and Laurie feel emboldened after the encirclement. One summer afternoon, Karma takes the keys for our father’s copper-orange Ford Maverick, the two-door beater with a cracked windshield and overflowing ashtray. Feeling adventurous, the girls decide to drive out to Rocky Flats and see if they can get past the security guards. It’s not the first time they’ve had the idea. Every kid in Bridledale has looked over that barbed-wire fence and wondered what’s over the hill. And security is rumored to be surprisingly lax, even though guards are supposedly under orders to shoot to kill. Karma drives steadily. They see the guard behind the window at the gate and slow down, but he merely looks up and waves them on.
“Oh my God,” Karma mutters. “I can’t believe that just happened!” She drives through the gate, heart pounding. “What now?”
“Keep driving,” Laurie says. “Look straight ahead.”
The girls drive. They have no idea where they’re going, and they begin to feel giddy. Finally they pull over next to a building and get out. No one takes notice. Karma walks to the back of the car and opens the trunk. She looks around to see if anyone sees them.
“We could have a bomb in this car,” she says loudly. “Right here in the trunk!”
“Yeah,” Laurie agrees. “We could cause some serious damage!”
They stand next to the trunk and wait for someone to notice, for security to show up.
Nothing happens. Finally the girls close the trunk, pull the car back onto the road, and drive out. No one comes after them.
I take it as further proof that maybe Rocky Flats isn’t really as dangerous as people say it is.
PAT MCCORMICK of the Sisters of Loretto travels to Seattle for training in nonviolent ways to oppose the buildup of the arms race. When she returns, the prayer group that meets every Sunday at the west gate of Rocky Flats has grown to almost eighty people. They arrive with signs and songs and thermoses filled with hot coffee, and often chat with the guards. There is a strong sense of camaraderie.
It won’t be long, though, before those same guards will be facing them in court. Two friends of Pat’s, Sister Pat Mahoney of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Sister Marie Nord of the Order of St. Francis, decide to create fake security badges and try to get inside the plant to stage a protest. They arrive with the morning shift on the east side of the plant, wave their faux badges, and cruise through the security checkpoint. The nuns drive toward what they believe is the plutonium production area, park, and hang a sign on a fence comparing the plant to the internment camps of World War II.
; The women are quickly arrested and later convicted of a felony for falsification of documents. During their trial, the sisters repeatedly refer to Rocky Flats as “a nuclear bomb factory.” No more euphemisms, they say.
They spend a year in federal prison.
Throughout the year that Sisters Pat Mahoney and Marie Nord are incarcerated, Pat McCormick writes and visits. Pat Mahoney will eventually serve two terms in federal prisons for her protests at Rocky Flats.
Pat McCormick begins to think that she, too, might want to protest inside the gates of Rocky Flats. She prays with her friend Mary Sprunger-Froese, a member of the Mennonite community, and together they come up with a plan. They meet a group of friends at the Catholic Worker soup kitchen and each person gives blood, enough to fill two baby bottles. The blood in the bottles symbolizes the children who will be born in a world threatened by nuclear weapons. Then they construct two foot-long wooden crosses and cover them with pictures of people from all over the world.
As a Catholic sign of repentance for the first day of Lent and an act of prayer that Rocky Flats should be permanently closed, the women decide to enter the plant on Ash Wednesday. They leave well before sunrise. Their car is old and clunky, a donation from a parishioner, and it refuses to go into reverse. But it chugs up the hills leading to the plant just fine. Keeping in mind that their two friends ended up in prison for falsification of documents, they carry no IDs and are prepared to be stopped at the gate and stage their demonstration there.
But they aren’t stopped. When they drive in with the 6:30 a.m. shift—a long stream of headlights in the fading dark—the guard waves them right through. “Wow!” Pat exclaims. “They’re taking us in just as if we’re going to a Broncos game!”
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