Project Pacem (Final Galleys)

8/17/2019 Project Pacem (Final Galleys)

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Roger Williams University


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We are creatures of equilibrium and balance; we are creatures of re-

action. When faced with trauma, we have physical and passionate

reactions that manifest in a multitude of ways, eliciting a myriad of

emotion. That reflex resolves with an attempt to reconstruct the lost

equilibrium, a balance in which we will always at-

tempt to return to.

The world experienced one such trauma in the

wake of the Second World War when the clearly

defined superpowers began a tit-for-tat build up of

nuclear weapons. In the decades that followed,

seven world powers found their way into the awe-

some clutches of a weapon that had the potential

to end human life on a massive scale. For good or for ill, ours was aworld with the absolute potential to destroy itself, and reason—hu-

mankind’s only true gift—was the only thing standing between us

and self-imposed extinction. Of course, there were moments when

our arrogance got the better of us.

An important one came in the middle of October 1962 when the for-

mer USSR and the United States squared off in the Atlantic, each as-

serting its power to control the world. Today, that event is known as

the “Cuban Missile Crisis” and—for 13 long days—it seemed the

world was about to end. Absent a final and reasonable exchange,

these two nuclear powers stood poised to savage each other so vi-

ciously that the ultimate result would have been the end of human-

kind.

In the aftermath, the reactions were varied and many.

Folk singer Bob Dylan released “A Hard Rain’s a-

Gonna Fall,” a song whose lyrics explored a world rav-

aged by nuclear war.

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains

I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highwaysI’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests

I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans

I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard

And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard

And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

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‘A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall’

performed byRachel Lombardi & Sabrina Polin


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Dylan’s “hard rain” was a reference to the nuclear fallout that would

poison the Earth for millennia. Dylan’s wasn't the only reaction. It

was here too that Pope John XXIII also took pen in hand and began

writing; his work was a letter to the world entitled “Pacem in Terris,”

or “Peace on Earth.”

It was with “Pacem in Terris”—released in August 1963 in the mid-dle of the Cold War—that Pope John XXIII attempted to reestablish

the equilibrium that had been lost amongst the struggle for world

power and the preoccupation with nuclear proliferation. The encycli-

cal was groundbreaking as it was the first of its kind to address the

whole of humankind instead of exclusively Catholics. More signifi-

cant, however, was its form of nonviolent action to change the path

of violence, aggression, and destruction that our world was headed

in.

As it seemed, the rest of the nation wanted that change too—for a

short while at least. The hippie culture dominated America in the

1960s, preaching peace and love. Masses adopted the movement

of bliss and environmental friendliness, culminating with the iconic

Woodstock music festival in 1969. The movement was on its way to

revolutionizing the functioning of society when the timer on the care-

free lifestyle went off; society’s dependence on money and politics

smothered the hippie culture before it could catch fire.

Where are we now? We are still struggling balancing nuclear prolif-

eration and nuclear disarmament. We are struggling to maintain the

health of the planet, we are struggling to counteract the side effects

of technological advances and industrialization. We are coping with

art, and we are protesting with art. We are recognizing the value of

human beings, but recognizing that not all are treated as such.

During the 2016 presidential election cycle, some White House

hopefuls allowed themselves to stray into rhetoric that often

sounded reductive and regressive. By Election Day, it was up to the

citizens to determine our future course: would they vote for progres-

sion or regression? As it often happens, we make two steps forward

and one step back.

Which brings us around to the inspiration for this project: It’s been

53 years since Pope John XXIII released what many have called

“his last will and testament;” this digital magazine Project Pacem at-

tempts to explore how far we’ve come—and how far we still need to

go—in satisfying the quintessential equilibrium necessary for the

functioning of the human race for generations to come.

Welcome to Project Pacem!

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http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.htmlhttp://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.htmlhttp://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.htmlhttp://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html


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“Finally, we are confronted in this modern age with a

form of society which is evolving on entirely new social

and political lines. Since all peoples have either at-

tained political independence or are on the way to at-taining it, soon no nation will rule over another and

none will be subject to an alien power.”

NUCLEAR

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons | Flickr

—Pope John XXIII

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FATAL PEACEMAKERS

It’s midday in Manhattan. The skies are clear and a light breeze is

sweeping across the city. The morning traffic rush creeps along,

each car vying for more space on the pavement. Every one of the

125,000 people packed into each square mile of the city is unsus-

pectingly going about their daily routine.

A man sits in his car, anxiously checking his watch as it ticks its way

closer and closer to 11:00, a race between man and time. A boy

skips along, hand in hand with his mother, licking the excess cream

cheese from his bagel off his fingers. A woman clicks along in her

heels, determinedly heading into the office to present her business

proposal.

In a fraction of a second, the world is eternally altered for the worse.

A 150-ton highly enriched uranium (HEU) bomb, ten times the size

of the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima during World War II, deto-

nates in the center of Times Square.

In less than one second, 100,000 people are dead, killed instantly

by the blast. They will never know what happened to them, having

had no time to realize that a nuclear bomb just exploded in their

neighborhood. The Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden,

Penn Station, the New York Public Library—all flattened into unrecog-

nizable rubble.

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In another 15 seconds, a shock wave swells outward for an addi-

tional 30 miles from ground zero, the point of detonation. Every per-

son in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Jersey City is, by now, ei-

ther dead or severely injured. All the cities caught in this ring are

devastated.

The government may just be learning that a catastrophe has oc-

curred in the city, but there is nothing they can do. All forms of com-

munication are compromised, leaving no avenue for survivors to

reach out or for rescue groups to call in. All roads connecting Man-

hattan and the outer boroughs to the rest of the country are demol-

ished or severely compromised. The radioactivity caused by the

bomb is so severe that it will kill any person who attempts a rescue

mission.

By the end of the day, a total of 1.5 million people will have diedfrom the blast, flying debris, or radioactivity. Another 1.5 million will

be seriously injured. Only an estimated 25 percent of those injured

will survive their injuries.

In a modern-day nuclear world, it is this hypothetical, though poten-

tial, scenario that all senior government officials must face every day

as they go about their duty protecting the American people.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen is no exception. Having

served under President Bill Clinton during both of his terms, these

were the images that kept Cohen awake at night.

“My biggest fear as Secretary of Defense was a nuclear bomb ex-

ploding in the United States,” he said. “Once that happens, the

questions the President of the United States will have to ask is: Who

did it? Why they did it? And what should we do?”

The international fallout from a nuclear attack of this scale would be

paramount, with every leader mobilizing their military, preparing

their nuclear weapons, and determining in which direction to launch

those nuclear warheads. How each country responds could be the

difference between their survival and their destruction as the world

is launched into its first-ever nuclear war.

With 16,000 known nuclear warheads in existence among nine coun-

tries, world leaders, including Secretary Cohen, are forced to look

for a solution that ensures global peace and provides total protec-

tion from a nuclear attack.

Their paradoxical solution lies in the concept of deterrence.

DETERRENCE

A strategic defense strategy, nuclear deterrence was—and still is—

the game played by the United States and every other nation in pos-

session of nuclear weapons. It began as a two-player game, with

the United States facing the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World

War II. Today, there are nine players, all racing one another to en-

sure their own survival.

To win, one country has to have enough nuclear weapons that an-other country would not launch a nuclear attack. So long as the

United States has enough weapons to not only absorb a Russian at-

tack but to also launch a retaliatory campaign that would effectively

bomb the country into a parking lot, Russian President Vladimir

Putin will not threaten nor launch a single nuclear weapon in the

United States’ direction. This is the theory that has been keeping

every citizen safe since the 1950s.

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Deterrence employs the strategy of building up a formidable nuclear

arsenal, which has the singular purpose of standing dormant but at

the ready; the strategy here is to press other countries to consider

the consequences of a nuclear attack. Right now, the United States

has an estimated 7,100 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, second only

to Russia, which has 7,700 nuclear weapons.

“The United States is spending billions of dollars on weapons and

technology that it will, hopefully, never have to use,” said Secretary

Cohen.

So why, then, do we maintain this fatal arsenal? Well, for starters, it

works.

NO TURNING BACK

On August 6 and again on August 9, 1945, the United States

dropped two atomic bombs over the cities of Hiroshima and Na-

gasaki in Japan with the purpose of ending World War II. In that

same moment, the United States changed the course of history, giv-

ing birth to the nuclear

age and launching a

global struggle that con-

tinues to plague human-ity, even today.

At the time, the United

States hoped to monopo-

lize its nuclear technol-

ogy, but its efforts to re-

main the only nuclear na-

tion were futile. Immedi-

ately, other countries be-

gan to thirst for the

power associated with

possessing nuclear

weapons, and the tech-

nology spread through-out the globe.

Just four years later, in

1949, the Soviet Union

tested its own nuclear

weapon, effectively starting the nuclear arms race between the

United States and the Soviet Union. Both countries vying for the title

of super power, their nuclear arsenals suddenly grew so that each

nation owned upwards of 30,000 nuclear weapons.

Threatened by the vertical rise of nuclear technology by two super-

powers, other powerful countries joined in the race, creating their

own nuclear technology to ward off the increasing danger posed by

the United States and Soviet Union. By 1964, the United Kingdom,

France, and China had all developed nuclear technologies of their

own. Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea would join in by 2003,

much to the reluctance of the United States and other nuclear pow-

ers.

Realizing that the uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear weapons

could lead to dire scenarios in which rogue states or terror groups

obtained this lethal technology, the World’s nuclear powers joined

forces to create the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. On its

face, the treaty aimed to prevent any new nations from gaining nu-

clear capabilities. However, many nations, like India, Israel, and Paki-

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stan, didn’t sign the treaty. Still others, like Iraq, Iran, and Libya,

signed the treaty only to go back and defy it by pursuing their own

secret nuclear programs. North Korea completely rescinded their

signature in a quest to possess their own nuclear arsenal.

Since then, any attempts to stop the international proliferation of nu-

clear weapons have been limited at best. The United States and the

Soviet Union, now Russia, have worked to decrease the number ofnuclear weapons in their respective arsenals with a litany of agree-

ments including the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) I and

SALT II as well with START I, START II and New START.

As each attempt to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons ei-

ther failed or proved inept, the world turned to deterrence in an ef-

fort to discourage non-nuclear nations from initiating nuclear pro-

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Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)

Agreement between the US, USSR, and the UK prohibiting nu-clear weapons testing in the atmosphere, outer space, and under-water.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968)Initiated by the US, USSR, the UK, France, and China with the pur-pose of limiting the spread of military nuclear technology to non-nuclear nations wishing to build or acquire their own nuclearweapons.

SALT I (1972)

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the US and USSR beganin 1969 and ended in 1972. Resulted in the creation of the Anti-

Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the Interim Agreement on theLimitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. The Interim Agreementwould last for five years, during which both countries froze thenumber of strategic ballistic missiles, stopped the construction ofICBM silos, and allowed for the increase of SLBM launcher levelsso long as reductions were made in older ICBM or SLBM launch-ers.

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972)

Treaty between the US and USSR that limited each country’s anti-ballistic missile systems. It prohibits the development, testing, anddeployment of space-, sea-, and air-based, as well as mobile land-based, systems.

SALT II (1979)

Bilateral agreement between the US and the USSR that set equallimitations on both country’s strategic offensive weapon systems.


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grams. Each country began to rely heavily on the defense strategy,

effectively securing the presence of nuclear weapons in the global

system so that the world can no longer function without them.

In a cyclical relationship, deterrence shaped the global nuclear strat-

egy in the same way that nuclear weapons had birthed the strategy

of deterrence.

John Park, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Ken-

nedy School of Government with extensive experience in interna-

tional nuclear affairs, says that con-

versations took a final turn away

from the goal of total elimination of

nuclear weapons following the Cold

War. It was this shift that repre-

sented a final change in perspec-tive where the world fully acknowl-

edged that it could no longer func-

tion without the presence of nuclear

weapons.

“At the end of the Cold War there

was an opportunity [for disarma-

ment],” said Park. “Since then

we’ve seen strategic arms reduc-tion, but there still is a view for the

large countries in the large international system that nuclear weap-

ons are important in their overall defense posture.”

Since that shift, the international nuclear community has not looked

back, and maybe with good reason. Contrary to their fatal nature, nu-

clear weapons have cemented their place in the globe as forceful

peacemakers.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROMOTE PEACE

Since the day of their inception, nuclear weapons have held theworld to a certain standard of peace. With the threat of a more ad-

vanced retaliatory attack ever present, countries have resigned

themselves to the prospect that their

deadly arsenals may, and should,

never be used.

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense

for Global Security Affairs, Joseph

Benkert, believes that nuclear weaponsare here to stay, so entrenched in na-

tional and global security that the world

cannot afford to give up their arsenals.

“I think it’s probably an uncomfortable

truth and maybe an inconvenient truth

but the security of the United States is

underpinned by nuclear weapons and

global security and the relations amongthe great powers is underpinned by nu-

clear weapons. I don’t think that’s likely to change soon,” said

Benkert.

With this recognition, the world was faced with the challenge of what

to do with the technology it had created. Impossible to unlearn how

to create nuclear weapons, the international nuclear community

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chose to focus instead on how the technology was to be used,

rather than attempt to ignore that the technology exists altogether.

“The of knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon is now wide-

spread. In a world where no one has nuclear weapons, there’s al-

ways the problem of cheating and how long it takes to develop and

build a weapon,” said Benkert. “Every crisis would become a nu-

clear crisis in the sense that how fast can I produce a nuclear

weapon so that I can dominate the

opponent.”

While this doesn’t discount any

movement towards a world without

nuclear weapons, many experts

and government officials believe

that nuclear weapons are too impor-tant for the United States’ security to

disarm at this time.

Former Ambassador Marc Gross-

man, who has extensive experience

in the Middle East as United States

Ambassador to Turkey, United

States Special Representative for

Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in in-ternational affairs, likes to think of a world without nuclear weapons.

However, he too has concluded that this illusion is nearly impossible.

“I think in a perfect world it would be great to not have any nuclear

weapons. Sometimes we go back and think, gosh, what if they had

never been invented,” he says. “But I’m sorry to say that for the mo-

ment, I think the United States needs to keep a certain number of nu-

clear weapons.”

Ambassador Grossman believes that nuclear weapons are too em-

bedded in the national defense security system to be removed.

When even just one country has nuclear weapons, it is extremely dif-

ficult, if not impossible, for the United States to run an effective for-

eign policy campaign without having a nuclear arsenal of its own.

“I find it hard to conceive of how you’d

run your foreign military, international

diplomatic policies today if we didn’t

have them and others continued to

have nuclear weapons,” he said.

The optimist that he is, Secretary Cohen

dreams of the day when there are no

nuclear weapons anywhere in the

world, but even he recognizes that nu-

clear weapons hold a certain stabilizing

power over the globe. To ensure domes-

tic and international safety, countries

must maintain their nuclear arsenals to

some degree to implement an effective

deterrence defense policy.

Deterrence not only dissuades a nuclear attack, but it also helps to

calm the fears of non-nuclear countries whose neighbors may have

nuclear capabilities. The United States, and other nuclear states, is

able to expand its nuclear umbrella of protection over its allies in ar-

eas of constant insecurity, thus alleviating some of the tension and

lessening the likelihood of a nuclear attack.

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“At a strategic level the fact that the United States has nuclear weap-

ons, as does Russia and China, produces a measure of strategic sta-

bility that would not be there if there were

no nuclear weapons,” says Benkert. “The

chance of a major war among these pow-

ers would be greater if there were not the

restraint induced by the nuclear weaponsand the stability at a strategic level that

those weapons produce.”

President Barack Obama, in a 2009 ad-

dress in Prague, played out the vision of a

world without nuclear weapons. However,

even he expressed the fact that as long as

nuclear weapons exist, the United States

would maintain its arsenal so that it pro-vides the country with a safe deterrence.

Putting it simply, Benkert explains the need for nuclear weapons. “I

think that deterrence is essential to our posture and that nuclear

weapons are essential for deterrence.”

As is the nature of deterrence, the use of nuclear weapons is solely

for defense, which aids in their peace-making ability. So long as

every country follows this philosophy of defensive nuclear weapons,no first-strike will ever be initiated and thus no nuclear weapon will

ever be launched. This stance places the world on a sensitive nu-

clear equilibrium, in which rational players tread lightly and the pres-

ence of nuclear weapons provides peace.

It also greatly escalates the fallout should one nuclear weapon fall

into the wrong hands or one irrational player enters the game, disre-

garding all the rules. In a game where one wrong move equates cer-

tain worldwide destruction, nuclear nations must now focus all their

attention on controlling the game and the

players within it.

CHANGING THE GAME

The rise of non-nation states and terrorist

organizations, including Al Qaeda and the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL),

have lead to an increased threat of nuclear

weapons being transferred into the wrong

hands, and, in turn, an increased threat of

a nuclear attack somewhere in the globe.

President Barack Obama and leaders across the globe have begun

to pay strict attention to these terrorist groups, as well as rogue

states that have presented evidence of illegitimately pursuing a nu-

clear program.

Most recently, the United States was able to secure a nuclear arms

agreement with Iran, effectively eliminating a potential threat in one

of the most unstable regions on the globe. In concluding this deal,

the United States was able to decrease the possibility of terrorist or-ganizations centered in this region from obtaining unaccounted for

nuclear weapons. Ambassador Grossman supports the Iran deal,

saying: “There are a number of reasons to be in favor of the Iran

agreement, among the most important is that it forestalls, at least for

the time being, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.”

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The Iran deal was paramount, as it induced stability in the region. It

assured other nations that nuclear weapons would not creep up in

Iran, thus ensuring their safety so the need to pursue their own nu-

clear weapons was vanquished.

“Think of if we were facing a world in which there was no agreement

with Iran. If you were in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, you would

have to be thinking, ‘Well how am I going to protect myself? The Ira-

nians are going to have a nuclear bomb and we have to do some-

thing about that.’ Maybe they would make the decision not to pursue

a nuclear weapon but you can’t count on that,” said Ambassador

Grossman.

North Korea poses a different threat to the nuclear peace balance.

A developed country in its own right, the nation has distanced itself

from rational players and struck out on its own to play the nucleargame by its own rules.

Ignoring all international treaties and agreements, Supreme Leader

of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Kim Jong Un has ef-

fectively conceptualized, implemented, and finalized North Korea’s

nuclear program. Located in the southeast corner of the Asian conti-

nent, the threat of a nuclear attack coming from North Korea could

induce other countries in this region to either pursue or use their own

nuclear weapons.

Ambassador Grossman recognizes this threat. “The impact both in-

ternationally and domestically of states like North Korea and Iran

having nuclear weapons are enormous, and of course they are

much more central to those countries that are in the neighborhoods

of both North Korea and Iran,” he said.

An unprecedented situation in itself, North Korea has presented the

world with a challenging scenario it has been unable to deal with to

date. Park offers that the United States must thoughtfully consider

how it goes about managing the North Korean dilemma. Tradition-

ally, the United States has relied on financial and economic sanc-

tions to prevent North Korea from further advancing its nuclear pro-

gram. However, each time the United States enhances its sanctions,North Korea has amplified its nuclear program.

“With respect to North Korea, sanctions are something that has pre-

sented a puzzle. If you look at it during the periods where the United

States and the International community were applying sanctions with

a great deal of intensity, we saw North Korea increase its nuclear

weapons capabilities, and that’s a very inconvenient fact and some-

thing that policy makers are grappling with right now,” said Park.

The presence of nuclear weapons in the region has induced anxiety,

an issue the United States must deal with simultaneously. The pres-

ence of United States allies who reside under the nation’s nuclear

umbrella has helped to induce stability in the region, similar to the

Middle East.

By flexing its nuclear arsenal, the United States may be able to help

maintain peace in the region according to Benkert. The United

States has to convince North Korea that they have nothing to gain inobtaining nuclear weapons. To realize this, the state must not feel

threatened in any form from any nation, or they must feel that any ef-

fort to initiate a nuclear attack is futile. The United States has to cre-

ate a situation in which North Korea does not benefit from having nu-

clear weapons, whether that means convincing them that the United

States can intercept their weapons or that it has the ability to aggres-

sively respond to an attack.

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“I think that the United States needs nuclear weapons for deterrence

of its potential adversaries who have nuclear weapons or who might

seek to have nuclear weapons. And, just as importantly, to assure its

allies who otherwise would intimidated or coerced by their neighbors

who have nuclear weapons and who could use their nuclear weap-

ons to intimidate them or coerce them,” said Benkert.

When putting it all in perspective, had the United States never un-

leashed the atomic bomb, and had the Soviet Union and the United

States never built up their arsenals to

awesome proportions, and had the

threat of nuclear weapons never en-

tered the global stage, the world may

not be faced with this dilemma. But

such is the case with any lethal tech-

nology, and now it is simply anotheritem on a long list of international is-

sues. The difference is this issue can

wipe out entire populations if not han-

dled with care or given the proper at-

tention.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

In his Prague Address, President Barack Obama announced that

the United States would begin working towards reducing its nuclear

arsenal, reviving the spirit of America and the world by proposing

that nuclear weapons may one day make their final exit from the

global stage, even as nuclear tensions intensify.

By 2010, he had signed the New START Treaty with Russia to further

decrease United States reliance on its nuclear weapons and to bring

down the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Americans and

global citizens alike celebrated at the idea of security without the

threat of nuclear weapons.

However, countries have proven that they are not willing to give up

their ultimate and safest weapons, ensuring that nuclear weapons

will have a home in the global system for as long as anyone can

see.

Experts and global leaders agree that,

while it is a formidable goal, nuclear

global zero is not going to happen. In fact,

most agree that the world is safer with nu-

clear weapons than without them.

Benkert says, “The world is likely to be

safer with some nuclear weapons under a

proper regime of arms control than a

world with no nuclear weapons.”

Ambassador Grossman seconds this

idea: “I think the idea, today, that you

could come all the way down to zero in any reasonable time frame

doesn’t seem very realistic to me.”

Even Secretary Cohen, whose goal is to eliminate all nuclear weap-

ons, recognizes that this goal is going to take time and must be

done in a very delicate and transparent manner.

“The United States must first reduce its number of nuclear weapons

in a transparent manner, which would ease the anxiety of other coun-

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tries. If a country feels threatened, it has

the ability to initiate a first strike. With the

United States in a vulnerable position, a

first strike could have devastating conse-

quences,” Secretary Cohen said.

The threat of a nuclear attack is not elimi-

nated simply because the globe has insti-

tuted a system of deterrence. Terrorist

threats and nuclear threats from North Ko-

rea continue to plague the globe, and the

United States must respond to these

threats in an effective manner. One wrong

move by any nuclear country is the differ-

ence between peace and a radioactive

world blown apart city by city.

“As long as nuclear technology exists, a

dilemma every United States President will

have to face is how they will use the nu-

clear technology of the time and how they

will respond to a nuclear attack,” said Sec-

retary Cohen.

Now retired from public service after 31years, Secretary Cohen chooses to spend

his free time writing fictional books. Feeling

that he can say and accomplish more in

fiction than he ever could in nonfiction, writ-

ing novels has become a form of relief for

him, a way to get his biggest worries and

fears off his chest.

His most recent novel, Blink of an Eye ,

tackles the dilemma of what the United

States President would do should a nu-

clear bomb destroy a major American city.

As is obvious by the subject of his book,

this devastating scenario is never far from

his mind. After all, one wrong move in a

system that relies solely on the contradic-

tory equilibrium of deterrence could mean

the obliteration of Manhattan in the blink of

an eye.

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MAKING NUCLEAR PROGRESS

In its November 1979 issue, The Progressive published an article re-

vealing the recipe for the H-bomb.

Nearly two years prior, in January 1978, Howard Morland was invited

to give a seminar for a class on nuclear weapons at the University ofAlabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. During his talk, he said that he

hoped to figure out what made the H-bomb work. Morland asked the

class, without expecting a response, “Does anyone know the secret

of the H-bomb?”

One student had an answer. The kid told Morland that he had grown

up in Oak Ridge, Alabama and that the major component of nuclear

weapons was made there. When Morland was driving up to New

England after he left Alabama, he decided to check it out for him-

self. He found different buildings, plants, and laboratories.

“I went over to Y-12 plant and it was bigger than anything, it was likea city full of industrial buildings; it filled up this valley,” said Morland,

73, a journalist, author and anti-nuclear activist of Arlington, Virginia.

“And I said holy shit, this is where they make the H-bomb.”

Morland found that the “secret of the H-bomb” wasn’t a secret at all.

The information was already out there through public records. He

came across The Progressive , a monthly magazine on politics,

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culture and opinion based in Madison, Wisconsin, and was hired

that same year as a freelance writer to research and write on govern-

ment secrecy and nuclear weapons. Although Morland claimed that

he obtained all of his research through unrestricted records and did

not receive any “classified” tips, the United States government and

others were quick to discredit and stop The Progressive before the

article went to print.

MORLAND GAINS AN INTEREST IN NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Howard Morland was a C-141 jet transport pilot in the Air Force, at

Lubbock, Texas, when he first came into contact with nuclear weap-

ons. He had never handled nuclear weapons, but he was trained to

carry them as cargo.

“I kept looking and thinking, this is the size of a kitchen garbage can

and if this was a real bomb and it blew up, the San Bernardino moun-

tains to the North would be a firestorm and nothing left of San Ber-

nardino,” said Morland.

In 1976, Morland became a co-founder of the Clamshell Alliance, an

anti-nuclear organization that protested in New England. In May

1977, after over 1,000 of 2,000 Clamshell protesters got arrested at

the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in Seabrook, New Hampshire,

Morland and other activists spent two weeks in jails and National

Guard armories. There were five different armories being occupied

by peace activists, and when they got out they tried to call attention

to the nuclear problem.

“We had the Civil Right’s Movement in the 1950s, anti-war movement

in the 1960s and early 1970s, and then all of a sudden all these hip-

pie types with their blue jeans, and combat boots, long hair and

beads all popped out of the woodwork to join the environmentalmovement,” Morland said.

When Morland was at a Seabrook demonstration, he came across

The Progressive , a magazine serving as the newsletter for the new

environmental movement.

He noticed that every month there was an article by Harvey Wasser-

man, a co-founder and media spokesperson for the Clamshell Alli-

ance, in The Progressive . Morland thought that if knew more about

the design of nuclear weapons, then maybe they could get The Pro-

gressive magazine involved.

Morland explained that he did not go to journalism school and was

never a real journalist in the sense that he had a job with journalism.

He was always a freelancer and activist first. The idea of writing arti-

cles for The Progressive magazine fell into his lap and he took ad-

vantage of it.

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“I thought if I could figure out the secret and tell everybody the se-

cret, then maybe this would kind of deputise people to go ahead

and speak out on nuclear weapons,” said Morland. “There’s no point

in having these security clearances because the information is out

there.”

A JOURNALIST ON AN

ASSIGNMENT

When he was given the

assignment, Morland,

along with editor Erwin

Knoll and managing edi-

tor Samuel Day Jr. of The

Progressive , thought thatif they laid out the design

of nuclear weapons in a

simple way to understand, then it would benefit the United States

and it would create a base to promote a public debate on nuclear

weapons without secrecy.

“Public discussion is essential to any kind of democracy, especially

in times of war,” said Morland.

Sam Day made it possible for Morland to have access to all of seven

component factories. At the factories, Morland was told that he

could ask any questions he had. Also, he was given information and

brochures on the materials and role of each factory in producing the

final product of an H-bomb. He was given a $500 advance, which

only was enough to cover one factory.

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“I realized I could ask questions that would reveal information no

matter how they answered them,” said Morland. “If it was not classi-

fied they would tell me and if it was classified they would say it was

classified and I got a good idea of what

things they could and couldn’t talk about.”

After looking through encyclopedias, Mor-

land noticed that there were two models that

contradicted one another.

In his quest to find what basic model worked

best, he noticed that the answers he was get-

ting from factory workers would hint at which

one wouldn’t work. Morland used additional

experts on nuclear weapons to check what

he believed was the basic model that would

work.

PUBLISHING THE SECRET

Before the article was published, Sam Day

sent the article over to George Rathjens, a

political science professor at Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, who challenged hisstudents to figure out the secret to make a

workable H-bomb, and Rathjens sent it to

the Department of Energy (DOE) and the

DOE declared that the article contained clas-

sified information.

“And I said you did this without asking me? You knew that if I got it

right they would declare it classified,” said Morland. “Why did you

give it to someone who worked for the government?”

Morland had been careful not to give Rathjens

anything he could turn in, but Rathjens called up

the magazine and said, “I understand you got a

reporter here who’s about to blow the H-bomb

secret. Can I look at your manuscript?” And the

magazine sent it to him. Morland said that Sam

Day always said that “well, we just didn’t trust

you.” The scientists that looked at the article

said that it was plausible it was the real deal, but

they weren’t positive. By sending it to Rathjens,

they could get a confirmation from someone

who knew the answer if Morland was right orwrong.

“I think, at least in Erwin’s part, that he sent it to

Rathjens hoping that Rathjens would send it to

the government and we’d end up in court,” Mor-

land said.

The DOE saw the article as a giant threat if it

were distributed to the public. After seeing thearticle, the DOE called the magazine over the

phone and went to the publication’s headquar-

ters to tell them not to publish it because it con-

tained what was defined as restricted informa-

tion under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954. The Progressive editors

still planned on moving forward to publish the article because they

felt that it was information that everyone should be aware of.

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On March 8, 1979, the DOE moved to suppress the arti-

cle by asking the United States District Court for the

Eastern District of Wisconsin in Milwaukee to issue an

injunction and restrain publication of Morland’s article.

The government claimed that it would reveal secret infor-

mation defined by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and

could cause irreparable harm if given to the public. Thenext day the Federal District Judge Robert W. Warren

issued a temporary restraining order on publishing the

article. At first the press and government questioned

why The Progressive would do such a thing and want to

arm people with this kind of information. Over the next

following months, the magazine started to win over the

support of the press and convinced the government

that the information was already in the public domain.

Morland claimed in court that he had no specialized ac-

cess to classified documents or information during his

research. Over six months, under the permission of the

DOE, Morland interviewed government and DOE offi-

cials, visited nuclear weapon production plants, read

anything he could on the subject, and fired out ques-

tions left and right to anyone. Also, since he had little

scientific background, besides what he learned in a fewundergraduate physics courses at Emory University in

Atlanta, Georgia, Morland had experts in the scientific

field help guide his research and confirm that his writing

was accurate.

He eventually pieced together the mechanics behind

the H-Bomb using this combined research, all of which

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he found without any special access that the average citizen would

not get. Using all his research, Morland crafted “The H-Bomb Se-

cret: How We Got It, Why We're Telling It,” which was originally

scheduled to go to print in the magazine’s April 1979 issue. The arti-

cle itself explained the three stages to the detonation of a hydrogen

weapon, which included diagrams and descriptions of each stage.

The magazine said to the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that

Judge Warren made a mistake in imposing a prior restraint, which is

censorship before something is expressed, on grounds of a threat to

national security. The government gave The Progressive the opportu-

nity back in March to rewrite the article to exclude details (about 20

percent of content) that the DOE deemed would cause harm if re-

leased to the public. The magazine refused to comply with prior re-

straint on Morland’s article. The Progressive believed that censor-

ship would have deprived citizens from forming their own opinionsand making judgment on what is just and unjust when it comes to

use and production of nuclear weapons.

It wasn’t until Sept. 28, 1979, more than six months after the case’s

first court appearance, when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

dismissed the case and ruled in favor of Progressive Inc. The final

article was distributed was in its original form, free from government

censorship, in the magazine's November 1979 issue for $1.50 per

issue. The Progressive had to pay $250,000 in the end for legal ex-penses.

“The fact that we won the case meant that what we were saying was

true and that the information that we shared was no longer classi-

fied,” said Morland.

19

“It [the media] plays a very important role in bringing to the

public information to inform debates on important issues,” said

David Logan, a professor of law at Roger Williams University.


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UNIVERSITY OF NIKE

A little boy sits in the backseat of his family’s black Chevrolet Sta-

tion Wagon, listening to the low rumble of the car as it makes its

way over the Mount Hope Bridge, into Bristol, and past the fledg-

ling university encroaching on the bay. Across a field to his right

there is movement at Nike Missile Base PR-38. The launch baydoors are opening and in seconds a MIM-3 Ajax Missile is

cocked skyward under the blue suburban sky. The boy’s mother

reaches for the dial and turns on the car’s radio.

“It’s only a drill,” says his father.

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By Harrison Connery


22/114

Music is playing and the tension drops; an emergency government

civil defense broadcast would have been a death sentence. The boy

is Earl Gladue, the year is 1959, and the United States appears to

be on its way to the brink of

nuclear annihilation.

Earl Gladue is now a 62-

year-old mathematics profes-

sor at Roger Williams Univer-

sity (RWU), located in Bristol,

Rhode Island, where Gladue

was raised. His office sits no

more than 1,500 feet from

the former site of base PR-

38, which has been replaced

by a dormitory and parkinggarage for the school. The

university briefly considered

using the pumped out mis-

sile silos as science labs.

“You see the doors open and

the missiles coming up and

you’re wondering if its a drill

or if it’s World War III,” he says, explaining why the memory hasstayed with him his entire life. “Our neighbor built a bomb shelter in

his backyard.”

The Bristol base, like all Nike bases, was comprised of two separate

locations. The radar installation, built on a hill two miles north of

RWU, tracked incoming enemy targets and provided missile guid-

ance. The site built on what is now RWU was the assembly and

launch site. The missiles stationed at the Bristol site did not carry nu-

clear warheads; instead, their purpose was to shoot down an enemy

plane carrying a nuclear bomb.

The base, which opened un-

der the command of First Lt.

Nelson Legette in 1956, was

constructed in cohesion with

16 homes to house the battal-

ion of 90 men. It cost the mili-

tary $900,000 to build and

included three underground

missile bays that held seven

missiles each. Each missile

was worth $20,000 apiece.

THE FAIL SAFE

Gladue’s memory of the Nike

base dates back to the last

years of the United States’

nuclear superiority over the

Soviet Union. The Nike Pro-

ject, named after the Greek Goddess of victory, went mainstream in

1949 when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb. The So-

viets had already created bomber planes that could reach targets

within the continental United States and there were fears of a mas-

sive Soviet fleet destroying the country. Nike’s objective was to serve

as a fail safe against a Soviet air campaign if the Air Force’s long

range fighters failed to deter an attack.

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Nike missiles were deployed around population centers and key gov-

ernment locations within the United States. Because of their rela-

tively short range, many missile sites were built in close proximity to

the communities they were built to protect. Starting in 1953, the mili-

tary constructed about 250 sites in the U.S. and overseas.

The first generation of Nike missiles were named Nike Ajax missiles.

They were capable of speeds north of

1,600 mph and could destroy a target

at 70,000 feet. The one Gladue saw in

Bristol towered 34-feet 10-inches tall,

the booster adding an extra 13-feet

10-inches to the missile’s height. Mis-

sile and booster together weighed just

under 2,500 pounds.

The Ajax missile generated a fair

amount of controversy: critics claimed

that its limited range of 25 miles pre-

vented it from being an effective

surface-to-air missile. However, it was

the only anti-aircraft missile in exis-

tence at the time and it was far supe-

rior to anti-aircraft artillery. Ajax missiles carried three warheads lo-

cated at the front, center, and rear of the missile. Plans to equip Ajaxmissiles with nuclear warheads were abandoned in favor of building

a new and improved Nike missile: the Nike Hercules.

Development of the Nike Hercules began before the first Nike Ajax

missiles had been deployed. The Nike Hercules was designed to

produce a missile with superior speed, altitude, and range com-

pared to the Ajax. A Hercules missile could achieve speeds of 2,700

mph, had a range of 90 miles, and could destroy a target at 150,000

feet. Larger than the Ajax, the Hercules missile rose 41 feet above

the ground with the booster and weighed over 10 thousand pounds.

While the Ajax missile was designed to defend against subsonic air-

craft, the Hercules was built to shoot down jets with supersonic capa-

bilities. Nike Hercules missiles were manufactured with nuclear war-

heads ranging from three to 30 kilotons

(for reference, the bomb dropped on Hi-

roshima measured 15 kilotons). Arming

missiles manufactured for defense with a

nuclear payload had two main advan-

tages: a single Hercules missile could de-

stroy an entire formation of fighter jets, and

the blast had a greater chance of destroy-

ing the incoming nuclear bomb(s). Hercu-les missiles were deployed in the United

States starting in 1958.

Another improvement the Hercules had

over its predecessor was its versatility as a

weapon. While Ajax missiles were exclu-

sively surface-to-air missiles, the Hercules

could be used as a surface-to-surface missile, meaning it could be

used to destroy enemy troops on the ground or to attack an invadingnavy. However, due to the missile’s limited range the Hercules could

not be used to attack another country, like an intercontinental ballis-

tic missile (ICBM) would be.

In the end it was the creation of the ICBM that ended the Nike pro-

gram. As a result of the widespread deployment of Nike missiles

across the United States, the Soviet Union adjusted their nuclear pro-

22

gram to develop ICBMs which—unlike their which has bred and fed the use of private


24/114

planes—could not be shot down. Nike Ajax

sites were closed by 1964, the Hercules last-

ing another ten years before it was deacti-

vated. The Nike Project was the United

States’ most visible and costly defense sys-

tem, but, according to Gladue, not an oppres-

sive one.

“You didn’t really think anything of it,” he said.

THE RISE OF THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL

COMPLEX

Nike’s departure from the public eye and the

base’s replacement by a private universityrepresent the tension drop since the height of

the Cold War, but the transition is not indica-

tive of a movement towards demilitarization.

Visible defense systems such as the Nike pro-

gram, itself largely the work of private con-

tractors, have been replaced with the omni-

present, invisible military industrial complex.

Since the start of the Eisenhower administra-tion the nature of the American military has

changed dramatically. Once a massive gov-

ernment entity that employed everyone from

soldiers, to research and development

teams, to kitchen personnel, the military has

become increasingly privatized as the na-

tion’s military industrial complex has grown.

The growth of the military industrial complex,

contractors, dates back to the concept of

“Military Keynesianism”, named after the

economist Lord Maynard Keynes who popu-

larized the concept that government stimulus

spending could lift a country out of reces-

sion. Intuitively, Military Keynesianism applies

the same concept to the military: the morethe United States spends on its military, the

more people are needed to run it, the more

people it employs. Future conflicts and the

ensured obsolescence of military technolo-

gies make the military a permanent, self sus-

taining stimulus package. This economic the-

ory replaced the traditional belief that spend-

ing on war diverted resources from more so-

cially desirable outlets.

As the military industrial complex grew, out-

sourcing military jobs was viewed as able to

produce more efficient results and as more

economically responsible. Projects under-

taken by the U.S. military must meet strict

Congressional rules and are subject to inva-

sive oversight procedures. Contractors arenot subject to the same rules: as long as Con-

gress approves the total cost of the project,

day-to-day developments are safely out of

sight in the private sector. As military tech-

nologies became increasingly complex, the

government found itself increasingly reliant

on private companies to develop, maintain,

and operate its equipment (even Nike mis-

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siles were developed by private companies). In addition to the rela-

tive ease of passing work off to private contractors, the idea that free

market principles would control costs and ultimately save the govern-

ment money became popular in the defense sector: bidding on gov-

ernment jobs would assure the lowest possible cost and eliminate

wasteful spending. Indeed, at first glance the growth of the military

industrial complex appears to be a win-win: eternal economic stimu-lus and responsible government spending; what’s not to like? But

new analysis suggests that the privati-

zation of American warfare has be-

come extremely detrimental to the well-

being of the country.

HAYEK-SPLOSIVE

First, the Military Keynesianism bubble

burst. A viable economic stimulus in

the 1950s, the pursuit of military he-

gemony now burdens the American

taxpayer. Then, America was at peace.

The benefits of the growing military

economy stayed home with the troops.

Now, Americans employed as contractors work in conflict zones oron tour in foreign countries where the United States keeps a military

presence. Worse, the Rutherford Institute reports that 90 percent of

the security contractors hired in Afghanistan were Afghan, the most

extreme example of a growing trend in which contracting companies

hire foreign nationals instead of Americans. Additionally, a Political

Economy Research Institute (PERI) report found that growing sec-

tors such as renewable energy, education, and healthcare create

more domestic jobs per dollar than the military does. Investing in the

military industrial complex is no longer synonymous with investing in

the American public.

Exacerbating the situation is the fact that a free market does not ex-

ist in the defense industry. During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,

40 percent of Department of Defense (DoD) contracts were offered

exclusively to a single company. Secondly, in the case of the de-fense industry, the government is the sole consumer; free markets,

however, rely on a number of consumers

working with and against each other to dic-

tate demand, which ensures affordable

pricing. Finally, economic inefficiencies

are permissible in the defense industry, un-

like the free market, where running over

budget puts a company out of business. Ifprivate contractors run over budget the

cost can be passed on to the federal gov-

ernment (read: taxpayers) with no conse-

quences.

According to The New York Times, a Con-

gressional report found that of the $206 bil-

lion paid to private contractors during the

first 10 years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, at least $30-$60billion had been wasted—that was a conservative estimate. Civilian

officials and military members benefitted from financial kickbacks in

some cases and in others up to 20 percent of Defense contracts

were spent on bribes to local warlords and insurgents for protection.

The dynamic that exists between the military and private contractors

is identical to the much more publicized relationship between politi-

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cians and special interest lobbyists. In some instances, senior mili-

tary officials retire from the military to lucrative lobbying jobs for con-

tracting companies. According to an article on The Atlantic website,

Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI) brags that it has more

generals per square feet than the Pentagon.

Like on Capitol Hill, there exist few regulations to delineate the ex-

tent of fraternization appropriate between the military and the private

sector. Former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary

Michael Chertoff’s consulting agency, the Chertoff Group, repre-

sented the manufacturer Rapiscan, which builds full body airport

scanners. Chertoff leveraged his status at the DHS with great effect

to publicly and privately lobby for the installation of the scanners

even though there existed no evidence that they improved security.

Central to the well being of the military industrial complex is a narra-

tive fed to the American public that they are constantly under threatof attack. It is what allows corporate corruption and waste to go un-

punished and prevents politicians from gutting the industry finan-

cially (the Pentagon’s budget is $700 billion). After the terrorist at-

tacks of 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld instructed his

staff to “elevate the threat” posed by terrorists in their public state-

ments so that Americans would “realize” the prevalence and danger

of armed insurgents.

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Shawn Clover | Flickr


27/114

AMERICA: HOME OF THE SERVILE?

Whether or not the narrative has made Americans more fearful and

suspicious now than during the 1950s is up for debate. Earl Gladue

provided a conflicting account, describing the accustomed noncha-

lance some felt with one breath while referencing his neighbor’s bomb

shelter with the next.

Associate Professor of Anthropology at Roger Williams University Jer-

emy Campbell believes the visibility of the Nike program could have

reassured some, while spiking fear in others.

“People may have derived a sense of safety from the visibility of the

Nike program. There was a PR upshot to the bases: the government

could say, ‘See? We’re protecting you,’” he said. “Conversely, it may

have increased paranoia in those who lived near the bases, as it pro-

vided a reminder of the danger.” For his sake, Earl Gladue thinks the

country is better off now than it was half a century ago.

“I like the fact that you can get on the phone and call Russia,” he said.

From Gladue’s perspective, the existential threat posed by the Soviet

Union disappeared when the former USSR began to liberalize its econ-

omy and has not been replaced by any modern threat. The more stake-

holders in the global economy, he believes, the less incentive there is

to destroy one another. As for the current situation, Gladue says: “As

tense as things can be with terrorists, my own sense is that people

were much more worried then than now, because there was a real fear

that the whole country could have gone up in flames.”

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“Peace on Earth—which man throughout the ages has

so longed for and sought after—can never be estab-

lished, never guaranteed, except by the diligent obser-

vance of the divinely established order.”

THEOLOGY

—Pope John XXIII

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29/114

Small signs dot the lawns of Cranston homes, beginning with, “Our

Heavenly Father, grant us each day the desire to do our best….”

They’re the same words that hung in the auditorium of Cranston

High School West just years before. Now, on her way home from the

University of Vermont, 20-year-old Jessica Ahlquist notices the

prayer and is reminded of the year-long, grueling lawsuit she fought

with her high school when she was only 16.

“Maybe if I hadn’t had this experience, I would’ve liked to live here,

but having everything happen to me, it ruined the area,” Ahlquist

said.

Towards the end of her freshman year of high school, the Cranston

native first noticed the large banner hanging in the school’s audito-

rium that hosted the “School Prayer.” Having been raised Catholic,

Ahlquist never identified with organized religion and was a self-

proclaimed atheist from a young age.

“I was just kind of startled by it. I mean it was titled ‘School Prayer,’ it

started with Our Father and ended with Amen, so I wasn’t com-

pletely unaware that it was illegal, even before the lawsuit. I was con-

fused because at that point, I didn’t think my school would be bla-

tantly breaking the law,” Ahlquist said. “I spent the summer doing re-

search on it. It was something I thought about pretty regularly, be-

28

By Sabrina Caserta

FIGHTING CHRISTIAN AMERICAHOW WOULD JESUS TREAT JESSICA?

cause I was interested I wanted to feel like I belonged in my


30/114

cause I was interested. I wanted to feel like I belonged in my

school.”

The summer of 2010, when 15-year-old Ahlquist was entering her

sophomore year, she read in the newspaper that another mother

had commented on the presence of a Christian prayer banner.

The mother, who was Jewish, had garnered support from the

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Rhode Island whocalled for the prayer’s removal.

“I think Rhode Island, in some respects, has shown a very

healthy respect for the separation of Church and state,” said Ste-

phen Brown of the Rhode Island ACLU. “Once in awhile, it falters.

The Ahlquist case is a good example of that.”

Cranston High School West’s School Committee, in response to

the ACLU’s letter, formed a subcommittee which would meet todiscuss the prayer’s place in the school.

“That was a problem with the prayer, it’s a public school. Not eve-

ryone there is Catholic, not everyone there refers to a ‘god,’”

Ahlquist said. “Anyone who has ever taken an American history

class knows that the people who settled this country were escap-

ing religious persecution, especially Rhode Island. And I think

people don’t value, because they don’t understand why it’s so sig-

nificant, the consequences of not having this clear separation.You don’t want this government endorsement of something that’s

supposed to be a personal belief and a personal decision, so I

think that for a lot of people, as long as the government is endors-

ing their religion, they don’t realize the danger of it. The point is to

protect people.”

29

Since the emergence of the United States the First Amendment of religion played a very vital role in the founding of this country ” said


31/114

Since the emergence of the United States, the First Amendment of

the Constitution birthed a firewall between church and state in at-

tempts to safeguard both the nation and religious entities from the

corruption, overreach, and bloodshed which plagued Medieval

Europe.

“We’ve seen various instances across two hundred years of Constitu-

tional History where there has been interference between, or interac-

tion between the government and the Church,” said June Speak-

man, a political science professor at Roger Williams University.

The overlap brokered between church and state has been show-

cased in our nation’s politics and public affairs. The words, “In GodWe Trust,” are printed on our dollar bills, the United States Congress

begins their sessions with a morning prayer and national politicians

regularly invoke religion—inviting God to bless America, while ask-

ing citizens to pray for victims of tragedy and disaster.

“I think if you look in the history of America, you see in the very be-

ginnings of our country- this land of the free, home of the brave- that

religion played a very vital role in the founding of this country, said

Father Henry Zinno, a pastor the Mount Carmel Church in Bristol,

R.I. “The ministers, who were the preachers at the time had a great

deal of influence on the founding fathers of this country. And Church

services were integrated into the very fabric of this nation.”

Today, the United States remains home to more Christians than any

other country in the world, and a vast amount of Americans –roughly seven in ten – continue to identify with some branch of Chris-

tianity.

Sixty-five percent of Americans claim religion is an essential compo-

nent of their day-to-day lives, as compared 33 percent of Polish, 25

percent of Germans and 24 percent of Japanese, according to Gal-

lup. This makes the U.S. one of the highest developed nations with

an emphasis on organized religion.

Rhode Island is the most Catholic state in America, with roughly 44

percent of the state identifying as Roman Catholic, according to a

study done in 2014 by the Public Religion Research Institute. The

second-biggest religious tradition in Rhode Island, however, is no re-

ligion. 21 percent of Rhode Islanders surveyed described them-

selves as atheist or religiously unaffiliated.

Ahlquist, who was publicly religiously unaffiliated, was pleased that

the issue of the prayer had been brought to the school’s attentionand decided to attend the meeting, which at that time, only drew in

roughly 20 other people. Ahlquist, not planning on participating or

commenting, believed the meeting would be an open and shut case

where the ‘school prayer’ would be promptly removed. Instead,

when she arrived, she was greeted by a sea of people strongly push-

30

ing for the prayer’s preservation, with many saying, ‘God will be mad wrong, it’s not constitutional, it’s not ethical. I really thought it was ri-


32/114

ing for the prayer s preservation, with many saying, God will be mad

if we take it down.’

“For me, it was really shocking. I just didn’t expect adults, these

grown-ups, to completely miss the point of a legal issue. I really tried

to redirect the conversation to the legality of it, not that I didn’t be-

lieve in God, because that really became the

focus for a lot of people,” Ahlquist said. “It be-came this non religious community versus re-

ligious community thing. If there was one

thing that was disappointing about the whole

thing, it was that. Even though I was nonrelig-

ious, I was trying to represent people of other

faiths too. I was trying to say that this isn’t fair

to anybody.”

Ahlquist was equally surprised at how cava-

lierly the school committee, as well as the

elected officials of the city of Cranston dis-

cussed the involvement of their own religious preferences in support-

ing the school prayer.

“It’s their job to make the community the best they can. It should be

common knowledge that when in a government, political setting,

we’re not talking about our personal opinions. We’re not talking

about our personal beliefs, we’re talking about politics and law and

these officials were saying, ‘I can’t leave my religion at the door. My

religion is a part of who I am, my religion is a part of this community

and my vote. Yes, I am going to vote based on my own religious pref-

erences.’ And they were proud of it, the community liked that. I

mean they got re-elected,” Ahlquist said. “This was obviously some-

thing that was a political move but it’s an illegal political move, it’s

wrong, it s not constitutional, it s not ethical. I really thought it was ri

diculously immature and inappropriate for elected officials to be say-

ing, ‘No, I’m not going to leave my religion at the door. I’m going to

involve religion in my voting.’”

Political scientists have been citing religion, as well as gender, fam-

ily and socio-economic status as major fac-

tors that influence politicians legislating, aswell as voting patterns amongst Americans.

“Politicians seem less reserved—certain politi-

cians—Ted Cruz comes to mind, in express-

ing their religious views. But I would say we’ve

become more secular, not more religious as

we move into the 21st century,” Speakman

said, “Religious influences public affairs

mostly indirectly through the role it plays in citi-

zen’s lives. Public opinion, of course, leads

voters to support candidates with certain relig-

ious beliefs. I do think since the 1980s you’ve seen more pastors get-

ting involved in politics and being free to express their political opin-

ions to their flock.”

According to 2014 midterm election analysis by Pew Research, the

frequency of religious service attendance is a strong indication of

how people will vote in elections. The 2014 exit poll data revealed

that regular Churchgoers were more likely to vote for a Republican

candidate over a Democrat by a 58 percent to 40 percent margin.

Further research showed that avid Christians are less likely to sup-

port gay marriage, with only 24 percent of white evangelical Protes-

tants, being the least. Similarly, roughly 53 percent of devout Chris-

31

tians who regularly attend services believe


33/114

g y

abortion ought to be illegal in all or most

cases.

“As priests, or pastors or ministers or rab-

bis, we speak to issues of the day. Where

the nation had evolved from this very in-

volved experience with the Church andState to now more of a separation, but a

willingness to listen and be guided by the

truths of the Gospel, the truth of the pres-

ence of God and see how that affects our

lives and then to inspire legislation and

leadership that can lead our country in free-

dom and democracy and justice,” Father

Zinno said. “The Church wants to help theState or the community to be a better place

to live. A place of moral principle and virtu-

ous habits and that’s how the Church is

able to to do that, through its preaching

and teaching and sanctifying.”

Christians continue to make up the majority

of the United States Congress. As of 2014,

92 percent of Congress claimed to be prac-ticing the faith, with 71 percent of the coun-

try also Christian. While nearly 23 percent

of all Americans identified as religiously un-

affiliated, there is is one member- or point

two percent- of the body that claims no re-

ligious affiliation.

32

“It’s very important that people feel that their government represents all things that happened in the 1950s, and it was a direct result of


34/114

g

them regardless of what their religious beliefs are. If you have a gov-

ernment that’s neutral on religion, that isn’t trying to promote a relig-

ion, then you won’t see these kinds of nasty types of disputes take

place,” said Stephen Brown of the Rhode Island ACLU, one of the

lawyers in charge of Ahlquist’s case. “I was certainly really proud to

see how Jessica handled this, I don’t think a lot of adults could’ve

handled it the way she did, but it is a very good example of why it’s

so important, why this principle is so important, so people who see

their government representing them, do in fact, get represented by

them.”

After witnessing the vast support for the prayer, Ahlquist began to

comment during the public sessions and pursue the issue further.

She spent the majority of her sophomore year attending meetings-

which grew larger and larger each time, as more people in the com-munity began defending the prayer.

“A lot of the things people tried to say in response to what I was do-

ing was, ‘Well, of course there can be religion in the government be-

cause, look, it’s in the Pledge of Allegiance and it’s on the money,

and it’s the national

motto.’ And I’m like,

these things weren’t

there until 40, 50years ago,” Ahlquist

said. “That’s also

when the prayer at

the school went up.

What a coinci-

dence. These are

g

communism. I think it has had a cultural impact. Our generation, the

whole time we’ve been alive in this country, that’s how it’s been the

way it is, so a lot of people don’t question that. They just think that’s

the way I’ve always been.”

Post-war America brought droves of people to churches in record

numbers, skyrocketing the numbers of traditional denominations,Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Lutherans and

Presbyterians. The growth of Churches swelled and the Bible be-

came the number one sold book in the United States.

This is attributed to the looming Cold War threat—pitting Christian

America against the Soviet Union’s “godless communism.” The

American perception of the Soviet Union in the 1950s found a base

in atheism, totalitarianism, and communism. Communist thinkers

from Marx to Lenin to Trotsky to Stalin advocated an abandonment

of a religion, stating they felt it to be superstitious and unproductive.

Throughout the post-war years of the Second Red Scare, “godless

communism,” along with similar variations, became a cautionary tale

to any religiously reluctant American. As the communist threat to the

American way of life grew, so did the idea that Christianity was inex-

tricably linked with the country’s self-image.

It was during these years that our national motto was established,though the phrase "In God We Trust" had appeared earlier in the na-

tion's history, including on coins minted in the 19th century, the

phrase officially becomes the national motto during the Cold War.

The Pledge of Allegiance also included “Under God,” and public

schools across the nation began embracing school prayers, Cran-

ston High School West being one of them.

33


35/114

The amount of support in favor of the prayer put pressure on the city

of Cranston, as well as the school committee, to leave it up. The

ACLU, noticing the commotion, offered to represent Ahlquist in

court, if she decided to pursue it further.

“At this point, I was really hopeful that I could convince them to take

it down. I did public comment for like five meetings, I was really do-

ing everything I could to prevent it from going to court,” Ahlquist

said. “I should’ve been a little more scared. I didn’t know what I was

getting into.”

After the school committee voted to keep the prayer up, Ahlquist,

with the help of her father, decided to file a lawsuit in early 2011

against the town of Cranston and Cranston High School West calling

the legality of a School Prayer in a public high-school into question.

Though Ahlquist was hesitant to jump into a legal battle, she felt itnecessary.

“I was a really shy, quiet kid, I didn’t want this attention but it was

something I felt so passionate about, I felt I couldn’t accept this de-

feat because I believe in this now, I know this is wrong,” Ahlquist

said.

34

After a year-long court case, the judge ruled in favor of Ahlquist in from the school, how about that?,’ ‘Hmm Jess is in my bio class,


36/114

April of 2012, her junior year of high-school, and called for the re-

moval of the prayer. Cranston High School West covered the prayer

in tarp for the time being and decided against appealing the deci-

sion. Though the legal battle was over, Ahlquist’s problems seemed

to only have begun.

“I guess I should have known that win-ning wouldn’t be the end, that’s actu-

ally when things started to get worse,”

Ahlquist said.

People began threatening Ahlquist’s

life, both online and in hand-written let-

ters. She would often receive notes

stating, ‘I know where you live and I

know the license plates of your family’scars.’ Ahlquist, who has three younger

siblings, began to worry for her fam-

ily’s safety as well as her own. After be-

ing followed home on the bus one day,

the threats became so severe and so

chronic that the city had enlisted police officers to escort Ahlquist to

and from each of her classes. They also had constant police patrol

around their block every hour to ensure that her and her family werekept safe.

Some of the insults directed towards Ahlquist on Twitter or Facebook

read, ‘Hail Mary, Full of Grace @JessicaAhlquist is gonna get

punched in the face,’ ‘We can make so many jokes about this dumb

bitch, but who cares #thatbitchisgointohell and Satan is gonna to

rape her,’ ‘Yeah, well I want the immediate removal of all atheists

she’s gonna get some shit thrown at her,’ and ‘Nail her to a cross.’

According to research by DoSomething.org, 81 percent of young

people think bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying

in person, while well over 90 percent of youths have witnessed cy-

berbullying, and ignored it.

“There was a ton of cyberbullying. That’s

what people did to stay anonymous. A lot

of people didn’t even bother to stay anony-

mous. A lot of people in the community,

definitely my peers in school were attack-

ing me, viciously on social media,”

Ahlquist said. “I was really startled by how

many adults were coming out of the wood-

work and saying really, really horrendousthings, threatening my family. Just some of

the insults you would hear were unnerving.

It’s unacceptable and completely ridicu-

lous that on one note, people are saying

that I’m evil and immoral while also threat-

ening me. I mean, the irony there is precious.”

Radicalized Christianity in America has spilled into the public

sphere, instances range from the Colorado Springs Planned Parent-

hood shooting in November of 2015, to the Kentucky county-clerk,

Kim Davis, refusing a same-sex marriage license to a couple. Her

singular claim being that she was acting “under God’s authority.”

With the notion that the United States is still a ‘Christian-nation’, the

German non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung looked at Americans re-

35


37/114

sponse to non-religious or atheists. Their 2013 survey found 50 per-

cent of Americans still consider atheism to be threatening.

In 2012, the Pew Research Center found that the number of millenni-

als reporting doubts about the existence of God has doubled in five

years—being roughly 31 percent at the time the survey was pub-lished.

This means more people in the United States now identify as nonre-

ligious than any time in the past 30 years, and those numbers are

steadily increasing, especially amongst the youth.

Ahlquist’s story in Rhode Island is echoed by other cases like that of

Damon Fowler in Louisiana, who got his school to cancel their plans

for a prayer at his graduation ceremony, only to be kicked out of his

house by his parents- and Gage Pulliam of Oklahoma, who was

greeted with threats, bullying and exclusion when he anonymously

sent a picture of the 10 Commandments hanging in his public high-

school’s biology classroom to the Freedom From Religion Founda-

tion. After being found out, he feared for his safety, as well as hisfamily’s due to the high-level of hate he received.

For Ahlquist, the insults weren't confined to the Internet, or school

walls- from students yelling insults across the halls while wearing a

T-shirt with the prayer printed on it, to teachers telling her that she

asked for it- but, elected officials commenting on public radio or in

front of large crowds.

36

Ed Uthman | Flickr

Ahlquist was forced to sit through a question and answer session

d i h hi h h l’ “Di i W k ” f i h M f

great to hear. So there were these extreme negatives as well as

h i i ”


38/114

during the high-school’s “Diversity Week,” featuring the Mayor of

Cranston, Allan Fung, who, when asked about the prayer, said that

he saw no problem with it, that he didn’t understand why I wanted it

taken down, and should be kept up, Ahlquist recounted. She was

then greeted by a room chock-full of cheering students and teach-

ers.

Her state representative, Peter Palumbo, publicly called Ahlquist “an

evil little thing,” and referred to her as a “pawn-star,” insinuating she

was nothing more than a pawn for the ACLU and the atheist agenda.

“I was 16 at the time, so this was adults, my representative, attack-

ing a 16 year old high school girl. I definitely saw the worst from hu-

manity,” Ahlquist said. “At this point it wasn’t just about the legality or

the religion anymore, it was about, is it right to attack a 16 year old

girl?”

Her supporters began printing their own T-shirts, saying “Evil Little

Thing,” to turn Palumbo’s comments into a joke. They also carried

signs asking: “How would Jesus treat Jessica?”

“So it was a lot of anxiety, a lot of negative attention that really took

away from my education, that took away from my overall childhood.

But for me, it was something worth doing and it wasn’t just nega-

tive,” Ahlquist said. “It was also people coming out to tell me thatthey supported me. Not just in the community, but on a national

level. Even on an international level. I started to get invited to speak

at different events which was a really rewarding experience for me. I

got to go all over the country and meet different types of people.

Meet people who believed that I did the right thing. That was really

these extreme positives.”

Though Ahlquist was garnering support outside of her community,

the stress of attending a school where everyone seemingly hated

her caused her to become depressed. That, combined with the

amount of speeches she was traveling for, caused her to opt out of

Cranston High School West and chose to be home-schooled by hermother instead. She spent the end of her junior year, and the remain-

der of her senior year at home, chipping away at her high-school di-

ploma. She did not attend graduation or prom in the city she had

grown up in.

‘At that point, I felt like so many people in my school wished I was

dead. I mean I didn’t want to be around that so honestly I moved on

from it and was happy that I was traveling and meeting people who

agreed with what I did. That meant more to me than prom,” Ahlquistsaid.

Today, Ahlquist’s siblings attend Cranston High School West without

issue. Her siblings, all much younger when this issue came to frui-

tion, weren’t really involved. Her parents, each supportive in their

own way, were also going through a divorce during the time of the

case, which added to Ahlquist’s stress.

“There were definitely times I felt like I was really alone,” Ahlquistsaid. “But, I don’t regret it at all. I'm happy I did it. I'm living with the

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