Episode #540Oct 28, 2021· 00:59:01

NH #540: Anti-Nuclear Nun Sister Megan Rice - A Commemoration

Nuclear Hotseat

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Anti-Nuclear nun Sister Megan Rice - seen here at the outside the prison where she was held for 2-1/2 years. She and two other Plowshares activists conducted a non-violent protest at the Y-12 "Fort Knox of Uranium" in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. That an 82-year-old nun could "break in" to what was supposed to be a high security facility so embarrassed the government that they charged her with sabotage - a charge that was later overturned by the Appeals Court.

This Week's Featured Interview:

Anti-nuclear nun Sister Megan Rice passed away on October 10, 2021 at the age of 91. Sr. Rice, who was arrested more than 40 times for her beliefs and protests as part of the Plowshares movement, is best known for her role in the 2012 break-in at the Oak Ridge nuclear complex in Tennessee. She was already 82 when she and two other anti-nuclear activists, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michael Walli, hiked through the night over a steep ridge to the outskirts of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

They used bolt cutters to get through three rings of barbed wire and approached the complex’s newest storage building, a windowless white-concrete hulk that had been billed as the “Fort Knox of uranium.” They splashed blood against the walls and spray-painted slogans like, “The fruit of justice is peace” and “Woe to an empire of blood.” They lit candles and read an indictment against the American nuclear arsenal.

The three activists were arrested and charged with trespassing and “destruction and depredation” of government property. When they refused to plead guilty, prosecutors added a charge of sabotage, carrying up to 20 years in prison.

This Nuclear Hotseat interview is from Episode #205 and was recorded on May 25, 2015, just after anti-nuclear nun Sr. Rice had been released from prison.

Now a new film, The Nuns, the Priests, and the Bomb, chronicles the work of the Plowshares movement, which seeks to invoke the biblical injunction, “They Shall Beat Their Swords into Plowshares.” This film follows two federal criminal cases against the Plowshares activists for their protests: the July 2012 break-in at the Y-12 National Nuclear Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee – home of the largest U.S. stockpile of highly enriched uranium – and the 2009 break-in at the Kitsap Bangor U.S. naval base near Seattle. It documents the activists’ legal efforts to justify their actions under international humanitarian law and follows efforts at the United Nations to enforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and negotiate the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (We'll have an interview with the film's director in the coming weeks.)The Nuns, the Priests, and the Bomb is available on YouTube, Amazon, I-tunes and Sundance Now.
New York Times obituary for Sister Megan Rice.