Stop the DARHT Attack on Nuclear
Free Berkeley
Mayor's Community Forum
North Berkeley Senior Center
December 8, 1997
Historically, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
has played a crucial role in the development of nuclear weapons.In
1941, after Glenn Seaborg discovered Plutonium, a group of Manhattan
Project scientists working at Gilman Hall on the University of California
Berkeley campus extracted enough plutonium for production of the Trinity
test bomb, which was later detonated in New Mexico desert near Los
Alamos.
The same pattern is about to be repeated. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
has agreed to design key parts, including an electron accelerator,
for the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrotest (DARHT)
facility now under construction at Los Alamos National Laboratory. DARHT will be the
most advanced experimental facility in the world for testing and
design of nuclear weapons. Proponents claim that DARHT will ensure the safety and reliability of America's stockpile of
nuclear weapons.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's participation in the DARHT project, aiding and abetting a scheme
to perpetuate design and testing of nuclear weapons, violates the
spirit of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act. Advanced lab testing facilities
such as DARHT also
violate the spirit of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
Host: Shirley Dean, Mayor of Berkeley
Speakers: Charles
Shank, LAB DIRECTOR; Greg
Mello, LOS ALAMOS STUDY GROUP; Jacqueline
Cabasso, WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION; Robert Gould, PHYSICIANS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY; Ann Fagan Ginger,
PEACE AND JUSTICE COMMISSION; Janice
Thomas, COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COMMISSION; Elliot Cohen, COMMITTEE
TO MINIMIZE TOXIC WASTE
Note: LBNL Director Charles Shank was not present
at the forum but spoke to the assembled group from Washington D.C.
via telephone conferencing. The laboratory director also provided
a 10 minute video presentation which was broadcast to those in attendance.
