TITAN
MISSILE
MUSEUM
PLOWSHARES EIGHT
September 9, 1980 Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest, author and poet from New
York City; Philip Berrigan, father and co-founder of Jonah House in Baltimore,
MD; Dean Hammer, member of the Covenant Peace Community in New Haven,
CT; Elmer Maas, musician and former college teacher from New York City; Carl
Kabat, Oblate priest and missionary; Anne Montgomery, Religious of the Sacred
Heart sister and teacher from New York City; Molly Rush, mother and founder
of the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh and John Schuchardt, ex-marine,
lawyer, father and member of Jonah House, entered the General Electric
Nuclear Missile Re-entry Division in King of Prussia, PA where nose cones for the
Mark 12A warheads were made.

They hammered on two nose cones, poured blood on documents and offered
prayers for peace. They were arrested and initially charged with over ten
different felony and misdemeanor counts. In February 1981, they underwent a
jury trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania. During their trial they were denied a
"justification defense" and could not present expert testimony. Due to the Court's
suppression of individual testimony about the Mark 12A and U.S. nuclear war-
fighting policies, four left the trial and returned to witness at G.E. They were re-
arrested and returned to court. They were convicted by a jury of burglary,
conspiracy and criminal mischief and sentenced to prison terms of five to ten
years. They appealed and the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed their s.
conviction in February 1984. The State of Pennsylvania then appealed that
decision.    Following a ruling in the fall of 1985 by the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court in favor of the State on certain issues (including the exclusion of the
justification defense), the case was returned to the Superior Court Appeals
Panel. In December of 1987, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania refused their
appeal, but ordered a re-sentencing. This ruling, however, was appealed to the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In February 1989 the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court denied a hearing of any further issues in the case, and on October 2, 1989
the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would not hear the Plowshares Eight
Appeal.

On April 10, 1990 the Plowshares Eight were resentenced by the Pennsylvania
Court of Common Pleas in Norristown and, with neither the prosecutor nor G.E.
making any recommendations or asking reparations, paroled for up to 23 and
1/2 months in consideration of time already served in prison. Judge James
Buckingham listened attentively to statements by defendants, attorney
Ramsey Clark, Dr. Robert J. Lifton, and Professors Richard Falk and Howard
Zinn, placing the "crime" in the context of the common plight of humanity,
international law, America’s long tradition of dissent, and the primacy of
individual conscience over entrenched political system.
CONTROL ROOM
WHERE THE CODES
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LAST SECOND
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