By Leonard Eiger (on the 77th anniversary of the Trinity Test)
Trinity, understood by most of Christianity as the union of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in one God, was co-opted on July 16, 1945 when the United States government exploded the first nuclear weapon over the desert sands of New Mexico in what scientists called the Trinity test. Thus (officially) began the atomic age, and this unholy Trinity was its ungodly offspring.
It was 5:29:45 AM at the Alamogordo Test Range, on the Jornada del Muerto (Journey of Death) desert, in the test named Trinity, in which the experimental device known as the “Gadget” was detonated, creating a light “brighter than a thousand suns.” A mere 6 kilogram (13.2 pound) sphere of plutonium, compressed to supercriticality by the surrounding high explosives, created an explosion equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT (20 Kilotons).
Was this, as thought nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the beginning of the end? These scientists had “become death”, and they had created what could become (quite literally) “the destroyer of worlds”(Oppenheimer quoted a verse from the Bhagavad Gita which read, “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”). These phsysicists, chemists, mathematicians, and many other scientists had assumed the role of gods.
Less than one month after the Trinity test, the United States dropped two atomic bombs – on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – that killed over 100,000 people in less time than it took me to type a few of these words. As many as 220,000 were dead from the effects of radiation by the end of 1945. Even today, 77 years later, survivors and subsequent generations suffer the effects of radiation.
Father George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force, served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and gave them his blessing. Over the subsequent years, Father Zabelka came to a clear understanding of what he had done and how wrong he had been. In his own words, “As an Air Force chaplain I painted a machine gun in the loving hands of the nonviolent Jesus, and then handed this perverse picture to the world as truth. I sang “Praise the Lord” and passed the ammunition. As Catholic chaplain for the 509th Composite Group, I was the final channel that communicated this fraudulent image of Christ to the crews of the Enola Gay and the Boxcar.”
So began a journey that has led humanity down the perilous road of preparation for its own destruction. Scientists have continued to seek the power of gods, creating ever more destructive nuclear devices over the years, and military planners continue asking for more of these awful weapons in every shape and form (and method of delivery). Good Christians worked in every level of the nuclear weapons complex, from development, production, maintenance, deployment, and preparation for use in what Noam Chomsky calls the Terminal War.
As the United States and the Soviet Union fought the Cold War from their respective development laboratories and weapons factories, planners on each side continuously struggled to stay ahead of the other. Somewhere along the way, someone got the bright idea that submarines loaded with nuclear tipped missiles were the perfect way to keep the enemy guessing. After all, a sub bristling with nuclear weapons could sneak around the seven seas, ready to launch an attack, totally surprising the enemy.
Trident was the culmination of this demonic drive – the ultimate first strike weapon; today some of the 14 Trident nuclear submarines, loaded with Trident D5 missiles, silently roam the seas, ready to launch their deadly missiles on the order of the President of the United States. Just one of these submarines would, if it were to launch all its missiles armed with a full complement of 455 kiloton warheads (rather than the puny 90 kiloton model), unleash the equivalent of nearly 7000 Hiroshimas (the Hiroshima bomb was between 12.5 and 15 kilotons), and could kill hundreds of millions of people. What madness is this?
Yet, while tens of thousands of people labored to develop and build this system of mass destruction (Trident), others worked to resist the madness – to let others know that we were preparing the seeds of our own destruction. For Trident, it all began with the early 1970’s when a missile designer named Bob Aldridge was at Lockheed Missiles and Space Corporation working on the first Trident missile design. Bob recognized something about the maneuvering reentry vehicle that he was designing; it was designed “to home-in on underground missile silos in a nuclear first strike” (Ground Zero Newsletter, Vol. 7, Issue 3, July 2002). Bob’s conscience got the better of him (something that has not happened to the vast majority of nuclear weapons scientists or engineers), and after a family retreat following Christmas 1972 Bob submitted his resignation letter to Lockheed.
A year later Bob met with Jim and Shelley Douglass and told them of his remarkable journey from missile designer to student of nonviolence, and briefed them on the plans to create what would be known as Sub Base Bangor (West Coast home of the new Trident fleet) on the shores of the Hood Canal in Washington State, just 20 miles from Seattle. And so the seeds of Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action were sown by a person with the courage to follow his convictions.
In 1977 Jim Douglass and John Williams found 3.8 acres of land with a small house right next to the Bangor fence. What a find! A year later (the first Trident missile was deployed in October 1979) Bob Aldridge sent Jim and Shelley Douglass an urgent letter warning of the first strike threat that Trident represented. First strike meant that Trident would likely be used to deliver a preemptive surprise attack of overwhelming force on the Soviet Union (not a pretty picture).
Jim and Shelley Douglass, and many others continued building the Ground Zero community (which was preceded by the Pacific Life Community) as they worked in common resistance to Trident; blocking the railroad tracks on which the “White Trains” brought the nuclear warheads, leafletting at the gates of Bangor and blocking the gate, and building awareness of the dangers (as well as the immorality and illegality) of Trident and all nuclear weapons. That resistance continues to this day!
Today, 77 years after Trinity, we stand at the precipice. We continue to pay lipservice to (and even abrogate some) previous nuclear weapon treaties, which our nation has signed and ratified, and continue to stonewall the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). For all the talk of warhead reductions since the height of the Cold War, the warheads currently ready to end civilation as we know it are the most deadly accurate nuclear weapons ever, and are capable of ending life on earth in a full scale nuclear TERMINAL war between the U.S. and Russia.
While Russia continues its brutal war on Ukraine, its priests bless its demonic nuclear arsenal, further corrupting The Word and continuing, as is the case in many nations including the U.S., the collusion between Church and Empire.
Just think what would happen if the church, and its supposed followers of Jesus, categorically withdrew support for the war machine that continues to threaten humanity (and God’s creation). Father Zabelka, in his turning toward a true follower of the nonviolent Jesus, sums it up:
Each one of us becomes responsible for the crime of war by cooperating in its preparation and in its execution.. There’s no question about that. We’ve got to realize we all become responsible. Silence, doing nothing, can be one of the greatest sins.
Thank God that I’m able to stand here today and speak out against war, all war. The prophets of the Old Testament spoke out against all false gods of gold, silver, and metal. Today we are worshipping the gods of metal, the bomb. We are putting our trust in physical power, militarism, and nationalism. The bomb, not God, is our security and our strength. The prophets of the Old Testament said simply: Do not put your trust in chariots and weapons, but put your trust in God. Their message was simple, and so is mine.
We must all become prophets. I really mean that. We must all do something for peace. We must stop this insanity of worshipping the gods of metal. We must take a stand against evil and idolatry. This is our destiny at the most critical time of human history. But it’s also the greatest opportunity ever offered to any group of people in the history of our world—to save our world from complete annihilation. This includes the military. This includes the making of weapons. And it includes paying for the weapons.
May we heed the modern-day prophets who remind us that we (collectively) have the power to turn swords into plowshares.
Editor’s Note: You can read Father Zabelka’s speech (from which the above exerpts were taken) titled “Blessing the Bombs” given 40 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki athttps://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/nonviolence/blessing-the-bombs.
