 Okay. Well, welcome everybody. I'm so delighted, so many of you have signed up for this very special event. As we all know, this is a tribute to our beloved Daniel Ellsberg, who passed in June. Now, after his passing, there was a huge amount of public or huge amount of news stories, video stories, newspapers, and so on. And they almost all focused on him as a whistleblower. And the impact he had not only on the Nixon administration and helped to get rid of, helped to lead to Watergate and so on, but he also, you know, inspired many other whistleblowers. But what was missing in this is him as a nonviolent activist, which he was. And many of us here, who are in this webinar, were with him. Many of us were arrested with him, or participated with him, were inspired by him. And he oftentimes referred to us as his tribe. And so this is actually a webinar from his tribe about Dan. Anyway, just one thing I want to point out is about the chat. The chat's going to be open the whole time. We're not going to have enough time because we're all going to stick to five minutes or less. We're going to be open to, I mean, the chat will be open the whole time. And if you have your own stories about Dan, you know, feel free to put it into the chat. And if you want to, you can, you know, put your email address. And we're going to give this to Chris Oppie, who's a professor at UMass Amherst, who is writing a biography of Dan and has, you know, at UMass has his collected papers. And there's now an Ellsberg Center at UMass. At any rate, I'd like to now turn it over to Linda, who, in addition to being a professor at George Washington, actually organized a book party for Dan when his last book, Doomsday Machine, Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. Linda? Thank you very much, Robert. I am particularly honored to be able to introduce Patricia Ellsberg. Patricia is a social change activist, meditation teacher, life coach, and public speaker. She has worked tirelessly for peace, often at the side of her husband, Daniel. August days would have been their 53rd anniversary. Patricia? Thank you. Thank you so much. And it's such a joy and a privilege to be here intimately with his tribe and with the people watching this in the future or part of his tribe. Just he told me that again, I'd heard it, but not hadn't sunk in till I just heard it here in the introduction. But a month or two before he died, he said to me, my real tribe is people who put their body on the line. And that was so true. As you know, he got arrested roughly about 90 times. And each time I was with him often getting arrested, not all 90 by any means, but often. And I would never see him happier than being with his tribe and making a statement that he felt was so important because he'd been moved by people who were putting their bodies on the line, draft resistors and people who were getting arrested. And so he felt he was part of this bastard movement that could change things and could make people wake up to the horrors of what we were doing. And so it was this, he'd wake up early, you know, we'd have to get to Livermore at 730, wake up with not an early riser in general. He was a night out. He'd wake up and get dressed and get and just put on his suit and tie so that he would represent, which he didn't wear in Berkeley ever, the rarest of occasions, so that he would be representing the military establishment that he had been part of. So he was very proudly, the only one dressed in his suit and tie at the arrest. But it just really warmed his heart to do this. And it's not an exaggeration to say his tribe. I mean, that is really what he felt and was nourished by. He was somebody who lived such a noble life. And amazingly, the time between getting the diagnosis and his time, which was about four months, was equally wonderful in its own way. I was there when he got the diagnosis the first time for terminal pancreatic cancer, to be aware enough that he could speak and give interviews. And he got enormous amounts of requests for interviews, which really pleased him to be able to give his message to the world for a much bigger outlet than had been true for recent decades. And he was surrounded by his family, his son and his daughter from his first marriage were able to come get off work. And so they were here off and on for much of the time. And his death, he was surrounded by all of all of his immediate family and two of his dearest friends. And he just died peacefully. And we were all saying we love you, Dan, we love you. And it's almost going to make me cry. It was so moving and so blessed. We stayed up, it was at 124 and we stayed up almost the rest of the night talking and telling stories. So his death was as blessed as his life. And I think he was able to die feeling, I did what I could. And I lived the best life I knew how. And I don't think there's a better way to die than that. So thank you so much, Patricia. I want to thank all of you and thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Here we are again. My wife Patricia was down here was, we were walking up here today and say, isn't this where people circle, deliver more back in the days? And I said, yes, so that was 1982, I believe. And actually my son had recalled that yesterday. He's 39 now, another figure here. My wife and I had our 46th wedding anniversary yesterday. So he's 39. And he said, weren't you, I told him I was coming out to Livermore. And he said, weren't you and mom in Santa Rita because of Livermore when I was a kid? I said, yes. You were out here yourself. He was five years old then. And when we were in Santa Rita, and how many people here were in Santa Rita then of the 1500? Look around, how many there are. I saw Gunther the clown just two days ago, a few days ago in Petaluma who had smuggled out an orange jumpsuit from prison when he was in with us. But anyway, I said, yes. You, when you were five, he didn't remember this precisely but he's seen the pictures of it, were in the line of people who encircled Livermore. I think it was organized by a Catholic worker or someone that encircled Livermore while we were in Santa Rita. And there was a picture of Michael who was five in that line with a sign, free mommy and daddy. Stop the MX. Actually, we did stop the MX. Amazing enough. If you remember that. I should also say that there is going to be, I understand, a memorial service online on October 22nd. Right. And I think everyone who signed up will be able to make sure you get an email telling you of it. Wonderful. Well, anyway, thank you. And that's one o'clock Pacific time. Okay, well, our next speaker is Bob Eaton. Bob has spent two years in prison as a draft resistor and had a very full career after that, doing, among other things, mapping and helping to destroy landmines around the world. But Bob played a very crucial role in Dan's evolution because it's important to know that Dan started out as a war, as an advocate for the war in Vietnam and was very much in favor of the military. But the example of Bob Eaton and Randy Keeler in 1969 helped to turn him around. So Bob, you're up. Thanks. I can't claim much responsibility for Dan Ellsberg. That would be way too much. I'm sort of the forest gump of the peace movement. I just happened to be there. The problem with death is it ends the conversation. But it never ends the questions. And in one of Dan's last interview, his recurring theme was courage is contagious. And that's true. I'd like to explore Dan's proposition in light of his decision to release the Pentagon Papers and his life of activism ever since. The first time I met Dan was at a peace conference in the spring of 1968, co-sponsored by the American Front Service Committee. And he recounted later that this was the first time that he had sat down with peace activists and had discussions. This was a guy who was working for the Rand Corporation. He was an ex-Marine. And this was the first time. And there were activists here who went way back into the 50s as members of the Golden Roll, a Quaker ship that tried to sail into the nuclear atmosphere testing zones in the Pacific. And little did he suspect at the time, of course, that he would end up spending most of his life warning the public about nuclear weapons and taking action against them. But the second time I met him was at a conference of the war resistors international at that held and have a foot college outside of Philadelphia on the eve of my sentencing for draft resistance. In present were pacifists and activists from around the world. Another draft resistor, Randy Keeler gave a talk the evening after my sentencing that moved Dan deeply. Dan found himself in a vigil line outside the federal courthouse while I was being sentenced. It was his first act. It was his first public act. And it wasn't an act of opposition to anything. More significantly, it was an act of solidarity. And one of the conference attenders was inside the courtroom with me. It was Pastor Martin Nemoller, a German Lutheran who spent most of World War II in one of Hitler's prisons. And he's most known for a poem he wrote after the war, which has been transcribed differently. But the poem goes, first they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionist and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. Dan wrote in his book secrets that that simple vigil quote, my first public action had freed me from a nearly universal fear inhibiting force, I think is very widely underestimated. I had become free of the fear of stepping out of line. I had joined a movement. I wish I could explore with Dan now his proposition that courage is contagious. In light of the events of Haverford and Philadelphia, the witness of Draftly Sisters going to prison no doubt was a was a contagion for him. But as I read the section of his book on these events, I would put it to him now that courage may be contagious, but the seedbed of courage is community and solidarity, a sense that we are a tribe, one with another. And I think Dan found that it's a war resist just conference and it changed his life as it has changed the lives of many of us. Thanks. Now it is my turn to introduce Don Mosley. Don is a committed peacemaker who has taken delegations and launched projects in many of the world's most troubled war zones from Central America and Africa to the Middle East and North Korea. He was a co-founder of Habitat for Humanity and has served in leadership positions of many other peace and justice organizations. He was one of the founders in 1979 of Jubilee Partners, a Christian community in northeast Georgia, which has hosted more than 4,000 refugees from wars and other disasters from 40 different countries. Take it away, Don. Well, thank you. What a privilege to be here among such a bunch of activists with many years of experience. And I just say that Bob's quotation just now really struck me in the context with Daniel Ellsberg when he said that courage is contagious. And along with courage, love is contagious and joyful action out there on the front, even when a train is rolling down the tracks toward you or whatever, that's contagious. And Dan had that effect on me. I was actually in South Georgia at Cornenia Farm, Cornenia Partners, back in all through the 70s. And I became more and more aware of Dan's actions and what he stood for. And I got probably more into all kinds of organizations, fellowship of reconciliation became national chairman and all kinds of things like that, partly because of the example that Dan gave. But the meeting that I had with Dan, which stands out most for me, I just want to quickly describe it here today. Being in South Georgia, I became aware of what was happening over at the Savannah River. Savannah River, thank you. It's really great to have a brain that's still with you a little bit. But the Savannah River plant, that caught my attention because it was not many miles away from where I was living. And oh, the amount of radioactivity that was being developed and then shipped out of there through cities up the highway on trucks, tons and tons and tons of radioactive material, plutonium being a big part of it. And so a friend of mine, Bill Ramsey, who may be on the call tonight, I hope he is, Bill and I came up with the idea in 1978 of trying to help blow the cover on these shipments because we felt that this was a crime to be hauling all that stuff through cities, Augusta, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Niceville, long up the way, and two rocky flats where it was then being put into weapons. And so we developed the idea of blowing that cover by having a highly publicized plutonium path caravan. I'm going to see if I can just for a second hold a picture up here. It's an actual photograph of the truck which we built. We rented a 16, 18 foot flatbed truck and then we put 15 barrels up on it and put radioactive signs all over them and put that 16 foot long sign across the top that we were following the radioactive transport route from the Savannah River Plant up to Rocky Flats. And we had press conferences over and over and over as we went through Augusta, Atlanta, and all the way on up. Well, we got a reaction. I mean, in fact, national news began to cover it. We had that effect, but something else that we had not quite anticipated we should have. God, I've been arrested not nearly as many times as Dan was, but I spent a lot of time in jail. But I knew that the government would not like this that we were doing. But then we had incident after incident where we were pretty certain that we were trying to be sabotaged in some way to stop this project that we had. Just briefly tell the most dramatic one was about halfway over to Rocky Flats, Bill Ramsey and I were taking turns driving that truck. Bill was at the steering wheel and I was sitting on the right reading a newspaper resting and all of a sudden, Bill went, Oh, no, no, no, no one started screaming and I looked up and saw the front end and then the bottom of an airplane as it dove right at our windshield. And obviously, he was trying to run us off the highway down a steep embankment that was right there beside us. And Bill, bless his heart, thank you, Bill. He managed to keep that truck on the highway and he did not go down the slope and flip us over and kill us or whatever. And we kept right on up toward Rocky Flats. And so we had several other incidents not quite that dramatic. But for me, the most dramatic thing other than the plane diving in our windshield almost was when we got to Rocky Flats and hundreds of people were there. We got their own schedule for a big demonstration at Rocky Flats. And number one person I was most excited to see was Daniel Ellsberg was there at that at that demonstration. And as we pulled our truck into the edge of the big demonstration, he said, I'd like to use your truck as my speaker's platform. And we said, absolutely, please do. And he climbed up onto the truck. That was his platform. And that's where I saw his courage. And so it be contagious. That's where I saw that smile of his reach out and get smiles from people all over and a growing determination from hundreds of people that were there. I don't remember how many exactly, but cheering and following his lead, it just made me feel this man is doing the kind of peacemaking which I, Don Mosley, I want to do this for the rest of my life. And it made all of our effort well worthwhile. So I thank the Lord for Daniel Ellsberg and for Patricia. It takes a strong wife also. My goodness, I am so grateful for both of you. Thank you. Thank you, Don. That was, that's, that's terrific. Next we have Ken Budigan, who's a lifelong activist. His current position is actually a professor of practice in the peace justice and conflict studies program at DePaul University. That's a very wonderful title to have. And it's an incredible thing that, you know, 50 years ago, such a such as position wouldn't exist. Anyway, he's written a number of books and is very active with Pache Bene. So take it away, Ken. Thanks so much, Robert. Thanks, Patricia and everyone. It's very moving to be together reflecting on this great human being, Daniel Ellsberg. And I thought I would mention a couple of things in terms of my own experience. I met Dan in 1972. I was a first year student at the University of San Diego. And he was going around the country raising awareness and fundraising around the trial around the release of the Pentagon Papers. And I was able to slither my way up to the front. And we had a wonderful exchange. And I was very moved by who he was. And then later in my activist life, he was very involved with a project that some of us helped move forward, which was the Pledge of Resistance. I thought I would focus today, though, on a specific action. And so on June 20, 1983, Dan joined a thousand people in nonviolent civil disobedience at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This protest was organized by the Livermore Action Group, or LAG, as part of the International Day of Nonviolent Disarmament. I took part in this action with my colleagues in Spirit Affinity Group. Now, typically, if a thousand people get arrested, they're usually not held very long. But in 1983, things were different. LAG had learned that the county prosecutor's plan was to impose not only jail time and fines, but two years of probation on those found guilty. If people violated that probation, that could mean heavy jail time. The plan was seen for what it was by most activists, an attempt to impose a chilling effect to hobble the growing movement. LAG, therefore, encouraged all those risking arrest to withhold their names while being booked. By not giving our names, the county had to hold us. LAG's theory was that if most of us stayed in jail, the pressure would build for the sheriff and prosecutors to strike probation from the penalties. Dan, like many of us, withheld his name. He, like many of us, was shuffled off to stay in what came to be called the circus tents, because the National Guard had been sent in to set up large tents to hold hundreds of men in one part of the jail and hundreds of women in another. Now, three things stand out for me regarding Daniel Ellsberg during our incarceration. First, what a lecturer. He presented a series of presentations on the nuclear national security state. These were sparkling analyses that helped all of us who were sitting in jail for a particular reason to understand that reason much more deeply than we had. Second, as the days passed, the action we were doing by staying put drew more and more attention, including when ABC's Nightline program decided to broadcast a debate from the jail between Dan and the local prosecutor. This happened in spite of the fact that Ellsberg hadn't given his name. But the third thing I recall was Dan's understanding of how important this kind of resistance is, which accounted for his willingness in this case, and in about 90 other cases, to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. He had made this point in the book, Protest and Survive in 1981. In this book, he made an analogy between public consent for nuclear weapons and mass suicide that had taken place at Jonestown in Guyana in 1979. For Ellsberg, acceptance of hair trigger, first strike nuclear weaponry, paralleled, quote, what the Reverend Jim Jones wanted with his suicide drills in Guyana, rehearsing his followers and the gestures of sacrificing their children and themselves, training them to react passively to his message, which was, trust me, this time it's only a drill. Ellsberg was convinced that it's up to us to break the spell of this passivity and consent. But this depends, as we've heard already tonight, on what he called contagious courage. His own experience of conversion after seeing in real time people like Randy Keeler and Bob Eaton, deciding for jail instead of war, convinced him that acts of resistance were critically important in themselves and empowering others. This point was driven home to me at the very end of the action. After 10 days, the district attorney threw in the towel and dropped the two-year probation penalty. There was a $250 fine, but that could be paid off by staying in additional six days in jail, which many people did, including Dan. We still had to go to round the clock arraignments. I remember vividly the young man who was called up right before me. He said, your honor, I did this action totally as a lark. I had never been political. I had never thought about nuclear weapons before. But now, after learning about this movement, after living with other men in a nonviolent way for two whole weeks, and especially by learning so much about the realities of our world from Daniel Ellsberg, I am now an anti-nuclear activist. The judge visibly blanched on hearing this declaration. Thank you. I'm really glad now to introduce David Hartzahl. David was a good friend of Daniel Ellsberg, and he's co-founder of World Beyond War and Nonviolent Peace Force. He's the former director of Peace Workers and is a lifelong nonviolent activist for peace and justice. He's also the author of Waging Peace, Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist. Please join us, David. Thank you, Linda. And so glad to have this wonderful community of friends and of Dan's tribe. I'm just going to share a few short stories about our time together with Dan. Back in early 1987, we got word that there was a ship loading up at Concord Naval weapons station at Port Chicago with enough ammunition to kill 20,000 people. And the peace navy that I was a part of, our goal was to try to make San Francisco a place that shared love and peace around the world, not death and destruction. So we decided to try to block that ship. And I called Dan, as I often did, when there was some crucial opportunity to say no to the madness. And I said, Dan, I've got a small nine-foot sailboat. Would you like to join me? And of course, he said yes. Well, we sailed a couple of miles down the Port Chicago and found this ship. And by that time, the weather was pretty severe. There were big waves and swells. And once a wave came from the wrong direction, and we capsized in the water, cold water. And the media had heard that Dan was going to be out there in the water and wanted to get some perfect photographs. So they were in a boat and asked the captain to back up so they could get the perfect photo. And when he did, it made a great big hold in the water. Dan and I both had life jackets and holding each other's hands. And that's all pulled Dan down in the water. And luckily, we still had hands holding hands. And I pulled him back up. The media got their perfect photo. And the next day, the headlines were the media boat saves Dan Ellsberg's life. Well, I think it almost killed him. And I think I played a little role in helping save it. But so much for the media always telling the truth. Well, soon after, Brian Wilson and people in the Nuremberg formed what was called Nuremberg actions because we found that really almost every week, ships were going to Central America loaded with bombs and munitions to fund those wars. And on September 1st of 87, as many of you remember, the train carrying those munitions ran over Brian. It was a very strong message. Don't mess with our wars. And Brian, unfortunately, lost both legs. But it did not stop the movement. Instead of stopping those actions, nonviolent actions that Dan was often a part of, we continued to block every train carrying munitions for two and a half years. And when I went to Central America, a year or so later, in small villages in El Salvador, Nicaragua, people had heard about Brian Wilson and Daniel Ellsberg risking their lives. They felt the pain. They understood the pain and suffering that the people in Central America were going through and were willing to risk their lives to try to stop it. There were over a thousand arrests and some people fasted long term, 40-day fast. Some people spent a number of months in jail. Well, so again, Dan played a very important role. He said in an interview, he said, I will be sitting on the tracks today. Others will be sitting other days. We will not stop the trains from running ourselves by sitting on these tracks. As I used to say when I sat on the tracks outside Rocky Flats, we can't stop the trains from running with the nuclear material. Only American people can do that. That is what they must do. But we can wake them up to their need to do that. With what we are doing, we can ensure that they cannot run those trains without having to arrest us. So, Dan spoke his truth not only so powerfully in words, but with his life. And I give deep thanks for Dan's life and example for all of us. Thank you, David. I know he is going to be accompanying us as we continue his work. Thank you, David. Thank you very much. Amazing stories. Now, we have heard a lot about Rocky Flats. And Chesowski, if I mispronounced it, was a founding member of the Rocky Flats truth force in 1978, which for I think almost a decade worked against the madness that was going on there. And he's also, he worked for the American Friends Service Committee for a number of years, and has continued to be an activist his whole life. So, Chet, take it away. Thanks very much, Robert. And I have a request to Robert or John. I think the video, the three-minute video we showed at the beginning, was missed by hundreds of people now on this call because it started so early. I'd give up my time right now to re-queue that video if you can do it quickly. Robert, John, can you do that? I can't. John? Why don't you keep talking? I'll see if I can do it. All right. Well, I will do that by switching to my screen share. And I'm going to show a few pictures as I talk. And somebody tell me whether you can see this. Perfect. Okay, great. Well, John, I hope you can get that queued up because I think it tells the story of Rocky Flats and Dan's involvement there in a really coherent way. But I'm going to try and summarize my experience beginning with the demonstration at Rocky Flats that was mentioned earlier on April 28, 1978. And most of you know Rocky Flats was the place that they assembled the pits for the triggers for all of the U.S. nuclear weapons. Some of you may not know that between 1978 and by June of 1989, the movement had created some success. You may know that the FBI raided the plant. The U.S. Justice Department opened an investigation and a federal grand jury voted to indict DOE and Rockwell Managers for an ongoing criminal conspiracy. So Rocky Flats is now closed. But here's how it started. In April 1978, 6,000 anti-nuclear protesters rallied at the West Gate while 200 people prepared to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. So Bob, are John any luck? Just keep talking. I will bring it up as quickly as I can. So the big demonstration on April 28, 1978 led to a civil disobedience that involved about 200 people. But some people started to talk about staying longer than the planned one night for a symbolic civil disobedience, this guy in particular. After that first night, almost all about 35 of us had left because it started raining and then snowing and it was freezing, really difficult conditions. So out of that formed the Rocky Flats Truth Force. About 35 people who decided that they would make this occupation a permanent occupation and shut down Rocky Flats and therefore the nuclear arms race by our presence on the tracks. There's Dan, of course, always strategic, always planning, but there were things that were hard to plan for. I'm skipping around here some on my slides to show you the snow that started that night eventually drove away most people. And so Rockwell and the DOE decided to try and ignore us, thinking that we would be driven away by the raging blizzard. But that just created more media attention and community support. We had more food than we could eat, more tents than we could use. And eventually reinforcements started to join this on the tracks. After a few days, the DOE and Rockwell decided they had to arrest people and get them off the tracks. So there's Dan on his way to the bus where we were glad to be because we were out of the snow finally and taken to the Jefferson County Courthouse and Jail in Golden. Here's some more shots of Dan the snow. But they quickly released everyone and thinking that nobody in their right mind would do anything but go home. But guess where he wanted to go? He went right back out to Rocky Flats. The snow was still there. Now it's two feet deep and further reinforcements showed up and reestablished an occupation with snow forks. And so the tracks at Rocky Flats were still blocked and the word was spreading across the globe and people were joining the Rocky Flats Truth Forest around the world. Eventually they had to arrest the second group, the second wave of protesters. And they came in on the back of a railroad train and they had told us they didn't use the tracks but that day it was the most convenient way to get to us through the snow. So they came in like a super posse with the media there and arrested everyone again. John, any luck? I think I can do it but finish up what you're doing. Okay, I'll try and wrap up real quick then. So the reinforcements continued to come. The weather improved. Summer came or may came anyway. And then Dan's son Robert showed up and joined Dan on the tracks and then in jail where Robert fasted for a considerable amount of time and the game of cat and mouse of blocking the railroad tracks at Rocky Flats continued for one full year, 24 hours a day. But at one point Dan said that he felt he had to leave because it was getting close to his son Michael's first birthday in Berkeley. And so Dan went to call Patricia at the local bar. There's only one pay phone anywhere near this place where we were. And she said, Dan, I think you should stay. And so we decided to have a birthday party for Michael on the tracks. And recently I discovered in the wonderful archives that you mass the Ellsberg archives this Western Union Telegram that Patricia and Michael sent to Dan, which reads to Daniel Ellsberg, Rocky Flats, Truth Force, AFSC, Denver, Colorado, Michael Gabriel's first words will be close Rocky Flats. We send blessings and love. And with that, John, if you can close your sharing and I can try it. Hey, John, John, I don't think we can do that now. Okay. Most of the people, I mean, we showed the film at the very beginning and anybody it was on time saw it. We might play it afterwards, but we can't, you know, we've got plenty of other speakers. Okay. I just think it'd be respectful for you. Yes. That's that's what I think. But we but we will be able to show it afterwards. You know, for anybody who wants to stay later who arrived later. Okay. I think Linda, it's back to you, right? Yeah. So, Chet, wow, that's an amazing story. And thanks for sharing those incredible photos. We're going to turn now to John Hink. He's a member of the board of upstream and environmental nonprofit championing reuse and the circular economy. He's a former member of the Portland City Council. And John served three terms representing Portland in the main state legislature. In 1979, John co-founded Greenpeace USA and later was in charge of the worldwide program for Greenpeace International. John, it's up to you. Thanks for that introduction. It's an honor to be here. I only met Daniel Ellsberg once. It was very intense. The date was Monday, April 7th, 1986. And many of us were focused on an atomic test that was going to take place in the Nevada test site. So we were in Las Vegas then. There had been a group hiking into the test site to get to ground zero and stop this test. The test was codenamed Mighty Oak. The U.S. government hadn't admitted it was happening, but eventually they did have to admit it. We had inside information. And it was scheduled for Tuesday, April 8th at 8 a.m. The reason why it was consequential was the Soviet Union had stopped testing on August 6th of the prior year and proposed a moratorium and the United States was ignoring it. When we got to this time period, the Soviet Union had said they would start again if the United States tested one more time. And that was this test scheduled called Mighty Oak. And the six people that were hiking in were given a phone call when they were arrested and they called us in San Francisco and said we were seized. We were taken. It's over. We're done. And back in Las Vegas, we cried for a little while. And then we said, what can we do? And the idea was instead of going in over time, hiking, hiding, we would just drive straight in to the test site. Now this test site is a size of Rhode Island and surrounded on three sides by an Air Force base. We had old maps and we wanted to make this trip. And who was there? But Daniel and nuclear freeze people and they were pretty determined to go in. And we were a little concerned. You know, the place is radioactive in many spots. There's rattlesnakes. There's desert conditions. And we're going to try this thing with no advanced plan. Who wants to do it? Daniel. So we get six people, three green pieces. Daniel and two of his nuclear freeze folks and get into a four-wheel drive vehicle. And it starts the very long drive that night to get to the test site in the northeast corner to drive another 60 miles to get in. We taped up the brake lights so they wouldn't be spotted. And the drive started. They took a wrong turn. Time is running out. They took a wrong turn, but fortunately ran into some prospector or something out there who asked what they were doing. And they said, oh, we're looking for wild horses. And the prospectors say, oh good, you can see him just heading this direction. But don't go that way. That's the government testing ground. You don't want to go there. So as soon as he was gone, the car turned around and headed in the direction. He told us not to go. Apparently as you're getting within five miles, there was a new fence. This one a little bit more substantial. Time is running out. Daylight had broken. They decided to just run through the fence. Of course, Daniel was in favor of that. They ran right through the fence. Now what they're running through is fake cities, fake tanks that was used for a testing ground to demonstrate what happens with nuclear weapons. And it was at this point three choppers showed up. One landed right in front of them. Men got out with automatic weapons. All of the people jump out of the Jeep, start to run. The guys with the automatic weapons are serious, telling them they have the right to shoot. People stopped. The strategy was to have buddies. So people were sometimes stopped because of their buddy. One guy, his name is Steve Loper, ran full speed away into the desert. It's now 7.30 with an eight o'clock test time scheduled. And when it comes to eight that morning, they have an unsecured test site. They have five people under arrest. They have one person who's not under arrest. They canceled the test. Then they lied about it. They said it was the weather. There was no wind that morning. The weather did not interfere at all. The protesters interfered. Daniel was arrested. Five others were arrested. They didn't know where Steve Loper was. They took Daniel and crew to Bady, Nevada. Very long drive through the desert. And they didn't know what had been going on outside. But there were protesters at the front gate and hundreds were arrested. And the crew from the vehicle, including Daniel, were taken to a gymnasium where all these hundreds of arrestees were. And when they saw the five protesters who'd stopped the test, there was a standing ovation. I would have loved to have been there. But that was just another moment in Daniel's long career and a glorious one. Another group of people stopped the test the next day. And then they blew the test and ended the moratorium. But it was the best efforts of dedicated people. And among them, everyone's friend, Daniel Ellsberg. Thank you so much. What a story. That's one of many stories that I don't think very many people have ever heard before. So that's fabulous. And both you and what Chet said were unusual. Well, remarkable stories. Remarkable. And now we've got Maria Leah Kelly, who has been, for the last 40 years, the executive director of the Livermore-based Tri Valley CARES, which is the organization, a local organization that's been fighting the production of nuclear weapons at Livermore, California. And she is just stepping down as executive director is going to become a, quote, senior advisor. But at any rate, Maria Leah, I know that there's also a video that I believe Ellen is going to show. So do you want the video before or after you speak? It doesn't matter to me. Why not after? Okay, great. I'm sorry. Is that the Johnstone video? That's the only other video I have queued up. I don't have Maria Leah's video as far as I know. I'll just mention it then. It's fine. So let me go ahead. Thank you, everybody, for letting me be here. I feel honored and I feel injured. And I'm going to, in a way, Tri Valley CARES began as an affinity group with the Livermore Action Group. So I'm, in a way, knitting back to Ken Budigan's talk and some of the others. But I'm going to bring it a little more into the present. Each August, Tri Valley CARES and a half dozen additional Bay Area peace and justice groups organize a rally and nuclear weapons protest at the Livermore Lab, which, as you probably gathered, is one of two locations that designs every new nuclear weapon in the United States stockpile, and that is today busy designing several new warheads. So almost every year for decades, Dan had been a keynote speaker and has risked arrest, sharing not only his expertise at the rallies and protests that also commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but sharing generously of his energy with all of us. And almost every year, Patricia has also graced our demonstration, and often they came on their wedding anniversary, depending on the calendar. We almost always did it on a weekday, so it would be witnessed. We were right at the gates, witnessed by the workers trying to come into work that day. And there are many, many stories to tell, and I've heard some really great sweeping historical, heartwarming stories. And so I think what I'll do is share a small vignette that I believe shines a light on Daniel Ellsberg, the man. This goes back some decades now. A group of us from all of these peace and justice groups with me from Tri Valley Cares, we're organizing the event. And you've been in these meetings, you take on different tasks. And so one of my many tasks was to call Dan and see if he would be a keynote speaker, which he had been at that point many years in the past and would be many years in the future. But I'm a little bit formal when you call someone and ask them to be a keynote speaker. I asked in that in that terms, and Dan said in the sweetest, most generous, most beautiful voice, of course, I would love to, I'm going to be there with you anyway. There was a humility in that, that I could feel coming through the phone. And now, of course, I understand it differently hearing so much and from Patricia so beautifully about how we are all Dan's tribe. But we're all Dan's tribe in a very beautiful, non hierarchical way. And I think that shows the man. And I'll just end by saying this past August 4, we did our Hiroshima Nagasaki on a Friday. So the workers would see us. We were very gifted to have Patricia with us. So let me thank her personally here. And in addition to the vigil, which is what we did this year, and the honoring of Dan, we created a video with excerpts from six of Dan's many talks at Livermore Lab over the years. And so I will just let everybody know that if you want to go to Tri Valley Cares, you know, TRI, V-A-L-L-E-Y-C-A-R-E-S, like it's all one word, TriValleyCares.org, look through our What's New and our blogs, you will find a link to it. And I want to say not only to watch it for yourself and with your friends and family, but please do that. But if you're organizing anything, if you are preparing any public thing on Dan, this film is meant for you. This film is intended so that you can grab any excerpt from it that you want. You know, don't take it as our property, take it as public property. And you know, with that, Dan and everything else, Dan will long live on. He'll continue to inspire people. And yes, we will achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons and move into much greater peace, justice and sanity. Thank you. Thank you, Mary-Lia. Sorry, we couldn't show the video, but I think we'll be able to, when we send a message out telling people how they can see the recording of this, we can also put a link to the videos. Now, Tarek Kauf is going to speak. He's the editor-in-chief of Peace and Planet News. He's a paratrooper in the US Army from 1959 to 62. He's a lifelong member and, or lifetime member and former board member of Veterans for Peace. And I know that Ellen has a video as well, and I'll let the two of you figure out how to integrate that into what he has to say. Thank you. I am so honored, and I feel blessed to even be here. Veterans for Peace, like so many, loved Dan. He was one of us, a veteran. We respected him for all that he did, but loved him for who he was. He showed the world how to live with courage and joy, even in the darkest times. He always smiled when getting arrested, which was often losing him smiling and flashing a peace sign behind his back when in handcuffs was absolutely priceless. He was a man who was acutely aware of the dark threatening times we live in, the threat of nuclear war, climate change, a looming totalitarian state, and he faced all that. But his existence transcended all the darkness, a profound humanity, and a life of principled resistance. He asked, is it worth risking one's life, one's freedom, in company with others, simply to avert greater disasters? Answering that question, he said, I would say yes. Absolutely, of course it is. His close friend Howard Zinn wrote, to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of all that is bad around us is itself a marvelous victory. Dan did that so well. He was to the rest of us a brilliant light unto that darkness. His life was also a testament for truth and the First Amendment as he stood up for Julian Assange, Daniel Hale, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, Edward Snowden, and all whistleblowers. He was a rare human being, truly a spiritual giant who loved and cared for others more than himself. Yet he was always approachable, always one of us. He was a friend and a brother to everyone in veterans for peace. I remember him writing to say how much he appreciated the special Ukraine edition of Peace and Planet News. He wrote that he was bowled over. Just to hear that from someone like Dan was huge, and he always signed his emails, love, Dan, as if you were family. Dan was always there for all of us. I especially remember his presence as a speaker and a participant for an anti-war demonstration we did on December 16th, 2010, at the White House. We climbed over the barriers the police had set up, and then Dan climbed up onto the White House fence ledge with the rest of us as the snow came down in big flakes and got arrested with over 130 war resistors. The night before that action, he spoke to a large crowd of mostly veterans. As I announced him, the crowd went wild. I'm not exaggerating. They just loved him. He came on stage and gave me a big hug. I will forever carry that memory. I'll end with a short clip from that night. He showed by example how to live, and as we all know, face death with the same dignity, joy, and love that he lived with. Daniel Ellsberg presented. On the aisles, people had to resemble her just like this, and it's students mainly, and I was the last speaker, and I find myself getting up in front of this very crowded group and asking how many people there have seen the movie Little Big Man. I said, you know, in Little Big Man, you remember, and they'd all just seen it. He said, the slogan went right through it. It's the saying of the shoe, the Lakota shoe. Come, brothers, it's a good day to die. And I said, you know, it's never a good day to die, but I think May 1st is a good day to get arrested. Thank you all. Thank you, Dane. Linda, I think you're up. Pardon me. Well, thank you very much. That was really such a heartfelt contribution. I'd like to introduce now Jody Evans and Medea Benjamin. Jody Evans and Medea Benjamin are co-founders of the anti-war organization Code Pink. Jody Evans also started the after-school writing program 826LA. She's the co-editor of Twilight of Empire, Responses to Occupation, and Stop the Next War Now, Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism. She's a contributor to Beautiful Trouble, a toolbox for evolution. And she's currently writing a book about divesting from unjust extractive war economy and building a just sustainable peace economy. She also runs Code Pink's China is Not Our Enemy campaign. Medea, also co-founder, she helped create Global Exchange, a pioneer in travel to Cuba and a fair trade advocacy group. She is the author of 10 books, including her latest War in Ukraine, Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict. Please join us, Jody and Medea. Thank you so much. Your stories have all been so inspiring. Thank you. My love to you, Patricia. What a great loss to all of us, but I know what it's like to be a widow and the loss of a great love. So I send you love. Some of my favorite times with Dan were during Most Dangerous Man in America award season. Patricia, you were both having so much fun and taking beautiful care of each other, raising up the power and importance of a whistleblower that had to be covered by mainstream media because the movie was so good. One of my memories is when we didn't win the Emmy and we were walking out and another winner handed his Emmy to Daniel and said, you should have won. Your story is a story we all need to know about this country. So yes, courage is contagious and inspiring, and I caught it early. My relationship with Dan started in 1971 when he released the papers. My stepfather had been on two tours of duty in Vietnam as an F-100 fighter pilot. When he read the Pentagon papers, he cried and resigned from the Air Force two years before his retirement at the dismay of my poor mother, and I would say my stepfather never recovered. I was also at the time engaged as an antiwar activist, and then it felt like the papers might have had something to do with pushing Congress to give us 18-year-olds the right to vote just days later. The fastest constitutional amendment has blown through Congress. My next relationship with Dan was through the stories of my husband, Max. He was one of the major donors to Dan's legal defense and co-hosted a fundraiser to raise more money. The event was attended by the fancied and money of Hollywood, where Max was a producer, Barbara Streisand, and the Beatles were there. Barbara offered to sing a song for $5,000 a song, and the donations just poured in as people called relatives on the house phone, and Barbara sang the requested songs. Lovely to remember a time when the anti-war movement had such a breadth and depth. It was during our time in Iraq when Madi and I talked about the need for more whistleblowers. We saw what was happening, but the media refused to tell the stories, so it was an honor to be executive producer on the film about our dill whistleblower, Dan. The first edit wasn't working, but then we wove Patricia into the story, and it became the award-winning film it is. The story of Patricia's love of the people of the world and their need for peace and Dan's love of Patricia. It is a story of a couple holding each other through the rough waters of confronting power, and my experience of Dan in his activism is that at the core was always love. He was brilliant and could vision the next steps, organize the movement and write and speak the brilliant needed words, but at the core it was love, and love is courage. His interview was also never ending. Oh, he would get tired, but he would never think of how tired he was going to be when saying yes to the request from the movement. I remember waking him at 4 a.m. in Mexico to tell him about Ed Snowden, and just a few hours later he was on Amy Goodman, or when Nancy Mencius and Code Pink was successful in getting Chelsea Manning, who was in prison, to be the Grand Marshal of the Pride Parade in San Francisco. Dan was a roaring yes to represent for Chelsea as Grand Marshal, hot pink bow around his neck, waving from the convertible to the crowd. In February, Dan was a guest on our Code Pink Summit on Ukraine. He had received the news about his cancer just days before. He was generous as always, exposing and alerting the audience to the dangers of nuclear war. The end of his message was emphatic and emotional. We must all be more vocal, more visible, more courageous, and even make power more uncomfortable. So I turned to Medea for what that can look like for all of us. Thank you for including me. Thank you so much, Jody, and for everybody for this beautiful, beautiful tribute. I want to end our little section here with the call to action around Ukraine. We were all working on such critical issues, and when I was writing the book, War in Ukraine, I called Dan to get his advice. And it was amazing how clear he was. He was so angry at the Russians for having invaded, and he said he was sure they were committing war crimes. But he was so angry at the United States for having set the scene for this war, for sabotaging peace talks, and for keeping the American people in a state of ignorance. He called the U.S. policy one of insanity and a par with QAnon. And he said the U.S. policy was a crime against humanity. And I remember he said, well, it's great you're writing the book, but what are you doing to organize people? That's what we have to do. And we organize the Peace in Ukraine coalition, which people can see just by going to that website, peaceinukraine.org, over 100 organizations and individuals can join. And in Dan's fashion, we are organizing a week of actions October, the first week of October, which will include sit-ins and dynes, because Dan knew that you couldn't just knock politely on the door, especially of our Congresspeople at a time when there is not one Democrat in Congress who is with us on calling to an end to weapons and instead calling for a ceasefire and for negotiations. So we have a lot of work to do, whether it's in the offices of our dear Barbara Lee or our dear Bernie Sanders, we've got a lot of convincing to do. Let's do it with Dan's spirit, which is a spirit of love. Thank you. Thank you, Jody and Medea. What a wonderful conclusion or almost conclusion of the evening and wonderful tributes of all of these. But David Hartso is going to tell one more anecdote that gives another just yet another angle about Dan. And I think that if it's possible, we could, after that, we will play the poem to conclude the webinar. But if it's possible, after that, John, to play the introductory video. Sure. Okay, so why don't we do it? So you want to do it after the poem? Yes, I think so, because a lot of the people, I think most of the people probably watched the initial video. So it'll be afterwards. But anyway, and so did you have anything else you wanted to say first, or should we go to David? No, just that. I mean, you guys did a tremendous job. I don't know. This is the first time we've ever had a router go out. So whether pure coincidence or not. And I'll, you know, hopefully we'll, it didn't interrupt anybody's participation in this program. It may affect what we have as a recording. But we'll see. We'll see. Okay. David, why don't you go ahead and then Linda will give us an introduction to the poem. And Robert, are you going to be reading Hans's presentation? He was going to do it in person? No. No, that's not happening. Okay. Well, I just wanted to mention that Patricia was also arrested with Stan at the Livermore Labs on that day when a thousand of us were arrested and spent the two weeks or so in the women's side. And their son, who was just over one or whatever, came to a demonstration outside Livermore with the sign, bring mom and daddy home. So well, I think almost every day in the last almost 50 years since the Pentagon papers, Dan was focusing so much of his energy on trying to end every war that kept happening and trying to work for the abolition of all nuclear weapons. Well, when the Iraq war started, the shock and awe of bombing of Baghdad in March 19, 2003, Dan and I and hundreds of others blocked downtown San Francisco and the financial district was closed for, I think, three days. And that was a powerful experience. Well, on the anniversary of the beginning of that bombing, every year, we would have a die-in on Market Street and we'd have a memorial service for the children that had been killed in Iraq that week with flowers. And anyway, eventually we were arrested and Dan and I were arrested by the same policemen. And on the way to the van, the policemen said, you know, I bet that 80% of the police in San Francisco agree with you. And then we went to the jail and the person fingerprinting Dan said, you know, this it's a real honor to be fingerprinting you, Daniels, Danielsburg. And then Dan and I were put in the same cell. And interestingly enough, the jail guards from all over the jail came one by one to our cell to to meet this amazing man. And many of them said, thank you, Mr. Ellsberg, for your life of speaking truth and sanity and our foreign policies. Well, I think that Dan has influenced people all over the world and inspired us. And it's going to take all of us continue to continue where Dan left off. And I agree that Dan's whole life was one of love, not only for people in this tribe, but really for all people in the world. And that was what motivated him to keep working so hard for the abolition of all nuclear weapons and all war. Thank you, Dan Ellsberg. Thank you so much, David. I'm sure as everyone has, as we've listened to these testimonies and remembrances, we've all gone through a range of emotions. Now, there's nothing like poetry to kind of crystallize these emotions and bring us to a deeper understanding. We're going to turn now to a video poem by Caitlin Johnstone. Caitlin is a poet and a journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. I think you will find it very moving. Thank you. Thank you for your service. I say this not to the employees of the war machine who in truth served nothing besides imperial domination and the profit margins of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. I say this to the peacemakers, to the truth tellers, to the defiant ones, to those who've shone the light of truth upon the blood-spattered face of the empire against their own interests for the benefit of everyone, to those who've stared down the barrel of the most powerful military force ever assembled and said, do your worst, to the grandparents who've been dragged from nuclear weapons protests in handcuffs to create a safer world for their grandchildren, to the activists whose incurable disobedience has led them to disrupt empire managers at think tank conferences or paint no war across the face of the Sydney Opera House, to the selfless martyrs who've exposed the abuses of the machine knowing full well that the scales of justice are weighted heavily against them, to the hero in Belmarsh, to the Pentagon paper's whistleblower who today closed his gentle loving eyes for a final time. Thank you for your service for serving the highest interest over your own, for pouring everything you've gotten to the hope for a better tomorrow, for betting everything on the hope of a healthy and harmonious world, for creating a guiding light to help humanity steer its way home, for seizing your moment to help make things right instead of letting it pass like everyone around you, for somehow finding the strength to swim against the current when it would be so much easier to drift along with the madness, for somehow finding a higher calling in this wildly dysfunctional society where everything is pointed at selfishness and meaninglessness, for somehow cultivating something profound and authentic within yourself in the midst of a civilization of the vapid and fraudulent, for doing your very best to get a foot on the brake pedal when everything else is accelerating toward the cliff's edge, for listening to that small voice within, which can tolerate no more, for turning around, for taking your stand, for finding the courage, for doing what is right, for putting truth first, for lighting the way. Thank you for your service. We will do our best to carry the torch forward and finish what you began. So, Robert, you want me to just cue it up now? Yes, and just thanks again to all of the panelists and, you know, for all the people who contributed in the chat, and I believe that the chat will be made available. Can you say that, John, that it? Yes, it'll go on the same page as the bios. But anyway, just thank you very much. I think that we all certainly have understood and appreciate what a wonderful human being was with us all these years. And thank you for conceiving this program, Robert. You both conceived it and brought it to fruition, so thank you. Thank you. And the recording will also be sent to everyone, right? The link, but as I say, it may wind up being incomplete. We'll just have to see when we go into the system. Okay. From the spring of 1978 to the spring of 1979, over 20,000 people demonstrated against the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver, Colorado. Over 500 people were arrested. It was called the Year of Disobedience, and it was galvanized by the same man who, seven years earlier, had leaked the Pentagon papers to the press, helping to end the Vietnam War. Daniel Ellsberg, in his iconic cowboy hat, would become a recognizable figure at Rocky Flats as he helped launch the anti-nuclear weapons movement through nonviolent blockades of the railway and symbolic die-ins commemorating the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rocky Flats was eventually closed, but Daniel Ellsberg continues his mission to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I recalled myself 35 years ago sitting in front of a train. We hadn't thought that authorities would allow us to be sitting on a track as a train got close because it was too good a picture. It was too dramatic. There was a young man there with long red hair who put his head on one track and his feet on the other and lay there, and we all got behind him. I was sitting there, and the train came toward us, and the train was going rather slowly, and we were sure, at least I was sure, that they didn't want to run us over, but had they practiced stopping? We were at a moment in history there where a lot of us were prepared to face down this chug or not to such an extent that our lives seemed worth giving without that kind of civil courage as great as any that you ever see on the battlefield, but civil courage that is far more rare than it's common to see on a battlefield, humanity will not survive. The term civil disobedience comes from Thoreau. It was the title that he gave to his essay to protest the government that was supporting slavery, and he said this is a time that deserves a kind of revolution. The first title that he gave to that essay was actually not civil disobedience. It was resistance to civil authority. I hereby declare this to be an unlawful assembly. In the name of the state of California, your order to immediately disperse. Better you do so or result in your immediate arrest. And his whole point was that when authority is itself disobeying the law, that was the time to withdraw one's consent to say that what is happening is not with our consent. It has to be done over our bodies. It can't be done without arresting Americans to have to do it. That's why I was getting arrested this morning. I like to be with people who are giving that making that effort in their lives. I like to be in jail, frankly, with the kinds of people who get arrested in order to friend about a better world. 31 people were arrested a little more that day, including 82-year-old Daniel Ellsberg. It was his 85th arrest for civil disobedience. I ask really everyone, anyone watching this, to ask themselves what could I do to change the situation if I were willing to go to jail? Still 289 people. So I think there was a lot of appreciation for the fact that we showed it again. So take care, everyone. Robert, I'll just shut it off right now, unless you have something else you want to say, or any of the other panelists want to say anything. Thank you, everyone. This has been fantastic to participate in. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for organizing this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. A fantastic program. Great listening to you all. It was really moving. Thank you. Bye, everybody. David Hartso, we got some talking to do. Bye-bye, everybody.