Paroled Peacenik Pricks Pacifist Piety As a result of a federal appeals court ruling, Helen Woodson was released on parole on June 14. She had been in custody since the November, 1984, Silo Pruning Hooks action, when she and three others used a pneumatic jackhammer and hand tools to disarm a Minuteman II nuclear missile silo east of Kansas City. Woodson's seventeen year sentence for that action is the longest ever given in the United States for an act of anti-nuclear nonviolent direct action. This past spring, the appeals court overturned a lower court ruling, and re-affirmed the government's position that it could release Helen Woodson on parole. Woodson had filed a civil suit asking to be held in prison until the expiration of her sentence, and then unconditionally released. Three days after her release, Woodson walked into a Chicago bank, produced a starter's pistol and asked the teller to empty all the cash drawers. When patrons began to catch wind that something was amiss, Woodson announced she had no intention to harm anyone, and asked everyone in the bank to please sit down and hear her statement. After receiving about $25,000 in cash, Woodson piled it in the middle of the floor, doused it with lighter fluid, and ignited it. She made a statement elaborating on her belief that money is the root of all evil. Cash now ashes, Woodson asked the patrons to leave the bank with her. If police were waiting, she would surrender peacefully; if not, she intended to walk on to other planned actions. Police were waiting, and Woodson was taken back into custody. At her arraignment the next day, June 18, Woodson declined the services of the public defender, and represented herself. The magistrate decided that before he would take any action in the case, he was ordering a psychiatric evaluation to determine Woodson's competence to defend herself. He ordered it completed within thirty days. At press time, Woodson is being held at MCC Chicago, but could be moved at any time for the psychiatric evaluation. Letters of support can be sent to Helen Woodson, c/o C. Dixon, 3559 Hwy. G, Wisconsin Dells, WI 53965. from the Nuclear Resister no. 89, Jun 23, '92. Comments 1. I'm curious how folks feel about this? When I heard about it, I was pretty shocked. First of all, that's a lot of $ to burn! Second, I don't necessarily think $ per se is the ROOT of all evil, whatever evil is (as you define it.) And last, but not least, I believe it is a violent act to hold folks at gunpoint (even if it's a toy pistol) to make a point. There's got to be a better way. Now, if Helen Woodson wanted primarily to be locked up, (which sounds apparent, anyway) she certainly achieved her mission. But why involve innocent bank tellers and customers? (I'm curious...does anyone know the name/location of the bank?) 2. I found the report quite disturbing and was puzzled about it being in this conference. What she did must have been terrifying for the people in the bank. If this is nonviolence, let me off the boat. On the other hand, it's important to know what has happened to one of the people who was deeply involved in the Plowshares movement. I sent a copy of the report to Dan Berrigan, who knows Helen Woodson. I hope he can visit her, or arrange for someone else to see her, as probably she needs any kind of care she can get. But I have more sympathy for the people who had the bad luck to be in the bank that day. Jim Forest, Peace Media Service, Holland 3. I believe that, sad to say, Helen's action exemplifies what a lot of US nonviolent direct action has turned into. Activists must discuss currently popular styles of action critically, rather than in an awed way, if we don't want our movement to become one of the curios of history. I only wish more nonviolent activists were online, so this and similar problems could get the most thorough airing possible. In fairness to Helen, I'll urge Jack Cohn-Joppa (nukeresister) to upload Helen's defense of her action as soon as it becomes available. ed, pegasus 4. This is very interesting to me personally, in addition to the political/emotional/nonviolence points mentioned in the responses so far. In 1971, as I neared the last days of my two and a half years in federal prisons (for disregard of the military draft system in the U.S.), I considered what peace actions I might take next. One thing that occurred to my mind, but which I decided relatively easily not to do, was to go to the military base not far from the prison, and do something along the lines of sit in as a one person blockade at the gate, or (shocking thought to me) immolate myself there! This was not my style and it still is not, though some people felt my draft defiance was tantamount to it - I thought they were overdramatizing. The point here is that even non-destructive (or so I like to think) me got some thought of fire as the end of my "time" came. In Helen's case she had done some physical destruction as part of her "crime" years ago, perhaps that meant that she was more inclined to pursue the near-release thoughts. We'lI try to remember the political/emotional content of the thoughts that accompanied the ideas: something about an outcry needed to bring to people's attention that the ills still existed, and that the fact that I was to be released was incidental, that every moment of mine was to continue the witness, the alarm. We continue the witness, the outcry, the alarm in many ways. And among those ways for me is the struggle to express the very strongest feelings, including feelings of pain and anger, in ways which bring us further along in peaceable struggle. The day before my release, as I returned to the restriction cells where my peaceably bad behavior had led to my confinement for most of my term, Officer G. asked me how it had been, the years of imprisonment. I said there had been a lot. I chose to summarize by saying that at times my feelings, including anger, had seemed to overflow their banks, and become directed at the people, including the officials [actually I had behaved peaceably enough throughout]. I did a "radical" thing in that context, and touched him on his grey-uniformed arm lightly, and said something about my having gotten past that "overflow", and that if I had hurt him in any way I hoped for repair. And that was all. At least I'd like to think that was all. Would you believe that I now and then have prison dreams? It's so. What dreams did Helen have, and does she have now? And what dreams those people have, those with whom she shared her fears and feelings in that way which we readers sense is hurtful? Joe Maizlish, Los Angeles from the Pegasus conference: nonviolent.action.