The Effect of the Cold War on Americans, By Joe Renner

The topic of my project was the effect of the Cold War on Americans. These interviews of my mom and her friends show these effects, with an emphasis on the effects of the nuclear arms race that was caused by the war. These three women were activists against nuclear weapons, and here are their stories.

1st Interview
Sandy Renner is my mom. She is 55 years old. She grew up in Seattle, and went to college in Kansas. She was an active activist in the 80’s and 90’s.

First off, do you remember any nuclear drills?
Yes. In elementary school, there were duck and cover drills. We had to dive under our desk and cover our heads. This was in the early 60’s. I don’t remember any evacuation drills.

Did you have any contact with the manuels that the government put out during that time?
Nope, I don’t remember any of that.

How did the Vietnam War affect you?
Well, the Vietnam War was during high school for me. It was constantly in the news. Every night, it was the main subject in the news, and in the newspapers. I remember hearing the whole justification was to stop communism. There was a lot in the news about the “dominoe effect” with the spread of communism. I knew some kids that I went to high school who got drafted, and my brother-in-law was drafted. Mostly if you didn’t go to college, then you were drafted. There were a lot of anti-war protests, but I didn’t go because I didn’t fully understand the peace movement until later. But my brother was an active protestor against the war. I remember him going to a lot of those anti-war protests around town.

What was you activism role during the 1980’s?
Well, I started going to nuclear protests in the early 80’s, around ‘82 or ‘83. They were at Bangor naval base because there were nuclear subs there. There was a big protest campaign there. People protested because these weapons were just to powerful. There was a group called Ground Zero, that taught about the nukes at Bangor. They organized a lot of protests. Also, there was a anti-nuke campaign called Target Seattle. They held a big rally at Key Arena that I went to. There were thousands of people. I went to a few protests at Bangor. A lot of my friends did civil disobediance, but I didn’t. They would sit on the tracks and block the white trains. That what we called them, “white trains”, because the trains that held nukes were white and differently shaped. Anti-nuclear groups across the country would communicate about the where-abouts of the white trains. The peace groups would contact the press about their protests to draw attention to anti-nuclear movement. A big part of the movement was Archbishop Hunthausen. He was of the Western Washington archdiocese. He was a leader of the movement. He called Bangor the “Auschwitz of the Puget Sound”. The vatican tried to pressure him out of the peace movement because he was too liberal. The church hierarchy got to him, and he was replaced by a more conservative archbishop. He would make speeches at protests. There were always religious leaders at the protests. Rabbi’s, priests, Buddhist monks. When I was a part of Ground Zero, we wrote fliers about peace and facts about nuclear weapons to educate people. I woud go with some people to Bangor and hand the fliers out to nuclear workers as they walked into the entrace of the naval base. After a while, we went downtown to hand them out. Everyone had their own corner where we would hand fliers out. My corner was at 2nd and Columbia. I did it once a week. Some people took the handouts, some didn’t. Some people were hostile against you, some were nice. There was a large range of response. There were also lots of big concerts for peace. The whole era was exciting and scary. Once the denial was gone, there was a big sense of urgency. When I saw the movie “Day After”, which was a movie about the day after a nuclear attack, it hit me that this could be really bad. The fact that the world could end by accident was very scary.

















2nd Interview
Dee Knapp is an anti-nuclear activist. She is 57 years old. She is a friend of my mom.

Do you recall any nuclear attack drills or manuels?
Well, there were duck and cover drills. The teacher would just yell duck and cover and we’d do it. That was in elementary school. But I don’t remember any manuels.

Did you have a role in Vietnam activism?
Yes. In high school, we had a moratorium. Lots of people wore black arm bands. We also watched films and had lectures about the war. In college, there were a lot of marches. It was always in the news. My parents were conservative, and we disagreed on the topic of the war. I would argue with my dad a lot about it. I didn’t know anyone that was drafted. But I do know that it was a lottery, and the low numbers were ones that got drafted. My brother got a high number, so he didn’t get drafted.

What was your role in anti-nuclear activism?
Well, in ‘76, I lived in Europe. There were a lot of protests there before there were any in the US. And when I moved back to the US, I lived in Colorado. There’s a town called Rocky Flat in Colorado. They processed plutonium, and because of this, there were large protests there. One of them I went to there were 30,000 people. We got permission to protest, and I still surprised that they let us do that.

Did you ever protest at Bangor Naval Base?
Yes. I protested there a lot. I was also the lawyer for the protestors that got arrested for sitting on the railroad tracks, blocking the nukes from getting in. During the trials, the charges were dismissed because they were based on a technicallity. The protestors were pretty mad because they wanted a jury and press attention to draw attention to the peace movement and the immorality of nuclear weapons. For the most part, thought, the trials did. There was a lot of press coverage at the start of the trials. The defense I had lined up was a Nurenburg defense, Which means the illegal activity was justified because the government was doing something wrong. Nuclear war is immoral. Not only can it kill millions of innocent civilians, but the environmental problems that it causes are immense as well.

What do you think of Archbishop Hunthausen?
I love what he did for the peace movement. I know he took some heat from the church hierarchy, but he stuck with it, and that’s good. I know some liberals were reluctant to like him, even though he was anti-nuclear, because of his views on abortion. He was a strong pro-life supporter.

Did you ever hand out anti-nuclear fliers?
Yes, actually. I was in Denver at the time. It’s funny, the City of Denver accidentally paved its sidewalks with radium shavings, which is a radioactive substance. I went around door to door and told people about this and tied to how bad nuclear weapons were. Once the city found out how bad radium was, they paved over it with asphalt, but there will always be a layer of radioactive material in the sidewalks of Denver. (Laughs)























3rd Interview
Rebecca Dare is an anti-nuclear activist. She is 59 years old. She is a good friend of my mom’s, and is a member of a women’s support group called Ahimsa, which stemmed out of Cold War activism.

So do you recall any nuclear attack drills?
Well, yes and no. I remember hearing about them from some of my friends who had them, but I never experienced any duck and cover drills or shelter drills. But then again, I grew up in Port Townsend, so I guess we figured we weren’t the first target of the Soviets. (Laughs)

During the Vietnam war, were you involved in any activism?
Yes. I would go to anti-war protests in Seattle. That where I became aware of the political issues of the time. My parents were against this, though, because they were right-wing. They were very anti-communist, and they bought into the whole “We can’t let the Communists win” thing. They loved the government, and were for the war. This caused a few political arguments in our household, as you might of guessed. I knew a few people that were drafted, and this fueled my anti-war drive even more. My brother was drafted, and a few of my friends from high school.

Describe your role in activism against nuclear weapons.
Well, the first anti-nuclear protest I went to was in 1983, I think. There were these new Trident submarines coming in from across the country, and a few other protestors and I got into boats around Bangor Naval Base and held signs and yelled at the workers there. They asked us to leave and we didn’t. They didn’t really do anything else, probably because there weren’t that many of us, at least where we were. Later, I went to a couple protests by the railroads that went into Bangor. They would take the nuclear weapons in on railroads, in these special train cars. The protestors would sit on the tracks to prevent the trains from coming in. The first time I sat on the tracks, a police-man pulled me off.
The second time, I was arrested for the blocking a government train. I went to trial with 7 other protestors. The charges were dismissed for a discrepincy, I think. I remember being mad at that result, because I wanted to go to jail. I would just bring more light on the nuclear situation. The point was that these weapons could kill mass amounts of people, including Americans. The weapons just caused fear. I don’t think that in the present they would have caused as much fear because there is so much more to fear now, with the environment and all. Ground Zero, which was an anti-nuclear group, was for these beliefs and they organized protests. I also passed out anti-nuclear fliers for about 3 or 4 years.

What is your view on Archbishop Hunthausen?
Well, I liked him because he was a strong supporter of the anti-nuclear movement. I remember in 1982 there was a big gathering at Bangor, and he was one of the main speakers there. I remeber thinking “wow, this guy is great.”




Post-Interview Reflections
1. The interviews I did were pretty easy. All of the people were very nice and informative. The only time they did get emotional was when talking about why they protest nuclear weapons. The fact that they can kill millions and people and kill the earth as a whole was said with passion and anger. You could tell they were really devoted to the cause.
2. One of the main things that surprised me about the interviews was the organization of the protests. There was a whole network across the country communicating and coordinating protests. Also, the story about the City of Denver paving their sidewalks with radioactive materials. That surprised me.
3. For the most part, the expriences of these women were similar to what I read. The protests sounded like I imagined them, with the exception being the organization that they were planned with. However, the fact that none of them seem to remember anything about the nuclear safety manuels differed from the reading, which said that the manuels were printed by the millions and sent all over the country.
4. Now that I’ve gotten the perspective of those that were protesting the nuclear weapons, I would of liked to gotten the perspective of those on the other side: the government. To hear their side of the story and the justification they give for nuclear weapons would of been very interesting.
5. One of the things I would of liked to ask was about the more recent nuclear happenings, such as the situation in the Middle East. I would liked to see if they have attended any similar protests against the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Also, I would liked to see if they think Obama will change any nuclear policies or rules.

6. These interviews show how the Cold War affected people in the US. While an emphasis was put on nuclear activism, their experiences from growing up during the Cold War shed light on many topics in the US during the Cold War. The women were just a couple years older than me during the Vietnam War, and exposing their views about the War helps me understand how the War would of affected me if I lived back then.