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Article: Anti-Nuclear Pioneer Plots a New 'Bombing Run'
The following appeared in today's Washington Post. It
is not really news or information article. It is more
of testimonial to what a wonderful person Dr.
Caldicott is.
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washingtonpost.com
Anti-Nuclear Pioneer Plots a New 'Bombing Run'
By Nora Boustany
Helen Caldicott, 65, the anti-nuclear movement's
town crier-in-chief, is revving up for what she calls
another "bombing run," her favorite metaphor for
mobilizing minds and alerting a numbed public to the
final threat.
This grandmother and former pediatrician, who in the
1980s managed to enlist millions of physicians,
concerned celebrities and regular folks into the
movement, is at it again, and she has news for those
who dismiss her alarm with the notion that they have
seen this movie before. Caldicott wants equal time
with the neocons -- in setting the agenda and in
sorting out what people should really fear.
With a new center on K Street, the Nuclear Policy
Research Institute, the Australian-born activist and
her skeleton staff are planning a three-day symposium
in January featuring U.S. and Russian experts and
scientists, followed by a two-month awareness blitz in
four major American cities, with the hope of setting
off brush fires of support.
"In some ways we are at a real turning point," said
Charles Sheehan-Miles, who joined the institute six
months ago. "We need to realign our country's defense
with our values. It is shocking to know we are
spending billions of dollars on nuclear weapons and
stockpiles, because they are not protecting us anymore
and we are bankrupting our country."
Sheehan-Miles, a decorated veteran of the 1991
Persian Gulf War, is on the board of the National Gulf
War Resource Center and recently worked for Veterans
for Common Sense, which opposed the war this year in
Iraq.
Caldicott's angst is both unnerving and endearing.
Her bright red reading glasses hint at her rage, but a
string of opera-length pearls suggests sensibility and
smooth authority. Whether she succeeds in interjecting
her arguments into the 2004 presidential campaign, as
she did during the 1984 race between Ronald Reagan
and Walter F. Mondale, remains to be seen, but she
has given herself five more years to try to avert "the
final epidemic of the human race."
True, the United States and Russia have pledged to
cut the number of their nuclear warheads -- and some
have been removed -- but they still have enough to
wipe out hundreds of cities. A flock of geese could
trigger a false alarm, a Chechen rebel could take over
missile silos in Russia or a terrorist hacking into
naval warning systems could set off an accidental
warning or launch. "This is what the soccer moms have
to understand," Caldicott said. "Fears have been
displaced and we are not looking at the elephant in
the living room."
Caldicott still uses medical terminology to package
her message: "The Earth is in the intensive care unit,
and ignoring the fact that we live on the edge of the
nuclear precipice every day is contraindicated. It is
suicidal, and we hospitalize suicidal patients."
For this woman, the Cold War is over. But the cause
she allowed to take over her life -- with interludes
of domesticity and travel that allowed her to regain
some balance -- is in the homestretch.
"Unless I do this work, I have no reason to exist,"
she said in an interview at the Madison Hotel. In her
memoir, "A Desperate Passion," Caldicott recounts the
loneliness and fear of death she had as a child, her
blossoming self-worth as a curious adolescent and her
brilliant career at Harvard Medical School, which she
abandoned reluctantly to keep up with the demands of
her activism. She also writes of her intermittent
depression and her troubled, yet often happy marriage,
which ended after 25 years.
Caldicott has had many moments of glory -- a Nobel
Peace Prize nomination, audiences with Reagan and
other major figures, success in wooing many labor
union leaders, professionals and Hollywood stars to
her side. "It was a sagacious, peaceful revolution in
thinking, the second American revolution," she said.
But her focus is on the future. "The weapons are still
there, and now we need a third revolution."
"The idea about terrorism in the United States was
very abstract until September 11 happened," said
Sheehan-Miles, executive director of Caldicott's new
group. "In some ways the debate has shifted to the
margins and we want to bring it back to the core
issues. Let us get rid of this stuff."
Sheehan-Miles, 32 and the father of two boys, said
that when he came home from the war after serving as a
tank crewman, "there was all this bloodless footage of
smart bombs. And I had to deal with my remorse: I had
killed people, I was getting ready to become an
alcoholic. I had to find another answer. I am doing
this work to change things so my kids don't have to
experience the same things."
He added: "What Helen brings to the debate is that
she is able to personalize these issues. People in the
audience get the message that this is not about some
remote foreign policy thing. This is about their
children. She was a consultant when they produced the
movie 'The Day After.' That was a direct result of
Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group she
founded. Now something like 82 to 85 percent of the
American public think we should get rid of nuclear
weapons."
Caldicott worries about her grandchildren, whom she
would like to be able to grow up. But she laughs about
one granddaughter who asked her: "When you die, can I
have your shoes?"
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© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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"Self-criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the public soul."
Adlai Stevenson
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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