Posted September 25, 2006

The following letter was written by UC Santa Barbara graduate student Darwin BondGraham on September 21, the day following the meeting at which the UC Regents voted to partner with Bechtel Corporation to bid to continue managing the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The letter is addressed to people in the Santa Barbara area, but its content is relevant for anyone with an interest in demilitarizing the University of California – and our society at large.

Dear friends,

Yesterday the UC Board of Regents convened in San Francisco. Among the items they discussed and voted upon was a proposal for the University to enjoin with the Bechtel Corporation in order to form a second for profit, limited liability corporation (LLC). This LLC partnership will now prepare a bid to manage the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a nuclear weapons research and design facility that is also establishing large centers for bio-weapons research in the Bay Area.

Last year our university's Board of Regents, formed a partnership with Bechtel and two other military-industrial-nuclear firms called Los Alamos National Security, LLC. This consortium successfully outbid a partnership between the University of Texas and Lockheed Martin to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (the largest weapons of mass destruction facility on the planet - yes, they also do "cancer research" and other non-military projects, but a full 80% of their $2.2 billion budget is for weapons work). This is a for-profit venture that nets LANS LLC partners $79 million per year. Yesterday’s vote prepares UC to go down the same path in order to retain its management of Livermore Lab.

In the last several years the Los Alamos Lab has undergone a rapid transformation from a facility that researches and designs nuclear warheads into a major industrial site that has begun to manufacture the core component of a nuclear weapons, called a plutonium pit. The Lab has begun building pits and is on track to become the major center for the production of this core nuclear weapons component.

Livermore Lab has taken on new roles in bio-weapons research over the past several years and is likely to become the host of a large new facility for this purpose. The government says that it will be strictly “defensive” research. Livermore's role in nuclear weapons remains strong as ever. The Lab is currently competing with Los Alamos to design a new nuclear warhead called the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

Why does our university operate nuclear weapons design and production labs? Does the United States need new "more usable" nuclear warheads? Do we even need nuclear weapons? Is nuclear abolition possible? Why is our nation spending more than $40 billion on atomic weaponry each year? Are there better routes to security? Is the UC's role in the nuclear weapons complex truly a public service, or have the UC Regents misled us? Are there alternatives?

These are all questions that many of you might be asking. But the most important question for us is, I believe:

Should we as employees, students, or faculty of the UC sit idly by while our institution is wed to military-industrial corporations like Bechtel in order to operate nuclear weapons facilities for profit?

I'm assuming many of you find this situation deeply wrong, as I do, and that you want to do something about it. I’m also aware that many have asked these same questions in the past and sought to do something about it. But there now exists a strong structural opportunity for positive change (I’ll get to this at the end).

I've argued before that it is the responsibility of UC faculty, students, and staff to become actively involved in this dilemma because our university plays such a central role. Supporters of the Labs have often said in the past that it's a good thing for the UC to run nuclear weapons facilities because we provide more responsible and transparent leadership than anyone else. I'm far from convinced of this. Ask yourselves, how much do I really know about the nuclear weapons labs that constitute a full 25% of the UC's total operations budget (yes, that’s $4.08 billion / $15.3 billion). Ask yourself how many times you've sought to get actively involved in oversight of these labs. How often do UC community members question the policies that these labs must put into practice? Ask yourself when you and your fellow faculty, staff members, or students have exercised any influence over the policies promoted by Laboratory leadership. Did you even know that Los Alamos is now a site for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons components? Did you know that Livermore Lab wants to do bio-weapons research on viruses like Ebola?

UC is not a transparent institution when it comes to Lab management. The Regents are not a democratic decision making body. It is the Regents who manage the Labs. In truth, the university – it’s brilliant faculties, staff and students – have virtually nothing to do with Lab management. Should we not?

If university members support what these Labs are about then getting involved is very easy. The Regents and UCOP are more than happy for support and provide many avenues (some quite lucrative) for supporting the nuclear weapons labs. These faculty, staff and students have long been involved in the labs by providing their intellectual and ideological work in support of nuclear weapons.

It’s the nuclear abolitionists and proponents of arms control, diplomacy, and peace within the university who have been absent from involvement with the nuclear weapons labs. We need to be more involved. We have a lot of power to affect US nuclear weapons policy because of our positions within the UC. I would argue that this is the most direct and substantive way that we can be involved in anti-war work. Most other things are purely argumentative, whereas this is an example of our institution’s material and intellectual support.

If you want to help you can do several things:

1. Fund grassroots organizations that are fighting for nuclear abolition. First and foremost on this list is the Los Alamos Study Group http://www.lasg.org. I worked with this organization before coming to UCSB, and so I can personally attest to the importance of their work. They are direly under-funded. With sufficient funds they would be empowered to mount not only resistance to the Los Alamos Lab, but to provide leadership in the anti-war movement and the movement to abolish nuclear weapons. Recently a group of UCSB students and local activists traveled to New Mexico to work with them. We would like to do more of this, but support is needed. Please consider making regular contributions to their work: https://www.merchantamerica.com/www.lasg.org/echopay/. Other organizations worthy of support right now include: Wester States Legal Foundation (http://www.wslfweb.org), Tri-Valley CAREs (http://www.trivalleycares.org), and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (http://www.napf.org). If you donate to NAPF – which by the way is headquartered locally I would recommend that you add a note to allocate your donation to their Youth Outreach Program because it’s Director, Will Parrish, has a campaign that specifically provides assistance to UC students organizing against the bomb.

2. Host a discussion. Greg Mello, the Executive Director of the Los Alamos Study Group will be here in SB during part of October for a conference that I am helping to facilitate. He will likely be available for a houseparty/discussion/fundraiser if someone is willing to host such an event. This would provide an opportunity for many of you to learn about the US nuclear weapons program, its central role in the US empire, and how you can help the Study Group and the abolition movement challenge this.

3. Meet with me. For the most part faculty are missing in action when it comes to UC’s laboratory management. But students are also. There are a lot of things that faculty and students can do within the UC to oppose UC management and the US government’s aggressive and hypocritical nuclear weapons programs. Ask me and I’ll tell you how.

4. Get vocal. The weapons complex has its own public relations apparatus that constantly puts forward pro-nuclear weapons messages. If they didn’t they fear they would lose support for nukes and that the Lab’s reasons for being would disappear, thus the Labs would disappear. A nuclear weapons free world scares the tens of thousands of weaponeers who have made their careers and fortunes by building nukes. When you see or hear support for nukes on campus, in public, or elsewhere, it’s important to speak up! People think that the UC is behind the mission. In truth the UC Regents are, but not the whole UC. Students and the public need to see that there is not a consensus of support for nuclear weapons and UC lab management.

Lastly, why do I say there exist a structural opportunity for positive change right now? (Partly it's because I've been reading too much Piven and Cloward lately - sorry, only fellow sociologists of social movements are likely to get this one.) The US nuclear weapons complex is in quite a bit of disarray. A new paradigm for the complex is only just now consolidating in the RRW program. Congress’ budget is pressed with multiple wars and sapped by mega-tax cuts for the rich, so there is little money for the hundreds of billions it would take to build a new plutonium factory and to pay for new weapons designs. There is resistance at Los Alamos Lab to the new manufacturing mission that is being hoisted upon them. There is little morale within the weapons labs for actually building bombs as most scientists would rather work on medicines, materials, and processes that are sustainable and kind. The ideological reasons for having nuclear weapons don’t make sense; why initiate new weapons programs and spend as much now as we did during the Cold War and tell other nations that they cannot even possess the nuclear infrastructure that could be used to make fissile materials? Why maintain a huge arsenal when there is no symmetrical threat, rather the threat is from “terrorist” who cannot by definition be deterred? The majority of Americans support reductions in the US arsenal and see no great threat that justifies multi-billion dollar allocations for nuclear weapons. There are many more inconsistencies.

These among other reasons have created vulnerability in the warfare state and its corporate contractors. With the right amount of effort it is possible to fight and defeat a new pit production facility in Los Alamos or elsewhere, and it is possible to make progress toward further nuclear disarmament. Doing so would be an enormous victory for humanity. But none of this is going to happen unless its supported. If we maintain our inactive position in the belly of the beast (UC and the USA) then it’s more than likely that the nuclear weapons complex will work out the contradictions that plague it right now. Let’s not let this happen.

Yours,

Darwin BondGraham