In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

for only twenty-Wve years; arms production for thirty-Wve. Since the latency period of cancer is twelve to forty years, and genetic mutations do not often manifest themselves for generations, we have barely begun to experience the e¤ects radiation can have upon us. Nuclear power plants and military facilities will continue to release radioactive materials into the environment until public pressure becomes great enough to bring such releases to a halt. Because the e¤ects of these materials on us, our children, and our planet will be irreversible, we must take action now. We are entering a danger zone—an unchartered territory—from which we may never return. —Helen Caldicott, the founder of Women for Nuclear Disarmament, helped galvanize the nuclear freeze movement in the 1980s. Born Secret The Story Behind the H-Bomb Article We’re Not Allowed to Print Erwin Knoll May 1979 On Monday, March 26, 1979, a federal judge did what no federal judge had ever done before in the 203-year history of the American republic: He issued a preliminary injunction, at the request of the government of the United States, barring a publication from printing and distributing an article. Behind Judge Robert W. Warren, an American Xag was mounted on the ornate, oak-paneled wall of his Milwaukee courtroom. Before him sat the plainti¤s, oªcials of the government and their attorneys, and the defendants, the editors of this magazine and a thirty-six-year-old freelance writer, named Howard Morland, and their attorneys. The article was “The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It, Why We’re Telling It.” All copies of that article that were in our possession, as well as the proofs from which it would have been printed, and the headlines, sketches, and covers that would have accompanied it are, at this writing, locked away. Under the terms of Judge Warren’s preliminary injunction, we, Howard Morland, and our “agents, servants, employees and attorneys, and all other persons in active concert or participation with them” are barred from “publishing or otherwise communicating , transmitting or disclosing in any manner any information designated by the Secretary of Energy as Restricted Data contained in the Morland article.” The judge said he had “agonized” over his decision and did not welcome the “notoriety” it would bring him. He acknowledged that the injunction would “curtail defendants’ First Amendment rights in a drastic and substantial fashion,” and would “infringe upon our right to know and to be informed as well.” 268 part 13 opposing nuclear weapons Still, he assumed “the awesome responsibility of issuing a preliminary injunction against The Progressive’s use of the Morland article in its current form” because, he said, “a mistake in ruling against the United States could pave the way for nuclear annihilation for us all.” How did all this happen? How did the full force of the federal government come to be arrayed against a small, perpetually struggling magazine published in Madison, Wisconsin? How did The Progressive, which has fought against militarism throughout its seventy-year history and crusaded against the nuclear arms race more persistently than any other publication in America, suddenly Wnd itself accused of threatening to “pave the way for nuclear annihilation”? Samuel H. Day Jr., the managing editor of The Progressive, joined our sta¤ about a year ago. He is the former editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and one of his Wrst projects for us was a tour of some of the key facilities involved in the production of nuclear weapons—a tour arranged for him by the Department of Energy. As he embarked on his tour of nuclear facilities in June of last year, Sam Day met Howard Morland, a freelance writer engaged in a similar project. Morland was a former Air Force pilot, an antinuclear activist, who held a passionate conviction that Americans needed to be aroused to the dangers inherent in nuclear power and nuclear weaponry. Though Morland had taken only a few college undergraduate science courses, he had begun to educate himself on the nuclear arms race and its links to the nuclear energy industry. Day encouraged Morland to pursue his research with a view toward writing a series of articles for The Progressive. He urged Morland, in particular, to explore the secrecy that surrounds the nuclear weapons program. It was our feeling, last summer, that the government had invoked secrecy for thirty years to keep Americans from questioning the nuclear arms race: How much justiWcation...

Share