Campaign Nonviolence National Conference - Panel Discussion Nuclear Weapons Los Alamos and Nonviolence
Jay Coughlan, NukeWatch New Mexico, lays out the startling facts on the current state of the United States nuclear arsenal and current modernization plans which are leading to what some people are calling the “Second Nuclear Age”. Bud Ryan, filmmaker of The Forgotten Bomb, relates the personal story of traveling to Hiroshima with his Japanese-American wife, and the galvanizing effect the trip had on him. Marian Naranjo, founder and director of Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE), and a potter and organizer from Santa Clara Pueblo, opened with a prayer and asked everyone to remember whose homelands the conference was taking place on. Marian also asked all participants to take action with the pueblo, including writing letters to tribal officials. Beata Tsosie-Peña from Santa Clara Pueblo offered remarks and a beautiful, evocative, and eye-opening poem. The panel concluded with Rev James Lawson’s clear eloquence on his personal experience of the atomic bomb as a high schooler in 1945. Rev. Lawson went on to discuss the connections of nuclear weapons to many forms of injustice and domination perpetrated by the United States.
James Doyle
James Doyle, a political scientist at Los Alamos National Labs for 17 years, was fired in 2014 over a report he wrote calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. His article was an impassioned critique of the political theories undergirding the nuclear arms race and an embrace of President Obama’s vision of a nuclear-free future. Doyle believes his sudden firing was in retribution for his refusal to support the Lab’s central mission—its continued development and production of nuclear weapons, at a cost of $2 billion per year.
Doyle was a specialist in the nuclear nonproliferation division at the Los Alamos Labs from 1997 to July 2014. His professional focus is on systems analysis, strategic planning and policy development. Dr. Doyle holds a PhD in International Security Studies from the University of Virginia. He lives in New Mexico.
