In June of 1987 Katya Komisaruk took a crowbar, cordless drill, and
a hammer and broke into a NAVSTAR ground control station at 
Vandenberg AFB.  Leaving a note, flowers, and a box of cookies for the
troops she expected at any moment, she dismantled the control computer
and damaged the tracking antenna for this highly accurate military
sattelite navigation system.  In an amazing display of luck and government
incompetence she worked for more than 2 hours without interruption, 
spray painting her justification for her actions inside and outside
the building. She then left, hitchhiked to San Francisco, and held a
news conference explaining what she did and why.

The Navstar navigation sattelites are part of a global network of
sattelites which together form the Global Positioning System, or
GPS.  Using GPS in its full encrypted millitary mode a submarine,
airplane, or nuclear warhead can determine its position and altitude
to an accuracy of better than 50 feet anywhere on the surface of the earth.
This may seem innocuous, but that sort of accuracy turns submarine launced
balistic missiles such as the TRIDENT into first strike weapons.

The TRIDENT and other missile carrying submarines were sold to the American
public as an invulnerable deterrent to soviet nuclear attack.  Since
the soviets would have no way of finding and destroying these subs if
THEY strike first (the argument goes), the soviets would be sure that
if they attacked us with nuclear weapons they would be destroyed.
Thus (so we were told) the TRIDENT system helps prevent nuclear war.

If you give the TRIDENT missile 50 foot accuracy the whole picture changes.
With this sort of accuracy the United States can use submarine launched
missiles to attack first and destroy land based soviet missiles and bombers.
(To destroy a hardened missile silo a nuclear blast must be close enough to
include the silo in the crater from the explosion).  From a position off the
coast of the USSR a TRIDENT multiple warhead missile could destroy its
targets in as little as SIX MINUTES rather than the half hour or so
that a US land based missile will take to reach its target.
This combination of accuracy and speed has caused experts to label the
combination of TRIDENT and NAVSTAR the ultimate first strike weapon.

Having this sort of capability makes nuclear war much MORE LIKELY in
two ways:
1.  If the US perceives it has the capability to destroy the 
soviet nuclear arsenal on the ground it will be much more likely
to start a nuclear exchange in time of crisis.  Having a partially
functional STAR WARS system to absorb a weakened soviet nuclear response
makes a US first strike even more likely.
2.  The Soviet Union will know that it has only six minutes from
warning of a US submarine launched first strike until it starts to
lose its capability for nuclear retalliation.  Put yourself in the
position of a soviet general recieving a warning from your
launch detector systems that such an attack is in progress.  You only
have SIX MINUTES to determine if this warning is real or due to
some sort of malfunction!  If you wait for the bombs to start exploding
it will be too late!!! You can't find the premier that fast, he's on
a hunting trip in Soviet Georgia!!!! I don't know about you, but I 
don't want to have the survival of the planet so dependent on the 
reliability of soviet attack detection technology.

Katya destroyed the NAVSTAR ground station to take direct action against
this threat to our planet and to make public the connection between
NAVSTAR, TRIDENT and a US first strike capability.  She was arrested
after the news conference by the FBI.  Her defense was to rest on the
nurenberg principles (which oblige citizens to resist genocidal actions
by their own governments) and international law (which outlaws preparations
for wars of agression).  Due to legal manuvering by the US attorney and
the judge, she was not allowed to present her defense.  She was not
allowed to detail her reasons for her actions at the trial, or
say anything about first strike or nuclear weapons.  She was not allowed
to present her witnesses on nuclear strategy or international law.
The jury was even prevented from seeing photographs of the NAVSTAR
building or equipment because they contained Katya's spray painted
justification for her actions.  She is now serving a long sentence in
federal prison, having been denied a fair trial.

I met Katya at an anti-nuclear rally in Mountain View a few days before
her trial.  She is a remarkable person, obviously quite brave as well
as very warm and friendly.  I have a video tape about her and her
actions titled FIRST STRIKE: PORTRAIT OF AN ACTIVIST.  This tape has
just been completed by an indepenent filmmaker, and does an excellent
job of detailing a story which has been all but ignored by the US media.
Anyone interested can borrow it, and if people want I will show it during
lunch sometime.

Due to a lot of interest in the movie FIRST STRIKE: PORTRAIT OF
AN ACTIVIST, I will be showing it next Wednsday, Nov 1 in the 
central conference room.  If you missed the previous message this is
a movie about Katya Komisaruk and her action to destroy a control
computer for the NAVSTAR military navigation system.  Showtime is
12:00 and the movie is slightly less than an hour long.  If we have time
afterwards maybe we can discuss some of the issues raised in the
film.

See you Wednsday,
Max