Dozens arrested at peaceful protest at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

When I worked at AVCO in the early 1980's about once a month protesters who stood at the front gates daily would make a run for it and get into the plant proper to attempt to destroy the weapons of war. We were the prime contractor for the Mk 21 reentry vehicle for the MX missile and the deployment module as well as the protective deployment shroud system. One time they entered with hammers and fake blood and squirted the blood all over the place and beat some instrumentation with hammers. They were dragged out and prosecuted for trespassing. The press was denied spokesmen so in essence the effort was not reported well. Since many of the employees held secret clearances and even those who didn't were not allowed to discuss the events as we were warned in meetings or memos to not answer reporters questions.

This happened several times and the protests outside the gates lost interest among the peaceniks over time. In the end the USA deployed the MX, USSR realized that the MX was a superior weapon system with first strike capability, and the USSR went bankrupt in attempts to keep pace. It is good that the protesters were unsuccessful.

Too bad there wasn't a mountain lion nearby!
Last year on Good Friday, the nuts did their yearly sit-in at the lab. As a cop was putting out the cones to block the street at 7 AM, he sees a mountain lion 10 ft away! It went behind the sign at the entrance to the lab and stayed there. They told the nuts about it and they still held their sit-in. After it was over, the cops shot the lion.

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