I said, I can't do that because that would be really misleading them. The fact is very simple. Our safety from harm was very exceptional. It was lucky, very, very lucky. We have one of the very few marriages that were made stronger by the trial and by this whole process, partly because Patricia was part of it. from the very beginning. One little piece of advice I'd give to a whistleblower is bring the spouse in early on and don't just present her or him or him. Don't just present it to her. Here's what I've done unilaterally and so forth. Then the marriage ends quickly. But in any case, ours was made stronger. We do have a wonderful life. But that's exceptional. I don't want to tell anybody that that's what they're likely to get. The truth is the risks are very great. Why then should they even consider it? And that's obvious. Well, if it's just a matter of a cost overrun or some minor infraction or even a major infraction that doesn't involve human life or danger, I could say on the whole, you'll pay pretty much the same price for exposing that.

[01:10]

It probably isn't worth it. But where lives are at stake, as at the being lied into a war, or being lied into an escalation, or simply going into a vastly dangerous escalation without the public knowing what they're getting into and having any chance to address it democratically. Then, if you have the evidence, the documents of those lies, you have the opportunity to save an enormous number of lives by sacrificing your own career, I think without people doing that, we will not escape an attack on Iran, which will be hard to escape in any case, even with whistleblowing. But without it, I think most people don't know. Without the people who spoke to Cy Hirsch in his April 17th article in The New Yorker, how many have read that?

[02:10]

How many have not read that? OK, I urge the ones who not almost have. To get it on the internet should be hard to find. Cy Hirsch, New Yorker, April 17th issue. Very, very impressive. People spoke to him, saying that they were working on plans for nuclear attack as well as non-nuclear attack. And both of them they regarded as disastrous. And the Joint Chiefs opposed both, especially the nuclear option. And some of them were so appalled by this that they were thinking of resigning. Well, I said publicly at the march in New York last Saturday. I took occasion to say, not because it's exactly the right audience, but because I want to get this out on every occasion I can. When I saw that in Hirsch, I thought, first of all, resign? When are they thinking of doing it? After the bomb or before it? Even before it, resigning does nothing.

[03:15]

to save lives. It keeps you, by the way, in line for later jobs. It doesn't risk prosecution. It actually doesn't risk much. You might be sad to lose your present job, but if your present job is planning nuclear attack, you should be able to live with that, with leaving that job. But it's pretty safe, on the whole, just resigning. Instead of resigning, they should leak. They should expose, and they should go beyond speaking anonymously and orally to Cy Hirsch. They should put out documents that cannot be refuted on a large scale that will reveal, above all, the internal debate. That's what the Pentagon Papers did reveal. Reveal that the Joint Chiefs do oppose this and why they oppose it. And also why some people in the administration want to do it. Put their reasons out and let them be accountable for their positions. Put it out. See? Uh...

[04:15]

Trying to do which? The nuclear option? Interestingly, it's an interesting question. Because these people made some very striking comments. Have you read the article? Well, if you read the article, and those of you who have read it may remember it, they're very striking comments in quotes. He has the names. He doesn't put them out to save the people. But they say two things. Of course, we don't know the names of the sources. They're anonymous. But they say when the Joint Chiefs tried to take that option off the table, which is what should happen, they were told the White House went crazy, quote, They jumped up and down and said, but you suggested it in the first place. They mentioned a nuclear option. But the Joint Chiefs were now trying to take it back. And he said, when we talk about taking it back, they say, no, no, no, no, no. We like these plans. Keep doing it. He didn't say who those people were. None of the sources to him identified the people who were for this. And you're quite right. We need to know that. We ought to know that, of course. That's something they should put out.

[05:18]

Definitely. We need names on that. Take the retired generals, for example. I'm sure you've seen one or more of their comments. Newbold, the Marine general, who was most explicit, said he had personally opposed this from the beginning, and he said, I made my superiors aware of it. Unfortunately, my colleagues, many of whom felt the same, did not say that to their superiors or to anybody else, and he criticizes them. He says, I... they are as responsible as the civilian leaders for not speaking up. And they caused these deaths in a war they knew was hopeless and extremely costly. But he mentions no names of the military leaders he's talking about, nor does any one of the six other generals mention any names of their colleagues. See, the group loyalty there is not to be broken up. The colleagues are the ones who are still in there. They're the ones we ought to hear about. And they're the ones who should change their behavior.

[06:18]

The only person mentioned by any of the generals is a civilian, Rumsfeld. Well, I have very mixed feelings about this little operation. I don't want military picking their civilian superiors. That's very close to a coup. And I like the military ethic that accepts civilian command and doesn't openly fight them. That doesn't mean there weren't a lot of other things they could do. even if they did feel Rumsfeld was a major problem. And obviously, it couldn't be just Rumsfeld. As Rumsfeld says, every decision he made had to be okayed by the president and was okayed by the president, including the decision to get rid of all the Iraqi army, you know, right in the beginning, which led to these huge problems of looting and everything else. That may even have been one that was given to Rumsfeld by Cheney and the president. So they focus on Rumsfeld. I don't think it'll make a big difference if they get rid of Rumsfeld.

[07:21]

At this point. Look, we've gotten rid of, we didn't get rid of, but the president sloughed off Wolfowitz, Pearl, Ashcroft, Fythe. What difference did any of that make? When it comes to people of really bad judgment, this team has depth. And so, and of course, it starts with the president, and he continues. He just got rid of one of the worst officials there ever was, probably, Porter Goss. Who is going to replace him? You know, we don't know. He put him in there to fire all the people. Goss' main job was to fire leakers, was to come down on leakers. And they found not a leaker. They found one woman... who I was ready to give tremendous credit to for putting out these about the secret detention centers. That's what people assume she was being fired for, Mary O. McCarthy.

[08:22]

But unfortunately, her lawyer says that she did not know of the retention camp. She did not put out any classified information. She did not leave. Apparently, what she's fired for is that she had had social contacts with reporters that she didn't report. And they wanted to make an example of her for that. No dealings with reporters, whatever. Take no chance that something will slip out of, that the truth might slip out of the corner of your mouth at some point. Talking to reporters, the American people might find out some of the things that you regard as disastrous, but intend to keep silent about. So, we come back to the point. For many years, when it came to... urging civil disobedience, which I have done for 30 years and more. 35 years. How many, by the way, in this audience, how many people here have been arrested, actually, I would expect? Good, very good. Well, and for the rest of you, it's not too late.

[09:25]

I was saying... I don't know if I should say this, but if snuggling is part of the private religion of my wife and I, one of the rituals of our religion, civil disobedience is a communitarian religion of my religion, getting arrested. And that's a reason I went out to Texas last month to get arrested at the president's ranch. And did the same in November. But I talked about that and didn't talk too much about or whistleblowing for really two reasons. You know, not everybody has the opportunity to do that, of course. The audiences I get to speak to generally do not have access to classified material. I underrated that, actually, because, of course, even people, many people in this audience, I'm sure, have known of truth's secrets that should not have been kept.

[10:29]

from the larger society or even from prosecutors or from higher bosses, and that you and perhaps you and your colleagues have kept your mouth shut about, just as I did for many years. Take the tobacco case, the asbestos case, the car safety in general, Vioxx, all these various drug scandals, the Catholic child abuse scandals. After all, some of the people I've gotten arrested with over the years and admire as much as anybody in the world, really wonderful people, were Catholic nuns and priests. And I have to conclude, even they must have been among those who kept their mouths shut about the abuse that was going on in their institution. I say that because it seems to turn out that most of the priests knew that. And some of them complained to their bishops, and their bishops sat on it.

[11:30]

And as Dan Berrigan was saying to me just last week, he said this pope appointed, or rather the previous pope, appointed most of the bishops now. And he appointed CEO types, he said, who could be counted on to put the interests of the institution above any other consideration. And that's what they did to an extraordinary degree. I was thinking just tonight, what would be the, it really was, I say this not to single out the Catholics really, but because that one is a dizzying one even to me, the horror of that and the silence about it. But it shows, you know, like the Buddhists, anybody can ignore the teachings of anybody. Anybody can keep quiet about anything in terms of the group that they don't want to be isolated from. To stay in a group. These people were not people trying to rise in the hierarchy, my friends, God knows. Some of them can excommunicate it. Phil Berger, for example. But to undermine the authority of the institution, the good that it can do, and so forth and so forth.

[12:40]

They really kept silent about massive child rape. and not just child abuse. And I was thinking about what would the analogy be? What if we discovered the Buddhists don't have a hierarchy like that, but what if we discovered that Buddhists in general were at the heart of the arms trade, or the dope trade, or tobacco sales? I mean, that would be disconcerting. Would it not? Be worrisome. It would tell us something about the human species, and that something is true. That's the truth. I'm not saying the Catholics are worse on that point than other humans in that respect, but that's where we are. So to rise above that, you don't have to be in the national security apparatus, in other words, but it's also risky. It is risky in many ways, and the reason for doing it, as in all the cases I mentioned, now the child rape is not murder, but, you know, it doesn't have to be defined elsewhere. It's evil. And likewise, these threats...

[13:42]

of initiating nuclear war, or even non-nuclear war, are threats of evil. And not only should they not be part of it, but they should expose it, resist it, obstruct it in every way possible, non-violently. The challenge to us to do something, suppose there is a nuclear weapon, this explosion, I really ask myself, what is the appropriate response to that? Well... pretty broad in terms of what would be appropriate. What should we tell the government we would do? I think it's not too soon to be asking ourselves that and each other as a group that right now. What can they expect? I would like the government, for example, to expect that the European members of NATO will get out of NATO, that NATO will dissolve. It's an anachronism anyway. And Bush doesn't care whether NATO is there or not.

[14:44]

He doesn't care about any other countries. But the eastern establishment cares a lot. And the prospect of losing their life commitment to the Atlantic Alliance and to NATO would, I think, immobilize some of the eastern establishment. That's just an example of what could happen, of refusal to collaborate on a national basis with a country that uses nuclear weapons or commits aggression. That's an example. Now, what do we do over here? Well, not violence. Let's take that one off the table. Not because by the standards of humanity, it would be inappropriate, wrong, too much, and so forth. On the contrary, you know, people who use violence, this would be a very appropriate time to do it, they would think. it would certainly make matters worse. We're in a dangerous world. Violence in this country, as by the weathermen, did help Nixon prolong the war. And violence as a response to it, which would be a human impulse, even in this room.

[15:47]

I'm sure the impulse would occur to people to do something violent. It should be resisted because it would make things worse. And we're in a bad situation. It's not for us to make things worse.

[15:58]

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