Kansas City National Security Campus--photo by National Nuclear Security Administration
PeaceWorks KC Nuclear weapons

What’s up with the National Security Campus and the former KC Plant? Who cares?

The Kansas City National Security Campus (formerly called the Kansas City Plant), in KC MO, is one of the eight major sites that make nuclear weapons for the US. It makes or procures 85 percent of the non-fissile parts of a nuclear bomb: key components such as electronic guidance systems, arming and fuses that set off the bomb, and parts that hold and carry the plutonium, uranium, and tritium.

Bennette Dibben, waving the flag of Honduras, the 50th ratifier of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and Tom Mountenay, waving his family’s peace flag, lead the one-mile walk toward the National Security Campus entry road on May 31. Soon Tom was to cross the NSC property line.—Photo by Jane Stoever
PeaceWorks KC Nuclear weapons, PeaceWorks events

Court hearing Aug. 11; no trial date yet set for nuke resisters

We don’t always get what we expect. We knew, well in advance, that five men in PeaceWorks would cross the property line May 31, Memorial Day, at the National Security Campus, the Kansas City, Mo., plant that makes parts for nuclear weapons. Done. We knew they’d be briefly arrested and processed. Done. An arraignment was set for July 1, via videoconference. But—surprise—Judge Martina Peterson said our five should come to court in person Aug. 11 to speak to a different judge.

Kosuke Mori-Kreiner strikes the gong held by Henry Stoever at the 2019 Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance.—Photo by Jim Hannah
PeaceWorks KC Nuclear weapons, PeaceWorks events

Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance Aug. 8

We'll have both a walk and a rally Aug. 8, starting at 7 p.m. We’ll begin our one-mile walk at Prospect Ave. and Mo. Hwy. 150, going past the National Security Campus buildings where 80 percent of the US non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons are made or ordered. Then, at the NSC entry at 14510 Botts Rd., KC MO, we’ll hold a rally.

Detainees handcuffed after crossing the National Security Campus property line May 31—from left: Henry Stoever, Brian Terrell, Jim Hannah (contented), Tom Mountenay (smiling!), and Christian Brother Louis Rodemann. —Photo by Hai Chen
PeaceWorks KC Nuclear weapons, PeaceWorks events

Trial date pending for some Memorial Day line-crossers 

On the tenth anniversary of PeaceWorks-KC's annual Memorial Day peace witness, five members of the PeaceWorks-KC family “crossed the line” and were arrested for trespass at the National Security Campus, where more than 80 percent of the parts for the U.S. nuclear arsenal are made or procured. The resisters’ action helped the 70 or so in attendance re-frame what the weapons plant truly is: a Global Insecurity Factory. 

Tom Fox steps over purple line marking the property border at the KC nuclear weapon parts plant in 2018--Photo by Jeff Davis
PeaceWorks KC Nuclear weapons

KC Star column: ‘We Protest at a Nuclear Weapons Plant on Memorial Day’

“We are your neighbors,” writes Tom Fox in a May 30 Kansas City Star column. “We will come face to face with Kansas City police and guards just before noon on Memorial Day,” says Fox of the five who plan to cross the property line at the KC MO nuclear weapons parts plant. The protesters’ one-mile walk begins May 31 at 10:30 a.m. at Prospect Ave. and Mo. Hwy. 150. The group holds a rally at 11:30 a.m. at the entry to the plant, 14510 Botts Rd., near Mo. Hwy. 150.
https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article251759178.html.