WASHINGTON -- Peace activist Philip Berrigan and nine others were arrested Thursday near the Pentagon while taking part in coast-to-coast protests of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, authorities said.
Some 50 demonstrators at a subway station hear the Pentagon chanted to rush-hour commuters, many of whom work for the Defense Department, 'No more Hiroshimas,' and 'Let the children live, please go home.'
They were arrested for blocking the escalators leading to the subway, said transit spokeswoman Mary Bucklew, who added that the station was back to normal soon after rush hour was over.
Earlier in the morning, the demonstrators held a peaceful protest near the River Entrance to the Pentagon, said Michael Hasty, a spokesman for the American Peace Test.
They marched around the five-sided military headquarters, hoisting banners and pictures of victims of the bombing and chanting anti-nuclear war slogans, Hasty said. From there, they moved to the subway station where the arrests were made.
The River Entrance is where a Pentagon guard shot and killed a man Wednesday after he rushed toward the war room and the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The demonstrators, marking the first wartime use of a nuclear weapon 42 years ago, were taken to the Arlington County jail where they awaited booking, county police said.
The Pentagon protest was part of a national effort that includes some 50 demonstrations nationwide, Hasty said.
He said the locations targeted include the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, where weapons-grade plutonium was made until it was closed in January; Pantex weapons facility in Amarillo, Texas, where nuclear warheads are put together; and a nuclear weapons site in Rocky Flats, Colo.
Berrigan, 63, was a Roman Catholic priest until he was defrocked in 1973 for marrying a former nun.
Berrigan has supported the guerilla movements in Latin America, the anti-nuclear movement in Europe and the Solidarity union movement in communist Poland.
He is the brother of Daniel Berrigan, who is still a priest and peace activist.
