GROTON, Conn. -- Four protesters were arrested Sunday after they climbed on top of the nuclear submarine Nautilus -- now a museum - during demonstrations marking the 44th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, police said.
The protest was one of severl across Connecticut held by a coalition of groups in more than a dozen towns to cover the period of the first atomic bombings that destroyed Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, to the destruction of Nagasaki by a second bomb three days later.
'We hope to remind people that the United States never repented for these bombings,' said Michael Drummy, a spokesman for Witness for Peace, which organized the protest outside the U.S. Naval Submarine Base, which is adjacent to where the Nautilus is permanently docked.
Groton Police Lt. David Vanasse said four of the protesters were arrested after they climbed on top of the Nautilus and strung a banner across the first nuclear submarine.
'They're part of the public and they had a right to be in the area as long as they were peaceful,' Vanasse said. 'We asked them twice to leave the submarine and they refused so they were arrested. They were peaceful outside the sub base.'
Vanasse said the four were charged with disorderly conduct and would be released on their own recognizance because they were Connecticut residents.
Demonstrators were also conducted at several other major defense contractors, including General Electric Co. in Fairfield and the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corp. in Groton.
'On these anniversaries, 44 years later, we must rededicate ourselves to the proposition that nuclear weapons must never be used for attack,' said Roz Spier of the Connecticut Freeze Campaign, which organized the protests.
Fairfield Police Sgt. Tom Mrozek said the protest outside GE was peaceful and without incident.
Mary Ellen Marucci, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said members were demonstrating in opposition to the Project Galileo space probe planned by NASA and GE for later this year.
Marucci said plans to carry 50 pounds of plutonium into space and back into earth's orbit 'pose a very real danger of polluting space as well as the earth's atmosphere and oceans.'
'Plutonium is the most toxic substance known. For them to carry out this probe is irresponsible to say the least,' said Marucci.
