MARYLIA KELLEY
Kelley is executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) located in Livermore, California. She said today: “This August 6, at 8 a.m., I will join hundreds of people of peace who will gather at the Livermore nuclear weapons Lab in California in solemn remembrance of the 65th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. Livermore Lab is one of two locations in the United States that have designed every nuclear weapon in the U.S. stockpile. …

“The budget for new and modified nuclear weapons is increasing on President Obama’s watch. We will call on the government to stop funding the continued development of nuclear bombs and to, instead, use the monies to meet human needs, including the irreversible dismantlement of U.S. nuclear warheads and immediate cleanup of the radioactive and toxic wastes at Livermore Lab and other locations contaminated by nuclear weapons. …

“We will demand that the United States live up to its disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We will forcefully point out that the present scheme to spend $180 billion to build new bomb plants and new nuclear bombs under the rubric of ‘modernization’ is not only out of compliance with the NPT, but is also morally and fiscally bankrupt.”

JOHN STEINBACH
A longtime activist on nuclear weapons issues, Steinbach is with the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee of the National Capital Area. He said today: “As the world observes the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombings, the Obama administration is planning to spend $180 billion over the next ten years on nuclear weapons and strategic delivery systems, equaling or exceeding Cold War spending levels. When President Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons in Prague last year, the world cheered and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Which will it be, President Obama, nuclear disarmament or nuclear buildup? You can’t have it both ways.”

The Committee is organizing a Hiroshima commemoration candle lantern float on Thursday, Aug. 5 beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. A Nagasaki candlelight vigil is on Sunday, Aug. 8 at 9:45 p.m. on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

Peace Action has a searchable site for events around the country commemorating the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.

Note to producers: You may want to use the song “Enola Gay” by OMD as a musical lead-in; this version includes audio of President Harry Truman claiming that Hiroshima was “a military base”: on YouTube.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020