Word: planted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Protesters had come to Seabrook in years past--their goal to stop construction on the giant nuclear plant now one-fifth complete. Last May, the talk-is-cheap part of the anti-nuclear movement began planning a new tack in the fight. Instead of peaceful protests or acts of civil disobedience, they wanted "direct action." Cut down fences, occupy the plant, resist arrest, they said. That tactical change bred other shifts--in decision-making, in the attitude of the authorities, and the mood...
...Santasoucci's farm Friday afternoon, meeting the organizers who surround the camp. Security and support crews arrange for campsites, make dinner, shuttle passengers in and out, and bar the door to undesirables, which in this case means the press. Inside, the rain is a nearer enemy than the power plant--tents and tarps spring up, some Himalya-proof homes, other makeshift shelters, like the "Poncho Villa" erected by four Harvard students...
There is little to do but wait until morning, which comes soon enough: 4:30 a.m. You move out en masse along a forest trail lit only by the lights of an occasional T.V. crew and the high intensity bulbs that circle the plant. The sun comes up over the tidal marsh just as you reach it, a moment much too glorious. People joke about it, and the allusions to solar energy come one after another...
Near the fence, you can see clumps of police surrounding the site. The seven-foot fence, topped with three strands of barbed wire, will become a symbol--fence-cutting represents direct action against the plant; and among the happiest shouts of the weekend is the one that goes up Monday morning when one group returns from a nighttime foray with 30 feet of the tempered steel. But now, the fence is only in the way, and the goals--the rusting reactor vessel and the turbine building, each flying an American flag--stand outlined in the dawn...
...fence still protects the plant, but there is, some joy in the soggy camp. "The press," acting in its capacity as judge of the event, seems to have ruled in your favor. There are lots of pictures of policemen swinging and throwing and macing and sneering, perhaps because a number of reporters were among the victims. You watch the black-and-white set on the Santasoucci's front lawn, and you cheer and hiss at the right moments and make appropriately snide comments, and when the Pope comes on the screen you leave...