To land on the fbis most wanted list. Then we remember the pioneering human rights attorney Michael Ratner. From attica to assange, the longtime head of the center for Constitutional Rights defended and spoke up for victims of human rights abuses across the world from haiti and guatemala to iraq and the palestinian territories. This is no time for compromise, no time for political calculation. As howard zinn admonishes us, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioner. Amy today, Michael Ratner and dan berrigan, a remembrance. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We begin todays special broadcast remembering the life and legacy of the legendary antiwar priest father Daniel Berrigan. He died on april 30 just short of his 95th birthday. Berrigan was a poet, pacifist, educator, social activist, playwright, and lifelong resister against what he called American Military imperialism. Along with his late brother, phil berrigan, father dan played an instrumental role in inspiring the antiwar and antidraft movement during the late 1960s as well as the movement against Nuclear Weapons in the early 1970s. He became the first Catholic Priest to land on the fbis most wanted list. Georgetown University Theology professor Chester Gillis once said of father berrigan if you were to identify catholic prophets in the 20th century, hed be right there with dorothy day or thomas merton. In early 1968, father Daniel Berrigan made International Headlines when he traveled to North Vietnam with historian howard zinn to bring home three u. S. Prisoners of war. In the documentary holy outlaw,ather dan recalled spending time in vietnamese shelters while being bombed by u. S. Jets. So we were in this shelter and very unexpectedly came on three children, who were crouching in there, too, against all expectations, and one of the elder children feeding rice to one of the younger ones. And i wrote this little verse within a couple days and tried to read it later at our trial. It seemed to sum up everything that catonsville was about in one image, one reality. Its called, children in the shelter. Imagine three of them. As though survival were a rats word, and a rats death waited there at the end and i must have in the centurys boneyard heft of flesh and bone in my arms i picked up the littlest a boy, his face breaded with rice his sister calmly feeding them as we climbed down in my arms fathered in a moments grace, the messiah of all my tears. I bore, reborn a hiroshima child from hell. Amy on may 17, 1968, father dan berrigan, his brother phil and seven others took 378 draft files from the draft board in catonsville, maryland. Then in the parking lot of the draft board office, the activists set the draft records on fire, using homemade napalm, to protest the vietnam war. They became known as the catonsville nine. The act of civil disobedience was chronicled in the 2013 documentary, hit stay a history of faith and resistance. This begins with dan berrigan. We make our prayer in the name of that god whose name is peace and decency and unity and love. We unite in taking our matches, approaching the fire. Were all part of this. While people throughout the world, and especially vietnam now, are suffering from napalm, that these files are also napalmed, to show that these lives can fall on the same fate as the vietnamese. Amen. Napalm, which was made from information and from a formula in the United States special forces handbook published by the school of special warfare of the United States. We all had a hand in making the napalm that was used here today. Napalm is a very old weapon. It goes back to the byzantines. But it really came to public attention during the war in vietnam, in the pictures of napalmed people. So that was the kind of quintessential symbol of the war we were burning babies, literally, in vietnam. So thats why we wanted to come up with something symbolic and also something that would really destroy the files. Our church has failed to act officially, and we feel that, as individuals, were going to have to speak out in the name of catholicism and christianity. And we hope our action to inspire other people who have christian principles or a faith similar to christianity will act accordingly, too, to stop the terrible destruction that america is wreaking on the whole world. We regret very much, i think all of us, the inconvenience and even the suffering that weve brought to these clerks here. We sincerely hope we didnt injure anyone. Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. We have chosen to be powerless criminals in a time of criminal power. We have chosen to be branded as peace criminals by war criminals. Amy father dan berrigan and other members of the catonsville nine were arrested on the spot. Dan berrigan wrote our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order. The burning of paper instead of children. The draft board raid invigorated the Antiwar Movement by inspiring over 100 similar acts of protest. It also shook the foundation of the traditionbound catholic church. Father dan would eventually serve time, about two years in a federal prison in danbury, connecticut. In 1980, the berrigan brothers and six others began the Plowshares Movement when they broke into the General ElectricNuclear Missile facility in king of prussia, pennsylvania. The activists hammered Nuclear Warhead nose cones and poured blood onto documents and files. They were arrested and charged with over tedifferent felony and misdemeanor counts. They became know as the plowshares eight. I want to turn to a clip from the from the film, in the king of prussia. This scene features dan berrigan reciting what he told the judg and jury during the trial. Youve heard about hammers and blood in this room. These are the hammers of hell. These are the hammers that will break the world to bits. These are the hammers that claim the end of the world. The judge knows it. The prosecutor knows it. Weve seen people walk away from these things. Weve seen them disclaim them. Weve seen them say they are not responsible for them. Weve seen all sorts of language circling them like a dance of death. They are murder. He knows it. He knows it. You must know it. We have been trying we eight to take responsibility for these things, to call them by their right name, which is murder, death, genocide, the end of the world. Their proper use is known to the judge and the prosecutor and to you. We would like you to know the name of our crime. We would like to assume responsibility for a world, for children, for the future. And if that is a crime, then it is quite clear that we belong in their jails. Where they belong is something else. But in the name of all the eight, i would like to leave with you, friends and jurors, that great and noble word, which is our crime responsibility. Amy that is an excerpt from the film in the king of prussia directed by emile de antonio. We turn now to father Daniel Berrigan on one of his last appearances on democracy now on june 8, 2006, shortly after his 85th birthday. Can you talk about that first decision you made in catonsville, before catonsville, to do it, what you were doing at the time and how you made the decision . Yeah. I was teaching at cornell, and philip came up. He was awaiting sentencing for a prior action in 1967 in baltimore, where they poured their blood on draft files in the city. And he came up to cornell and announced to me very coolly that he and others were going to do it again. I was blown away by the courage, and the effrontery, really, of my brother, in not really just submitting to the prior conviction, but saying, weve got to underscore the first action with another one. And he says, youre invited. So i swallowed hard and said, give me a few days. I want to talk about pro and cons of doing a thing like this. So when i started meditating and putting down reasons to do it and reasons not to do it, it became quite clear that the option and the invitation were outweighing Everything Else and that i had to go ahead with him. So i notified him that i was in. And we did it. Amy now, this was after you had been to North Vietnam. Right. This was may of 1968, and i had been in hanoi in late january, early february of that year. Amy with historian howard zinn. Right. Amy freeing prisoners of war . Yes, we brought home three flyers who had been captured and imprisoned. It was a kind of gesture of peace in the midst of the war by the vietnamese, during the socalled tet holiday, which was traditionally a time of reunion of families, and so they wanted these flyers to be reunited with their families. Amy in catonsville, was this the first time you were breaking the laws of the United States . No, i had been at the pentagon in 1967 i think it was in october. And a great number of us were arrested after a warning from mcnamara to disperse. And we spent a couple of weeks in jail. It was rather rough. And we did a fast. And we were in the d. C. Jail, which was a very mixed lot. So i had had a little bit of a taste during that prior year. Amy you and your brother, phil berrigan, had an unusual relationship with secretary of defense mcnamara. You actually talked to him, wrote to him, met him . Yes. I met him at a social evening with the kennedys in about 1965 and after this very posh dinner, which was welcoming me home from latin america. One of the kennedys announced that they would love to have a discussion between the secretary of war and myself in front of everybody, which we did start. And they asked me to initiate the thing, and i said to the secretary something about, since you didnt stop the war this morning, i wonder if youd do it this evening. So he looked kind of past my left ear and said, well, ill just say this to father berrigan and everybody vietnam is like mississippi. If they wont obey the law, you send the troops in. And he stopped. And the next morning, when i returned to new york city, i said to a secretary at a magazine we were publishing i said, would you please take this down in shorthand, because in two weeks i wont believe that i heard what i heard. The secretary said, in response to my request to stop the war, vietnam is like mississippi if they wont obey the law, you send the troops in. and this was supposed to be the brightest of the bright, one of the whiz kids, respected by all in the cabinet, etc. , etc. , etc. And he talks like a sheriff out of selma, alabama. Whose law . Wont obey whose law . Well, that was the level at which the war was being fought. Amy so you went to catonsville, you went into the draft office. We hear about draft card burnings. But this was draft file burnings. In you went in with a group of people. Now, some of them you talked about having been in exile in latin america, and some of them were there more about treatment of what was going on in the u. S. Government in places like guatemala than vietnam, is that right . Thats right. Amy why were you exiled to latin america . Well, there was a lot of controversy and a very hot scene here in new york city beginning about 1967 into 1968. And i think the occasion of my being kicked out was the immolation of a Young Catholic worker in the city here named roger laporte. He went to the u. N. And burned himself. Of course, the whole Catholic Worker Community was devastated by this terrifying event. They wanted to hold a memorial service, and i was invited to officiate. And in the course of it i cast doubt upon the judgment of the cardinal that this had been suicide. I said, i dont think we know. A i think this could have been some kind of misguided heroism that said, im going to give my life rather than take life. And that word, of course, got out and there was panic. There was panic in the authorities of the archdiocese of new york and in my order. And they said weve got to hes got to hes become a very hot item, weve got to get him out of town. Amy where were you exiled to . Well, it was a oneway ticket to latin america. So i was down there i think about five months. And i was in at least 10 countries purportedly reporting back to my editorial people in new york about conditions down there. It was a wrong move. It generated huge publicity not just in the Catholic Community but across the country. And they were forced to call me back. So i came back with a stipulation that i go on with my peace work. They said, ok, ok. Amy so you certainly did in force. And from catonsville, you served how many years in prison for that . Well, i think it was about two years. Amy and then with your brother phil you founded the Ploughshares Movement your first action in 1980, king of prussia, pennsylvania. Explain what you did at the g. E. Plant. Well, we had had meetings, i recall, all that spring and autumn with people about the production of an entirely new weapon, the mark 12a, which was really only useful if it initiated a nuclear war. It was a First Strike Nuclear weapon. It was being fabricated in this anonymous plant huge, huge factory in king of prussia, pennsylvania. And there had never been an attempt in the history of the antinuclear movement, there had never been an attempt to interfere with the production of a new weapon. With the help of Daniel Ellsberg and other experts, we were able to understand that this was not a hiroshimatype bomb, it was something totally different. It was opening a new chapter in this chamber of horrors. So we decided we would go in there in september of 1970. And we did. Amy september of 1980 . 1980. Excuse me. Amy what does that mean, you did . Well, we didnt know exactly where in that huge factory these weapons were concealed, but we had to trust in providence that he would come upon the weaponry, which we did in short order. We went in with the workers at the changing of the shift and found there was really no security worth talking about. Very easy entrance. In about three minutes, we were looking at doomsday. The weapon was before us. It was an unarmed warhead about to be shipped to amarillo, texas, for its payload. So it was a harmless weapon as of that moment. And we cracked the weapon. It was very fragile. It was made to withstand heat of reentry into the atmosphere of outer space, so it was like eggshells, really. We had taken as our motto the great statement of isaiah 2, they shall beat their swords into ploughshares. So we did it. Poured our blood around it. And stood in a circle. I think reciting the lords prayer until armageddon arrived, as we expected. Amy and you were tried . We were tried and convicted in short order and sentenced, eventually, to three to 10 years. And we were out on appeal for 10 years. The trial was such a farce that the state of pennsylvania really didnt know what to do with it. And it went on and on and on. Finally, in 1990, a retired judge, kind of weary of the whole thing, gave us time served. Amy father dan berrigan speaking on democracy now in june 2006. We will return to the interview in a minute. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracy now. Org. The war and peace report. I am amy goodman. Today a special broadcast remembering the lives of two champions of social justice, father Daniel Berrigan and attorney Michael Ratner. In a moment, we will return to my 2006 interview with dan berrigan. But first, i want to go back to the documentary hit stay looking at the time father berrigan spent living underground as a fugitive from the fbi while his conviction in the catonsville nine case was under appeal. During the time he was in hiding, father berrigan changed his location often. He stayed with 37 different families in 10 eastern and midwestern cities. Well, father dan, youve been underground for some time now. Whats it like to be underground in the United States of america . Well, id say that it looks as though it could go on forever. It looks good enough, looks useful enough, for the movement. So there were some, what, four months that they looked for dan everywhere. And he was everywhere and available to everyone, except the fbi. Amy an excerpt from the documentary, hit stay. That last voice was peace activist liz mcalister, phil berrigans wife. On may 6, liz gave the eulogy at Dan Berrigans funeral. We return now to my 2006 interview with father berrigan. After the trial, you went underground. Why did you decide to do that . Well, the war had worsened, and the spring of 1970, the campuses were aflame. Nixon had invaded laos. There was secret bombing going on. The war had widened. It was a bad time to turn oneself in, and we were comparing that order to military induction. It was like saying, well, im going off to war. Im going to obey them and go off to war. Im going to take the penalty for what we did to make the war evidently, evidently unwinnable and unwageable. So a group of us said, no go, and went underground. Amy and what does that mean when you go underground . Well, it meant that the fbi was on your tail and that hoover was outraged and very angry and kept marking up sheetsthat we got out, freedom of information, later saying, get him get him and scrawling all these orders around and putting extra people on our tail. Amy but you were showing up in the strangest places. All sorts of places, including preaching in church and getting on National Television with a good interview and so on and so forth. So it really increased the edginess of the whole thing. Amy can you explain what happened was it at cornell . They almost caught you there . That was at the beginning of all this. In early spring of 1970, they had a big rally in our favor at cornell. And i showed up unexpectedly and got away again, in spite of the presence of fbi all over. Amy how did you get out . I went out in a puppet