1993 to Present - The Clinton Years

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Reagan - Bush

After Clinton was elected, the Washington Times and Atlanta Journal published friendly AP stories, "Anti-Nuke Activists to Hold Their Line."

When inauguration ceremonies were over, and most of the limousines had vanished for another four years, Clinton's political promises and Maya Anjelou's poem ringing in our minds, we welcomed the Clintons into the White House in 1993 by writing a neighborly letter, advising them of the status quo outside their front door, asking that they help rescind the regulations which are threatening the vigil's existence. We received a (friendly) form letter in reply, and a generally less uncivil police force, for awhile.

However, the exceptions have been very bad indeed, such as the tormenting and killing of a homeless man in December '94, in part captured on tourist's video and broadcast on worldwide TV.


The regulations haven't been rescinded.

And the status quo has
substantially changed for the worse.



Thomas suggested the Secret Service put the White House under a bubble, instead of closing Pennsylvania Avenue. City Paper was among those who thought that a great idea.

Since Mr. Clinton's first parade, the vigilers have brought a successful voter initiative to the people of Washington DC, which has three times been introduced to the House of Representatives by DC's Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton as the "Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act." The bill immediately gained nine co-sponsors in 1994, but was stuck in committees. Ellen traveled in November 1994 to Japan, invited to speak to 1,500 peace activists in 1994. The idea has enormous support among people from all over the world.

In 1995 Ellen brought a letter from Congresswoman Norton to the International Court of Justice hearings on the legality of nuclear weapons, which was accepted by the judges as evidence that there were elected politicians within the U.S. government who don't agree with the official policy of "we've got 'em, we're keeping 'em, national sovereignty rules." Although Congress and Mr. Clinton continue to drag their feet on this issue (an unsigned Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty doesn't go far enough), in 1996 the World Court found that nuclear weapons could and should be illegal. Sixty-two retired generals in December 1996 declared nuclear weapons unsafe, unnecessary, and insane.

Meanwhile, Thomas was arrested twice in 1996 while vigiling for global nuclear disarmament, first for merely speaking. He was physically battered - blood on the sidewalk - by a Secret Service officer on Easter Eve for reciting the Declaration of Independence when the officer told him to stop talking. The prosecutors failed to prosecute. Then, on election eve, 1996, Thomas was arrested by a Park Police officer for NOT speaking.

(He was acquitted after a farce of a trial).

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