The Storm of a Lifetime

     While attending this year’s Montana Writers’ Rodeo to improve my craftsmanship, I came to realize that my initial determination to spend five years writing this small book, investigating the political-religious intrigue quieting Archbishop Hunthausen, came from my 9/11 experience at the Pentagon. Nine years ago I had made only 100 copies and sent most to where the title says. At the writers’ conference I realized that anyone motivated to take action for our communities in our present political-religious environment, including intending to vote, should also read it. 

     My investigative report explores the facts surrounding the Vatican's Apostolic Visitation to the Archdiocese of Seattle in late 1983, following Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen's effective advocacy of non-violent opposition to nuclear weapons, especially the basing of Trident nuclear missile-carrying submarines at Bangor, Washington, on the Hood Canal in Puget Sound. You’ll find information from interviews of persons who were involved, research from archives at Georgetown University, Marquette University, University of Texas and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, as well as results of Freedom of Information/Privacy Act requests to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Investigative Service. Appendices in the book present the full text of Archbishop Hunthausen's speech to the Pacific Lutheran Convention in Tacoma, Washington, full text of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's last speech, given in New York City to the Catholic Knights of Malta, full text of U.S. Secretary of Navy John F. Lehman's speech condemning non-violent resistance to nuclear weaponry, full text of U.S. President Harry Truman's speech dedicating the Temple of the Four Chaplains, full text of the FBI's Special Investigation of Trident Program procurement czar World War II Ace fighter pilot Melvyn R. Paisley, and full text of the obituary of Archbishop Jean Jadot, the Belgian prelate responsible for helping Pope Paul VI choose most of the members of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, including Hunthausen, responsible for writing the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter on War and Peace. Under great pressure from the Reagan Administration the U.S. Bishops refused to permit deterrence as a sufficiently moral reason for building nuclear weapons, unless the numbers of those warheads are being reduced.