Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.
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The yacht Everyman II and its crew of three pacifists may now leave its Ala Wai Boat Harbor berth and go anywhere without restrain — except into the two Pacific nuclear test areas.
Federal Judge Martin Pence yesterday ordered a preliminary injunction against the trio who had indicated they would sail into the Johnston Island nuclear test zone to protest the current U.S. test series.
Dr. Monte Steadman, a San Francisco physician, said immediately afterward that his group would appeal the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco.
… In his judgment, Pence lifted a previous restriction to a restraining order which said the crew must get court permission to move the Everyman II. The order was to expire at midnight last night.
"If they want to sail back and forth or go to get gasoline, then they can go ahead," the Judge declared.
Steadman and his two companions, C. George Bennello of Berkeley, California, and Franklin Zahn of Pomona, California, indicated they would probably stay in and around the Islands for some time.
Pence, in making his decision, made it clear that he was not deciding upon the wisdom of the course taken by the Atomic Energy Commission in closing the areas around Johnston and Christmas Islands to U.S. citizens or persons under the jurisdiction of U.S. authorities.
"For the purpose of this hearing," Pence said, "I find that the A.E.C. had sufficient authority to issue this regulation and I find the regulation was legal."
Commenting on the individual’s right to freedom of movement, Pence said he could see nothing in the A.E.C. regulation which interfered with an individual’s right to protest.
"It is only the particular type of protest the defendants want to make. … There is nothing to interfere with their right to protest all over the ocean except in the one (test) area," Pence remarked. …
The pacifists were represented by Honolulu attorneys David McClung and Eichi Oki. Herman Lum and T.S. Goo presented the Government’s case.
