Biography
Bill Bichsel was a Jesuit priest from Tacoma, WA ('Bix'); one of the Disarm Now Plowshares five who on Nov. 2, 2009 cut into Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, WA, reached the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, hung banners and hammered fences. (Action is title-only on the chronology page; details from public record.)
Father William J. 'Bix' Bichsel SJ was an American Jesuit priest, founder of the G.I. Joe Catholic Worker House in Tacoma, Washington, and one of the founding figures of the Pacific Northwest anti-nuclear movement. He spent six decades organizing against the U.S. Trident submarine base at Bangor on Hood Canal — home to the largest concentration of nuclear weapons in the United States — and against the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was arrested more than thirty times for civil-disobedience actions, beginning in the 1980s.
In the early hours of November 2, 2009, Bix — then 81 years old — and four other Catholic activists (including the late Anne Montgomery RSCJ, Susan Crane, Steve Kelly SJ, and Lynne Greenwald) cut through three security fences and entered the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, where the U.S. Pacific fleet's Trident D-5 nuclear warheads are stored. They reached the inner perimeter, where they hung banners, scattered sunflower seeds, and waited to be arrested. The action became known as the Disarm Now Plowshares. The five were charged with conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property, and depredation of government property. After a December 2010 trial they were convicted by a federal jury in Tacoma. Bix was sentenced in March 2011 to three months in federal prison plus four months of home confinement.
In 2010 he had also served three months at FCI Marianna for an SOA Watch border crossing at Fort Benning. He died on February 28, 2015 at age 86. Father Bill 'Bix' Bichsel SJ was an American Jesuit priest, peace activist with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington, and one of the most consistently arrested U.S. anti-nuclear and SOA Watch activists. He was sentenced to twelve months in federal prison in connection with the September 29, 1997 SOA sign-altering action at Fort Benning. He served at FPC Sheridan, Oregon. Bichsel later participated in the November 2, 2009 Disarm Now Plowshares action at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and died in 2015.
On September 29, 1997, five activists — Father Bill Bichsel SJ, Sister Marge Eilerman OSF, Ed Kinane, Mary Trotochaud, and others — altered the entrance sign at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. The five were tried in October 1998 in federal court in Columbus, GA and sentenced to 8 to 12 months in federal prison. Held at Federal Prison Camp Sheridan, Oregon (Unit 5, BOP register 86275-020) for participating in the School of the Americas Watch annual line-crossing protest at Fort Benning, GA.
The Eleventh Circuit’s June 25, 1998 account names Bichsel and De Benedette as participants in both November 15 and 16, 1995 protests at Fort Benning, while expressly noting that they did not join the seven-person appeal. The first day involved leafleting and removal from the base; the second involved a commemorative demonstration and arrests. The original thirteen defendants were convicted of trespass, with a collective two-to-six-month sentencing range. This source does not supply Bichsel’s individual term or completed custody duration. Source: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/19968586.OPN.pdf#page=6
The July 2013 Ground Zero newsletter individually names Bill Bichsel among the fourteen people arrested on the federal side of Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor during the Pacific Life Community action on March 4, 2013. It also identifies this person among seven defendants arraigned June 5 on a trespass/re-entry charge under 18 U.S.C. 1382, pleading not guilty and awaiting an October 21 trial. The possibility of jail was prospective. The report does not establish a complete jail interval or an eventual prison sentence. Source: https://www.gzcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/July-13-newsletter-for-website.pdf#page=7
Bill Bichsel’s imprisonment for Disarm Now Plowshares, March 28–June 24, 2011, was separate from his later Y-12 sentence. For Y-12, he entered SeaTac on November 10, 2011, left for a federal transition house in Tacoma on January 10, 2012, and was returned to SeaTac by marshals the next morning, January 11. He physically left SeaTac at 10:15 a.m. on February 9. The two prison stays total 90 days; the night at the transition house and later home detention are separate. Sources: November 10 entry report; transition and return report, including his attorney’s accounts; February 9 physical release report.
His account of thirty days in solitary confinement describes part of the later SeaTac stay. It is not an additional prison term. The Y-12 prison departure also does not mark the end of his separate home-detention obligation for Disarm Now Plowshares.
Earlier line-crossing sentencing context distinct from sign alteration
Lorraine Krofchok’s January 21,1998 trial report, printed in the May 1998 newsletter on original page3, individually quotes this defendant in the Fort Benning line-crossing proceedings. It reports six-month terms and $3,000 fines in the collective sentencing account, with twenty-two to go to jail alongside three previously sentenced. This is not the separate September 1997 SOA sign-alteration prosecution currently recorded with a later 1998 prison phase. The article’s subsequent twenty-person March 23 reporting roster does not include this name; its common intake date must not be copied here. A remark in a collective sentencing report is not by itself a physical-prison admission or proof of a completed six-month term. No actual release, individual exact sentence date, new jail interval or numeric counter is inferred.
Grandmothers for Peace International, May 1998 newsletter, original pages 3–4.
The Pardon Attorney’s April 15, 1998 letter says Bichsel, Eilerman, Kinane and Trotochaud had not yet begun the November 1997 protest sentences while awaiting sentencing in another case. It is therefore unsafe to copy the other defendants’ common March 23 intake date onto these four. Mike Lowry’s October 21 letter distinguishes the September 1997 sign-alteration prosecution and reports that their six-month line-crossing terms were ordered consecutive to the sign-case terms. A clemency request is not a grant, and nominal consecutive sentences are not proof of an equivalent amount of actual service.
Mike Lowry’s October 21, 1998 letter specifically states that William J. Bichsel began federal imprisonment September 28, 1998. It describes an aggregate imposed term of one and a half years, comprising the sign-case sentence and the consecutive six-month line-crossing term. The actual intake date is not October 1. No new separate served period is added for the consecutive count, and the previously recorded release endpoint is preserved.
The March 17, 2014 report individually lists Bill “Bix” Bichsel among those arrested after crossing the boundary at the Nevada National Security Site on March 10 during the Pacific Life Community gathering. The named participants were held in processing pens, issued citations and released a short time later. No statutory charge, individual jail admission, completed full day of custody or subsequent court outcome is supplied. The period during which the group crossed the boundary is not treated as an individual detention duration. The Nuclear Resister, March 17, 2014.
The October 8, 2010 report individually names Bill Bichsel among the five Disarm Now Plowshares defendants arraigned that day in Tacoma federal court and permitted to represent themselves. It reports that the grand jury returned charges in early September 2010: conspiracy, trespass, destruction of property on a naval installation and depredation of government property. The announced December trial and possible maximum penalties were prospective, not completed outcomes or measured imprisonment.
The July 14, 2013 Jane Stoever report individually names this person among twenty-four protesters arrested after crossing the property line at the new Kansas City nuclear-weapons-parts plant on July 13. All twenty-four were fingerprinted, photographed and detained at the Jackson County Police Department. The report gives mixed group release dates of July 13 and 14, with some releases expected July 15, but does not assign an individual endpoint to this person. No formal charge, exact jail admission, completed custody duration or later court outcome is inferred. Earlier charges against Carl Kabat for separate actions are not assigned to this event. The Nuclear Resister, July 14, 2013.
Bill Quigley’s March 28, 2011 sentencing report states that the five Disarm Now Plowshares defendants had been convicted at their December trial, entered custody immediately after sentencing, and were each ordered to pay $5,300 and serve one year of supervised probation. The imprisonment and home-confinement terms were distinct from that supervision; the prosecutors’ requested three-year supervision period was not the imposed term. Sentencing report.
An April 19, 2011 report states that Bichsel was taken from his SeaTac cell on April 18 for transport to Tennessee for a separate Y-12 proceeding. It does not establish arrival in Tennessee or release from custody on that day. His April 14 letter described conditions in SeaTac and his companionship with fellow prisoner Steve Kelly. Contemporary report and letter.
Contemporary reports of the May 11, 2011 Y-12 trial describe a federal jury trespass conviction arising from the July 5, 2010 action in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Judge Bruce Guyton presided, and Jeff Theodore and Melissa Milliken acted for the prosecution. Bichsel was already serving the separate Disarm Now Plowshares term and had been transported from Washington for trial; the account places him at Knox County detention rather than treating the verdict as his first admission.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister, report 886; The Nuclear Resister, report 887; The Nuclear Resister, report 889.
Disarm Now trial and verdict
The contemporary trial account individually names this defendant among the five Disarm Now Plowshares participants arrested at dawn on November 2, 2009. A jury found all five guilty on all counts on December 13, 2010; the report names Judge Settle, and Anabel Dwyer’s commentary identifies Assistant U.S. Attorney Arlen Storm as the prosecutor. A separate report dates the public announcement of the indictments to September 3, 2010; that announcement is not treated as proof of the precise day the grand jury acted. Contemporary verdict report. Contemporary trial commentary. Indictment announcement report.
The September 12, 2011 Y-12 sentencing account identifies Mike Whalen as Bill “Bix” Bichsel’s defense lawyer. Judge Bruce Guyton imposed three months, without a fine or probation, and Bichsel was to return to Tacoma and self-report later. The sentencing hearing was not his later actual prison admission. The Nuclear Resister, contemporary source report 848.
