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Eugene Keyes

Released
Date of birth:24. 10. 1941
Date of death:24. 05. 2025
Age:83 Deceased
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:1960s
State:Connecticut
Support
Anti-War Committee for Non-Violent Action
Eugene Keyes

Biography

Eugene "Gene" Keyes was a 19-year-old Harvard student — not, as sometimes recorded, an NYU student — and Committee for Non-Violent Action pacifist who swam toward the nuclear submarine Thomas Edison at New London on June 15, 1961 and was released within hours. He was jailed after the later August 1961 commissioning protest of the Ethan Allen and is reported to have served seventeen days. His photographic archive of the CNVA campaigns, kept for the rest of his life, documents several of the people in this database.

Case

Charges: Interfering with a naval vessel — antinuclear Polaris-submarine protest
Arrested: August 1961
Sentence: Jailed after the August 1961 Ethan Allen commissioning protest; reported to have served seventeen days. His June 15, 1961 Thomas Edison swim ended in release within hours.
Convicted: Yes