Biography
Kenneth Calkins was a pacifist (a University of Chicago graduate) jailed in the 1958 nonviolent protest against the Atlas ICBM missile base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. Run down and injured by a gravel truck during the demonstration, he was convicted of trespassing and served a 104-day sentence with his wife Eleanor.
The October 18, 1958 issue of L’Adunata dei Refrattari, summarizing Liberation’s September report, describes Kenneth Calkins’s hospitalization after a truck ran over him during the Cheyenne missile-base road protest. It reports that, after leaving the hospital about a week later, he was convicted, fined $100 plus $4 in court costs, and was serving a 104-day jail term after refusing payment. This contemporary report does not establish the actual final release date or completed aggregate service.
L’Adunata dei Refrattari, October 18, 1958, pages 2–3, Uomini e missili.
The September 22, 1958 National Guardian reports that military police held Kenneth and his wife for several hours at the Cheyenne missile site on August 18. They returned August 19 and were arrested with Arthur Springer and Rev. Theodore Olson. The report describes ten days in hospital after a truck fractured Kenneth’s pelvis, followed by confinement in Laramie County Jail. This differs from the approximate hospital week in the later account quoted above. Kenneth was jailed when his university awarded his degree on August 29, and the couple marked their first wedding anniversary in jail on August 31. Their 104-day sentences were then being served; this report does not establish final discharge or completed service. A mission of conscience, printed page 7.
