I am dedicated to the goals of this group, to keep alive the memory of the horrors of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.

My name is Larry Harper.  I was born in 1947, just over 2 years after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My Mother’s father left Bismarck’s Germany when he turned 18 in 1883 to avoid being drafted into the Crimean War. My father was a published pacifist who was too young to be drafted into WWI and too old to be drafted into WWII. I was a conscientious objector and spent 2 years working in a psychiatric unit as an alternative service. 

My first awakening that we were being misled about nuclear weapons and the miracle of nuclear power was when I realized how useless it was to hide under your desk in grade school to protect yourself from a nuclear blast. 

In 1972 I became a War Tax Resister, refusing to pay 20% of my income taxes due, which was the amount of the discretionary budget that went to nuclear weapons.  I have resisted some symbolic amount most years since. 

In 1983, I was arrested at Lawrence Livermore Labs, protesting their work on the nuclear arsenal.  I spent 21 days in Santa Rita Jail for that action.  It was the first of many arrests opposing nuclear weapons and power and militarism. 

I joined the Peace Crane Project, then called the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance Committee, around 2005 to honor my friend Betsy Eberhardt who died in 2004.  She was a founding member of the group around 1984. 

I am dedicated to the goals of this group, to keep alive the memory of the horrors of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.