Biography
Dorothy Day/New Haven Catholic Worker and chronicler of the movement. He took part in the 1982 Trident Nein action (USS Florida, Electric Boat, Groton, CT) and the 1989 Thames River Plowshares (New London, CT).
Art Laffin is the principal chronicler of the Plowshares movement, co-editor with Sr. Anne Montgomery of two editions of "Swords Into Plowshares: Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament" (Harper & Row 1987; Fortkamp 1996). He was a member of the Covenant Peace Community in New Haven from 1978 to 1990 before joining the Olive Branch Catholic Worker in DC in 1990 and the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in 1994, where he still lives with his wife and son. He is the author of a new edition of "The Risk of the Cross: Living Gospel Nonviolence in the Nuclear Age" and has been imprisoned for two Plowshares actions.
Thames River custody episodes
Laffin's participant-authored chronology establishes September 4–5, 1989 overnight detention, followed by a separate March 6, 1990 sixty-day sentence. The September 5 release is not the end of the later prison term; those custody endpoints remain unknown.
Source: Arthur J. Laffin, Plowshares chronology, Thames River section.
Trident Nein dates and separate proceedings
Participant Art Laffin dates the action and arrests to July 5, 1982. The contemporary sentencing report dates the original disposition to November 9, 1982. A sentence is not treated as a verified prison-admission date.
Sources: Art Laffin, July 2022 eyewitness retrospective; Revolutionary Worker, November 12, 1982, pages 1–2.
Existing individually documented custody periods and May 27, 1983 release have been preserved; the sentencing date does not overwrite those interrupted stays.
Original archival custody and release evidence
The Nuclear Resister issue 12 names all nine participants and reports seven weeks in jail followed by August 26, 1982 recognizance release. Initial custody is July 5–August 26, not an uninterrupted stay through 1983.
Issue 13 records the November 9 sentence as suspended to time served. Issue 15 documents February 2, 1983 revocation and renewed imprisonment. The intervening recognizance period is excluded from time imprisoned.
Actual later prison release: 1983-05-27. This is not the end of the entire sentence.
Sources: issue 12, October 18, 1982, printed page 4 (PDF page 6); issue 13, November 30, 1982, page 4; issue 14, January 14, 1983, page 3; issue 15, March 9, 1983, printed page 6 (PDF page 8); issue 16, April 17, 1983, printed page 10 (PDF page 11); issue 17, June 6, 1983, page 5.
Earlier November 1981 Groton proceeding and intervening bail
Original page 3 names Dean Hammer, Ann Montgomery, Art Laffin, Chris Grannis, Elin Schade and Judy Beaumont as out on bail after the November 9, 1981 Electric Boat administration-building blood-and-ashes action in Groton. It reports denial of pretrial motions and the judge’s recusal on December 2, with trial delayed. This is a distinct earlier proceeding, not the July 5, 1982 Trident Nein detention or the original Plowshares Eight case. Being out on bail is not continuous imprisonment; the article supplies no exact initial physical-jail receipt, release day or actual custody total. No additional imprisonment counter or speculative discrete jail interval is created.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 9, December 12, 1981, original page 3.
Contemporary anti-nuclear custody report
The Groton update concerns the November 1981 blood-and-ashes protest at Electric Boat, not the later July 1982 Trident Nein action. It says charges against Judy Beaumont, Christopher Grannis, Dean Hammer, Ann Montgomery and Elin Schade were dropped at the January 28, 1982 appearance, while Art Laffin still awaited trial. It does not supply an actual jail-admission or release day; dismissed charges are not a custody endpoint.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 11, April 15, 1982, original pages 3.
Separate February 1985 missile-silo vigil detention
The report individually names Art Laffin, Father Larry Rosebaugh and Patrick Mulvehill as arrested for state trespass after crossing the field fence near the N-5 silo during a February 18, 1985 support vigil. All three remained in jail pending a March 1 hearing, unlike Miriam Olsen and Bobbie Plante, who posted bond. This establishes a distinct actual multi-night 1985 custody episode for Art Laffin, not an extension of a previous Pantex, Fort Benning, Trident Nein or 1983 workhouse stay. The future hearing is not actual release, and no final duration is inferred. Larry is the source’s familiar name for the existing Lawrence Rosebaugh; no new person is created.
The Nuclear Resister No.29, February 27, 1985, original PDF pages 2,4,6.
Contemporary1985 custody follow-up
The April16 follow-up explicitly says this individually named supporter remained jailed and fasted eleven days before the March1,1985 bench trial, which ended in conviction and a time-served sentence. The issue lists the person recently released. Eleven is actual reported confinement, not the nominal sentence or a duration copied from another case. The hearing/time-served date is not automatically treated as the exact physical-release day.
The May 9, 1981 newsletter individually names this person among five anti-nuclear protesters held over the weekend after the April 25 demonstration at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, where the submarine Corpus Christi was launched. They refused to supply their ages. On Monday they still declined to cooperate, and New London Superior Court Judge Francis Quinn initially imposed fifty days for contempt. After discussion, the five were released on their own recognizance pending trial. The fifty-day term was not fifty days actually served. The source establishes weekend custody but does not print the exact release date; no calendar-relative endpoint or total is invented.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 5, May 9, 1981.
Laffin was tried July 20, 1982 for the November 9, 1981 Electric Boat action. Criminal mischief was dropped and the jury acquitted him of trespass; this is distinct from the July 1982 Trident Nein prosecution.
