Biography
Daniel Joseph Berrigan, S.J., was a Jesuit priest, poet, and organizer against war and nuclear weapons. A member of the Catonsville Nine, he served 18 months in federal prison after the group burned draft records in 1968. On September 9, 1980, Berrigan joined seven other activists in entering General Electric’s missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, where they hammered on nuclear-warhead nose cones and poured blood on documents. The Plowshares Eight action launched the modern Plowshares movement. After a decade of appeals, the defendants were resentenced in April 1990 to time already served.
The documentary The Berrigans: Devout and Dangerous presents the family’s anti-war and anti-racist organizing through archival footage, interviews and the perspectives of younger family members. Its press kit describes the costs of imprisonment and family separation within that movement. The film’s collective reference to more than 300 arrests is not an individual arrest count or a measure of time served. Source: https://theberrigansmovie.com/assets/stuff/2021/11/BERRIGANS_DEVOUTDANGEROUS_PRESS_KIT.pdf#page=2
Jane Yolen’s September 1972 review records False Gods, Real Men as a Macmillan volume of poems, 111 pages. She describes the poems incorporating news reports and an indictment, and reflecting on draft-file destruction and a journey to Vietnam. These are bibliographic and literary details; poetic scenes are not treated as independent proof of another arrest or a new custody endpoint. Source: https://friendsjournal.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/friendsjournal/wp-content/uploads/emember/downloads/1972/HC12-50522.5.pdf#page=20
Separate July 28–31, 1981 remand during Plowshares Eight appeal
The September 19, 1981 newsletter, original page 3, reports all eight immediately jailed when sentenced July 28. Three days later Daniel Berrigan, Molly Rush and Anne Montgomery were actually released after a Superior Court panel reinstated bond. Thus July 31 is a calendar inference from the explicitly stated three-day interval, and this three-day remand is separate from initial September 1980 detention. Earlier bail gaps must not be counted as continuous custody. The later 1990 resentencing is not this release event.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 7, September 19, 1981, original pages 1–4
Additional individually documented custody
The Griffiss update individually names George Ostensen, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Shirley Lockwood and Brian Barrett as refusing fines following their January 23, 1986 trespass convictions and actually serving five days in jail. Their Thanksgiving 1985 arrest is not assumed to be continuous imprisonment until January. Exact first admission and actual discharge days are not printed. The convictions and future sentencing of the four re-entry defendants are separate; Suzanne Schmidt paid her fine and is not assigned this five-day stay.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 7.
The Militant individually named Daniel Berrigan, with his brothers Philip and Jerome, among 29 anti-nuclear protesters arrested at the Pentagon on December 28, 1976. Their January 7, 1977 court appearance was continued to January 21. This report does not establish how long Daniel remained in custody after that arrest.
The study identifies James Buckingham as the April 1990 resentencing judge and records time served plus twenty-three months’ probation.
