Biography
Roger Ludwig was a poet and musician engaged in work with the poor in Washington, DC. He was a two-time Plowshares activist, participating in Plowshares Number Four (1982) and Trident II Pruning Hooks (1985).
Karl Smith’s first-person account in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister names Roger Ludwig among seven Capitol rotunda antiwar protesters who refused a $10 bond and were held overnight before arraignment the next afternoon. The printed account calls the arrest January 20 and also places it hours before the State of the Union; the official Reagan Library dates that address January 25, 1983. The precise arrest day is therefore unresolved. The sixty-day sentences imposed on Smith, Rumpf and Frank Carver were suspended, not sixty days actually served.
Plowshares Number Four custody reconstruction
The original January 1983 report names all seven and dates the action and arrest to November 14, 1982. It reports December 22 release on a promise to appear, after initial imprisonment. This 38-day detention is separate from the later sentence, so time outside prison is excluded.
The May 20, 1983 disposition was five months. A separate record preserves that sentence without equating sentence length with time actually served or copying the initial arrest into later custody.
The July 15 date in issue 18 is an expected release, not confirmation that it occurred; no exact final release has been inferred from it.
Sources: The Nuclear Resister 14, January 14, 1983, pages 3–4; issue 17, June 6, 1983, page 5; issue 18, July 7, 1983, printed page 6; Art Laffin participant chronology.
Separate October 1981 General Electric Five proceeding
Original page 3 individually names Roger Ludwig with Thelma Stoudt, William Hartman, Janice Hill and Robert M. Smith in the October 29, 1981 General Electric blood-pouring action in Philadelphia. They were out awaiting a planned March 15 trial. Listed charges were burglary, criminal conspiracy, criminal mischief, criminal trespassing and defiant trespassing. Fifty-one years was the maximum possible exposure, not a sentence imposed or actual service. A separate injunction-contempt disposition is reported as a $150 fine or sixty days, not proof that Ludwig actually served sixty days. This proceeding is distinct from later Trident and Vandenberg cases; the report does not supply an individual admission or actual discharge date.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 9, December 12, 1981, original page 3.
Contemporary anti-nuclear custody report
The GE Five report names Roger Ludwig with William Hartman, Janice Hill, Robert M. Smith and Thelma Stoudt in the October 29, 1981 Philadelphia action, and says charges were dropped at the opening of trial March 15, 1982. The 51 years mentioned was a maximum exposure, not a sentence or actual imprisonment. Separately he is named among seven April 9 Pentagon arrestees released on their own recognizance, with trial still pending and a one-year maximum—not an imposed term.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 11, April 15, 1982, original pages 4.
February 1986 verdict and intervening freedom
The Trident II Pruning Hooks report names Greg Boertje, John Heid, Roger Ludwig, Sheila Parks, Suzanne Schmidt and George Veasey as convicted February 4, 1986 before Judge Thomas Needham of possession of burglary tools, trespass and malicious destruction of property. It expressly says all six were free pending future March 31 sentencing. Thus initial April 1985 detention and later sentenced custody cannot be counted as one uninterrupted interval. Greg’s brief courtroom lockup ended when trial resumed, not a separately established multiday stay. Any existing separately verified later sentence and actual discharge must be preserved; this issue alone supplies neither a first later admission nor final discharge.
The Nuclear Resister No.38, March 10, 1986, original PDF pages 6.
Initial detention, bail gap and later imprisonment distinguished
The contemporary May 1985 original dates this action and initial bond detention to April 18, not April 17. The July 1985 follow-up individually confirms Roger Ludwig and George Veasey remained in pretrial custody on June 17. However, the March 1986 report expressly says all six defendants were free pending sentencing, so the first admission cannot be treated as continuous through later release. The July 18, 1986 follow-up confirms actual March 31 sentencing and both men’s actual release by publication. Most importantly, Roger Ludwig’s signed statement explicitly says that he and George had completed eleven months on their one-year sentence at ACI. Those source-reported eleven actual months are preserved as months, not converted into exact days or added to the original false 439-day span. Exact first pretrial release and later readmission remain unknown. The old June 30 storage value is retained for traceability but only its independently confirmed 1986 year is endorsed here; June 30 itself is not proven by these originals. Initial April custody facts remain preserved in this note, with no separate additive initial-stay total that would double-count the eleven-month report.
Original contemporary report 1; Original contemporary report 2; Original contemporary report 3; Original contemporary report 4.
Karl Smith’s first-person account in the March 9, 1983 Nuclear Resister names Roger Ludwig among seven Capitol rotunda antiwar protesters who refused a $10 bond and were held overnight before arraignment the next afternoon. The printed account calls the arrest January 20 and also places it hours before the State of the Union; the official Reagan Library dates that address January 25, 1983. The precise arrest day is therefore unresolved. The sixty-day sentences imposed on Smith, Rumpf and Frank Carver were suspended, not sixty days actually served.
The Nuclear Resister No.15, March 9, 1983, PDF pages 13.
