On Tuesday, a federal prosecutor evoked Kennedy's memory in the trial of three Catholic nuns accused of raiding a nuclear missile silo site in Colorado.

The three Dominican sisters - Carol Gilbert, 55, Jackie Hudson, 68, and Ardeth Platte, 66 - say they took the Oct. 6 action to expose what they call the criminality of nuclear missiles that they claim are first-strike weapons.

Recalling the Cuban missile crisis, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Brown said Kennedy told the Russians to get their missiles out of Cuba.

Kennedy warned that any missile fired from Cuba - no matter where it was aimed - would be considered "an attack on the United States," Brown said.

"The reason the Soviet Union backed off is because we had these missiles," he said during opening statements.

Brown told a federal jury that nuclear missiles, and the threat by President Kennedy, probably saved the world from nuclear annihilation in October 1962.

The nuns are charged with obstruction of national defense and damaging U.S. property. Conviction on the first offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, and the second would carry 10 years.

At the silo northeast of Greeley, the nuns cut down a fence, used ball-peen hammers to hit the tracks and lid of the Minuteman III silo, and used their own blood to form six crosses on the silo lid, the three admitted in court documents.

The nuns are defending themselves with the help of an advisory counsel. The first thing Platte told the jury in her opening statement on Tuesday was that she forgave Brown. She also said she would tell the jury nothing but the truth.

"I know the grace of God will be with you in whatever decision you make," Platte told the jurors.

The sisters raided the silo on the first anniversary of what they characterize as the "U.S. invasion and bombing of Afghanistan."

They say they were attempting to expose the U.S. "criminal threat" to use nuclear weapons against Iraq and "rogue states."

Platte said the trio was motivated by the concerns for the people of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

"All we could think of were babies and children who have no defense," she said.

With Iraq having been "demonized ... we had to do something," Platte said. "We intended to come here (Colorado) to do a legal action.

"We felt it our duty to stop a crime. We went there to expose (the Minuteman III) and do a symbolic disarmament."

Veteran Denver lawyer Walter Gerash, who represents Hudson, said that, at most, the nuns trespassed on government property. But he contended they didn't even do that.

"This is a symbolic disarmament of a weapon of mass extinction. They were brave women," Gerash said.

The three are members of the Plowshare Movement, an international activist organization that promotes nonviolent disarmament.

They look to the book of Isaiah in the Bible that commands nations to beat their swords into plowshares.

The book also says: "One nation shall not lift up (a) sword against (another) nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."

It’s a short distance between here and there. On this side of the fence, military police just eye you suspiciously. On the other side, they’ll haul you to jail.

Thirteen supporters gathered at the Minuteman III Missile site near Colo. 14 and Weld County Road 113 on Tuesday afternoon to honor three nuns who crossed that line last October.

Sisters Carol Gilbert, 55, Jackie Hudson, 68, and Ardeth Platte, 66, cut through the fence and beat at the silo with hammers in a symbolic disarmament. They poured their own blood on the site to protest nuclear weapons.

The nuns’ trial began this week at the federal courthouse in Denver. With more supporters than available chairs, the trip to the Weld site was a way to take turns in the courtroom and give everyone a chance to support the women.

“More of us should have the courage they do,” said Paul Rehm of Greenville, N.Y. Rehm joined the group along with activists from Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Washington state; and Colorado. Those gathered believe strongly that the nuns were right in what they did. They deserve respect, not punishment for drawing attention to America’s arsenal, some said.

“We have to respect them for doing something that often we can’t do,” Mary Alyce Behrns said at the silo site near New Raymer. Behrns is on the board of the Colorado Coalition for Prevention of Nuclear War based in Denver.

Platte, Gilbert and Hudson are nuns from a Grand Rapids, Mich., Dominican order. Platte and Gilbert are members of Baltimore-based Jonah House, a group that advocates disarmament. Hudson lives in Washington state, where she works with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action.

The four remaining members of the Jonah House flew to Colorado this week to stand behind the nuns during their trial. Gary Ashbeck saw the missile site for the first time Tuesday. He called the weapon a false God for America and praised the nuns for risking everything to call attention to it.

The group’s community “is a house based on convictions,” Ashbeck said. “And we want to support those who acted on those convictions.”

Bill Salzman of Colorado Springs said the fact that so many of these missiles are stored underground in Colorado and Weld shouldn’t just be of interest to peace advocates. It needs to be a local issue, he said.

“People have become comfortable with the presence of weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “In some ways, we’re kind of embarrassed that people had to come from Baltimore and Bremerton, Wash., to point this out.”

Salzman questioned the validity of a war to disarm Iraq when the United States has so many of its own weapons of mass destruction.

“Cutting ourselves slack from the laws we enforce is such blatant hypocrisy,” he told the group.

Several in the group said they feared the nuns’ trial was a foregone conclusion because the judge already rejected what they had hoped to use as a defense.

Cindy Farquhar works with Platte on peace activism in Baltimore and said she’s not ready to hear bad news at the end of the trial. But something Platte told her recently helped prepare her for the worst.

“She said ‘If I have to spend the rest of my life in prison for this, it will be worth it.’ ”

The missile

The Minuteman III is an intercontinental ballistic missile. Each missile contains one nuclear warhead, allowed by the 1992 Washington Summit Agreement.

There are 500 in the United States. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming controls 150 in Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska. In Colorado, there are 49, with most in Weld County.

The missiles are housed in underground hardened silos that are connected to an underground launch control center through hardened cables.