Norman Mayer

Norman David Mayer (March 31, 1916 – December 9, 1982) was an American anti-nuclear weapons activist who was shot and killed by the United States Park Police after threatening to blow up the Washington Monument.

Early life Mayer was born in El Paso, Texas, to Jesse and Margott Mayer. After his father died two years later, his penniless mother moved him and his brother to New Orleans; she then entered nursing school and placed the children in an orphanage. As a teenager, Mayer attended a trade school where he trained as a tool and die maker. He left New Orleans and spent much of the 1930s travelling from job to job from Nome, Alaska, to the Caribbean, working in a rubber plant and in gold mines among other jobs. He was drafted into the United States Navy in 1944 while living in Los Angeles and spent two years stationed at the San Diego Naval Station. He was discharged as a fireman first class and returned to a life of drifting, working in Miami as a machinist in the mid-1950s, as a hotel maintenance man in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Jamaica during the 1960s, and as a helicopter mechanic in South Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. In 1971, he was seriously injured while working on an oil rig in Brunei and recuperated in Singapore before traveling across South Asia. In 1976, he was arrested in Hong Kong for possession of of marijuana in a botched attempt to make a sale. Mayer researched the law in jail and after fifteen months managed to have his conviction reversed on a technicality. He was deported back to the U.S. and returned to working in hotels. Mayer had a history of arrests including for assault and battery, prowling, narcotics trafficking, and trespassing after warning.

Nuclear weapons protests and Washington Monument threat

In 1978, Mayer focused on protesting nuclear weapons. He wished to stage a destructive and dramatic event to grab attention for his cause, and unsuccessfully tried to purchase explosives in Hazard, Kentucky, in May 1982. Mayer moved to Washington, DC in June that year, and spent every day for the next few months displaying large plywood signs in front of the White House and proselytizing to passing tourists. Mayer eventually found this manner of protesting frustrating and ineffectual and developed a new attention-getting scheme.

On December 8, 1982, Mayer drove a white van bearing the message "No.1 Priority, BAN Nuclear Weapons" in large letters on its side up to the base of the Washington Monument and jumped out wearing a black motorcycle helmet, a bright blue snowsuit and carrying a remote control. Mayer claimed that he would destroy the Monument with of TNT loaded in his van unless the U.S. government would agree to eliminate nuclear weapons. Mayer also claimed that he had a hidden accomplice who could also detonate the explosives.

The U.S. Park Police evacuated nearby buildings and closed down streets for several blocks. Eight tourists were initially trapped inside the Monument, but were released after AP reporter Steven Komarow began negotiating with Mayer. Ten hours into the negotiation, Mayer jumped into his van and started to drive off, threatening to become "a moving time bomb in downtown Washington". The police opened fire, striking Mayer four times—twice in the head.

Mayer was one of a number of individuals connected to the White House Peace Vigil at Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C. The Oracles of Pennsylvania Avenue (2012) by Tim Wilkerson, a documentary commissioned by the Al Jazeera Documentary Channel, recounts the lives of Mayer, Thomas, Concepcion Picciotto, and Ellen Thomas. Ellen Thomas, who believed in nonviolence, refused to take part in Mayer's plan to destroy public monuments, as Mayer was unable to assure her of the safety of civilians and officials. The column was among several reprinted in Ellison's collections An Edge in My Voice and Edgeworks 1. A recording of Ellison reading the column is found on the CD On the Road with Ellison Volume 1.