Dear George,

I wish you had the time to visit us here in North Yorkshire. I am writing this letter as I travel on the bus from our village - Goathland - into Whitby, on the North Sea coast. Although a small, relatively isolated village, it receives a disproportionate amount of publicity, mainly because it is the nearest village to the base that houses the tracking system for America's missile defence project.

As I look across the moors towards the sea I cannot avoid the looming shape of the grey truncated pyramid that houses the phased-array radar. Whenever we go for a walk we have to face this reminder of our intimate links to this scheme, designed to protect America. We can't escape the logic that if anyone wished to attack America, we ourselves could become a target. Then there are the health risks. In Cape Cod (Ma.), people like us, living near to phased-array radar, suffer from higher rates of certain types of cancer.

I really don't want to spend my time learning about interceptor missiles, booster rockets or kill-vehicles. But we feel we have to do all we can to alert people to what might happen once our delicate (and, admittedly, imperfect) international system of checks and balances is shattered. Before it is too late, would urge you to take a deep breath, take a look at where all this could end and put your faith in cooperation rather than conflict.

Yours,
Jackie Fearnley
"Son of Star Wars" protester