The
training session was an epiphany for Komisaruk. “I
decided that I was going to go and stand up for what I believed in,” she
remembers. After the Berkeley protest Komisaruk grew increasingly radical,
passing out homemade leaflets, going to protests, and getting arrested.
She thought a lot about the White Rose group.It helped drive her decision
to embark on a highly visible act of sabotage that landed her in prison
and on the pages of newspapers around the world.
The target of Komisaruk’s sabotage was NAVSTAR—a
network of satellites designed to guide Trident II nuclear-tipped missiles.
Komisaruk discovered that the U.S. required NAVSTAR to implement a first
strike against another nation. She had no illusions about singlehandedly
destroying the system. But she felt it was important that she, like the
White Rose group, demonstrate to future generations that someone had
taken a stand against entrenched inhumanity.
On June 2, 1987, Komisaruk broke into NAVSTAR’s control room at Vandenberg Air Force Base in San Luis Obispo, California. Figuring she had only a few minutes before soldiers arrived, Komisaruk wasted no time raking her crowbar through the racks of equipment that made up the mainframe. She stomped on computer chips, cut wires, and let loose a fire extinguisher on the sensitive electronics. Surprised no one had arrived, Komisaruk hoisted herself through a passageway and drilled holes in the NAVSTAR system’s pristine satellite dish.
Still, no one came. Komisaruk spray-painted some graffiti and cut some more wires, but eventually ran out of things to do. She washed her face, ate a bagel, and hitchhiked home. The next day, at a press conference she had called, FBI agents arrived to arrest her.
The trial, says Komisaruk, was a farce. The judge ruled that Komisaruk could not tell the jury anything about her larger motivations. She and her lawyer were given a list of forbidden words, among them “nuclear missile,” “first strike,” “Nuremberg principles,” and “international law.”
“It was a nightmare for me to sit through such a trial,” recalls Komisaruk. “It was ridiculous, a mockery.”
Sentenced to five years in jail and $500,000 in restitution, Komisaruk used her incarceration as productively as she could. She researched fellow inmates’ cases in the prison’s law library, studied for the LSAT, and applied to law school. “I figured if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” she says. In 1990 Komisaruk, still in prison, received notification of acceptance to Harvard’s law school.