One Man's Tragic Protest

By Richard Stengel

One Man's Tragic Protest At the Washington Monument, a loner self-destructs

For Norman Mayer, there was method to his madness on the Mall. Always a loner, he singlehanded tried to halt the threat of one kind of annihilation with that of another and died as he had lived, alone, troubled, but strangely sympathetic. What began as a righteous cause for this polite and abstemious antinuclear advocate became an obsession and ultimately ended in a hollow if not insane act of protest. Yet before his bluff was called, Mayer, 66, a balding drifter, managed to frighten the city of Washington and stage a blatant and bizarre act of terrorism at the Washington Monument, less than a mile from the White House.

It all began at 9:30 last Wednesday morning. A white 1979 Ford van with Florida plates drove past startled U.S. park police and stopped facing the main entrance of the Washington Monument. Emblazoned on its side was his message, #1 PRIORITY: BAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS. A man in a dark blue jumpsuit and a black motorcycle helmet with a visor covering his face emerged from the van, brandishing a menacing-looking black box. He announced that his van contained 1,000 Ibs. of TNT with which he threatened to reduce the monument to "a pile of rocks." He brusquely handed a park ranger a manila envelope. In a handwritten message on the outside of the envelope he declared his intention to negotiate only with a member of the media, "a single person without dependents," to be specific. Inside the envelope was a more ominous warning: "As an act of sanity ban nuclear weapons or have a nice doomsday."

Park police quickly cleared the area. Trapped inside the 555-ft.-high obelisk were eight people: six tourists and two U.S. Park Service employees. Shortly after noon, Associated Press Reporter Steve Komarow was selected as the emissary. Over the course of the next six hours, Komarow was to talk cautiously on five occasions with Mayer, whose vague but grandiose demand was that every organization in the U.S., from Kiwanis Clubs to Congress, give first priority, and the news media 51% of their total coverage, to discussing the "nuclear weapons question."

Meanwhile, FBI explosives experts concluded that the black box with the antenna clutched by Mayer was a miniature radio transmitter fully capable of detonating an explosion. Although the blast from 1,000 Ibs. of TNT would probably have only scarred the marble face of the monument, it could have sent out a concussive wave creating an arc of destruction from the White House to the Potomac. Seven nearby museums were evacuated, and a White House luncheon given by President Reagan was moved out of the room facing the monument.

A ranking police officer commanded that under no circumstances should the van be allowed out of the monument grounds. As FBI Special Agent Kenneth Schiffer Jr. later noted, "He could have headed for the White House." At 2:25 p.m., Mayer allowed the hostages inside the monument to leave. As dusk settled, he seemed prepared to spend the night. Suddenly, just after 7:20, the van lurched away from the monument, sheering off a flagpole next to the obelisk. A volley of shots from police marksmen rang out; the truck swerved and tipped over.

The first person to reach the van was Special Agent W.H. Seals, who found Mayer barely conscious, mumbling, "They shot me in the head." Inside, explosives experts found no TNT but an ample supply of food and water and a portable TV set. Moments later, under the glare of helicopter searchlights, Mayer died, killed by bullet fragments in the head. His short, unhappy ride was over.

Throughout the afternoon, Mayer had insisted, "My personality doesn't mean anything." But it was precisely his disturbed personality that obscured his cause. Born in El Paso on March 31, 1916, Mayer was a drifter. For the past few years he had worked as a maintenance man in Miami Beach hotels. A friend, John Bauer, described him as intelligent, articulate and dedicated. Said Bauer: "He got to the point where he felt he had to do something drastic." In 1976 Mayer was jailed in Hong Kong for attempting to smuggle in marijuana. Although Mayer was deported after serving only a few months, his stay in jail permanently transformed him; back in America he became a fervent antinuclear activist.

Later that commitment took a chilling turn toward fanaticism. In May 1982 he tried to buy 1,000 Ibs. of dynamite in Hazard, Ky., a small coal-mining town 150 miles southeast of Louisville. Since this past July, he had been living in a spartan $26-a-night room at the Downtown Motel in Washington. While in Washington, he obtained a prescription for Thorazine, a powerful tranquilizer used for the treatment of psychotic disorders. Day after day during the past few months, displaying a wooden sign warning against the perils of nuclear Armageddon, he picketed the White House. According to Bauer, one of Mayer's favorite quotations was: "We're flawed, bungling human beings incapable of making clear, rational decisions." It is an appropriate epitaph for a flawed, ramshackle life that concluded with a bungled, irrational gesture.

--By Richard Stengel.

Reported by Ross H. Munro/Washington

With reporting by Ross H. Munro/Washington

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