out the window at a van parked across the street from the Clamshell office at 92 Congress Street in Portsmouth photographing members attending a New England-wide Coordinating Committee meeting. It was reasonably feared that the state would undertake preemptive arrests of the CC (Coordinating Committee) members to disrupt the action. The Emergency Decision mechanism to allow decisions without the normal consensus process of sending CC proposals back to Clamshell regions and their affinity groups to obtain consensus was suggested by Roy Morrison of the ORTF (Occupation/Restoration Task Force) that was planning the June 1978 action. All plans of the ORTF were submitted to the CC and the normal consensus process. The intent of the Emergency Decision-making mechanism was to allow, in cases of mass arrests of CC member or other similar disruptive state action, to allow the CC or a reconstituted CC, to make emergency decisions by consensus without sending the proposal back to regional groups for the normal and necessarily slow back and forth consensus process. This Emergency Decision making mechanism was adopted after concerns were raised that it was a means to allow the action to become more radical, and to adopt measures such as fence cutting to gain access to the Seabrook site. No one suggested it was potentially a tool to abandon an action. CDAS The dissidents within Clam broke off to form another organization to be called the Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook (CDAS), which would take more militant but still nonviolent action on the site. Composed of several "clusters" throughout New England and metropolitan New York that were themselves composed of smaller "affinity groups", CDAS decided, using the consensus process, to attempt to occupy the power plant site. The first attempted occupation was planned for October 1979, and activists agreed that they would be willing to tear down fencing protecting the site but avoid fighting with police when confronted and also try to avoid arrest. The new strategy was controversial, and many former Clamshell members decided not to get involved once the more confrontational tactics were decided on. Many of the demonstrators would equip themselves with helmets and gas masks in anticipation of police violence against them, and the critics argued that this would be too provocative. Nevertheless, the attempted occupation on October 6, 1979, drew over 2,500 activists who felt energized after growing disillusionment with nuclear power with the near meltdown at