UNION OF CONFUSED SABOTEURS

As every expert on electric power generation knows, nuclear power plants have had a far better record in both safety and reliability than fossilburning plants. Which has not prevented the Union of Concerned Scientists and Ralph Nader to use scare tactics presenting nuclear power plants as potential atomic bombs, taking good care not to reveal that the potential radiation dose an average individual could receive from the waste treatment systems is a thousand times less than he receives from natural sources (let alone TV sets and medical apparatus).

Recently the UCS and Ralph Nader have issued a statement complaining that New England was facing the winter with only one of its five large nuclear plants working. This turned out to be a falsehood, which is nothing newsworthy where Ralph Nader's statements are concerned, but there is a new twist to it: The UCS and Nader, in their messianic frenzy to knock anything nuclear for whatever reason, forgot that they were supposed to oppose nuclear plants and had no business complaining that too few of them are working.

The statement, which also contained a multitude of other superstitious fantasies, was well answered by AEC chairman Dr. D.L. Ray, and her refutation was well embezzled by all news media. It will be found in the AEC weekly news releases of Nov.28, 1973, but chances are that your library spends money on Clear Creek and does not have a free subscription to the AEC news releases. Perhaps you can make them subscribe (US AEC, Washington, DC 20545).

The UCS should not be confused with the Committee of Concerned Scientists (515 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022), which fights not against badly needed nuclear plants, but against persecution of dissident Soviet scientists.