TO DIG DEEPER

The March issue of Fortune brings an article by B. Thornton, President of Atlantic Richfield Oil Co., entitled The Case for National Planning, which argues that private enterprise can no longer do the job where would it get the money for the enormous energy investments? (Same place, Mr. Thornton, as government gets it from: private enterprise.) High executives of Mobil Oil call for "more government action, not less" and warn against the danger of sudden decontrol. Ethyl Corporation's PR Director has come forth with a timely call: "Let's get off the media's back" Business Week calls Commoner's Marxist economics "heady stuff."

Has the business community gone completely gaga? Well, not all of it. The National Federation of Independent Business has put out a remarkable poster of economic comparisons called What's the Difference? (To buy 10 eggs, a US worker works 10 minutes, a Russian 97; there are 66 telephones per 100 people in the US and 6 in the USSR; and many other statistics, including energy.) The poster does something weird to people it makes them think. Free from NFIB Education Dept., 150 W.20th Ave., San Mateo, CA 94403. (Also ask for the Prize-winning college-student essay The Future of Capitalism; and for a membership application, if you are a businessman.)

Remember our December 1974 editorial on Britain and why its "mixed exonomy" was worth watching? Two years later, the North Sea oil has not yet come in, but it is already mortgaged far into the future. See Moss's excellent article Anglocommunism? in Commentary Feb. 77 (and Laqueur's Third World Fantasies in the same issue).

Is our report on Soviet two-pronged nuclear policy inspired by anti-Communist paranoia? Then take a look at Mining Engineering, Jan.77 (in engineering libraries), devoted to the situation in Australia, which has vast deposits of high-grade uranium ore, but no nuclear plants, and thus no grounds for hysteria over meltdowns, waste disposal, plutonium or other bogeys; but the Australian Conservation Foundation (whose radical leadership includes the former president of the Australian Communist Party) passed a resolution "to refuse to export uranium to countries engaged in . . . generating power by fission reactors." And they made it stick: A strike last May, called by Communist-led unions for no other issue than banning the mining, processing and export of uranium, succedded in putting the entire uranium program in limbo. Paranoia? Read editor E. Guccione's factual first-hand reports, and judge for yourself. More on the NBC waste program: Protest letters by Prof. B.L. Cohen, free from the author, Dpt. of Physics, U. of Pittsburgh, PA 15260; and by AIF President C. Walske, from AIF, 7101 Wisconsin Ave., Wash., DC 20014. Also available from Prof. Cohen: reprints of his articles Plutonium how great is the terrorist threats, Hazards of plutonium toxicity, and High-level waste from light-water reactors (the last two excellent, but technical). For Comparison of waste volumes, send self-addressed, larger stamped (24d) envelope to author N.M. Cole Jr., 5917 River Dr., Lorton, VA 22097. For information on Nuclear waste management, write for Feb.77 issue (free) to Editor, Batelle Today, 505 King Ave., Columbus, OH 43201. A colorful Canadian booklet on the subject is available to AtE readers free from PR Dept., Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Plaza 3 Floor 2, 2000 Argentina rd., Mississauga, Ont.

Energy Resources for the Future is a fact-laden, first-rate course for laymen in 24 lessons on casette recordings by a top expert: Dr W. Youngquist, professor of geology at the U. of Oregon, who has spent a lifetime in the oil, gas and other energy fields all over the world. The price is $170; but we thought it worth every penny. (Many college students pay more to hear the societally relevant expound how an industrial giant can live on expanded consciousness.) From Educ. Research Asscts., 1019 S.W. 10th Ave., Portland, OR 97205.