REFERENDA AND ELECTIONS

First the bad news: Anti-nukes won refernda in Hawaii, Montana, and Austria. The first two do not mean much: Neither state is scheduled to have any nuclear plants, yet the referenda had to be misleadingly formulated, with the innocently looking punchlines in the the fine print, to dupe voters (a recent poll in Montana found 75% in favor of nuclear power). But the Austrian refusal to let the $530 million Zwentendorf plant go on line (by 29,500 votes out of 3,180,000 cast) is undoubtly a set-back for the rational forces in Europe. Since Austria borders on two Soviet-bloc countries, Hungary with 2 nuclear plants under construction, and Czechosolvakia with 1 operating, 4 under construction and 3 more planned by 1990, the attitude of the Communists was of particular interest; the cut below is from the Trotskyite press, but the Soviet-subservient Communist Party (KPO)), which does not burp without Moscow's prior permission, joined the anti nukes, too. To what extent the result wasinfluenced by them, we cannot say; but it is yet another piece of evidence for the dirty two-faced game the Soviets are playing in fanning nuclear strife.