LOVINS AND MENDELSSOHN

The quotation was out of context, fumed Lovins in his reply. (Oh yeah?

Was it, perhaps, preceded by "I would never say anything like this"?). Dr Wolfe was only being nasty because the market had wisely refused to buy his company's product.

Not published by the WSJ was the following letter:

"Amory Lovins' allegation about the market's wise refusal to buy nuclear power reminds me, of all things, of the German composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. Many concert guides of the Third Reich explained that long before his music was banned because he was Jewish, it had disappeared from the concert halls as it was no good and people did not want it anyway.

"Similarly, after nuclear power has been all but done to death in the back rooms of the Carter administration, its name made a dirty word in a ferocious onslaught by the press, its construction sites made the scene of unruly protests and criminal trespass, its negligible radiation and easy waste disposal made into a horror fable, and its superior safety evaded and covered up, one of the prime exponents of these coercive tactics tells us the market does not want this turkey anyway.

"Of course, many Germans secretly continued to listen to Mendelssohn on records. And it seems to be a secret that in megawattage, the nuclear power now on order exceeds orders for coal-fired plants; though utilities hesitate to invest in a source that means a nightmare in harassment, Mr. Lovins and cocrusaders have not been able to stifle the voice of the market completely.

P. Beckmann, U.of Colo."