RISK AND POLITICIANS

We have found only two "clean" criteria for evaluating risk: At what level do safety measures risk more lives than they are supposed to save, and (the more usable criterion) what is the alternative risk if the considered danger is avoided?

Interestingly enough, both can be applied to evaluate some politicians. During the TMI episode, for example, Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, Laureate of the Black Bulb Award "For pulling the plug on America" (AtE Aug 80), showed himself willing to risk human lives for the greater glory of his political career: He went on TV to urge evacuation of the neighborhood of TMI, though official figures available to him (but not, then, to the public) clearly noted that more than 3 fatalities could be expected in such an evacuation, but none from radiation or any other cause in the reactor. His past statements and voting record show him a fanatical opponent of nuclear power, but depending on the occasion (or on the time to re-election?) he will modify his stance so drastically that in a discussion on Public Radio (26 Jn 80) with Edward Teller and Hans Bethe, one of the questions asked from the audience in the hall was "Why is there no antinuclear participant on the panel?"

Another scientist in the House is Mike McCormack (D-Wa); and we know of only three physicians, Larry MacDonald (D-Ga), Ron Paul (R-Tex), and Daniel Crane (R-Ill), though perhaps there are more. Is it accidental that all five scientists and physicians are staunch supporters of nuclear power? Is it accidental that anti-nukes like Hart are not only technically ignorant but lacking in personal integrity as well?

If that sounds as if we judged politicians solely by their nuclear stand, consider the example of CIA-wrecker and appeaser Frank Church of Idaho. He gets a respectable 69% pro-nuclear rating in the NLAS index, which is 62% more than Hart, or for that matter, 69% more than Arizona's Udall, another chameleon that turns pro-nuclear at re-election time. (To find your Congressman's nuclear voting record, write for the Aug. 15 issue of the NLAS newsletter, Box 354, Murrysville, PA 15668). What we will do for Sen. Church is invite readers to contribute to the ABC project, Box 1551, Boise, ID 83702.

The ABC stands for "Anybody But Church."

And while we are at it, we have not the slightest connection with the Fusion Energy Foundation, an offshoot of the US Labor Party, whose volunteers solicit contributions at airports, nor with Americans For Nuclear Energy. And there are other pro-nukes that we do not support.

Leonid Brezhnev, for example.