Put not your trust in princes (Psalm 143:3)

The landslide that failed to materialize suggests that the media moguls may be losing their touch in programing the electorate. The nuclear freeze gimmick was rejected in Arizona, passed by a narrow margin in California, and everywhere had to be presented as "mutual and verifiable."

In Colorado, the initiative to move or shut down the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant was handily defeated; it would have been counted as "antinuclear" if it had won.

Maine Yankee lives thanks mainly to Yankees like Mrs Annette Stevens, a dedicated volunteer, not a paid utility front. The result was played down by the media: all of a sudden nuclear power and nuclear bombs were not the same thing.

Idaho had a pro-nuclear initiative barring the legislature from prohibiting nuclear power plant construction without first consulting the voters. Inspite of dogged antinuclear opposition, it won handily, and was therefore given no publicity; only Time (15 Nov. 82) reported it in its traditional "style" as shown.

Idaho voters, meanwhile, required the legislature to seek voter approval before endorsing construction of nuclear-power facilities.

This type of little lie is so common that the attentive reader would miss it if Slime and Newspeak were suddenly to become truthful. More insidious is the allegation why the bottle deposit and other "environmental" propositions (i.e., government coercion instead of consumer choice) went down to defeat in California, Colorado, Arizona, and Washington. According to Time, it was a case of the poor environmentalists being swamped by the dollars of big business: "A classical case of what money and advertising can do."

Nonsense. The Rocky Flats initiative was not defeated by Rockwell, Inc. (the plant's operator), but by people like Bill Haberer, who spoke on the importance of defense, driving 3,000 miles in 6 weeks for his own money in his spare time, and by other members of the Rockwell pro-nuclear underground who were not allowed as much as using company telephones, while the Rockwell PR department assured everybody that they took no stand on the issue.

As for the poor environmentalists, where would they get the money to fight giants like Exxon?

From Exxon, of course. Exxon's report on spending $45 million "in the public interest" in 1981 boasts of contributing $15,000 to the Sierra Club, $5,000 to the Environmental Action Coalition, $10,000 to Total Education in the Total Environment, $15,000 to SIPI (Barry Commoner's disinformation center), and many other organizations that help block energy production.(*)

There are all too many similar examples. The reply of the (TVA) Sequoya Nuclear Plant management to send a representative to a pro-nuclear talk in Chattanooga: "We do not promote nuclear power."

Indeed, they do not. And neither does Edison Electric, the PR people who countered Harry Reasoner's antinuclear falsehoods by paying him $7,000 to address them on the role of the media [AtE Aug 81]. They used none of the facts given below to refute the recent hoax of a possible 100,000 deaths in a nuclear accident. Instead, they took out a full page ($20,000?) for a timid and defensive ad, the main thrust of which was "Well, it can only happen very rarely."

From all of which we conclude that if good men seek to remain dedicated to the knowledge and preservation of truth, they must rely on no one but themselves. They should not put their trust in the princes of Exxon, nor in the old maids of Edison Electric.

* Searching for an explanation is quite an experience. They have a V. P. for Public Affairs (Stamas), a "contribution coordinator" (Dr Neblett), and "Program Officers" who administer the individual grants, all of them in command of both secretaries and platitudes. The one overseeing the funding of environmentalists, Mr. Wofford, explains that Exxon wants to show an image of concern about the environment; there is no evidence that any of these organizations are antinuclear; and Exxon does not wish to apply ideological tests to an entire organization when it funds but some of its projects. Not even when it blocks Exxon's pipelines, or Exxon Nuclear's projects, or energy production in general? "I don't think I want to talk to you," says Program Officer Wofford nervously. Click.