Small-time politics

"The shadow of a devil¾Diablo Canyon¾hangs over you," declaimed Walter Mondale as he wooed the sham-environmentalists in his audience. "We've had one close can. Don't let that disaster happen here."

But lack of information was not the problem with Gary Hart, whom readers may remember from his role in the TMI episode in March 1979. As the (then) chairman of the subcommittee for nuclear regulation, he had access to the confidential forecasts by an interagency team of specialists from the HEW, EPA and NRC. The expected number of deaths in an evacuation within a 20-mile radius (due to heart attacks of the elderly, traffic accidents, etc.) was 5.4, as against insignificant dangers if no evacuation took place. But what's five human lives when Hart can make political hay? He went on television, had himself billed as chairman of the senate subcommittee on nuclear power regulation, and announced that he would immediately evacuate his family if it lived there. (His family, as he must have known as chairman, could have halved its annual dose of radiation by moving from mile-high Denver to the neighborhood of the just disabled TMI reactor.) His willingness to sacrifice five human lives for his political career makes Hart something peculiar even among politicians¾the ultimate type of peculiarity.

And then there is the impostor who last March ranted against nuclear power with bulging eyes and hoarse voice at a TMI commemoration. If there was anything to commemorate, it was the fact that for the first time in human history more than 800 MW of power went out of control without hurting a living soul: by inherent safety, not sheer luck. But beyond that, most blacks¾certainly the NAACP¾realize that economic advancement needs abundant energy, not playing second fiddle to the Sierra Clubbers in Beverly Hills. For all the blacks who can afford a $500,000 solar home like Amory Lovins and want to tax the poor to subsidize rich men's toys, this buddy of Castro and Arafat is the ideal candidate. The remainder will eventually realize that the present solar-energy policy (enacted under Carter and never repealed under Reagan) has the effect of building solar-heated country clubs in Westchester County from the taxes paid in Harlem; and that only an Uncle Tom would continue it.