Richard Lamm
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RICHARD LAMM. Born 1935. Transcript of OH 1395V This interview was recorded on December 13, 2005, for the Maria Rogers Oral History Program and the Rocky Flats Cold War Museum. The interviewer is Hannah Nordhaus. The interview is also available in video format, filmed by Hannah Nordhaus. The interview was transcribed by Sandy Adler. ABSTRACT: Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm talks about the political issues raised by the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant during his administration, including potential public health dangers of the plant, reasons for closure of the plant, working with the union, the Lamm-Wirth Task Force, and how the Cold War and mistrust in government during that time period impacted Rocky Flats. He also discusses Project Rulison, environmentalism, the Democratic Party, and national security in the post-9/11 world. NOTE: Interviewer’s questions and comment appear in parentheses. Added material appears in brackets. [A]. 00:00 (…the Rocky Flats Oral History Project. I’m interviewing Governor Richard Lamm. It is the 13th of December, 2005. We’re in Governor Lamm’s office at the University of Denver. We’re recording.) (Governor Lamm, to start with, if you could just give me a little bit about your background, when you were born, where you were born?) I was born in 1935 in Madison, Wisconsin, grew up in northern Illinois and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Came to Colorado in the army in 1957. Went to Berkeley to law school and came back to Colorado after law school not knowing a soul, but we’ve been here continuously since 1961. (How did you end up being Governor?) John F. Kennedy—and I was of that generation where John F. Kennedy was a shock of electricity through our society. I was a second-year law student when he was elected President. I know, as your parents probably have told you, it was just simply a jolt of electricity to America to make the world a better place. I can’t convince my kids of this, the people that I teach, but there was a wave of idealism, sort of exemplified by the Peace Corps, that really was dedicated to making the world a better place. (So you were a practicing lawyer and then you got into the state legislature?) I was elected to the legislature in 1966, took office in 1967. I spent eight years in the legislature and then ran for Governor in 1974 and was elected and was in office for twelve years. (What kind of law did you practice?) I was a CPA before I was a lawyer, so I did a certain amount of accounting, tax, estate planning, but soon got out of that to a more general practice of law. Maybe this is too early to get involved in this, but I, pro bono, meaning—free—started my interest in this whole Rocky Flats-type issue when I was the chief counsel in an attempt to stop Project Rulison, which was part of the Atomic Energy’s Plowshares program—plowshare being that we were gonna turn our swords into plowshares, our nuclear weapons into some better purpose. Well, this Plowshares program had the brilliant idea of making new harbors by using atomic bombs. What they wanted to do in Colorado in Project Rulison is that they wanted to, and did once, explode a nuclear device up in Rulison, Colorado [in 1969], underground to try to loosen up the tight rock formations and produce natural gas. Well, I was part of the lead in a group of attorneys who sued them and tried to stop Project Rulison. We had a big trial in front of Judge [Alfred A.] Arraj at the Denver district courthouse. It went on for a long time. We lost, but we, I think, started the process of getting the publicity against —Hey, folks, this was a very bad idea. (And they determined that it was a bad idea after the gas was too contaminated?) Whether they determined it was a bad idea or it wasn’t economical, one can’t say. One has to be careful. (This was right before you—?) As I recall, this was 1970, maybe ‘69. 04:02 (When did you first learn about this place called Rocky Flats?) Well, I was aware of Rocky Flats for—I suppose maybe even when I was in the army here. Maybe that’s unfair. But anyway, it gradually grew in my consciousness. I guess that I always questioned why we were building atomic triggers upwind from Denver, but I can’t say when it went from curiosity to conviction that this was a bad idea. I really don’t know. But I think it was around the time that—Project Rulison sensitized me to the fact that both business and government had some grandiose plans for nuclear energy that I felt were not fully thought through. [pause] (I understand that when you were a legislator, people were already talking to you about Rocky Flats and doing something about it. Was that the case?) I think that there were four or five legislators. I think giving credit where credit is due— Tim Wirth (see interview with Tim Wirth, OH 1398V), when he was elected in 1974, I think really galvanized the support of a number of us. I really do take my hat off to him. When I think back on it, of the people in political office, he deserves far more credit than any of the rest of us. (And when you were running for Governor, you already had a plan for shutting Rocky Flats?) I think so. I can’t imagine that I didn’t, because I was in a Democratic primary and that was a very big issue in Boulder. I can’t frankly tell you what my plan was other than saying that it—I was one of those that—I understood the need to build nuclear triggers. I mean, I did not argue with the idea that we needed, for deterrence purposes or self- protection or whatever else, some nuclear weapons. A lot of people do, but I didn’t. It was not so much the concept as the place where these were being manufactured. (Here in the metropolitan area?) In any metropolitan area, yeah. I don’t know what they were thinking of back in those days. I think with Rocky Mountain Arsenal and Rocky Flats, I mean, those were two things that were—not to confuse these things, but in Rocky Mountain Arsenal they were storing nerve gas, also upwind from Denver, right at the end of a runway. And of course, if you would have a crash into that, smoke and fire would disperse the nerve gas. I think that these were—back in more naive times, I don’t think that this was by any means done deliberately, but I think that it was just public policy malpractice that these things were located where they were. 07:30 (Do you remember the point where the public consciousness evolved to the point where people questioned the fact that they should be here?) I think that there wasn’t any one major event, but it was a growing awareness. Back in the ‘70s, there was an increased awareness that large-scale things could happen. I’m trying to remember whether Bhopal, the big industrial accident in India that killed a lot of people—I might have my timing wrong. (It was in the ‘80s.) That was in the ‘80s? Anyway, I think something happened that did increase the public’s awareness that these things had a potential. It isn’t—it’s very important to understand what we were saying: It isn’t the odds, it’s the stakes. A lot of times in public policy, even small odds are unacceptable. I think that there was an awareness that if anything went wrong out at Rocky Flats—and things did go wrong—but anything that really got away, like a fire almost got away—that the stakes of something like this were such that even small odds were unacceptable. (Were you aware of the ‘69 fire when it happened?) I was. Sure. I can’t—that was a public event, wasn’t it? (Were you in the legislature then?) Yes. I was in the legislature at the time. (Do you recall, did the legislature react to it in any way?) I remember no reaction at all from the legislature. We had a fairly conservative, Republican, support-the-Cold War legislature, and of course, I think on both sides. I think the Democrats had as much to do with forging the Cold War strategy. It was Harry Truman and George Marshall that came up with this whole thing, but I do think, Hannah, now that I think about it, that it was all part of the anti-Vietnam war, too. Now that I think about it, your question is a wonderful one, and my answer immediately has to be amended. What I think was the growing awareness of this is that the government was not to be trusted—blindly, anyway—and I think that was all part of Vietnam. This was a period of nihilism, antagonism toward the establishment, and I think that people said that the same misjudgment that got us into a land war in Asia, we are gonna start questioning more and more. So I think it was part of the milieu of the time. 10:51 (A few people, when I mentioned I was interviewing you, they always sort of link your involvement with Rocky Flats to the Olympics, your involvement in not bringing the Olympics to Denver.