'RANDOM MURDER BY TECHNOLOGY': THE ROLE OF SCIENTIFIC AND

BIOMEDICAL EXPERTS IN THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT, 1969 - 1992

LISA A. RUMIEL

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN

PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR

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1*1 Canada Random Murder by Technology: The Role of Scientific and Biomedical Experts in the Anti-Nuclear Movement, 1969 -1992

By Lisa A. Rumiel

a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of York University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

© 2009

Permission has been granted to: a) YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES to lend or sell copies of this dissertation in paper, microform or electronic formats, and b) LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA to reproduce, lend, distribute, or sell copies of this dissertation anywhere in the world in microform, paper or electronic formats and to authorize or procure the reproduction, loan, distribution or sale of copies of this dissertation anywhere in the world in micro­ form, paper or electronic formats.

The author reserves other publication rights, and neither the dissertation nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the auHior's written permission. ABSTRACT

'RANDOM MURDER BY TECHNOLOGY': THE ROLE OF SCIENTIFIC AND

BIOMEDICAL EXPERTS IN THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT, 1969 - 1992

By

Lisa A. Rumiel

This dissertation analyzes the work of activist-oriented American physicians and scientists in the late 1960s, assessing how they challenged policy makers to seriously address the risks associated with nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology between

1969 and 1992. Specifically, this project focuses on the activities of Union of Concerned

Scientists (UCS), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and Rosalie Bertell, who worked under the auspices of three organizations - the Ministry of Concern for Public Health (MCPH), the

Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Research (JCSFR), and the International Institute of

Concern for Public Health (IICPH). All of these non-profit organizations were founded during the third wave of the anti-nuclear movement - UCS in 1969, PSR in 1979,

IPPNW in 1981, MCPH and JCSFR in 1978, and IICPH in 1983. They fit neatly into sociologist, Scott Frickel's definition of "public interest science organizations," which are

"distinguished by their explicit mission to seek ways to use science for the benefit of the public and by their connections to political movements." As well, the scientific and technological concerns of each of these organizations were all somehow related to the

iv public health and/or environmental consequences of nuclear technology. The dissertation argues that the pre-existing hierarchy in the sciences (where physics and engineering were favoured over 'softer' sciences like medicine and epidemiology), the ways that gender ideology shaped the practice of science, and the tendency of the nuclear bureaucracy and the American media to feminize the work of social activists uniquely influenced the approach to activism within each of these groups. These same factors (as well as the relative size of each organization) structured the evolution of each group's understanding of nuclear risks.

v DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to the two loves of my life, Matthew and Ellie Sloan

VI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a dissertation is hard work, but I was very lucky to have had the unending support of a long list of people, who made completing this project possible. I would like to thank some of them here.

My committee members all made very significant contributions to this dissertation. Marlene Shore and Kathryn McPherson have been a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. At a crucial time in my writing, Marlene stepped up her duties as a committee member and played the role of stand-in supervisor, carefully reading and commenting on multiple chapters and emails. Kathryn gave me a run for my money in the final stages of this project, asking me the re-write my introduction more times than I care to recall here. The final product offers a much clearer map of the central themes and questions that are explored in this thesis and I am very grateful for her guidance and patience during that time. It is difficult to put into words how much

Georgina Feldberg's supervisory role on this project means to me. From taking me under her wing during the first year of my PhD as I struggled to understand the history of medicine, to reading and commenting on multiple drafts of my thesis, to finding me research work when I was broke, to hooking me up with people to stay with when I was doing research in Cambridge, to giving me her daughter's old baby clothes, Gina has been the best supervisor that I could ever ask for. Even as she has struggled with this horrible illness over the last three years, Gina has continued to be a huge support and in

vii the final stages she pushed me to sharpen my analysis when I was desperate to throw caution to the wind and just hand the dissertation in. I am particularly grateful for this. I must also acknowledge the financial support of the Associated Medical Services and the

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which made it possible for me to work on this dissertation without taking on too many extra jobs.

I am also grateful to the Women's History Reading Group, the now-defunct

Organizations Reading Group, attendees of the New Frontiers in Graduate History

Conference, members of Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, the European

Association for the History of Medicine, and the History of Science Society, where I tried out my ideas and received encouragement and feedback on early drafts of my chapters. I have also benefitted greatly from the lively discussions I have had with my students over the past 6 years, particularly those who took Medicine and North America in Historical

Perspective.

York University's History Department has been a wonderful place to make myself an intellectual home over the past 7 plus years. Professors Molly Ladd-Taylor,

Christopher Armstrong, Bettina Bradbury, Craig Heron, Marlene Shore, Marcel Martel, and Marc Egnal all played a critical role in teaching me how to write about and interpret the past. Marlene Shore, Bettina Bradbury, Stephen Brooke, Marcel Martel, Anne

Rubenstein, and Carolyn Podruchny each took their turn as Graduate Director during my time at York and they have all been equally supportive and kind. I am also very grateful

viii to Myra Rutherdale, who was a great boss during my final year and who serves as an inspiration for the kind of historian I one day hope to become. Everyone who is a member of the Graduate Program in History knows that Lisa Hoffman is the glue that holds us together! I appreciate very much the generosity that Lisa has shown to me over the years. Special thanks also go to Michelle Murphy at the University of Toronto, who agreed to direct a reading course in the History of Gender and Health for me during my first year. My discussions with Michelle and the books she had me read were pivotal in shaping my dissertation project and, indeed, my thinking about the history of science, gender, and medicine.

There are also several graduate students I met at York whose friendships I value a great deal. Dr. Christine Grandy, Dr. Tarah Brookfield, Dr. David Mizener, Dr. Sarah

Glassford, Dr. Sean Kheraj, Mark Abraham, Chris Dooley, Eva Kater, Dr. Eric

Strikwerda, Dr. Ian Hesketh, Ian Mosby, Heather Steele, Jenny Ellison, Laura Godsoe,

Natalie Gravelle, and Shannon Stettner have been great colleagues. In particular, Dr.

Kristin Burnett and Dr. Julia Lalande were always there to listen to my daily rants about dissertation research and writing. I will always cherish the (many) beers and laughs I shared with these folks during my years as a graduate student.

The thing that has sustained me the most is my relationship with friends and family from the non-academic world. Not one of these good for nothing louts read more than two pages of my dissertation, but they were all equally supportive and proud of me

ix and that means the world to me. Sarah Bunker, Lindsey Denomy, Nichole Tewksbury,

Dena Ellis-Cook, and Sarah Newham, my dearest and oldest friends for the past 20- something years, have plied me with drinks, laughs, and long phone conversations. My mother, Cecile Rumiel, even though she wrote on our family Christmas card that I was doing my PhD in Women's International Relations, has been one of my biggest cheerleaders. Her strength, determination, integrity, sense of humour, and kindness has been a model for how I try to conduct myself professionally and personally. The support of my father, Serge Rumiel, and the pride that he has taken in my accomplishments is also very dear to me. Special thanks are also in order for my extended family. Lauren and Carl Rumiel, Monica Tessier, Vivian, Kevin, Trevor, Ryan, and Alison Sloan have fed me and loved me and made me laugh and tolerated my often extremely opinionated nature and just generally been there for me. I have also had the pleasure of reconnecting with Jim, Marni, and Sean Koelln over the past four years.

This dissertation is dedicated to Matthew and Ellie Sloan. Matthew has been a constant source of love and support since he first offered me a piece of gum in Professor

Ginsberg's American Foreign Policy class over 10 years ago - even if he still will not shut up about how he beat me in that course. It was in the middle of my dissertation that our daughter, Ellie Beatrice Sloan, was born. Together, Matthew and Ellie have shown me what it means to love someone and they served as a constant reminder that there was so much more to life than dissertating.

x Table of Contents

Abstract iv

Dedication vi

Acknowledgements vii

List of Abbreviations xiii

Chapter 1: Introduction Page 1

Part I: American Scientists Opposed to Commercial Nuclear Power during the 1970s

Chapter 2: When Hard Science Goes Soft: The Role of Physicists and Engineers from Union of Concerned Scientists in the Commercial Nuclear Power Opposition, 1969-1979

Page 32

Chapter 3: Rosalie Bertell and the Feminization of Concerns with Low-Level Radiation Exposure in the United States, 1970 to 1979

Page 87

Part II: The Role of Scientists and Physicians in the Disarmament Movement, 1980 to 1986

Chapter 4: "Sex and Death in the Rational World" of Scientist Activists: The Work of Union of Concerned Scientists, 1980 to 1986

Page 162

Chapter 5: Getting to the Heart of Science: Understanding Rosalie Bertell's Activism as Feminist Science Work, 1980 to 1986

Page 204

Chapter 6: Conjuring Up the Post-Nuclear Apocalypse: The Activist Strategies of Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1980 to 1986

XI Page 252

Part III: Refraining Anti-Nuclear Activism in the Post-Chernobyl, Post- Cold War World

Chapter 7: Moving onto 'Greener Pastures' - Union of Concerned Scientists Regroup in the Aftermath of the Cold War, 1986 to 1992

Page 299

Chapter 8: Health, Human Rights, and the Dispossessed: The Continued International Focus of Rosalie Bertell's Public Health Activism, 1986 to 1992 Page 334

Chapter 9: Medical Expertise Takes Centre Stage: Linking Public Health and the Environment to the Disarmament Activism of the Doctor's Movement, 1986 to 1992

Page 385

Chapter 10: Conclusion Page 440

Bibliography Page 458

xn List of Abbreviations

AAAS - American Academy for the Advancement of Science AEC - Atomic Energy Commission AECB - Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada ARE - Asia Rare Earths BEIR - Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation CAP - Consumer's Association of Penang CIDA - Canadian International Development Agency CNI - Committee for Nuclear Information CNI - Consolidated National Interveners CTB - Comprehensive Test Ban DOD - Department of Defence DOE - Department of Energy ECCS - Emergency Core Cooling System EPA - Environmental Protection Agency EPI - Environmental Policy Institute ERDA - Energy Research and Development Administration FAS - Federation of American Scientists FCLMRBSC - Francis Countway Library of Medicine, Rare Books and Special Collections FRC - Federal Radiation Council HSS - Department of Health and Human Services HWC - Health and Welfare Canada IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency ICAN - International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ICRP - International Committee for Radiological Protection IEER - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research IICPH - International Institute of Concern for Public Health INESGR - International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility IPPNW - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association JCSFR - Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Research LAC - Library and Archives Canada LTBT - Limited Test Ban Treaty MCPH - Ministry of Concern for Public Health MITIASC - MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections NAS - National Academy of the Sciences NCAI - National Committee of Atomic Information NCRP - National Committee on Radiological Protection NIH - National Institutes of Health NRC - Nuclear Regulatory Commission NTBT - Nuclear Test Ban Treaty NTBT - Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

xin PMAP - Planning and Management Assistance Project PSR - Physicians for Social Responsibility SACC - Science Action Coordinating Committee SCPC - Swarthmore College Peace Collection SftP - Science for the People SPEERA - Secretarial Panel for the Evaluation of Epidemiological Research Activities SSRS - Society for Social Responsibility in Science UCS - Union of Concerned Scientists UFDIF - University Federation for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom WAND - Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament WILPF - Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

xiv Chapter 1: Introduction

The United States government's enthusiasm for nuclear technology has always outweighed its concern with the human and environmental costs of such technological development. This was true during World War II and it continued to be the case until after the Cold War ended. As part of the Manhattan Project, when scientists feverishly worked to develop, test, and use the atomic bomb, the first radiation health and safety protocols were established. The resulting health or environmental protection measures took for granted the accepted place of the nuclear bomb on the American landscape and as a potential weapon of war.1 For example, during the nuclear weapons testing program between the 1940s and the 1990s, health and environmental concerns about radioactive contamination were secondary to the nation's fervour to maintain a position of technological and military superiority over the communist Soviet Union. Likewise, in

1954, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was given the dual mandate of promoting commercial nuclear power and protecting public health and safety - directives that conflicted with one another and led to the dissolution of the AEC in 1974.3 The conflict

'For a detailed discussion of this early history, see, Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project, 1942-1946 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). 2Hacker's second book project picked up where he left off in The Dragon's Tail and explored the approach of the American nuclear weapons testing program to radiation health and safety from 1947 to 1974. See, Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 3 J. Samuel Walker, the official historian of the AEC and its successor organization, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has published extensively on this history. As chapter three of this dissertation reveals, I disagree with many of Walker's conclusions. Regardless, however, his contribution to scholarship on the history of radiation health and safety is extremely significant. See, J. Samuel Walker, Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); "The Atomic Energy Commission and the Politics of Radiation Protection, 1967-1971." ISIS 85 1 of interest between promoting nuclear technology and protecting public health and safety continued to be evident throughout the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan moved defence policy away from deterrence and towards the idea of fighting and winning a limited nuclear war. Further, when Americans learned of the massive environmental contamination by Department of Energy (DOE) -run nuclear weapons facilities around the time of the Chernobyl accident, the fallacy that public health and the environment could be protected while the nation aggressively pursued its goals of nuclear technology development was confirmed. The same is true of the legacy of nuclear waste contamination from commercial nuclear power facilities across the country.

This conflict of interest generated intense public anxiety within the U.S. and around the world throughout the post-World War II nuclear age. At key historical moments, scientists (and, later, biomedical professionals) acted as leaders in the social movements that organized around these concerns. This dissertation analyzes the work of activist-oriented American physicians and scientists in the late 1960s, assessing how they challenged policy makers to seriously address the risks associated with nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology between 1969 and 1992. Specifically, this project focuses on the activities of Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Physicians for Social

Responsibility (PSR), International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

(IPPNW), and Rosalie Bertell, who worked under the auspices of three organizations - the Ministry of Concern for Public Health (MCPH), the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and

(March 1994): 57-78; and Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). 2 Research (JCSFR), and the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH).

All of these non-profit organizations were founded during the third wave of the anti- nuclear movement - UCS in 1969, PSR in 1979, IPPNW in 1981, MCPH and JCSFR in

1978, and IICPH in 1983. They fit neatly into sociologist, Scott Frickel's definition of

"public interest science organizations," which are "distinguished by their explicit mission to seek ways to use science for the benefit of the public and by their connections to political movements."4 As well, the scientific and technological concerns of each of these organizations were all somehow related to the public health and/or environmental consequences of nuclear technology.

This dissertation makes five important contributions to historical scholarship on

America's nuclear age. First, it represents the first substantive discussion of the third wave of the expert wing of the anti-nuclear movement. Unlike earlier waves of scientist- activism, the third wave was strongly influenced by the civil rights, new left, feminist, environmental, and/or anti-Vietnam War movements. Second, this dissertation claims that this third wave began in 1969, when scientists mobilized formal opposition to commercial nuclear power in the U.S., and ended around 1992, when the international environmental movement grew increasingly concerned about non-nuclear environmental issues like global warming. The analysis of this long period reveals the firm links between the opposition to commercial nuclear power during the 1970s and the disarmament movement during the 1980s. It also offers the chance to illustrate how the

4 Scott Frickel, "Just Science? Organizing Scientist Activism in the US Environmental Justice Movement," Science as Culture 13, 4 (December 2004), 460. 3 work of these public interest science organizations was shaped by the continually changing American and international political climate. Third, this dissertation offers an analysis of how different groups of expert-activists expressed their concerns with nuclear technology through a discussion of risks. Fourth, it analyses how the specificities of expertise within each of these groups (physicists and engineers in UCS, physicians in

PSR and IPPNW, and a nun/cancer epidemiologist/biostatistician, Rosalie Bertell) made a unique contribution to the anti-nuclear movement, determined the connections of each group to the larger anti-nuclear movement, shaped their relationships with the nuclear bureaucracy, and affected their relative successes and failures. Finally, this project explores how gender informed the strategies used and the critiques made by scientist and physician-activists. It assesses how gender shaped the ways that scientific and biomedical knowledge was received and recognized by the U.S. nuclear bureaucracy, the lay public, and the media. By interrogating these five axes of analyses, this dissertation argues that the pre-existing hierarchy in the sciences (where physics and engineering were favoured over 'softer' sciences like medicine and epidemiology), the ways that gender ideology shaped the practice of science, and the tendency of the nuclear bureaucracy and the American media to feminize the work of social activists uniquely influenced the approach to activism within each of these groups. These same factors (as well as the relative size of each organization) structured the evolution of each group's understanding of nuclear risks.

4 Unlike the first two waves of the anti-nuclear movement, the role of scientists and biomedical professionals in the third wave of the movement is under-represented in the historical literature. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has received the most scholarly attention, but all references to the group in the historical scholarship are limited to a discussion of its first few years. For example, Kelly Moore's dissertation devotes a discussion to UCS's early years of activism, focusing most substantively on the historical context surrounding the organization's foundation in 1969.5 This dissertation adds a new element to what Moore and others write about UCS's founding, offering a gender analysis of the group's identity, which formed around its first protest on the MIT campus on March 4th, 1969. Gary L. Downey's article, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in

Negotiating Nuclear Power: The Union of Concerned Scientists and Emergency Core

Cooling," and Joel Primack and Frank Von Hippel's chapter on UCS in their 1974 book,

Advice and Dissent, offer the most comprehensive histories of UCS to date, though they focus primarily on UCS's activism during the Emergency Core Cooling Debate between

1972 and 1973.6 Finally, the major historical works on the anti-nuclear movement in the

U.S. make reference to the work of UCS during this period, but never engage substantially in the work of the group during this time, focusing instead on community

Kelly Moore, "Doing good while doing science." See, for example, her discussion of the historical relationship between UCS and the Science Action Coordinating Committee (SACC) in the year leading up to the group's first major protest, 141-150. See also, Gerald Holton and Gerhard Sonnert, Ivory Bridges: Connecting Science and Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 66-92. The authors also limit their discussion of UCS to the first few years of the group's work. 6 Gary L. Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power: The Union of Concerned Scientists and Emergency Core Cooling" Social Studies of Science 18, 2 (May 1988): 242-243. See also Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 208-235. 5 based activism. All of these works point to the significance of UCS to the overall history of the anti-nuclear movement, but fail to place the group into the broader context of this third wave. This dissertation builds on those histories of the organization's founding in 1969 and its work in opposition to nuclear power during the early 1970s. It also significantly expands the historical analysis through an investigation of UCS's work during the rest of the 1970s, the Reagan Era arms race, until 1992, when George Bush Sr. ended his presidency. My study also differs from the existing scholarship because I do a comprehensive analysis of UCS's news coverage in the New York Times and the organization's newsletter, Nucleus, the latter of which has been completely overlooked by historians.

With the exception of Paul Boyer's nod to the parallels between FAS's activism in the 1940s and Physicians for Social Responsibility's (PSR) activism during the 1980s, analysis of PSR and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War's

(IPPNW) role in the larger anti-nuclear movement has been almost non-existent in the historical literature. Mary Kathryn Neal's 1988 PhD dissertation in medical anthropology, "Balancing passion and reason: A symbolic analysis of the communication strategies of the physicians' movement against nuclear weapons," offers the first substantive discussion of PSR's activism between 1979 and 1985. Neal relies on oral interviews, participant observation, and organizational documents, paying close attention

7 See, for example, Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) and Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). to the ways the organization used medical rhetoric to raise awareness about the negative effects of nuclear war and to mobilize public opposition. She focused mainly on the San

Francisco Chapter of the organization in her analysis and used sources like the PSR produced film, "The Last Epidemic." While she makes insightful observations into the transformation of PSR from an organization largely focused on using medical rhetoric to mobilize awareness about the threats of nuclear war to one more concretely dedicated to lobbying and political mobilization by 1983, Neal's study was completed only three years after her study ends.8 With the benefit of historical hindsight to its credit, this dissertation builds on Neal's analysis to place the discussion of PSR alongside IPPNW, which became the umbrella organization for the international movement of physicians concerned about nuclear war by 1981. This dissertation also brings the discussion of both PSR and IPPNW to 1992, offering the chance to examine the ways these organizations grew and adapted to the changing political climate between 1979 and 1992.

My study is also distinct from Neal's because it draws on the expansive archival collections of IPPNW and Bernard Lown, held at the Harvard Medical School archives, and PSR, housed within the Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

While Rosalie Bertell was clearly an integral actor in the anti-nuclear movement throughout the period discussed in this thesis, her work has gone completely

8 Mary Kathryn Neal, "Balancing passion and reason: A symbolic analysis of the communication strategies of the physicians' movement against nuclear weapons" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Francisco, 1988). See also, Mary Kathryn Neal, "Rhetorical Styles of the Physicians for Social Responsibility," in Peace Action in the Eighties, eds. Sam Marullo and John Lofland (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990), 167-179.

7 unrecognized in the historical literature on the American nuclear age. Yet, she devoted almost her entire working life to using her scientific expertise for critiquing standards of health and safety within the nuclear industry. Mary-Louise Engels' popular biography,

Rosalie Bertell: Scientist, Eco-Feminist, Visionary, is the most complete treatment of

Bertell's work to date. She tells the story of Bertell's early life, her education and decision to join a religious sisterhood, her entrance into the anti-nuclear movement, her decision to move to Canada, and the increasingly global approach of her work throughout the 1980s and 1990s. In an article on eco-feminism, Cat Cox discusses Bertell's work alongside that of Rachel Carson and Helen Caldicott. To reinforce Bertell's connections with the eco-feminist movement during the 1980s, Cox writes, "She calls for an end to seeking peace and economic prosperity through militaristic technology and looks to eco- feminism and the women's movement to provide an integrated and holistic approach to technology enabling a future healthy human existence." Cox's work highlights the role of feminist conviction, her commitment to peace, her ecological values, and her religious piety in her anti-nuclear activism.9 Missing from this cursory discussion of Bertell is the way she sought to use her scientific expertise to arrest the expansion of nuclear technology around the world. By placing Bertell's activism into this broader history of scientist activism within the anti-nuclear movement between 1969 and 1992, where I think she belongs, the analysis of Bertell offered in this dissertation builds substantially on these limited discussions of her activist career. In particular, it examines her work

Cat Cox, "Eco-Feminism," in Inventing Women: Science, Technology, and Gender, edited by Gill Kirkup and Laurie Smith Keller, 282-293. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992. 8 from within the three small non-profit activist organizations that she either founded or led. While the discussion of Bertell throughout this thesis generally refers to her as an individual activist, these organizations were a crucial part of her identity because she lacked the mainstream institutional affiliations that the majority of other expert activists within UCS, PSR, and IPPNW possessed. My study of Bertell is also unique because it represents the first substantive analysis of her archival collection at the National Archives of Canada.

Several features of this third wave of anti-nuclear activism distinguished it from earlier campaigns waged by the first and second wave of scientist-activism. The first wave - on which we have the richest body of scholarly literature - was initiated by the

Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS) in 1945 and only lasted until 1947.10 Later

Alice Kimball Smith's 1965 book, A Peril and A Hope, is still regarded by many as the most definitive account of this period. See, Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and A Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America, 1945-1947 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1965). Donald Strickland's 1968 book, Scientists in Politics, offers a striking contrast to Smith's narrative tale and places significant emphasis on how much of an anomaly FAS was in the context of the larger scientific community, who he argues had never been inclined to join political movements. See, Donald Strickland, Scientists in Politics: The Atomic Scientists Movement, 1945-1946 (Lafayette: Purdue University Studies, 1968). For other works written during the 1960s and 1970s that make reference to FAS's early history, see, Robert Gilpin, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962); Robert Gilpin and Christopher Wright, eds., Scientists and National Policy Making (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964); Rae Goodell, The Visible Scientists (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1975); Norman Kaplan, ed., Science and Society (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965); Stuart Langton, ed., Citizen Participation in America: Essays on the State of the Art (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1978); Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (New York: Basic Books, 1974); Albert H. Teich, ed., Scientists and Public Affairs (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974); Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, The Politics of Technology: Activities and Responsibilities of Scientists in the Direction of Technology (Stanford: Stanford Workshops on Political and Social Issues, 1970). See also, Elizabeth Hodes, "Precedents for Social Responsibility among Scientists: The American Association of Scientific Workers and the Federation of American Scientists, 1938-1948" (Ph.D diss., University of California at Santa Barbara, 1982). Paul Boyer's discussion of the scientists' movement between 1945 and 1950 is notable for its attempts to place the scientists' movement into the broader cultural history of the atom during this period. See, Paul Boyer, "The Scientists' Movement in Eclipse" in By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, Paul Boyer (New York: Pantheon, 1985). 9 renamed the Federation of American Scientists, FAS was formed by a group of

Manhattan Project physicists and engineers, who were concerned about the destructive potential of their scientific creation. The first two years of FAS's activism were focused on educating the public and policy makers about the dangers of the atomic bomb and arguing for policy changes to ensure that nuclear technology would be used for positive purposes. The group is usually credited with successfully opposing the May-Johnson bill, which proposed to place exclusive control of nuclear research into the hands of the

U.S. military, even though the war was over by the time the bill was introduced in

Congress. FAS argued that the post-war oversight of nuclear research should be distinct from the ways it was controlled from within the Manhattan Project during the war. The group insisted that it was more appropriate to place nuclear research control in the hands of a civilian agency of the U.S. government, which would promote the free exchange of ideas between scientists, a value central to American scientific identity. The group also demanded that this free exchange be extended to the international arena because members believed that transparency would reduce tensions between governments around the world and lessen the likelihood that nuclear research focused on its destructive potential. When

President Harry Truman officially ended his endorsement of the May-Johnson bill and

Jessica Wang's 1999 book focuses on the ways that anticommunist repression contributed to the ultimate failure of the scientists' movement by 1947. See, Jessica Wang, American Science in an Age of Anxiety: Scientists, Anti-Communism, and the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: North Carolina University Press, 1999). The most recent treatment of FAS was done by Wang's own graduate student, Megan Barnhart, whose 2007 doctoral dissertation focuses on what she calls a "more significant" aspect of FAS's work: the groups "efforts to educate and mobilize the American public on atomic energy issues." See, Megan Barnhart, "To Secure the Benefits of Science to the General Welfare: The Scientists Movement and the American Public During the Cold War, 1945-1960" (PhD. Diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 2007), 35. 10 popular support waned, the McMahon bill was crafted. This new bill made a civilian agency responsible for stewarding the development of American nuclear technology.

With the ardent support of FAS, the McMahon Act (more popularly known as the Atomic

Energy Act) was signed by Truman on August 1, 1946. In the end, it was not the victory that the scientists envisioned because the military was still given a large role in the new civilian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). FAS was very successful in mobilizing widespread public concern between 1945 and 1947, but the social movement that the scientists had inspired slowly dwindled after the McMahon Act was signed into law.

The lull between the first and the second wave of the anti-nuclear movement was brief. By the early 1950s, the U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons had ended and both the

U.S. and the Soviet Union developed increasingly deadly weapons capabilities with the hydrogen bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).11 However, it was not until 1954, after the U.S. tested its first thermonuclear hydrogen bomb at Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands, that sustained public concern with nuclear technology re-emerged in

American society.12 As nuclear historian, J. Samuel Walker recalls, the 1954 test

produced so much fallout that it forced the evacuation of Marshallese from their island homes and accidentally showered a Japanese fishing vessel eighty to ninety

11 Paul Boyer, "From Activism to Apathy: The American People and Nuclear Weapons, 1963-1980," The Journal of American History 70, 4 (March 1984), 822. 12 Prior to this, public reactions to weapons testing were mainly limited to concerns about the immediate effects of bomb blasts. Many American scholars have written about the effects of the atomic bomb on American culture, politics, and society. See, for example, Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture At the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985); Allan M. Winkler, Life Under A Cloud: American Anxiety About the Atom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988); Margot A. Henricksen, Dr. Strangelove's America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Joyce A. Evans, Celluloid Mushroom Clouds: Hollywood and the Atomic Bomb (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998). 11 miles away with radioactive ash. The crew of the fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, suffered skin irritations and burns, nausea, loss of hair...

One of the fishermen died six months later. The severity of the radioactive contamination from this test sparked intensive debate in the scientific community about the effects of fallout. FAS scientists formed an important contingent of this second wave of anti-nuclear activism in the U.S.,14 but speculations about the long-term environmental and public health effects of fallout attracted the attention of a much more diverse group of scientific professionals. The biologist, Barry Commoner, galvanized a substantial following of American scientists through his work within the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Committee for Science in the Promotion of

Human Welfare and later his affiliation with the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear

Information (CNI), which was established in 1958 by concerned scientists from

Washington University, as well as religious, women's, and labour groups from the local community. In 1957, the famous chemist, Linus Pauling, collected signatures from

11,021 scientists around the world, who opposed nuclear weapons proliferation, and presented the petition to the United Nations. The goal of the scientists' anti-nuclear movement, once again, was to act as a conduit for the American public, which was eager to understand the effects of fallout, and to influence a change in nuclear weapons testing policy. In 1963, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed, Commoner declared it

"the first victorious battle in the campaign to save the environment - and its human

13 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 19. 14 Barnhart's examination of FAS is unique for its exploration of the group's activism during the fallout controversy in the 1950s and early 1960s. See, Megan Barnhart, "To Secure the Benefits of Science to the General Welfare," Chapter 5. 12 inhabitants - from the blind assaults of modern technology."15 The by-product of this victory was that public concern with nuclear technology significantly decreased and anti- nuclear activism declined once again.16

The "third wave" scientific and biomedical activists under study in this dissertation shared several key characteristics with the first two waves of the anti-nuclear movement. Indeed, some groups, namely FAS, were active throughout all three waves of the anti-nuclear movement. But as the research presented here will show, the groups

established between 1969, when UCS was formed, and 1983, when Bertell founded

IICPH, were distinguished from the earlier waves of activism by the significant influence

of the social justice, civil rights, environmental, and peace movements of the 1960s and

1970s on the anti-nuclear movement. UCS's first protest was held on March 4th in 1969,

at the height of the Vietnam War, and many of the university professors and researchers who participated in the protest were self-conscious about the ways their research

contributed to the continuation of this particular military conflict. Likewise, the group

15 Michael Egan is the authority on the history of Barry Commoner and his relationship to the modern environmental movement. See, Michael Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2007). The quote is taken from page 47. See also, Kelly Moore's book, Disrupting Science, for a more thorough discussion of the organizational history of the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information. Kelly Moore, Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008). See also, Allen Smith, "Democracy and the Politics of Information: The St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information," Gateway Heritage 17 (1996): 2-13. 16 There were several other public interest science organizations that emerged in the post-World War II period, which were focused on issues other than the threats of nuclear technology. See, for example, Kelly Moore's discussion of Science for the People's activism during the 1960s in Disrupting Science. For a discussion of scientist activism before World War II, see, Peter Kuznick, Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1987). The difference between the organizations studied by Kuznick and those that emerged in the post-World War II period is that the former groups mobilized to protect the welfare of scientists and scientific institutions, while the latter focused on illustrating the ways that science should be called up to serve socially responsible and peaceful purposes. 13 emerged at the same time that the environmental movement was mobilizing across the country. UCS's suggestion that scientific research be redirected towards solving environmental and social problems illustrates how the group was also influenced by this new movement. These movements were also not very far removed from the civil rights or new left movements in the U.S. and the fact that most UCS members matured as scientists during these decades of intense social unrest distinguishes the groups' identity from FAS, in particular.

Like UCS, PSR and IPPNW were also clearly influenced by the anti-war movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed, the first incarnation of PSR was in 1962 and by around 1966 its focus on disarmament and critiquing American plans for civil defence were derailed by the group's growing concern with the escalation of the Vietnam War.

Many of PSR's members during the 1960s either re-joined the group in its later incarnation, or, like long time IPPNW co-President, Bernard Lown, participated in the founding of IPPNW in 1981. The continued focus of PSR and IPPNW on the health impact of war - whether it was nuclear war or chemical or biological warfare during the

Vietnam era - made peace a lasting focus in their work. It is also important to note how the later incarnation of the doctors' movement was shaped by the increasingly polarized

17 Jon Beckwith, "The Origins of the Radical Science Movement," Monthly Review 3 (1986): 118-128. Beckwith argues that radical science organizations like Science for the People (SftP) are distinguished from scientist driven activist organizations like FAS that emerged at the end of World War II. While he does not discuss UCS's work as part of this radical science movement, Beckwith's article is useful for placing the emergence of a group like UCS into the social and political context of the late 1960s. See also, Matthew H. Wisnioski, "Inside 'The System': Engineers, Scientists, and the Boundaries of Social Protest in the Long 1960s," History and Technology 19, 4 (2003): 313-333. 14 political rivalry between the capitalist U.S. and the communist Soviet Union during the

Reagan era arms race.

Bertell was both a scientist and a nun and there are two unique ways that her work was shaped by this broader historical context. The international feminist peace movement clearly influenced her work and also served as a support network as she reached out to communities and individuals who were concerned about the health effects of low level radiation exposure around the world. The same is also true of the various women's religious orders that were doing work around the world, many of whom would have considered themselves part of this larger network of feminist peace workers. It was also directly before the period covered in this dissertation that the Catholic Church underwent a transformation as a result of Vatican II, which had a significant impact on the shape of women's religious orders.19 Bertell developed as a nun during this period, where women religious were encouraged to cast off the veil, take back their birth names, choose their own vocations, and use their specific skills to reach out to the poor and dispossessed around the world. This dissertation contributes to the scholarly knowledge of scientist-activism by exploring the diverse effects of social movements on the scientists and organizations that comprised the third wave of anti-nuclear activism.

See, for example, Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change: Lives of Contemporary American Nuns (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996). 19 For a broad discussion of the various ways that religion has been used to "promote or resist social change through disruptive means," particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, see, Christian Smith, (ed.) Disruptive Religion: The Force of Faith in Social Movement Activism (New York: Routledge, 1996). The quote is taken from page 1. See also, Christian Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991). 15 As well, focusing on this long period of anti-nuclear activism enables me to examine how these organizations grew and adapted to the changing political climate between 1969 and 1992. This study argues that within the third wave anti-nuclear movement were three distinct phases - the public opposition to commercial nuclear power during the 1970s, the disarmament movement during the first half of the 1980s, and the growing public concern over the environmental and public health effects of nuclear waste and radioactive contamination between 1986 and 1992. UCS, PSR,

IPPNW, and Bertell's three non-profit organizations engaged in anti-nuclear activism throughout these three phases. Historians interested in the anti-nuclear movement generally portray the opposition to commercial nuclear power and the arms race as separate movements. Indeed, Paul Boyer's 1984 article about the public apathy to the nuclear arms race between 1963 and 1980 completely ignores the national opposition to commercial nuclear power during the 1970s and its clear links to disarmament activism during the Reagan era.20 Likewise, both Thomas Raymond Wellock and Christian

Joppke examine the opposition to commercial nuclear power in the U.S. until the movement petered out shortly after the 1979 nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile

Island.21 Similarly, David Meyer's book on the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Movement investigates the early mobilization among disarmament activists in the early 1980s, the ascendance of the movement to national status by 1982, and its steady decline shortly

20 Paul Boyer, "From Activism to Apathy," 821-844. 21 Joppke offers a comparison between the national opposition to commercial nuclear power in Germany and in the United States, while Wellock focuses on the movement in California, where the citizen base of the American movement was most concentrated and well-organized. Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy and Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses. 16 after Reagan's sweeping second term victory in 1984. There is tremendous value in these close studies of social activism during the 1970s and 1980s, but they understate the concrete connections between the two parts of the anti-nuclear movement during the third wave. Looking specifically at the work of scientist and biomedical activists within this movement makes the link clear. Despite the decline of national opposition to nuclear technology, first with the commercial nuclear power opposition by 1979 and later with lessening public concern about American nuclear weapons policy, none of these groups stopped putting pressure on the American and international governments between 1969 and 1992. They adapted their work to the constantly changing American (and international) political context and even after the Cold War ended and public concerns with nuclear technology waned, the groups continued to raise awareness about the negative effects of nuclear technology. All of these groups focused on technological, public health, and environmental issues, making it impossible to ignore the shared risks of commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology. Indeed, the American commercial nuclear power program grew directly out of the American nuclear weapons development, testing, and defence programs and there continued to be close connections between the two throughout the period under study in this dissertation.

This long view is also important because the work that these organizations did was significant. Historians attribute the "death" of commercial nuclear power in the

David Meyer, A Winter of Discontent: The Nuclear Freeze and American Politics (New York: Praeger, 1990). Meyer acknowledges that there were direct connections between the two movements, saying that one flowed directly out of the next, but he indicates that very few campaigns stressed the links between commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons. See, page 146. The tendency of historians to write about the two movements separately reinforces this disconnection. 17 United States, not to the massive national opposition to the technology throughout the

1970s or to the important role of scientists in the movement, but to the mismanagement of the technology by the American government and the utility companies entrusted with its expansion and development.23 Likewise, the deceleration of the arms race is generally attributed to factors outside of the disarmament movement; namely, revelations about the massive contamination of the environment by DOE run nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities and the efforts of the agency to cover this up, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War by 1989.24 The first factor led to the shutdown of all of these facilities shortly after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown and the latter two events significantly decreased the demand for nuclear weapons. Despite the fact that anti-nuclear activism, on its own, did not stem the tide of nuclear technology development in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world, the activism is important. The effort of scientists and biomedical professionals within this movement is of particular consequence. The groups under study in this dissertation persisted in raising awareness about the shortcomings of the American nuclear program and that of other nations around the world (namely, the Soviet Union) who competed with the U.S. for nuclear domination. If they were not completely successful, all of these groups kept the debate about nuclear technology, its safety, its practicality as a solution to energy issues, its

23 See, for example, Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 130. 24 See, for example, Russell J. Dalton, Paula Garb, Nicholas P. Lovrich, John C. Pierce, and John M. Whiteley, Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999) and Michelle Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, Second Edition (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2002). 18 lethal potential, and its threat to human and environmental health alive in the American media, government, in the courts, and within the scientific community at large. All of the groups remained undaunted by the larger ebbs and flows of the anti-nuclear movement and continued to raise awareness about nuclear technology long after the Cold War was declared over. Indeed, they continue to do so today, despite the fact that the U.S., every other nation in the developed world, as well as many in the developing world continue to rely on nuclear technology for either the production of energy or defensive weapons.

In his book, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Ulrich Beck points to another way that these public interest science organizations were bound by their specific historical context. He postulates that by the 1970s the most important concerns of individuals in western society were related not to social inequalities, but rather were linked to the distribution of risks in society that were created through the process of modernization and industrialization. For Beck, these included risks from radioactive contamination as well as the many risks from pesticides and other chemical by-products of the industrial process. Beck claims that the creation of these risks are linked to the

"overlap and competition between the problems of class, industrial and market society on one side and those of the risk society on the other, [whereby] the logic of wealth production always wins." This relates to my opening assertion that the enthusiasm for

25 For examples of how communities responded to these modern risks, see, Amy Hay, "Recipe for Disaster: Chemical Wastes, Community Activists, and Public Health at Love Canal, 1945-200," PhD Dissertation, Michigan State University, 2005 and Phil Brown and Edwin J. Mikkelson, No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Activism (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997). 26 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, trans. Mark Ritter (Sage Publications: London, 1992), 45. 19 nuclear technology has always outweighed the concerns for health and the environment.

I would add to Beck's argument, however, that not only market forces led to the creation of the nuclear risk society. The Cold War context of the U.S. government, in its quest for technological and military superiority over the Soviet Union, was also a chief contributor.

Beck maintains that unlike social inequalities, which affect only a limited portion of populations, the risk society democratically distributes risks, which travel back and forth around the world in our water supplies, environment, and food stuffs. He borrows from

Rachel Carson's insights in Silent Spring, calling this the "boomerang effect."27 The driving force in the risk society is the "commonality of anxiety," whereas in the class society it was the "commonality of need." This dissertation takes Beck's observations about risk as its starting point and tests its relevance for explaining the understandings of risk that emerged within each of the groups under study in this dissertation.

My project also interrogates how the specificities of scientific and biomedical expertise within these groups directly shaped the way that each group communicated with the public and the government about nuclear risks. UCS scientists emphasized the way that populations were threatened by faulty nuclear reactor safety mechanisms, which, if they failed, had the potential to indiscriminately harm the large populations surrounding these facilities. Likewise, these same scientists criticized the American nuclear weapons program, its potential to escalate hostilities between the superpowers, and unnecessarily

27 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, 44. Rachel Carson was the first to apply this term to environmental contamination from pesticide spraying. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring: 40fh Anniversary Edition (New York: Mariner Books, 2002), 80. 28 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, 49. 20 harm entire populations. The scientific understanding that UCS physicists and engineers brought to the problem of reactor and weapons design and safety was key in shaping the way the group communicated these risks. Bertell's critiques of nuclear technology also emphasized the threat to populations living downwind of nuclear power facilities, weapons testing sites, uranium mines, waste storage facilities, and so on. But she placed greater emphasis on the effects of low level radiation exposure from regular and irregular releases on vulnerable populations like infants, children, pregnant women, and the elderly. The intricate statistical analyses that she performed as part of epidemiological studies directly shaped the way she framed her discussions of nuclear risks. Similarly,

PSR (established in 1979) and IPPNW (established in 1981) were inspired to action by what the two groups saw as a gross misunderstanding of the medical consequences of nuclear war in American society. Again, the biomedical expertise of PSR and IPPNW physicians was at the root of how both groups framed their public discussions about the public health consequences of nuclear war and their emphasis was always on the sweeping devastation of nuclear war on entire populations.

This dissertation also analyses how the privileged status of these groups within the larger anti-nuclear movement was predicated on the relevant expertise they could apply to the public discussion about the negative effects of things like nuclear war, nuclear power safety, and radioactive contamination. Several scholars, like Brian

29 When PSR was founded in 1979, the group opposed both nuclear power and the arms race, but by 1980 the group abandoned its opposition to the former. 30 For a discussion of the power of science (versus concerned citizens) to name an environmental hazard, see Gregg Mitman, Michelle Murphy, and Christopher Sellers' discussion of the Asian Brown Cloud in the 21 Balogh and Chandra Mukerji, have signalled the importance of scientists to the state.31 In her analysis of state funded oceanography research, Mukerji observes that the power of

science "lies in [its] valorizing character...The image of science as a means for achieving lasting knowledge, detached analysis, and thoughtful reflection gives this voice a power that makes it politically useful." Charles Thorpe also theorizes about the place of

scientific expertise (in physics) in the creation of post-war national defence policy,

concluding, "The cultural power of science was closely bound up with a conception of

scientific knowledge as an objective 'view from nowhere', transcending local and particularistic values, interests and identities." The lay movement of anti-nuclear

activists were in competition with the American state, which used its close association with scientific experts to project the image that it was also detached and rational. This

dissertation questions how much UCS, PSR, IPPNW, and Bertell internalized these

introduction to Landscapes of Exposure. Gregg Mitman, Michelle Murphy, and Christopher Sellers, eds. Osiris, Volume 19: Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Illness in Modern Environments (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). See also, Alan Irwin and Brian Wynne, eds., Misunderstanding Science?: The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 31Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and Public Participation in American Commercial Nuclear Power, 1945-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 32 Chandra Mukerji, A Fragile Power: Scientists and the State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 201. For a broad discussion of the role that professionals play in American political life and the role of professionalism in shaping this political engagement, see, Steven G. Brint, In an Age of Experts: The Changing Role of Professionals in Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 33 Charles Thorpe, "Disciplining Experts: Scientific Authority and Liberal Democracy in the Oppenheimer Case," Social Studies of Science, 32,4 (August 2002), 529. Zuoyue Wang's book, In Sputnik's Shadow: The President's Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America, offers the most recent examination of the role that scientists have played as advisors to the American federal government. It represents a unique contribution to the expansive literature on science and public policy because it examines the role of the President's Science Advisory Committee from the Eisenhower Presidency through to the end of Nixon's second term. See, Zuoyue Wang, In Sputnik's Shadow: The President's Science Advisory Committee and Cold War America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008). For a discussion of the move towards big science in post-World War II American society and the role of that state in this transition, see, Peter Galison and Bruce Hevly, eds. Big Science: The Growth of Large Scale Research (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). 22 characterizations of science and examines how this distinguished each group from the rest of the anti-nuclear movement, while also making each group an important asset within the larger movement.

This dissertation also takes what other science studies scholars have observed about the pervasiveness of a hierarchy in the sciences, where physics continues to maintain revered status in American society, and applies it to a comparative analysis of

UCS, PSR, IPPNW, and Bertell's three organizations. The nineteenth century philosopher, Auguste Comte, was one of the first people who attempted to map out this hierarchy, locating physics at the top, the social sciences at the bottom, and the biological sciences at various points along the middle.34 Explanations about what makes physics the

'hardest' science are wide-ranging, but scholars generally agree that it continues to occupy a position at the top of the hierarchy. In her analysis of why physics continues to be held-up as the "paradigm of science," the feminist scholar, Sandra Harding, explains that "the subject matter of physics is so much less complex than the subject matters of biology and the social sciences," which must consider the effects of a variety of multifaceted phenomena on their subject matter. Harding argues that we should stop trying to model other sciences after physics because "the objects, events, and processes of concern to physical scientists are limited to those that can be isolated from social constraints."35 If this were adopted by other sciences or social sciences, it would

34 Laurence D. Smith, Lisa A. Best, D. Alan Stubbs, John Johnston, Andrea Bastiani Archibald, "Scientific Graphs and the Hierarchy of the Sciences: A Latourian Survey of Inscription Practices," Social Studies of Science, 30, 1 (Feb. 2000), 73. pp. 73-94 35 Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 43-48. 23 undermine (not enhance) the rigorous nature of research. Yet, the ability of physicists to perform their research in these controlled environments contributes to the continued characterization of the discipline as value-neutral and objective - two of the enduring hallmarks of 'hard' science. The fact that we continue to assign physics a place at the top of the hierarchy makes it difficult to avoid continued attempts to model other sciences after it. Indeed, as Barbara Whitten writes, physicists, herself included, "have for the most part accepted our position at the top of the scientific hierarchy, regarding other sciences and feminist critiques of science with complacency and a touch of arrogance."

This dissertation observes that expert activists between 1969 and 1992 were self- conscious about the continued practice of valuing the physical sciences over the biological and medical sciences. It was particularly apparent to members of UCS, PSR,

IPPNW, and all of Bertell's organizations because they were all up against the American nuclear bureaucracy, where physicists had occupied a very important place as

IT government scientists and policy experts since World War II.

Barbara L. Whitten, "What Physics Is Fundamental Physics? Feminist Implications of Physicists' Debate over the Superconducting Supercollider," NWSA Journal, 8, 2 (Summer 1996): 1-16. 37 This was despite several feminist critiques of science that emerged out of the period this dissertation examines. See, for example, Evelyn Fox Keller, A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1983), Reflections on Gender and Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), and Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death: Essays on Language, Gender, and Science (New York: Routledge, 1992); Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980), and Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989); Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), Sex and Scientific Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), and Whose Science? Whose Knowledge: Thinking from Women's Lives (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex?: Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989) and Has Feminism Changed Science? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). All of these works were produced during the period discussed in this thesis and offer substantive feminist critiques of science. Collectively, they challenge the patriarchal basis of ideas surrounding scientific objectivity and thought and their subjects date 24 The work feminist science critics have done in deconstructing the androcentric roots of modern science and ideas surrounding objectivity are also influential to this dissertation. Carolyn Merchant defines the conventional understanding of objectivity as follows: "Scientific knowledge is rule-governed, context-free, and empirically verifiable and as such claims to be objective, that is, independent of the influence of particular historical times and places." The roots of such definitions, according to Merchant and other feminist scholars, lie in the enlightenment and are very much gendered. In The

Gender and Science Reader, for example, Carolyn Merchant and Susan Bordo, who write about Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, respectively, map out the contours of this 'new' scientific practice. Bacon, who is often celebrated as the "father of modern science," is credited with promoting "the control of nature for human benefit." He was very much a proponent of the belief that this new science marked progress. According to Bacon, man was the rational being supposed to harness nature, which was depicted as feminine and in need of control by rational beings. Likewise, Bordo recounts the imagery conjured by science textbooks that discuss this period: it was a time of "intellectual beginnings, fresh confidence, and a new belief in the ability of science - armed with the discourses of

back as early as the Scientific Revolution. Some of these scholars were actually trained as scientists (for example, Evelyn Fox Keller has a PhD in physics) and their work is directly informed by these personal experiences. While many scientists were aware of these works (indeed, Sandra Harding participated in the very public "science wars" during the 1990s, where postmodern theorists engaged in public debates about the social construction of scientific knowledge and scientific truth with several members of the scientific community), they did not have a significant impact on the mainstream practice of science or the public perception of what science was. 38 Carolyn Merchant, Earthcare: Women and the Environment (New York: Routledge, 1995), 60. 39 Carolyn Merchant, "Dominion over Nature," in The Gender and Science Reader, ed. Muriel Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch (Routledge: New York, 2001), 68-81. 25 mathematics and the "new philosophy" - to decipher the language of nature."

Descartes' part in this new beginning was his call for

the rebirthing of nature (as machine) and knowledge (as objectivity), a 'masculine birth of time' as Francis Bacon called it, in which the more intuitive, empathic, and associational elements were exorcised from science and philosophy. The result was a 'supermasculinized' model of knowledge in which detachment, clarity, and transcendence of the body [we]re all key requirements.

In their introduction to section three of The Gender and Science Reader, Muriel

Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch argue that the androcentric nature of science, which was established during the scientific revolution (1500-1700), "has been carried on and functions essentially unchanged today."42 While it is certainly true that the practice of science during the enlightenment was very different than that which was performed in the context of the American nuclear program, this dissertation finds that these gendered ideas about objectivity were widely adopted to either celebrate or reject scientific research between 1969 and 1992, basically confirming what a range of feminist historians of science have argued more generally. The nuclear bureaucracy, the legal system, and the scientific community at large continued to value a more 'masculine' approach to science, characterized by the 'traditional' characteristics of rationality, detachment, and objectivity. This dissertation pays careful attention to how gendered understandings of objectivity shaped the work of UCS, PSR, IPPNW, and Bertell's three organizations,

Susan Bordo, "Selections from the "Flight to Objectivity"," in The Gender and Science Reader, 83. 41 Susan Bordo, "Selections from the "Flight to Objectivity"," 83. 42 Muriel Lederman and Ingrid Bartsch, eds., The Gender and Science Reader (Routledge: New York, 2001), 119. 26 each with its distinct grouping of scientific or biomedical experts, and affected their relative successes and failures.

This dissertation is divided into three sections. The first section examines the anti-nuclear work of expert driven activist groups during the 1970s, when the focus of the

American anti-nuclear movement was mainly on opposing commercial nuclear power installations. Chapter two examines the early history of UCS, beginning with its formation on the MIT campus in 1969 and the ways that the identity of the organization was shaped by its close association with MIT and this first protest. The bulk of this chapter focuses on the influential role of UCS in the Emergency Core Cooling System

(ECCS) debate with the AEC between 1971 and 1973, as well as its subsequent involvement in community opposition to the siting of commercial nuclear power facilities across the north eastern U.S. This group of physicists and engineers played an integral role in articulating national concerns over the safety of commercial nuclear reactors, the likelihood of reactor meltdown, and constantly reminded the AEC and later the NRC that their mandate was not only to promote the expansion of commercial nuclear power, but also to ensure public health and safety. The third chapter examines the more controversial debate surrounding the health effects of low-level radiation exposure during the 1970s. The first section of this chapter focuses on the broader history of this debate and its relationship to the American enthusiasm for nuclear technology during the twentieth century. The second half of this chapter examines the place of Bertell within the debates over the health effects of low-level radiation exposure. I analyze Bertell's

27 short career as an academic scientist, her membership in a women's religious community

(she joined the Order of the Grey Nuns in 1956), her decision, in 1976, to devote her life to raising awareness about the consequences of low-level radiation exposure, her establishment of MCPH in 1978, and her place in the overall expert activist community of scientists concerned about the rapid spread of commercial nuclear power in the U.S.

The second section of this dissertation focuses on the role of expert activists in the anti-nuclear movement from 1980 until right before the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in May 1986, when there was a shift away from opposing nuclear power in the national anti-nuclear movement. By the early 1980s, when Reagan was elected

President, the national anti-nuclear movement began mobilizing around the issue of nuclear disarmament. Chapter four follows UCS into the Reagan Era and examines how the group expanded its activist focus to include not only commercial nuclear power, but also opposition to the rapid acceleration of nuclear arms build-up between the superpowers. Chapter five focuses on the work of Rosalie Bertell during this period. It was in 1980 that Bertell resolved to leave the U.S. and establish residence in Toronto, first as the nuclear power specialist at the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Research

(JCSFR) and then in 1983 as the President and Founder of the International Institute of

Concern for Public Health (IICPH). It was during this period that Bertell's frustration with the slow progress of her work to this point influenced her to begin promoting a new approach to community health. Chapter six examines the re-emergence of PSR onto the activist scene in 1979, as well as the establishment of IPPNW in 1981. PSR, which was

28 originally established in 1962 by physicians like Bernard Lown, Jack Geiger, and Victor

Sidel, was revived by Helen Caldicott. When Bernard Lown, James Muller, and Soviet

Physician, Yevgeny Chazov, established IPPNW in 1981, PSR became the American affiliate. This chapter examines the role of these two groups in the Nuclear Weapons

Freeze Movement in the U.S., specifically, studying the importance of medical expertise and professional identity to their activism. They used a public health vernacular to describe nuclear war, speaking about it as an infectious disease and offering up the cure of prevention. While the groups did not share the same similarities that UCS had with

FAS, they drew heavily on the apocalyptic rhetoric used by FAS immediately after World

War II to convey this message about the medical consequences of nuclear war.

The final section of this dissertation examines the evolution of expert activism within these groups beginning immediately after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in the Ukraine and ending in 1992, just a few years after the end of the Cold War.

Chapter seven continues the survey of UCS and concludes that Chernobyl did not have a radical impact on the activism within the organization, mainly because the group had been an opponent of commercial nuclear power since 1970 and had continued this work throughout the 1980s, when disarmament eclipsed nuclear power as the leading concern among most anti-nuclear activists in the U.S. However, when the Cold War ended in

1989, UCS shifted much of its activist focus onto global warming. Chapter eight continues the story of Bertell's work as the head of IICPH. Similar to UCS, her work was not radically altered as a result of Chernobyl. Because Bertell's activism was rooted

29 in her concerns with the health and genetic effects of low-level radiation exposure,

Chernobyl reaffirmed the urgency of her work. She did, however, begin broadening her focus to include non-nuclear environmental and public health concerns in the later 1980s.

Chernobyl did have a strong impact on the activism within PSR, however. Chapter nine revisits the doctors' movement and contrasts the shifting focus of PSR away from its singular concentration on disarmament and towards an increasing emphasis on the public health and environmental consequences of the nuclear weapons race with IPPNW, which remained steadfastly focused on the Comprehensive Test Ban. It was not until 1989, when the Cold War was clearly winding down, that IPPNW joined PSR in raising awareness about the public health and environmental legacy of the arms race.

30 Part I: American Scientists Opposed to Commercial Nuclear Power during the 1970s

31 Chapter 2: When Hard Science Goes Soft: The Role of Physicists and Engineers from Union of Concerned Scientists in the Commercial Nuclear Power Opposition, 1969-1979

Introduction

"To meet the country's ravenous appetite for energy, the [commercial nuclear power] industry is likely to build 1,000 power stations by the turn of the century." In

1973, this was a rather optimistic pronouncement by the Atomic Energy Commission

(AEC), particularly because there were only twenty three plants in operation in 1972 and just another 100 either under construction or on order in the United States.44 Many of the operating, under construction, and proposed plants, moreover, were being opposed by a growing group of anti-nuclear activists across the country. Nevertheless, the federal nuclear bureaucracy renewed its commitment to developing nuclear energy in the aftermath of the Energy Crisis, presenting it as the only viable solution to the country's energy needs. In 1973, the government advocated commercial nuclear power expansion primarily because of the massive investment already made towards its development during the 1950s and 1960s, long before any viable opposition to the technology surfaced. The opposition to commercial nuclear power was slow to begin in the United

States, with only twelve percent of reactor applications contested by local citizen groups between 1962 and 1966; 32 % between 1967 and 1971; and 73% between 1970 and

Edward Cowan, "A.E.C. Promulgates Stiffer Safety Rules on Power Plants," New York Times, December 29,1973,49. 44 Richard Lyons, "A-Plant Safety Will Be Debated," New York Times, February 2, 1972, 14. 32 1972. Prior to the Energy Crisis, national attention was focused on such things as the

Vietnam War, which also ended in 1973. The combination of these two factors - plus the prolonged debate between the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the AEC in the

American media (over the safety of the Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) in

1972) - led to the creation of a massive grassroots opposition. This national opposition was led by such groups as the New England-based Clamshell Alliance, California's

Abalone Alliance, and Western Montana's Headwaters Alliance, all of which were conglomerations of concerned community members and groups opposed to the development of a commercial nuclear power industry in their backyards. Ralph Nader's

Critical Mass Energy Project in Washington, DC - a series of conferences focusing on the harmfulness of nuclear power - brought these groups together through the Critical

Mass Journal to form a cohesive opposition to the federal government's goal of expanding nuclear power generation after 1973.46 In 1979, this national movement was further emboldened with the nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island.

Scientific experts were at the forefront of the opposition to commercial nuclear power during the 1970s and, in fact, acted as leaders before the Energy Crisis in 1973.

This chapter will focus on UCS's opposition to this growing technology during the

1970s. It will discuss not only the specific actions of UCS scientists, but also examine the different factors that shaped the organization's activism during this period. UCS was

45 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 30-31. Samuel P. Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955- 1985 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 182. 33 a group of privileged, white, male academic scientists, most of who originally worked at or were educated in prestigious institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology (MIT). Others, namely, Robert Pollard, who joined the group in the 1976, brought with him several years of experience working as a safety engineer in the commercial nuclear power bureaucracy of the AEC and then the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission (NRC) after 1975. 7 Although a diversity of scientists sat on the Board, and were involved in the first two years of UCS's existence, by and large this was a group of physicists and engineers during the 1970s. The group emerged amidst growing concerns over misuses of science and technology by the U.S. military and, more specifically, the complicity of scientists from institutions like MIT in perpetuating these technological abuses. All of these factors - scientific specialty, professional identity, institutional affiliation, political ideology, class, race, and gender - historically shaped the activism of

UCS. Despite the fact that this was a group of activist scientists, a combination that many other scientists and policymakers regarded with disdain, UCS scientists and engineers occupied a position of prestige in comparison to other anti-nuclear activists, among them other scientist activists. This was because of their prestigious professional affiliations outside of UCS, their scientific conservatism, their backgrounds in physics and engineering - two scientific specialties that were very highly regarded within the nuclear bureaucracy of the federal government and the scientific community at large -

47 The AEC was abolished by the 1974 Energy Reorganization Act because of growing dissent over its contradictory missions of regulating and promoting nuclear energy in the United States. The NRC was established to regulate nuclear power plants and ensure the maintenance of "public health and safety." See, Union of Concerned Scientists, Safety Second: The NRC and America's Nuclear Power Plants (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 1. 34 and because the groups' members conformed to the accepted image of the dispassionate, privileged, white, male scientist.

Roots of Anti-Nuclear Activism in the 1970s

The making of a national opposition to commercial nuclear power by 1973 can be attributed to two major changes in American society - the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the Energy Crisis. The movement against nuclear power in the United

States was part of the new movement of individuals concerned about emergent risks in late-capitalist Western society. German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, was the first to theorize about the emergence of the "risk society," characterized not by its concerns with class, race, or gender struggle, but instead by its growing concerns about the extensive threats to "integrity of body and life" posed by late-capitalist society. From such anxieties in the United States and around the world, the environmental movement was born in the late

1960s. It culminated in 1970 with the first international Earth Day celebration, and more specifically in the United States with Nixon's creation of the Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA). The early movement generally consisted of white, middle class, privileged individuals concerned with their inability to insulate themselves from

Ulrich Beck (Translated by Mark Ritter), Risk Society: Towards A New Modernity (Sage Publications: London, 1992). The quote comes from Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 2-3. 49 The concern with risks in society has expanded far-beyond concerns over environmental toxins in modern Western society. Some of the more popular areas where intense focus is placed on managing risks include automobile safety, child and infant car seats, bicycle safety, toy safety, personal safety, and on and on and on. 35 environmental toxins such as the radioactive byproducts released by nuclear power generating stations.50

Scientists were the first group to raise concerns about the safety of nuclear power in the early 1970s. Depending on such factors as their area of specialization, there were a number of responses generated by those scientists seeking to apprehend the licensing of commercial nuclear reactors across the country. The first technical critiques of nuclear power focused on the threat of thermal pollution on the lakes, rivers, and coastal waters where nuclear power generating stations were located. In 1969, environmentalists, fishermen, and aquatic biologists opposed several of the proposed nuclear power plants because of their concern over the effects of "waste heat" on fish and other aquatic life forms. According to Eldon D. Enger and Bradley Fraser Smith, the process of generating electricity from nuclear power plants requires heat, two thirds of which is waste heat.

They explain, "This is a problem particularly in aquatic environments, since many aquatic organisms are very sensitive to changes in temperature." Indeed, all petitions

The group did diversify later in the 1970s to include Native Bands concerned about their proximity to uranium mines and nuclear weapons testing in places like the Nevada Desert. These movements of people revealed that, while chemical and radioactive toxicity knew no borders, toxic waste sites and toxic industries continued to be located in close proximity to racial minorities and lower class peoples, making these environmental concerns more pressing in these communities. I will discuss this more completely in the chapters on Rosalie Bertell, who advocated on behalf of many indigenous communities, both in North America and abroad. 51 Joel Primack and Frank Von Hippel, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 211. 5 Eldon D. Enger and Bradley Fraser Smith, Environmental Science: A Study of Interrelationships, Ninth Edition (Tsinghua University Press, 2003), 238. 36 brought before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in 1969 cited thermal pollution as the central environmental concern.

The second source of scientific concern raised about nuclear power regarded increases in cancer and genetic defects as a result of low level radiation exposure. Those scientists who were concerned about low level radiation exposure came from a wide range of scientific backgrounds, including epidemiology, chemistry, medicine, health physics, and biophysics. John Gofman, who had a PhD in Nuclear/Physical Chemistry and was an M.D., and Arthur Tamplin, who did his PhD in Biophysics, were the most prominent of these scientists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Both men worked for the

AEC's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and predicted that "irreversible genetic mutationfs]" and 17,000 additional cancers would result if people continued to be exposed to radiation at the levels permitted by the AEC. As a result of their study, the

AEC discontinued funding at LLNL, and Gofman, who founded the Committee for

Nuclear Responsibility in 1971, was forced to return to his faculty position at Berkeley in

1973. Tamplin left LLNL a few years later for the same reasons and took a job with the

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) as Chief Scientific Advisor for the organization. The willingness of these two men to speak to the public about the hazards

Samuel Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence, 177-178. 54Curriculum Vitae of Dr. John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/JWGcv.html. 55 Arthur Tamplin, "Quantitative Aspects of the Relationship of Biological Measurements to Aging Processes" (PhD diss, University of California, Berkeley, 1958). 37 of nuclear power made them "heroes" of the anti-nuclear movement during the 1970s.

Another less prominent scientist sounding the alarm about the health effects of low level

radiation was Ernest Sternglass, a health physicist at the University of Pittsburg, who

raised awareness about increased infant mortality rates. Several prominent

epidemiologists in the latter half of the 1970s expanded this earlier work on the

relationship between low level radiation exposure, cancers, and genetic defects. These

included British epidemiologist, Alice Stewart, who was well-recognized for her research

on pregnant women, which found a relationship between childhood leukemias and low

level radiation exposures from routine x-rays.58 Stewart was called upon to help Thomas

Mancuso, whose AEC funding was cut when he refused to endorse the institution's claim

that there was no increased cancer risk among Hanford workers. Mancuso continued his

study with Stewart and later published two papers contending that there was an increased

cancer risk among workers at the AEC's Hanford facility.59 This debate, which began in

J. Samuel Walker provides the most comprehensive accounting of this debate between Gofman/Tamplin and the AEC. See, J. Samuel Walker, Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 338-362; J. Samuel Walker, "The Atomic Energy Commission and the Politics of Radiation Protection, 1967-1971," ISIS 85 (March 1994): 57-78; and J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 36-47. The most recent examination of Gofman's activist career was done by historian of science, Ioanna Semendeferi, in her article, "Legitimating a Nuclear Critic: John Gofman, Radiation Safety, and Cancer Risks" Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (Spring 2008): 259-301. See also, Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 27-28; Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 105; and Joel Primack and Frank Von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 211. 57 Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses, 105. 58 "Dr. Alice Stewart's Obituary, New York Times, June 27, 2002," International Institute of Concern for Public Health, http://www.iicph.org/docs/AliceStewartObit.htm. 59"Dr. Thomas Mancuso 1912-2004," Confined Space: News and Commentary on Workplace Health and Safety, Labor and Politics, http://spewingforth.blogspot.com/2004/07/dr-thomas-mancuso-1912-2004.html. 38 the 1940s when the United States government initiated its weapons testing program, will be elaborated on in the next chapter of this thesis, which focuses on the activism of cancer epidemiologist, Rosalie Bertell, whose activism was also focused on raising awareness about the health effects of low level radiation exposure from commercial nuclear power facilities during the 1970s.

In 1971, UCS raised a third technical concern, relating to the effectiveness of the

Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS), which was integral to the AEC's safety planning and was adopted as part of most reactor plans. The failure of these systems had the potential to cause complete reactor meltdown and massive releases of radiation into the environment. Consequently, when UCS discovered that virtually no testing had been performed on this safety mechanism, the group publicly attacked the AEC. This much bigger and immediate concern resonated with a public worried about nuclear power plant meltdowns and UCS provided the required technical basis to fight the AEC and the utility companies proposing to build nuclear reactors in their communities. Thus, UCS joined

64 environmental and community groups opposing various nuclear power plant proposals across the country to form the Consolidated National Interveners (CNI), filing a suit against the construction of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant near Boston, Massachusetts, then the Indian Point 2 plant located on the Hudson River, north of New York City, and later participating in the national hearings on the AEC's "ECCS Interim Criteria".60

Alice Stewart and Thomas Mancuso worked together once the AEC's decision to cut Mancuso's funding was announced. 60 Joel Primack and Frank Von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 228. 39 Henry Kendall, Daniel Ford, Ian Forbes, and James MacKenzie of UCS took a crash course in emergency core cooling systems and the implications of their failure, publishing a report indicting the technology in July 1971.61 UCS's technical critique formed the basis of CNF s opposition to the ECCS Interim Criteria and UCS acted as the leading technical advisor for the group. Likewise, the acquired scientific expertise of

UCS shaped their activism in the area of nuclear power throughout the 1970s and into the

1980s, as the second section of this dissertation discusses.

March 4th, 1969 and the Context Surrounding UCS's Birth

The roots of UCS's identity were located in its position as a group of privileged, white, male scientists with prestigious affiliations to the nation's eminent community of physicists and engineers at MIT, a community with strong ties to the military industrial complex. Because of these factors, UCS occupied a position at the top of the hierarchy among anti-nuclear activists in the 1970s. However, it was for quite different reasons that the group was first formed in 1969. The first event staged by UCS took place on

March 4, 1969 and was advertised as a one day "research strike" to protest "government misuse of scientific and technological knowledge."62 The protest took the form of a day­ long discussion held on the MIT campus and at several other university campuses across the country. The official "Faculty Statement," signed by 48 scientists at the Institute, called on scientists across the country to take "action against dangers already unleashed

61 See, Ian A. Forbes, Daniel F. Ford, Henry W. Kendall, and James J. MacKenzie, Nuclear Reactor Safety: An Evaluation of New Evidence (Cambridge: UCS, 1971). There is also an extensive discussion of the report in Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent. 62 Special to the New York Times, "Scientists at M.I.T. Plan One-Day Strike," New York Times, Jan. 24, 1969. 40 and [to provide] leadership toward a more responsible exploitation of scientific knowledge."63 The signatories called for the redirection of scientific research and funding away from military applications - like those pursued throughout the Vietnam

War - and toward "environmental and social problems," the education of students about responsible science, opposition to Anti-Ballistic Missile research, and the organization of scientists and engineers towards these goals.

The increasingly close connections between MIT and the U.S. military directly shaped the decision of MIT scientists to form UCS and hold a research strike on the university's campus. In The Cold War and American Science, Stuart W. Leslie outlines the militarization of scientific research at MIT and Stanford, which began in earnest during World War II. Leslie argues that, while they did not play a central role in the production process, universities were central players in the formation of what Senator

William Fulbright called the military-industrial-academic complex. Indeed, universities were the places that trained one third of the nation's physicists and mathematicians and one fourth of its engineers who worked for defense contractors throughout the Cold War.

They were also the places where knowledge was produced.65 MIT was at the top of the

"Union of Concerned Scientists: Faculty Statement," in March 4: Scientists, Students, and Society, ed. Jonathan Allen (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), xxiii. 64 "Union of Concerned Scientists: Faculty Statement," xxiii. See also, Special to the New York Times, "Scientists at M.I.T. Plan One-Day Strike," New York Times, Jan. 24, 1969, 73 and Special to the New York Times, "Science Stoppage Pushed at M.I.T.," New York Times, Feb. 23, 1969, 72. 65 Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 2. See also, Dorothy Nelkin, The University and Military Research: Moral Politics at MIT (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972); Andre Schiffrin, (ed.) The Cold War and the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years (New York: New Press, 1997); Rebecca S. Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford (Berkeley and Los Angelos: University of California Press, 1997); and Daniel 41 hierarchy among universities who held large Research and Development (R&D) grants, both during and after the war: the institution received $117 million during the war and had $100 million in military contracts by 1969. Indeed, as Leslie maintains, by the

1960s, "science and engineering at MIT had become big business."66

It was not only through research contracts that MIT maintained a strong connection to the national security state during the Cold War. For example, Leslie discusses the connection between MIT, Vannevar Bush, and the federal military bureaucracy, characterizing Bush as "the chief architect of wartime science policy and a strong advocate of university research." During the 1920s and 1930s, Bush was a prominent figure at MIT, first serving as the Dean of Engineering and later acting as the

Vice President of the institution. In 1938, Bush moved to Washington, first as the head of the Carnegie Institution, followed by a brief time as Chair of the National Advisory

Committee on Aeronautics. In 1940, he was appointed Chairman of the National

Defense Research Committee by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and moved on to head the

Office of Scientific Research and Development for the rest of the war, where he oversaw the allocation of $450 million on weapons R&D. As will be seen, this connection between MIT scientists and the national security state endured throughout the Cold War and, during the weeks leading up to the UCS research strike, there was intensive debate

Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995). 66 Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science, 6-15. 67 Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science, 6-7. See also, Michael Aaron Dennis, "Reconstructing Sociotechnical Order: Vannevar Bush and U.S. Science Policy," in States of Knowledge: The Co-production of Science and Social Order, ed. Sheila Jasanoff(London: Routledge, 2004), 225-253. 42 between those MIT scientists who held positions of prominence within the federal government and those who were concerned about the increasingly militarized nature of scientific research at the university.

There were several clear benefits to retaining federal research dollars; yet, as time wore on and the Cold War intensified, scientists began questioning the costs of this relationship. Leslie writes:

The "golden triangle" of military agencies, the high technology industry, and research universities created a new kind of postwar science, one that blurred traditional distinctions between theory and practice, science and engineering, civilian and military, and classified and unclassified, one that owed its character as well as its contracts to the national security state. The short-term benefits of this partnership - bigger budgets, better facilities, more political clout in Washington, ever more sophisticated military hardware, and even a few Nobel Prizes - were obvious to everyone. But the long-term costs only gradually became apparent in academic programs and corporate products so skewed towards the cutting-edge performance of military technology that they had nothing to give to the civilian 68

economy.

As Jonathan Allen revealed in the official history of the March 4 Research Strike, UCS was initially concerned about the negative effects the military-industrial-academic complex had on things like the "environment and social problems." This makes sense in the context of UCS's emergence in the early stages of the international environmental movement and the several different social movements that organized in opposition to the

Vietnam War and the persistent violation of civil rights throughout the 1960s.69 In her

Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science, 2. 69 Jon Beckwith, "The Origins of the Radical Science Movement," Monthly Review 3 (1986): 118-128. Although not about UCS, Beckwith's article is useful because he delineates how exactly scientist driven activist organizations like Science for the People (SftP) were a derivative of the "radical political movement in the United States in the late 1960s." While there were many significant differences between SftP and UCS, namely the former's decentralized organizational structure and radical critique of things like 43 PhD dissertation, Kelly Moore highlights how in 1968 the MIT campus was one of the many universities across the country to stage anti-war protests and MIT students actually created a refuge for at least one conscientious objector. Moore claims that the formation of the Science Action Coordinating Committee (SACC), which preceded the formation of

UCS, grew directly out of these experiences and the liaison between MIT students and members of the more prominent anti-war group, Students for a Democratic Society.

Leslie also acknowledges the research strike at MIT in 1969 and places it into this broader history of concern within the American scientific community over the increasing role of the military in determining the directions of scientific research. But he attributes the action to SACC, which started out as a coalition between MIT students and faculty.

However, it ended up being a strictly student run organization by the time of the research strike.71 He does not, however, explore the role of UCS in this formal protest.

The story of UCS's beginnings in 1969 is a useful illustration of the many factors shaping the group's early identity. The idea for the strike initially came from a group of graduate students in the Physics Department, who brought their concerns to their professors. The group of physicists who agreed to sign on to the student's initial plans

scientific objectivity versus the latter's centralized structure and reliance on established scientific conventions in its work, UCS emerged from this same political/social activist climate. For a discussion of the differences between UCS and SftP, see, Kelly Moore, "Doing good while doing science: The origins and consequences of public interest science organizations in America, 1945-1990" (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 1993). 70 Kelly Moore, "Doing good while doing science: The origins and consequences of public interest science organizations in America, 1945-1990" (PhD diss., University of Arizona, 1993), 142. 71 Stuart W. Leslie, The Cold War and American Science, 233-256. 72 It is also useful for showing the continuity of their opposition to nuclear weapons proliferation, which again became a major UCS focus during the 1980s. This aspect of their work will be elaborated on in Chapter 4. 44 included Kurt Gottfried, David Frisch, Bernard Feld, Herman Feshbach, Francis Low, and Steven Weinberg. It was not until students sought to broaden support that students and faculty members from other disciplines joined the March 4th initiative.73 As mentioned, the initial name assigned to the student and faculty organizers was the

Science Action Coordinating Committee (SACC). But as planning within the group progressed, tensions between students and faculty emerged and faculty members split from the student group to form UCS. The SACC students wanted the university to disassociate itself from all military related research, but the faculty was unwilling to join in this demand for fear of appearing to attack the university directly and also because of their reluctance to place such constraints on intellectual freedom. The more radical students had no such concerns over protecting institutional integrity and professional prestige, calling the faculty "well-intentioned but timid liberals who were unwilling to confront the issues directly." The faculty, in turn, viewed the student radicals as too

"emotionally charged," a label from which faculty members wanted to dissociate themselves. Such tensions between students and faculty are reflective of the conservatism of scientists, particularly physicists, in comparison to the American activist community during the 1960s and 1970s. Adhering to the standards of professional behavior was an important part of maintaining scientific credibility and was central to

UCS activism during the March 4th protest and beyond. The solution of having two

73 Jonathan Allen, Introduction to March 4, ed. Jonathan Allen, xii-xiii. 74 Jonathan Allen, Introduction to March 4, ed. Jonathan Allen, xv. 75 Jonathan Allen, Introduction to March 4, ed. Jonathan Allen, xv. 45 separate organizations, one for faculty and one for students, enabled the groups to collaborate on the March 4th event, while also providing them with the freedom to pursue individual initiatives without concern about conflicting goals, concerns, and ideology.

MIT faculty members were divided over whether or not to support the March 4th research strike. The main source of contention cited in the media and in the official history of the March 4 protest was the decision to characterize the event as a "strike."

Jonathan Allen, the editor of March 4 's official history, wrote, "Most scientists regard the conduct of research as distinct in kind from most other occupations. To many, it is a way of life rather than a way to earn a living." The belief that science was a vocation and not a job prevented many faculty members from joining a "strike," something historically associated with labour occupations and, more significantly, the labour movement. By conceptualizing scientific research in this way, scientists drew a line distinguishing the privileged role of scientists in society from skilled and unskilled trade people who would more likely participate in a work stoppage. Most of the very vocal opponents of the March 4th action were elite members of the MIT faculty who had at one time worked for the federal government. For example, Jerome Wiesner, who was a prominent government advisor and provost of MIT, declared, "The idea of a strike is abhorrent to me.. .It's just not my style."77 Jack P. Ruina, vice president of the special

MIT laboratories and former Pentagon advisor, stated, "What's more effective...to

Jonathan Allen, Introduction to March 4, ed. Jonathan Allen, xvii-xviii. Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. 46 participate in a public clamor or to talk to the President for an hour?" Both of these men expressed the popular sentiment among scientific professionals that it was more preferable to use their privileged status in society to gain a direct audience with government officials, rather than join more 'common' forms of protest. Ruina's use of the word 'clamor' when describing public forms of protest reveals not only his general disdain for UCS's decision to hold a research strike, but his condescension towards the lay public of non-scientific professionals.

The opposition of faculty members was not only expressed in terms of their unwillingness to have their scientific research associated with work and working class protest. My research reveals that other MIT scientists drew analogies between the March

4th protest and the stereotypically feminine traits of 'emotion' and 'irrationality'. MIT

Physicist, I.I. Rabi, characterized the March 4th strike as "an emotional binge." Another physicist, Jerrold R. Zacharias, who specialized in "air-defense systems," derisively called the March 4th strike "a gabfest." He preferred getting in on the action, continuing,

"Everyone is fed to the gills with talk, talk, talk. What these guys haven't learned is the most basic axiom of politics...It's better to be on the inside heaving out than on the outside heaving in."79 Working as a scientific advisor to the government was clearly favored among MIT intellectuals and it was also viewed as a more appropriate approach to influencing governmental policy among these male scientists. Indeed, the majority of

Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. [emphasis mine]

79 Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. 47 scientific research performed at MIT was funded by the federal government and the major area where MIT research dollars were allocated was in the area of military defense.

New York Times reporter, Richard Todd, revealed that "Of its $173.8 million in Federal grants and contracts, the Institute received $111 million [in 1968] from the Department of

Defense, more than any other university." One of the projects included controversial research on the anti-ballistic missile system (ABM), with which UCS took particular issue. These examples reveal a tension at MIT over the mixing of science and activism, something that reluctant scientists had to overcome if they were going to participate in the March 41 protest. And, although members of the March 4* initiative went ahead with the strike idea, they were always very sensitive to these kinds of critiques. Indeed, as subsequent examples will reveal, the desire to protect UCS's scientific credibility in the face of these critiques informed all of the organization's activism during the 1970s.

The infusion of class bias and misogyny in characterizations of UCS's March 4th initiative is not incidental. It is a testament to the fact that 'good science' at MIT (and elsewhere during this period) was a very class, race, and gender specific pursuit.80 The composition of the MIT faculty and student body is telling: throughout the 1960s and

1970s, MIT was the epitome of a privileged, white, male centric world. One third of the

For a discussion of the ways that "normal science" is racialized, see Michelle Murphy's chapter on occupational health and safety activism among Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists. She discusses racialization in the context of debates surrounding sick building syndrome at the EPA and argues that white privilege shapes scientific practice, even in instances when the scientific questions are not directly linked to issues of race. The EPA during the 1990s is a particularly good illustration of the workings of white privilege in science because of its physical location in one of Washington, DCs poorest black neighbourhoods. Murphy's contribution builds on earlier work in the area of science studies that mainly focuses on the ways that "normal science" is a gendered enterprise. Michelle Murphy, Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 111-130. 48 students at MIT majored in engineering; and a full three-quarters of the population specialized in one of the sciences.81 At its core, the student population was quite conservative, generally ending up working in some capacity for the military-industrial complex. The fact that most students attended regular classes and that research at the

rh

Institute's various labs continued as usual on March 4 , 1969 is a testament to the conservative nature of the student body and faculty. Moreover, the Institute had no formal policy of admitting students based on sex in 1969. In an undergraduate population of 7,000, there were only 226 female students. It was also evident that, while the university administration made efforts to make these women feel at home at MIT, they clearly saw them as different. One female student cited the superior treatment of female students, noting the fact that they had better living quarters, which included "a telephone in each room... [and] mirrors." There were also very few African-American students in the school population and no formal policies in place to increase their recruitment. Despite these facts, Todd asserted, MIT "is, without question, the nation's pre-eminent symbol of scientific excellence." This excellence was signified not only by the kinds of research performed by MIT, but also its population of white, male students and faculty. Although the institution's administrators, students, and faculty may not have consciously defined good science in such class, gender, and race specific ways, the composition of the university population and the reaction of many faculty members to the 811 am including both engineering and mathematics in this percentage. 82 Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. 83 Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. 84 Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. 85 Richard Todd, "The 'Ins' and 'Outs' at M.I.T.," New York Times, May 18, 1969, SM32. 49 strike reveal how closely bound University identity was to the particular kinds of people who practiced science there.86

While the establishment of UCS was a point of departure in the long history of

MIT involvement in military research and the work of scientific professionals as government advisors, there are several parallels that can be drawn between UCS and the more conservative MIT community. Of the 48 signatories to the March 4th faculty statement, only one of them was a female faculty member. Moreover, in the official

"Faculty Statement" and in Allen's edited collection about March 4th, there was not even the pretense that the movement included men and women. The faculty referred to the

"eminent men who have tried but largely failed to stem the tide" of irresponsible scientific and technological research in the past.87 Allen described the group of

"prominent men" who exclusively formed the list of speakers for the March 4th event.

Later on in his introduction, when he discussed the disagreements among faculty members over what the March 4 statement should say, he wrote, "As is the case with any political document of this nature when circulated among intelligent men, widely different reactions were observed."88 It is reasonable to conclude that the March 4th initiative was exclusively male driven because MIT was a male centric world and because physics and engineering were dominated by men during the 1970s. However,

86 For a discussion of the ways that the sciences were historically constituted through a close relationship to its male practitioners and the patriarchal societies these scientists inhabited, see, Londa Schiebinger, Has Feminism Changed Science? (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999). Of particular interest is her chapter on the role of gender in the substance of math and physics, 159-180. 87 "Union of Concerned Scientists: Faculty Statement," March 4, xxii. 88 Jonathan Allen, Introduction to March 4, ed. Jonathan Allen, xvii. 50 there is no indication that UCS ever questioned this fact. The references to "intelligent men" suggests this was something accepted as the natural order of things by the group.

So, while UCS's identity was shaped around the desire to protect professional status and scientific credibility, part of this involved asserting the white, male, privileged place of

UCS members in the debates surrounding responsible uses of technology.

Likewise, none of the UCS members eschewed affiliation with MIT and, in fact, as I revealed earlier, they were very careful not to alienate the Institute or their positions within it. Between 1969 and 1971, UCS continued to maintain close affiliations with

MIT. For example, when UCS held the follow-up conference to March 4 in 1970, it took place once again on the MIT campus. Jerome Weisner, who had critiqued UCS's research strike in 1969, was one of the speakers, showing how the concerns of UCS and non-UCS scientists at MIT still intersected in the area of arms control. Finally, the majority of the March 4l signatories identified with the larger population of scientists at

MIT, who were uncomfortable about the intersection of science and activism. Twelve faculty signatories came from the Engineering Department and thirteen from the Physics

Department. This continued connection to MIT and the prestigious scientists who worked there served UCS well throughout the 1970s.

Joining the Opposition to Commercial Nuclear Power

89 MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections (hereafter, MITIASC), UCS Fonds, Box 80, "Union of Concerned Scientists" Conference Program. Weisner spoke about "Problems and Prospects for Arms Control." Other MIT scientists participating in the conference included George Rathjens and Salvador Luria. Scientists formerly serving as scientific advisors to the Federal government included Marvin Goldberger of Princeton and Harvard's George Kistiakowsky, both of whom were also listed on the program of speakers. 51 An analysis of UCS activism in the area of commercial nuclear power throughout the 1970s makes this evident. It was not until 1971 that UCS joined the opposition to nuclear power. Between 1969 and 1971, the group had a diffuse focus on disarmament and various environmental issues, nuclear power generation not being one of them. A

UCS outsider named Daniel Ford brought the abuses of the AEC to the groups' attention.

Ford was an economist performing research on the costs and benefits of nuclear power in the United States for the Harvard Economic Research Project when he discovered several

AEC documents revealing that the agency had deliberately covered up reactor safety concerns. Ford wrote a letter to the Boston Globe editor alerting citizens of the need to establish a public hearing on the proposed Pilgrim nuclear power generating station in

Massachusetts. The editor, in turn, put Ford in contact with James MacKenzie of UCS.

When Ford was invited to a meeting of UCS's Committee on Environmental Pollution, he presented the group with the AEC documents he had collected. Henry Kendall, who by this time was also involved in UCS, spent the entire meeting poring over the documents and was surprised to see several pieces of evidence pointing to the AEC's knowledge about potential shortcomings in the emergency core cooling system (ECCS), which was designed to prevent nuclear reactor melt down by re-flooding a reactor core with water in the case of a water loss. The documents reviewed by Kendall included

AEC "descriptions of failures experienced in recent small-scale tests."91 According to

90 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 212. 91 Gary L. Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power: The Union of Concerned Scientists and Emergency Core Cooling" Social Studies of Science 18, 2 (May 1988): 242-243. See also Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 208-235. 52 cultural anthropologist, Gary L. Downey, "That the AEC was licensing plants in the midst of significant uncertainty posed a new threat to human survival and demonstrated another egregious failure of the democratic process;" hence, justifying UCS's decision to intervene in the licensing hearings. Moreover, because UCS could rely on published

AEC reports to make their critiques of the ECCS, they did not need to worry about diminishing the scientific credibility of its members. The data in question and the methodology used to collect it was already accepted as legitimate in both scientific and

93 government circles.

Once UCS joined the opposition to commercial nuclear power, very little of the group's initial leadership was still in place. The group's core consisted of Henry Kendall and James MacKenzie, both of whom had affiliations to the MIT Physics Department.

MacKenzie left the MIT Physics Department in the early 1970s to become full-time scientist at the Audubon Society and was also UCS's Chairman in 1971. He reflected

UCS's shift in concern about nuclear weapons technology toward environmental issues shortly after the group formed. Kendall, who was independently wealthy and a well- known nature enthusiast and mountain climber, maintained his faculty post at MIT

Gary L. Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 243. 93 This was Downey's insight and it is reiterated in a 1973 UCS funding proposal, where the group identifies the practice of reviewing existing technical data as an organizational strategy. This was a practical approach, which not only insulated the group from outside critiques of things like scientific methodology, but also recognized that this was a small group, not financially equipped to undertake large scale research initiatives on their own. It also enabled them to focus resources on raising public awareness about technological abuses in the United States. Gary L. Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 243. See also, MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC 434, Box 80, "The UCS Fund: Description, Budget, and Funding Proposal," 1973, 7. 53 throughout his long tenure with UCS. Mackenzie and Kendall were officially joined by

Daniel Ford in 1971, who eventually became UCS's Executive Director and worked for the organization opposing nuclear power for nine years. These three men formed the core of UCS between 1971 and 1973, when the group was focused on the ECCS opposition. Because of Kendall's teaching and research commitments at MIT,

MacKenzie's responsibilities with the Audubon Society, and Ford's decision to make a career of his work with UCS, Ford did most of the work mobilizing resources and participating in regulatory hearings. Ford fit in well with UCS - despite the fact that he was not a scientist. In an interview with Downey during the 1980s, he revealed his initial discomfort with the environmentalists' mentality. He had previously viewed environmentalists as "kooks," but - with his new knowledge about the AEC - felt compelled to act and was comfortable adopting UCS's approach to activism.96 These scientists were certainly not kooks; they adopted a reasoned approach to the problem, disputing the AEC's technical flaws through scientific analysis. In turn, MacKenzie and

Kendall could be comfortable with Ford, knowing that he would orient the groups' activism around the two scientists' expertise, refraining from any activity that would undermine the scientific credibility of UCS or its members.

UCS first entered the debate with the AEC through their July 1971 report,

"Nuclear Reactor Safety: An Evaluation of New Evidence," written by Ian Forbes, Ford,

94 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 226. 95 Gary L. Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 243. 95 Gary L. Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 243. 54 Kendall, and MacKenzie. The contents of the UCS study were reported on in the New

York Times article, "Scientists Warn of a 'Disaster' From Nuclear Reactor System." The

Times reported UCS's shocking revelation that - not only were they certain that "the emergency core cooling system designed to supply water to the reactor probably would fail if the primary system ruptured or broke" - but that the AEC's own "tests had confirmed the unreliability of the emergency system." Despite this fact, the commission

no carelessly continued to license reactors. UCS concluded that the AEC needed to

"halt.. .issuing operating licenses for reactors under construction until assured safeguards

[we]re provided and a thorough review of the cooling systems of operating reactors [were performed] to see if they "constitute[d] an unacceptable hazard to the population."99

Basically, this UCS report relied solely on information gathered from AEC reports, where they found extensive documentation of the agencies knowledge of the ECCS safety problems.

This report, along with UCS's October 1971 follow-up report, titled, "A Critique of the New AEC Design Criteria for Reactor Safety Systems," formed the basis of their

" My discussion of UCS's role in the 1971-1973 debates over the AEC's ECCS Interim Criteria will rely heavily on Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel's discussion of this in Advice and Dissent. There were over 10,000 pages of transcripts generated by the AEC hearings, much of which is located in the MIT Archives. I spent several weeks reading through these files, but it was not possible for me to read all of them because the UCS collection is very unwieldy and unorganized and also due to time constraints. Primack and von Hippel's discussion of UCS's role in these hearings is the most comprehensive one in existence and proved invaluable for this study. See pages 208-235. I will supplement this with my own examination of UCS's coverage in the New York Times during these years and with Gary Downey's analysis. 98 "Scientists Warn of a 'Disaster' From Nuclear Reactor System," New York Times, July 27, 1971, 65. 99 "Scientists Warn of a 'Disaster' From Nuclear Reactor System," New York Times, July 27, 1971, 65. UCS's critique of the AEC garnered considerable media coverage in the New York Times between July 1971 and the end of 1973, when the group was focused on opposing the ECCS Interim Criteria. There were twelve articles prominently featuring UCS's criticisms of the AEC. 55 opposition to the Pilgrim and Indian Point 2 Reactors, scheduled to be built in close proximity to Boston and New York City, respectively.100 Acting as interveners in these two reactor licensing hearings was a considerable commitment by UCS, particularly because the group was expected to act as a full participant in the hearing process - an undetermined period of time.101 At the same time that UCS intervened in Boston and

New York, several other groups filled similar petitions concerning the ECCS issue in other states. UCS was partially successful in their Indian Point 2 opposition because in

"December 1971 [the hearing board] informed the AEC that it had serious questions

100 about both the technical and legal validity of the Interim Criteria."

Because there were so many individual hearings held across the country on the

ECCS Interim Criteria, the AEC decided to hold one national hearing to address the issue once and for all and avoid additional interventions in the future. In response, UCS, along with 59 environmental and community groups, all of whom had been in contact during their scattered interventions in reactor licensing hearings across the country, formed the Consolidated National Interveners (CNI). UCS acted as the groups' technical muscle, but as a whole they pooled resources to procure the services of a lawyer and also

The second report is where UCS wrote down its official critique of the AEC's ECCS Interim Criteria. See Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 215-216. 101 Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 210. 102 Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 216. 103 Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 216. 56 to fund Daniel Ford's full participation as technical critic during the year and a half of hearings.104

UCS brought credibility to the CNI. Academic integrity and professional prestige were very important to UCS identity once they entered the commercial nuclear power debate in the 1970s. Maintaining these attributes among UCS scientists ensured that the group was taken seriously by other research scientists and placed the group on secure ground when confronting the AEC and utility companies. Their scientific expertise enabled the group to speak directly to the specific technical concerns the CNI had about the ECCS Interim Criteria. For instance, Ian Forbes, who was one of the initial authors of the first UCS report, was a nuclear engineer, fully equipped to understand the technical aspects of reactor design and safety mechanisms. When he had to leave UCS to return to his teaching and research commitments at the Lowell Institute of Technology after the publication of the July 1971 report, the group missed his engineering expertise.

Regardless, though, the group continued to use his expertise through the contribution he already made to the UCS report. Moreover, Kendall, who later admitted ignorance about the design nuances between different "commercial water-cooled reactors," provided the group with valuable expertise in physics. With his knowledge, Kendall was able to deconstruct and understand the "calculations on which the Interim Criteria was based."

From this, he determined that the computer programs designed to operate the ECCS were

104 When writing their book in 1974, Primack and von Hippel reported that UCS and the CNFs participation in the AEC hearings cost the groups $200,000, which had mainly been raised by environmental groups like the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and also UCS. Joel Primack and Frank von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 232. 105 "Scientists Warn of a 'Disaster' From Nuclear Reactor System," New York Times, July 27, 1971, 65. 57 "oversimplified in the face of the complexity of the phenomena occurring in a nuclear reactor which had just lost its cooling water." He also found several errors in the basic assumptions made by the scientists who designed the computer systems of the ECCS.106

The complexity of the science behind reactor design made it inaccessible to most of the groups who formed CNI; thus, UCS's scientific knowledge and credibility were crucial to their successful challenge of the AEC's Interim Criteria.

The fact that UCS scientists and engineers knew the specific language(s) upon which nuclear reactor safety questions were designed and answered was significant. It was not just the fact that this was a group of scientists which increased CNI's clout; it was that this was a group with knowledge of physics and engineering, the two main scientific specialties employed by the AEC. These groups of AEC scientists devised the kinds of safety questions that were asked and in ways that were relevant to their particular scientific expertise. UCS scientists could then have a direct dialogue with the

AEC, using the respected language(s) of physics and engineering. Unlike scientists concerned about the health effects of low-level radiation exposure, UCS scientists did not seek to re-centre the debate to focus on something like the body or death. Scientists speaking about excess deaths, cancers, and genetic defects, were more often dismissed by government scientists. The technical discussions of UCS scientists in the hearings, on

106 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 215. 7 This point will be made clearer when I begin discussing the work of Rosalie Bertell. However, there is a really good example in UCS's fonds of the groups' own misgivings about one very prominent activist in the area of radiation health effects. In response to a request to perform an independent assessment of Ernest Sternglass's research on the relationship between radiation exposure and cancer and genetic defects, Lee Grodzins - a UCS member and MIT Physicist in 1970 - cautions a member of Another Mother for 58 the other hand, were more abstract and never faltered from the focus on the specific design shortcomings of the nuclear reactor. That is not to say that UCS members and supporters were unconcerned about the health effects of nuclear power; they were. For example, there is at least one example from a UCS produced brochure where the group explicitly cited its concerns about the relationship between radiation and cancers and genetic defects. It seems reasonable to conclude that when outside the constricting confines of the regulatory arena - where there were strict rules governing the regulatory process - UCS would have been less vigilant about narrowly defining its scientific concerns.108 But the group members' knowledge of physics and engineering enabled

UCS to engage directly with AEC scientists on seemingly mundane equations and calculations, while never really forcing these scientists to confront the implications of their work. The science of reactor safety and design was something that other AEC scientists and personnel were comfortable discussing with UCS.

Peace against endorsing Sternglass. He wrote, "The scientists whom I most respect in these matters feel that even though the data are correct, the inferences are not justified. Moreover, Sternglass, while commanding a good reputation as a scientist, has also earned the reputation from previous issues of being a greater alarmist than the facts warrant.. .Almost all scientists err on the side of being too conservative. In this case, however, I suspect that Sternglass' conclusions are too dramatic to be credible without a great deal more study." This example is instructive of how important the projection of objectivity and conservatism were to UCS identity; it is also illustrative of a possible hierarchy among scientists of different specialist backgrounds. MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 80, Correspondence, Lee Grodzins to Dorothy B. Jones, April 3, 1970. 108 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, Box 83, "Do You Know What Plutonium Is? You'd Better Find Out." See also, Union of Concerned Scientists, The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: A Survey of the Public Health, Environmental, and National Security Effects of 'Nuclear Power (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1975); and Union of Concerned Scientists, The Risks of Nuclear Power Reactors: A Review of the NRC Reactor Safety Study WASH-1400 (NUREG-75/014), (1977). Both of these reports include chapters that outline the biological implications of nuclear reactor meltdown or radiation releases. For these chapters, the group commissioned the help of scientists with relevant expertise to speak to these issues. 59 The best evidence of this was the fact that scientists from the various AEC-run laboratories freely cooperated with UCS, providing them with extensive documents concerning AEC reactor safety research and internal memorandum's outlining how research findings did and did not affect decision-making processes. As Oak Ridge

National Laboratory (ORNL) Associate Director, Donald Trauger wrote to his superior in

1971:

We felt that the technical publication of this group, as well as their professional integrity, justified our meeting with them.. .the three members of the Union of Concerned Scientists who visited here appeared to be well educated and dedicated people.. .They have become intimately familiar with the relevant published literature.. .They have become aware of various deficiencies in the case for ECCS performance.109

In addition to visiting ORNL, Ford and Kendall travelled to the Battelle Memorial

Institute in Columbus, Ohio, "an AEC reactor safety contractor," and to the AEC's

National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho. Scientists at both of these facilities willingly discussed their scientific research with the UCS scientists. Furthermore, extensive AEC documents had been acquired by UCS on several earlier occasions in 1971, when Ford and another MIT scientist visited AEC facilities.110

One of the reasons that UCS scientists were so widely accepted by AEC scientists was that they did not take an adversarial stand on the quality of the work being performed by these experts. They may have wanted to, but by and large UCS reported - with some surprise - that many of the AEC scientists they encountered shared similar concerns

109 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 217. 110 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 217. 60 about the Interim Criteria. The many AEC documents collected by UCS confirmed this fact. On several occasions, the AEC scientists reported these and related concerns to their superiors. Indeed, by the time UCS got to the hearing stage, they devised a strategy of attacking the corruption of AEC bureaucrats, while lauding the conscientiousness and sound research performed by AEC scientists. In Kendall's testimony before the hearing board he suggested that UCS was acting as the voice of their AEC brethren:

These are qualified people in that Laboratory [i.e. Oak Ridge], and we all hold them in considerable respect. The difficulty is not that they do not know enough, it is that they are not heard. And the contribution that we believe we can make is that we are in a position to be heard better than they.. .We can speak relatively freely of institutional pressures, and say things that would otherwise have to be extracted with great difficulty from reluctant mouths.

This not only benefited AEC scientists. By not taking an adversarial stance towards government scientists, UCS limited the amount of criticism redirected back at the group.

That is not to say that the groups' credibility was not challenged by the AEC; it was. But by showing solidarity with AEC scientists, UCS members avoided being alienated by their peers. In turn, the CNI benefited.

UCS's collegiality with the scientific community within the AEC and its activist work alongside the other groups who made up the CNI was in many ways at odds. In addition to protecting UCS's credibility by maintaining a united front with non-activist scientists, the group navigated through this tension in several other ways. First, by taking a leadership role in the AEC hearings, UCS established its position at the top of the CNI

1'' Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 217. 112 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 221. 61 hierarchy. By such means, Downey reveals in his work on UCS during this period,

UCS's anti-nuclear alignment was not only strengthened; the group's scientific status was reinforced.113 Downey's private interview with Ford, moreover, reveals the extent to which the group perceived its superiority in comparison to the rest of the CNI. It also shows the persistence of Ford's misgivings about the 'nature' of environmentalists. Ford confided,

[T]he poor little National Intervenors were environmentalists. They had a lot of well-meaning but ineffectual people. They rented a house in southeast DC, which was a fine idea except that the hearings were in Bethesda [northwest of DC]. We stayed in the house a couple nights, but we were working day and night and it was ridiculous to spend two hours a day commuting. So we moved to the Holiday Inn in Bethesda, which is right next to the hearing room, so we could use our office at the hearing room at night.114

Ford clearly regarded UCS's role in the hearings process as more crucial than the other

CNI member groups. Beyond maintaining a presence throughout the hearings and maintaining the appearance of a united front, it does not appear that the non-scientists of the CNI played a very large consultative role in the entire process.

One of Ford's misgivings about environmentalists related to their lack of masculinity and his obvious desire to disassociate himself and UCS from such characterizations. This is suggested in the above quotation by the manner in which he sought to diminish their contribution to the AEC hearings by referring to them as the

"poor little" National Intervenors. He justified this depiction by highlighting the absence of common sense and reason among CNI members, in striking contrast to UCS's

1 '3 Gary Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 250. 114 Gary Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 250. 62 objective and reasoned approach to activism. In the same interview, Ford disparaged the food provided by the CNI. He complained, "For a while, they were bringing us lunch, little nature-food sandwiches filled with little sprouts and strange things. I would eat the cookies but go someplace else and have a burger. I remember I actually gave some of the sandwiches to AEC witnesses." Two things in the relationship between UCS and the rest of the Intervenors are revealed here. First, there was a gendered division of labour between the scientists and the lay activists of the group, which reinforced the superior status of the scientists in the group and also the masculine nature of their scientific work.

Second, Ford's comparison of "nature-food sandwiches" and "burgers" further underpins this gender divide. UCS - signified by Ford hunting down the more preferable choice of a burger - clearly inhabited the more masculine role, while the more feminine contribution of the environmentalists was devalued. I do not wish to overemphasize the importance of hamburgers to UCS identity, but to note the tensions between science and activism, which UCS was aware of and sensitive to. Activists were often painted as

"hopelessly irrational," while scientists have tended to present themselves as having "a monopoly on rationality."116 All of these terms - rational and irrational, scientist and activist - have gendered connotations. So, when UCS scientists were insulating themselves from critiques of their rationality or their science, they were also trying to protect their masculinity. It was especially important to the group because, in taking on the role of the scientist and the activist, they were intent on striking the 'right' balance.

115 Gary Downey, "Reproducing Cultural Identity in Negotiating Nuclear Power," 250. 116 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, 58-59. 63 Ford's disparagement of the environmentalists who made up the Intervenors was just one of the ways that UCS sought to do this.

UCS also distanced the group from more radical environmentalists by clearly identifying its conservatism on the issues. This was also an important part of maintaining the facade of the impartial, rational, and objective scientist, particularly because UCS so strongly opposed the AEC's nuclear reactor program. Part of UCS's proviso for joining the CNI was that the group could not take an explicit stand against all forms of nuclear power. In a New York Times article, Ford emphasized that the group was not completely opposed to nuclear power; just that they opposed it in its present form. He stated,

"Nuclear power offers environmental advantages over fossil fuel, but nuclear plants have got to be safe."117 This was a sentiment expressed by UCS in the media throughout the

1970s and the 1980s. Whether or not the group actually supported the expansion of nuclear power is unclear. It was certainly necessary for UCS to speak publicly about its support for safe nuclear power, especially because its members were scientists who wished to avoid losses to their credibility. Because government science had become so commonplace in the United States by the 1970s, those scientists taking an explicit stand

1 1 8 in opposition to government sponsored science were wide open to criticism. And, there is not - to my knowledge - any private piece of evidence written by any of the UCS scientists or staff to indicate that the groups' public position was at odds with the

117 "A-Plant Safety Will Be Debated," New York Times, Feb. 2, 1972, 65. 118 See Brian Balogh for a discussion of the marriage between government and science in the post-WWII period. Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and Public Participation in American Commercial Nuclear Power, 1945-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 64 personal positions of its members. Nevertheless, as will be shown, UCS also advocated for the development of alternative energy sources like wind power. This suggests that the group was - at the very least - not overly optimistic about the expansion of nuclear power.

The AEC and the Public Utilities Prove Too Formidable

Despite the fact that UCS gained the respect of AEC scientists and occupied a position of prestige in comparison to the lay activist groups who made up the Interveners, it was not enough to secure the groups' successful challenge of the AEC. When the AEC

Commissioners issued their final statement on the Interim Criteria hearings on December

28, 1973, both the private utility companies and UCS were unsatisfied. Following the recommendations of the AEC regulatory staff, the Commissioners recommended

"slightly more conservative" "reactor licensing criteria," which they believed sufficiently addressed the "gaps...exposed in the Interim Criteria." They also suggested that some reactors already in operation might have to reduce their power outputs by as much as 20 percent until they could meet the revised Interim criteria. Kendall viewed these changes as "cosmetic" and

emphasized once again that the fundamental problem lay, not with the details of the criteria themselves, but instead with the lack of the basic knowledge required to assure that, in the event of a loss-of-coolant accident in a major reactor accident, its emergency cooling system would be able to prevent a catastrophic release of radioactivity into the environment.119

Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 228. 65 Not surprisingly, the utilities held the opposite view; they argued that the criteria was already too conservative and needed relaxing.120 The real blow to UCS and the rest of the CNI groups came long before the hearings final decision was made. In late 1972 the

AEC instructed the local hearing boards to go ahead and issue licenses for 17 new power plants, claiming that these new licenses were necessary to meet increasing energy needs across the country. As Primack and von Hippel claimed, "The Consolidated National

Interveners felt betrayed." They had followed the AEC's rules and regulations by participating in the national hearings and the regulatory agency had gone ahead and circumvented the whole regulatory process. Kendall charged that the whole national hearing process had been a sham from the start. He was now convinced that "the hearings had been used by the AEC mainly as a device to remove the troublesome safety questions from the licensing hearings on individual nuclear power plants during the crucial period when nuclear power was finally coming "on line" on a large scale."121

The outcome of the hearings and the underhanded actions of the AEC before the hearings even concluded are illustrative of the limited role activist scientists could play in apprehending the reactor licensing process. UCS was a group of well-respected academic scientists who played by the rules. They occupied a position of prestige among other anti-nuclear activists and were respected by their colleagues working for the AEC.

Despite these two important factors, the group was not successful in stopping the rapid expansion of commercial nuclear power in the United States for several reasons. In the

120 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 228. 121 Primack and von Hippel, Advice and Dissent, 229. 66 same way that lay activists were at a disadvantage when engaging the state, scientist activists could never achieve the same level of power and prestige accorded to any government agency. There was never a level playing field between the two groups.

Long before UCS joined the opposition to nuclear power, the AEC had been developing nuclear power technology and the agency was unwilling to completely halt expansion, despite the growing safety concerns expressed by UCS and the rest of the National

Interveners. Regardless, however, UCS was undaunted in its task. UCS members persisted in opposing commercial nuclear power throughout the 1970s and into the

1980s, drawing on these earlier experiences in the ECCS Interim Criteria hearings.

Likewise, UCS expanded its work to include criticisms of nuclear waste disposal and to raise awareness about national security concerns with nuclear theft. While none of it was enough to surmount the unequal power divide between UCS and the AEC, maintaining the groups' scientific credibility, professional prestige, masculinity, and positions of privilege remained important so that the group could - at the very least - be taken seriously in the regulatory arena and by the media.

The Anti-Nuclear Movement Goes National

Whereas UCS and other dissident scientists led the anti-nuclear movement in the early 1970s, the movement underwent several shifts after the Energy Crisis in 1973 and lay activists occupied a much more central role in the movement. This occurred mainly because the debate over nuclear power expanded out of the regulatory arena and moved into the political one. While the regulatory arena was characterized by "the dominance of

67 highly technical procedures, necessitating the involvement of experts," the political arena

100

"expos[ed]... [the] issue to public scrutiny... [and] popular judgment." By about 1974 or 1975, the anti-nuclear movement had not only grown much larger than the initial environmental/scientific critique of commercial nuclear power; it became distinct from the environmental movement. Groups like UCS, the Sierra Club, and the Natural

Resources Defense Council (NRDC) continued to participate in the movement, but Ralph

Nader's Critical Mass Project attracted the support of people at the grassroots.123

In the immediate aftermath of the Energy Crisis, NRDC led the public on two important anti-nuclear initiatives. First, the group led the opposition to reprocessing plutonium for use in nuclear reactors. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) - which succeeded the AEC in 1974 - proposed to solve the waste disposal crisis by recycling used fuel rods of plutonium; to prepare for the fueling needs of the Fast Breeder

Reactor; and to dodge the increasing costs of uranium. NRDC first opposed the recycling of plutonium because of its potential public health threats. In 1974, however, Theodore

Taylor, a Manhattan project scientist, published a report on the threats of nuclear theft and the terrorist acquisition of plutonium for bombs. Directly on the heels of this report,

India detonated its first nuclear weapon, which had been constructed using the same reprocessing technology developed in the United States and Canada. As a result of these developments, public fears over nuclear terrorism spread and NRDC - seeking to capitalize on it - quickly refrained its opposition to highlight the national security threats

Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 63. 1 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 64. 68 of recycling plutonium. The group formed a coalition with the Senate Committee on

Government Operations, the President's Council for Environmental Quality, and the

EPA, and as a result succeeded in getting the NRC to shelve its plans for reprocessing plutonium fuel rods. At the same time, President Jimmy Carter entered the White House on an anti-plutonium campaign and spearheaded the signing of the Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Act. Christian Joppke attributes NRDC's success to the fact that they staged their opposition before the NRC actually began the plutonium re-processing project, so there was less for the Commission to lose by halting its plans.124 The second NRDC project was less successful. The group opposed the development of the Fast Breeder

Reactor, which was designed to be the long term solution to the Light Water Reactor, the main reactor in operation in the United States, and which incurred high operating costs as a result of its reliance on uranium for fuel. The Fast Breeder Project began in 1972 with the support of President Nixon. The AEC contracted Westinghouse to build the first Fast

Breeder at Clinch River, Tennessee and the utility company was given a $400 million budget for this pilot project. Despite NRDC opposition, huge cost overruns, and technological problems, Congress continued to fund the Fast Breeder project at Clinch

River until 1983. The estimated cost of the project by 1975 was over $10 billion, more than 300 percent higher than the initial budget.

At the same time that the NRDC was leading these two initiatives, Nader's

Critical Mass Project was marshalling the support of grassroots anti-nuclear activists.

124 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 58-60. 125 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 60-62. 69 The focus of these groups in the anti-nuclear movement after 1975 was to emphasize the benefits of renewable energy and conservation to the public, increasing public support by building coalitions with labour groups who felt the anti-nuclear movement was "middle class and insensitive to bread-and-butter issues,"126 and lobbying for government support of alternative energy development and energy conservation schemes.127 Many of these activists had previously been part of the anti-war movement and these individuals were most influential in changing activist tactics in the movement by 1977, when groups such as the Clamshell and Seabrook Alliances staged direct action protests modeled on the civil rights tradition of non-violent civil disobedience. These groups focused on the power of the community to influence local energy decisions. According to Christian

Joppke, the shift towards direct action in 1977 was a last resort for many of these groups who felt that they had exhausted their political lobbying efforts. This was signified by such defeats as the loss of Proposition 15 in California, the largest citizen challenge to nuclear energy up to that point, which if it had passed on the 1976 California ballot in the federal election would have prevented the opening of 28 new nuclear reactors that were planned across the state and forced the closing of three others that were already in operation.

UCS's Role in the National Movement

Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 74. 127 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 72. 128 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 64-86. For a more extensive discussion of the opposition to Proposition 15 in California see Raymond Thomas Wellock's book on the anti-nuclear movement in California. Raymond Thomas Wellock, Critical Masses. 70 This new national movement formed the backdrop of UCS's continuing opposition to commercial nuclear power throughout the latter part of the 1970s. The group remained very active throughout this period and, judging by their widespread (and mostly favorable) media coverage in newspapers such as the New York Times, they were regarded as a prestigious contingent of the anti-nuclear movement. Just as was the case with UCS's involvement in the national hearings on the ECCS Interim Criteria, the group delicately policed its relationship with the rest of the anti-nuclear movement. On the one hand, the group formed alliances with this new national movement. The best example of this is UCS's alliance with Ralph Nader, which began in 1973. Nader, who founded the consumer advocate non-profit organization, Public Citizen, in 1971, joined the nuclear power opposition at the behest of UCS in 1972.129 In 1973 the alliance between Nader and UCS received national media coverage. The two issued a joint statement in January citing that "the danger of catastrophic nuclear power plant accidents is a public safety problem of the utmost urgency in the country today." Their partnership was again highlighted in November of the same year when they publicly attacked Nixon's plans to speed up nuclear power plant licensing across the country.131

The alliance between these two groups was mutually beneficial. Nader, who was often depicted as a political muckraker, benefited from the prestigious role UCS occupied

Joseph Lelyveld, "Nader Undaunted by Setbacks to Consumer Drive," New York Times, Nov. 24, 1975, 73. 130 Anthony Ripley, "Nader Attacks Policy on Nuclear Power," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1973, 18. 131 Will Lissner, "Nixon's Proposal On Nuclear Plants Scored By Nader," New York Times, Nov. 22, 1973, 11. 71 in the media and among nuclear power experts. UCS had already established its reputation as a credible group of scientists during the AEC hearings and Kendall made the scientific contribution to the 1973 Public Citizen/UCS press release. He stated, "the release of prodigious quantities of radioactive materials" could travel upwards of 100 miles, causing "lethal injuries" in its wake. When UCS released the 1974 report, titled,

The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: A Survey of the Public Health, Environmental, and National

Security Effects of Nuclear Power, Nader also benefited. Published by the prestigious

MIT Press; three physicists, a radiologist, and a biochemist were among the various authors of the report. Using their combined expertise, the report provided an analysis of wide ranging topics related to the health effects of radiation exposure, nuclear waste storage and disposal challenges, and the threats of nuclear reactor meltdowns and other accidents. UCS produced this report independently of Nader's organization, Public

Citizen, but it was jointly released by the two groups at a Press Conference in 1973.135

Hence, Nader's association with this scientific assessment of nuclear power lent credibility to his own consumer advocacy work.

Indeed, even scientists who disagreed with UCS's opposition to nuclear power generally kept their criticisms polite. Ralph Lapp, who had been a physicist in the

Metallurgical Laboratory of the Manhattan Project, was perhaps the most well-known

132 Joseph Lelyveld, "Nader Undaunted by Setbacks to Consumer Drive," New York Times, Nov. 24, 1975, 73. The author refers to the stereotypical role of Nader as a "public scourge" as one that he could not shake. 133 Anthony Ripley, "Nader Attacks Policy on Nuclear Power," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1973, 18. 134 Union of Concerned Scientists, The Nuclear Fuel Cycle. 135 Will Lissner, "Nixon's Proposal On Nuclear Plants Scored By Nader," New York Times, Nov. 22, 1973, 11. 72 proponent of nuclear power during this period. At the time he wrote an article comparing the AEC and Nader's positions on nuclear power, he was working as an energy consultant for the Sierra Club. Lapp referred to Kendall as Nader's "most astute advisor." Likewise, when explaining Kendall's scientific concerns over the ECCS, he conceded that "Dr. Kendall's estimate of a 100-mile lethal distance is not off the mark."

Lapp still disagreed with the degree of caution demanded by UCS, but he never attacked

Kendall's scientific credentials or disagreed with his conclusions. Rather, he presented their differences as a matter of degrees: Lapp thought the benefits of nuclear power outweighed the risks of accidents, while Kendall thought the reverse. Nader, whose criticisms of the AEC and nuclear power tended to be more emotional, needed someone with Kendall's reputation to ensure that his own pronouncements were taken seriously.137

Nader, in turn, provided UCS with a larger audience. This was a particular challenge to the group because UCS members were academic scientists most comfortable engaging their pro-nuclear opponents over technological issues. Indeed, even though

UCS sought to wield its scientific expertise and knowledge for the benefit of ordinary

Americans, the group had more in common with its foes. Nader, who was a well-known consumer advocate long before he joined the anti-nuclear movement, first gained notoriety when he published his indictment of the automotive industry, Unsafe At Any

136 Ralph E. Lapp, "Nuclear salvation or nuclear folly?" New York Times, Feb. 10, 1974, 232. 137 Ralph E. Lapp, "Nuclear salvation or nuclear folly?" New York Times, Feb. 10, 1974, 232. In this article, Lapp quotes Nader's criticisms of Dixie Lee Ray, the AEC Chairman in 1974. He stated, "The problem with Dixie Lee Ray is that she is suffering from professional insanity. She is locked into a bureaucratic momentum that has so distorted her capacity for reason that she is leading the [AEC] into this drive for technological suicide." Not only is his statement emotional, but he resorts to the same kinds of stereotyping that suggests women's incapacity for reasonable thought. 73 Speed, in 1965. Between 1965 and 1975, he went on to sponsor "more than 40 studies of various Government agencies and social abuses," many of which went through several publications due to the popularity of his message. Throughout this period, Nader was a sought after speaker in various public forums and in 1972 was considered as a potential running mate for Democratic presidential candidate, George McGovern. Indeed, the New

York Times reported in 1975 that he had recently drawn a crowd of 1,000 people together for a conference opposing nuclear power in Washington, DC. UCS lacked this kind of popular appeal. Nader spoke about nuclear power in terms that were relevant to ordinary people. He was quoted in the New York Times, stating, "This is the first time that this country has permitted development of an industry that can wipe this country out."

Among his concerns were the lack of government accountability in the event of an accident and the threat to worker job security, both of which appealed to his populist

139 supporters.

Another way that UCS's activism was linked to the larger national movement was that the group shifted its focus after 1975 to include not only nuclear power plant safety, but also waste disposal, and national security concerns about nuclear theft and terrorism.

A UCS petition presented to the U.S. Congress made this apparent. The appeal, which called for an end to the expansion of commercial nuclear power until all safety issues had been researched and addressed and which was signed by 2,300 scientists from various

138 Joseph Lelyveld, "Nader Undaunted by Setbacks to Consumer Drive," New York Times, Nov. 24, 1975, 73. 139 Anthony Ripley, "Nader Attacks Policy on Nuclear Power," New York Times, Jan. 4, 1973, 18. 74 scientific backgrounds, outlined these three areas of concern. The first concern about the safety problems with nuclear power reactors was already well-established by UCS.

Additionally, it noted that there were as yet no "technologically or economically feasible methods.. .proven for ultimate disposal of radioactive waste" and that there were

"multiple weaknesses in safeguard procedures intended to prevent the theft or diversion of commercial reactor-produced plutonium for use in illicit nuclear explosives or radiological terror weapons." Until these three issues were sufficiently addressed, UCS and the signatories to the petition called for national efforts to conserve energy, develop coal power without pollution, and invest in energy alternatives like solar and wind power.140 These suggestions for reducing reliance on nuclear power were consistent with what other anti-nuclear groups were demanding at this time.

On the other hand, the central place of scientific expertise in all of UCS's activism distanced the group from the rest of the anti-nuclear movement. As I have shown, the professional backgrounds and scientific credibility of UCS members were central to the groups' identity and shaped their activist choices. Beyond forming alliances with people such as Nader and expanding its concerns to reflect larger shifts in the national movement, UCS's activist tactics did not significantly change between 1973 and 1979. The group focused on expanding its technical critique of nuclear power and directed its energies towards responding to things such as the AEC commissioned

140 David Burnham, "2,300 Scientists Petition U.S. to Reduce Construction of Nuclear Power Plants," New York Times, Aug. 7, 1975, 4. See also, Victor K. McElheny, "Issue and Debate: The Future of Atom Power: Safety, Waste Disposal and Protection From Theft Remain Major Issues," New York Times, Sept. 11, 1975,32. 75 Rasmussen Report, which released its preliminary findings in 1974. This study, headed by MIT Professor Norman Rasmussen,141 was designed "to try to reach some meaningful conclusions about the risk of nuclear accidents using current technology."142 Its conclusions - not surprisingly - reinforced the NRC's position that "the risks to the public for potential accidents.. .[we]re very small."143

UCS played an important role in influencing the AEC to fund such a study. The groups' participation in the 1971-1973 hearings exposed the fact that the AEC lacked

"technically defensible" proof that nuclear reactor accidents were indeed "highly unlikely," as they had assured the public. When UCS challenged the AEC policymakers to "provide their assessment of the likelihood of reactor cooling system pipe ruptures," upon which they based their safety standards, it was revealed that "the AEC had no such assessment to offer." Accordingly, it is no surprise that when such a study was commissioned by the AEC and completed under the newly formed NRC, those UCS scientists were keen to assess the study's scope, methodology, and conclusions.

Not unexpectedly, UCS found several shortcomings in the study. The groups' first response to the Rasmussen Report was made public in November 1974. It was jointly prepared by UCS and the Sierra Club in response to the AEC's "request for comments on the draft version of the [Rasmussen Report]." UCS stressed that this was

141 Rasmussen was a professor of nuclear engineering. See, David Burnham, "Panel Disputes Estimate of Toll in Reactor Mishap??" New York Times, Nov. 24, 1974, 57. 142 Union of Concerned Scientists, The Risks of Nuclear Power Reactors, 1. In addition to being called the Rasmussen Report, the study was also called the Reactor Safety Study (RSS) and also WASH-1400. 143 "A.E.C. Rebuts Scientist Critics Of A Report on Reactor Safety," New York Times, Nov. 25, 1974, 12. 144 Union of Concerned Scientists, The Risks of Nuclear Power Reactors, 152-153. 76 only a preliminary examination. Nevertheless, the groups' opinions were widely reported in the New York Times.146 The Times reported that the 170-page UCS/Sierra

Club Study argued that the Rasmussen Report "contained a number of important flaws."

The main criticism concerned the methodology adopted for the study. They argued that the method used "to estimate the probability of an accident had been developed and then abandoned by the aerospace industry and the Federal Government because it had been found to underestimate existing hazards drastically." They also criticized the report's minimal estimate of casualties, which they said was based on the faulty assumption that nuclear plants had effective evacuation plans. To illustrate their criticism they did an analysis of the populations around the three Indian Point nuclear power plants, which had

66,000 people living within a five mile radius, 900,000 within twenty miles, and 16 million within 40 miles. They concluded that successful evacuation would be impossible and pointed out that none of the existing evacuation plans had been tested on populations.

They were also critical of the fact that the report did not take into account the much more lethal properties of plutonium, particularly because the AEC (and later the NRC) was so heavily engaged in promoting the fast breeder reactor, which was to be fuelled with spent

Union of Concerned Scientists, The Risks ofNuclear Power Reactors\ 5. 145 See, for example, David Burnham, "Panel Disputes Estimate of Toll in Reactor Mishap," New York Times, Nov. 24, 1974, 57; "A.E.C. Rebuts Scientist Critics Of A Report on Reactor Safety," New York Times, Nov. 25, 1974, 12; David Burnham, "E.P.A. Doubts Data on Atomic Mishap," New York Times, Dec. 5, 1974, 23; David Burnham, "Federal Study Charges Little Concern By Utilities With Reactor Reliability," New York Times, Mar. 9, 1975, 42; David Burnham, "House to Vote on Nuclear Insurance Plan," New York Times, Nov. 29, 1975, 15. 77 plutonium fuel rods. In the end, UCS's (and the Sierra Club's) estimate of casualties was sixteen times that of the Rasmussen Report.147

In order to provide an "objective" criticism of the Rasmussen Report, UCS formed a task force. It included scientists and engineers from several backgrounds and a wide variety of prestigious affiliations. Dale G. Bridenbaugh was a registered Nuclear

Engineer with 14 years experience in reactor design, construction, operation, and maintenance. William M. Bryan was a mechanical engineer who managed several different aerospace projects. Roland A. Finston was a health physicist from Stanford who had worked previously with the AEC. John P. Holdren was a plasma physicist who had worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was a Professor at UC

Berkeley. Thomas C. Hollocher was a biochemist at Brandeis University with research expertise in the biological effects of radiation exposure. Richard B. Hubbard was an electrical engineer who had formerly worked as a Quality Assurance Manager in the

General Electric Nuclear Energy Division. David R. Inglis, Henry Kendall, Armand A.

Lakner, and Joel Primack were all physicists with experience in various aspects of nuclear technology. Finally, Milton Kamins and Gregory C. Minor were mechanical and electrical engineers, respectively. Together, these men interrogated the Rasmussen methodology, conclusions, shortcomings, and errors. Bringing such a multi-disciplinary

David Burnham, "Panel Disputes Estimate of Toll in Reactor Mishap," New York Times, Nov. 24, 1974, 57. 148 Union of Concerned Scientists, The Risks of Nuclear Power Reactors, xv-xvi. 78 group of experts together increased the credibility of this UCS report because it filled the gaps in the UCS scientists' knowledge.

UCS's official analysis of the final draft of the Rasmussen Report, released in

1975, reveals how their conservatism, scientific expertise, and professional identities shaped their critiques of the NRC. The official UCS report, titled, The Risks of Nuclear

Power Reactors, published in 1977, provided a very forceful, but measured criticism of the Rasmussen Report. In the introduction the group noted that despite its disagreement with the study's findings, "it is still clear that the RSS project produced a body of useful analysis that significantly advances the technical understanding of nuclear power reactor safety."149 Indeed, the study was very useful to UCS because they relied on the data produced by it to hone its criticisms of the American nuclear reactor safety program.

Unlike the AEC hearings, where the group lauded the science performed by AEC staff scientists, UCS took an adversarial stand towards the scientists who headed up the

Reactor Safety Study. When the official Rasmussen Report was released in 1975 by the newly formed NRC, it was presented as an independent study, merely funded by the two regulatory agencies. This is something that UCS had advocated and the NRC's presentation of the study in this light gave it a greater feeling of credibility. In fact, it was not an independent study and when UCS gained access to the 50,000 pages of documentation generated by the study through the Freedom of Information Act, the set out to prove this.

149 Union of Concerned Scientists, The Risks of Nuclear Power Reactors, xi. 79 UCS Recruits Nuclear Regulatory Commission Insider

In 1976, when UCS recruited former NRC nuclear safety engineer, Robert

Pollard, the group used the opportunity to reinforce its prestigious place as the premier organization offering a technological critique of nuclear power from within the anti- nuclear movement. Pollard was a well-respected employee within the NRC. In a statement before the New York City Board of Health, Pollard highlighted his stellar work record, while disparaging the NRC and its record on public health and safety. He attached several letters of commendation to his testimony. Herschel Specter, the

Licensing Project Manager of Indian Point wrote:

In my opinion [Pollard] is the most outstanding TR (Technical Review) person I ever worked with. His knowledge of his own discipline is unexcelled. More than that, he went to considerable lengths to coordinate his efforts with other TR reviewers - often enhancing their efforts. I have received many favorable comments from Consolidated Edison Co. of New York on Bob's work on Indian Point 3. Although the final consequences of Bob's work often meant design changes of IP3, Con-Ed. respects his knowledge and fairness. He projects a most favorable image of the AEC and I feel he is worthy of your positive consideration.150

In his statement, Pollard reported to the Board of Health that he resigned from the NRC after working with them (and earlier the AEC) for six and a half years:

I could no longer, in conscience, participate in an agency that is so effective in evading its sole mandate - to protect the health and safety of the public. The Indian Point Plants are prime examples of [the] NRC's unwillingness to act responsibly. The plants have been poorly designed and constructed. They lack many of the fundamental safety features necessary to provide a minimum level of safety for the public. But in spite of the fact that the Indian Point Plants threaten the lives and

150 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 80, Robert Pollard, Statement Before the New York City Board Of Health, "Safety Deficiencies at the Indian Point Reactors." 80 health of the millions of people living in the metropolitan New York area, the NRC is taking no action to correct the obvious safety deficiencies.151

By joining UCS, Pollard enhanced the public image of the group. UCS had always claimed to be the objective and impartial scientific critics of the AEC and the NRC.

Pollard's claim that the NRC was indifferent to its public health and safety mandate and his decision to join UCS emphasized the notion that the group was in full possession of scientific integrity. He also brought important expertise in nuclear engineering, which the full-time staff of UCS lacked to this point.152

Releasing the news of Pollard's resignation from the NRC, along with his newly formed alliance with UCS, was carefully planned to generate as much media attention as possible. Pollard came in at the end of a press conference in February 1976 held by

Consolidated Edison Company, the operators of Indian Point 3, delivering a letter requesting that the utility company shut the plants down because of health and safety concerns. This was done directly after the utility company's statements about the good safety record at Indian Point. At this same press conference, Pollard reported that his resignation from the NRC was effective immediately, even though he had handed in his resignation papers well in advance. He was accompanied by Ford of UCS and detailed his plans to start up a second UCS office in Washington, DC. Pollard's disruption of the

Consolidated Edison news conference followed directly on the heels of his television

151 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 80, Robert Pollard, Statement Before the New York City Board Of Health, "Safety Deficiencies at the Indian Point Reactors." 152 UCS was still quite a small group at this point, with only 100 members listed in 1975. See David Burnham, "2,300 Scientists Petition U.S. to Reduce Construction of Nuclear Power Plants," New York Times, Aug. 7, 1975,4. 81 interviews on CBS News' "60 Minutes" and NBC News' "Today," where he appeared alongside Ford to discuss their mutual concerns about nuclear power plant safety problems in the United States. Pollard actually met with CBS News several times before they agreed to interview him for "60 Minutes." The timing of Pollard's resignation from the NRC, along with the dramatic way in which it was orchestrated, ensured him a spot on the front page of the New York Times a day later. His newly formed alliance with

UCS was also featured in this article, ensuring that news of this union reached a wide audience.153 Not only did this buttress UCS's message about corruption within the NRC; it also highlighted its status as a credible organization of scientists - who now had within its employ, a qualified and reliable nuclear safety engineer. Indeed, every reference to

Pollard in the New York Times after this initial article referred to his reasoning for leaving the NRC, his area of expertise, and his new partnership with UCS.154

The Polarization of Activist Strategies

While UCS continued honing its identity as a group of scientific professionals, with expansive technical knowledge of nuclear power safety issues, the activist strategies of lay people in the anti-nuclear movement shifted significantly. The best example took place in the summer of 1976 when members of the Clamshell Alliance staged the first acts of civil disobedience in the anti-nuclear movement in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

153 Victor K. McElheny, "Top U.S. Official Defends the Safety of Indian Pt. Plant," New York Times, Feb.ll, 1976, 1. 154 See, for example, David Bumham, "U.S. Panel Releases Reports That Critic Says Show Failure to Act on Safety Before Licensing Atom Reactors," New York Times, Feb.13, 1976, 15; Charles Mohr, "Harris Urges a Halt in Building And Use of Atom Power Plants," New York Times, Feb. 16, 1976, 30; David Burnham, "Safety of Breeder Reactors Questioned," New York Times, Feb. 16, 1976, 30. 82 As a result of the two demonstrations at Seabrook, there were 117 arrests made. When the group staged a much larger protest at the Seabrook construction site in April 1977,

1,414 of the protesters were arrested and put in a detention centre at the National Guard

Armories.156 Comparing the activist strategies of UCS with the kinds of protests staged by the Clamshell Alliance is a good illustration of the increasingly polarized approaches of activists within the movement. The importance of objectivity, scientific credibility, and professional identity prevented UCS scientists from aligning with these new groups.

Participating in an illegal demonstration on private property would have damaged UCS's image in the eyes of its colleagues and the NRC. Indeed, when the group staged its protest on the MIT campus in 1969 - despite the fact that it was very moderate compared to the Seabrook protest - the group was criticized by their more conservative colleagues.

Many of the members of the Clamshell Alliance were part of the radical left movements of the 1960s and the 1970s. Indeed, one member, Jean Alonso, framed her opposition to the Seabrook Plant in terms of her opposition to capitalist greed, stating, "I saw this as another invasion by corporate power, and abuse of people's rights to safe working conditions."157 While UCS consistently pointed to the corruption within bodies like the

NRC, the group never framed its opposition to nuclear power within an anti-capitalist

John Kifner, "New E.P.A. Chief Faces Question of Continuing Curb on Atom Plant," New York Times, March 28, 1977, 18. 156 John Kifner, "Arrested Nuclear Foes Vow To Keep Movement Going," New York Times, May 8, 1977, 18; and Charles Mohr, "Antinuclear Drives: Diffuse but Effective," New York Times, June 24, 1978, 6. 157 John Kifner, "Arrested Nuclear Foes Vow To Keep Movement Going," New York Times, May 8, 1977, 18. 83 framework. These were prestigious members of the scientific community, with no desire to alienate those affiliations.

Indeed, once the accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) further expanded the base of anti-nuclear supporters, there is some indication that the scientists felt the movement

slipping out of their grasp. Arthur Tamplin's refusal to attend the 100,000 person strong protest after TMI is instructive of the growing tensions between scientists and lay

activists. While Tamplin was often credited with kicking off the anti-nuclear movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the former LLNL scientist reported that "he shunned the rally because he could not tolerate the positions taken by some of the speakers.. .To equate the operators of nuclear power plants with mass murderers is more than I could

stand."158 This same New York Times article reported that Ford of UCS was equally bothered with the direction the movement was taking after TMI. He cited fears that politicians were "grab[bing] control of the issue" for the purpose of "personal gain."

Forgotten in this process, according to people like Ford, was the "step-by-step amassing of scientific evidence used as a basis for the advancement of nuclear safety." Again, the

conservative and measured approach to UCS's activism was shaped by the centrality of professional identity and scientific credibility to its work. UCS would not join in the emotive chants of "hell no, we won't glow" and the widespread public outrage that brought people together in the wake of TMI.159

Conclusion

158 Richard D. Lyons, "Antinuclear Politicking Makes Odd Bedfellows," New York Times, May 13, 1979. 159 Richard D. Lyons, "Antinuclear Politicking Makes Odd Bedfellows," New York Times, May 13, 1979. 84 The focus of this chapter has been on the central role of UCS in the national opposition to nuclear power during the 1970s. The organization started out as a prestigious group of academic scientists and engineers with a direct connection to the nation's preeminent institution of scientific excellence. While the group quickly shifted its focus away from its collective concern about the role of MIT scientists in the militarization of academic research, the group continued to draw on the respected status it established through its earlier connections with MIT. The fact that the leaders of the group in 1971 were both physicists, when UCS joined the CNI, lent further credibility to the organization. The same is true for the period from 1973 to 1979, when the group further expanded its opposition to nuclear power, to include a focus on nuclear waste disposal, nuclear terrorism, and energy alternatives. UCS continued to expand its group of scientific experts to include a wider variety of physicists and engineers, who could participate in a highly technical debate with other nuclear power experts within the AEC and the NRC. Scientific expertise alone was not the only factor that accorded UCS a central role in the nuclear power opposition and ensured them a respectable position in the debate with the nuclear power bureaucracy. Rather, beginning in 1969 and continuing throughout the 1970s, the fact that the group was peopled by privileged white men gave UCS an added measure of credibility in comparison to other members of the anti-nuclear movement. The result was that the group appears to have had more in common with its pro-nuclear foes than it did with lay activists within the anti-nuclear movement. This is illustrated by the fact that UCS was cautious about the degree to

85 which it associated with this larger movement. Regardless of UCS's privileged role within the larger movement, however, the group never waged a successful opposition to nuclear power. Like lay activists, its adversarial role put the group at odds with the federal nuclear bureaucracy and the nuclear power utility companies, who maintained a disproportionate amount of power in the debate. The next chapter in this thesis focuses on the role of Rosalie Bertell in the anti-nuclear movement as a critic of the health effects of low level radiation exposure from commercial nuclear power plants. The contrast between Bertell and UCS will reveal how not all kinds of scientific expertise were ranked equally by proponents of nuclear power in the U.S. As I will show, her expertise in cancer epidemiology and her concern about health and bodies made it very common for her foes to question her scientific credibility in debates about nuclear technology and to portray her as overly emotional.

86 Chapter 3: Rosalie Bertell and the Feminization of Concerns With Low-Level Radiation Exposure in the United States, 1970 to 1980

Introduction

In the fall of 1980, during the weeks leading up to the Atomic Safety and

Licensing Board (ASLB) 6 hearings for the proposed licensing of the Byron Nuclear

Reactors in Rockford, Illinois, the private utility company, Commonwealth Edison, put out a full-page ad in the Chicago Sun-Times. Titled, "Radiation and the Future of

Kimberley Mayberry," the poster featured a woman holding a blanket over her child's head and in the background of the photo stood the three ominous reactors of the 1979

Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear reactor accident. Commonwealth Edison told the story of a mother who needed to go to the grocery store the day after the accident, but who was afraid of what exposure to radiation would do to her and her child. Edison used this space to try and sway people who were reticent about the licensing of the Byron

Reactors. The answer to the questions posed by Edison - "Would Kimberley and countless others die before their time? Would a generation of babies be born with some unbearable defect? Could the radiation released at Three Mile Island really take that kind of toll?" - was a resounding no! The company explained that the radiation doses received by people at TMI was minimal compared to the daily, weekly, and yearly doses received through routine x-ray procedures and natural background radiation from things

160 The Union of Concerned Scientists, Safety Second: The NRC and America's Nuclear Power Plants (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 48. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board was an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The panel was composed of "administrative judges who [we]re usually assigned in groups of three." 87 like the sun, the moon, and the stars. According to Edison, "the average dose received by people living within a fifty-mile radius of the accident was 1.4 millirems," the same amount received every five days from natural background radiation. In fact, Edison said,

"The maximum amount anyone could have received was 70 millirems. But only if they were standing stark naked on the east bank of the Susquehanna River directly across from the plant twenty four hours a day, all six days radiation was released." And even if that was the case, it was still less than was received during an intestinal x-ray procedure. Also quoted was the Presidents' Commission, which concluded that the radiation exposure at

TMI was "so small... that there will be no detectable additional cases of cancer, developmental abnormalities, or genetic ill-health." To further underscore that TMI was not a threat to human health, Edison cited the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission

(ABCC) research. This was the group of researchers who studied the effects of the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The study failed to generate findings of statistical significance to confirm that the incidence of cancer and genetic defects in the survivor population was abnormally higher as a result of the nuclear attacks. Likewise,

Edison concluded that in the other studies on the effects of low level radiation "the results were all the same. No excess leukemia or other cancers were found. And no genetic damage. Not from low-level radiation. The fact is, after thirty-five years and scores of studies, there's no valid evidence to the contrary." The advertisement closed on a positive note, declaring, "Smile, Kimberley. The future doesn't look so bad after all."161

161 Library and Archives of Canada (hereafter, LAC), Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 15, 88 Despite the optimistic and promising tone of such public notices, Rosalie Bertell was not reassured by declarations of safety by companies like Commonwealth Edison.

Indeed, like the members of Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Bertell was an anti- nuclear activist who used her scientific credentials to enter the debate over the safety of commercial nuclear power plants throughout the 1970s. Yet, while UCS rebuked the

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), its successor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

(NRC), and private utility companies for not putting adequate safeguards in place to prevent accidents like the one that took place at TMI, Bertell focused on the health effects of low-level radiation exposure from routine reactor operations. Because her concern was with low-level radiation exposure, moreover, her activism naturally extended to other sources of low-level exposure, including routine x-ray procedures, weapons testing, uranium mining, waste disposal, and weapons production. The different ways in which these scientific concerns were expressed can be attributed to the differing scientific specialties of UCS members, most of whom had backgrounds in physics or engineering, and Bertell, whose background was in biostatistics, the mathematical branch of epidemiology. While the physicists and engineers of UCS concerned themselves with the intricate details of reactor design, construction, and operation, Bertell used statistical analysis to examine the ways that low-level radiation exposure affected bodies. She was also a member of a religious sisterhood, without any affiliation to a prestigious research

"Radiation and the Future of Kimberley Mayberry," Chicago Sun-Times, October 14, 1980. This is a full page paid advertisement put out by Commonwealth Edison. 89 university or institution after 1978. This also marked a distinct difference between her activist career and that of members of UCS.

The debate over low level radiation exposure was extremely contentious and

Bertell's insistence that radiation exposure at any level could (and did) cause cancer or genetic defects made her very unpopular among proponents of nuclear technology, like

Commonwealth Edison. This chapter will examine Bertell's early activist career during the 1970s and shed light on the scientific background, as well as the political and complex nature of the debate over the health effects of low-level radiation exposure.

There was no consensus in the scientific community over the health effects of low-level radiation exposure before, during, or after the 1970s. Yet, mainstream regulatory bodies at places like the National Academy of the Sciences (NAS) generally conceded that if exposure levels were kept as low as possible, harm to human health would be minimal.

Proponents of nuclear technology were generally unconcerned about the nuances of these scientific debates and used these conclusions to portray low level exposures as harmless.

Scientists (like Bertell) who raised alarm about these exposures were excluded from discussions between 'credible' scientists over how to protect public health and safety.

For Bertell, and many of the other male and female scientists who raised similar concerns over low level radiation exposure, this meant their work was dismissed as either unscientific, irrational, or emotional, qualities more often associated with femininity, certainly not rigorous science. Here I will argue that Bertell's professional expertise in epidemiology, the scientific uncertainty surrounding the health effects of low-level

90 radiation exposure, her decision to devote herself to activism instead of pursuing a career as an academic research scientist, her status as a Grey Nun of the Sacred Heart, her commitment to working directly with people who were exposed to low levels of radiation, and the fact that she was a woman are integral to understanding her activism.

This same set of factors were used by various proponents of nuclear technology to dismiss her scientific arguments as irrational, unscientific, and emotional throughout the

1970s.162

The History of the Debate Surrounding Low-Level Radiation Exposure

Despite Commonwealth Edison's assurances otherwise, there was little consensus in 1980 regarding the known health effects of low-level radiation exposure. Utility companies seeking licenses to operate nuclear power facilities during the 1970s generally oversimplified the debate and used the discord in scientific opinion to discredit scientists whose research suggested that low-level radiation exposure posed potentially serious threats to human health. Most times, this research had already been "discredited" by experts who were either affiliated with the AEC, the NRC, the National Committee on

Radiological Protection (NCRP), its international equivalent, ICRP, or the National

Academy of Sciences (NAS). In order to understand the complexity of the debate over low-level radiation exposure, as well as the ways that political and economic considerations were integral to the process of setting standards, it is necessary to recall

162 For a discussion of how Rachel Carson's scientific opinions on pesticides were also dismissed using rhetoric that portrayed her as emotional, see, Michael B. Smith, '"Silence, Miss Carson!' Science, Gender, and the Reception of Silent Spring," Feminist Studies 27, 3 (Fall 2001): 733-752; and Maril Hazlett, '"Woman vs. Man vs. Bugs': Gender and Popular Ecology in Early Reactions to Silent Spring," Environmental History 9, 4 (October 2004): 701-730. 91 some of this history here. It also offers useful context for comprehending later criticisms of Bertell, both by some of her scientific peers and various other proponents of nuclear technology during the 1970s.

Enthusiasm for nuclear technology has always overshadowed concerns with its health effects. It was not until 1928 that international and national committees endeavored to put formal regulations on external radiation exposures in place to govern the technology's use in industry and medicine.163 And during World War II, limits for internal exposures were established. The impetus for establishing these limits, again, came from people seeking to exploit radiation technology. In both the case of the external and internal limits that were set before the United States entered the war, the standards were based on incomplete scientific knowledge about the health effects of radiation exposure. J. Samuel Walker, the official historian of the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission (NRC), generally sympathetic to those responsible for setting these early limits, concludes, "the tolerance doses were based on imperfect knowledge and unproven assumptions." Indeed, this was something that the experts themselves admitted. As

Walker puts it, "Both committees [international and U.S.] recognized that exposure to radiation in any amount might be detrimental, but they considered levels below the tolerance dose to be generally safe and unlikely to cause permanent damage to the

"average individual." Their recommendations represented a tentative effort to establish

J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 1. 92 practical guidelines that would reduce injuries to radiation workers."164 Moreover, the underlying reality that radiation would continue to be used for medical and industrial applications was built into every attempt at setting standards. For instance, when the

NCRP abandoned the theoretical notion that there was a threshold below which extremely low-levels of radiation exposure caused no harm (this is what the "tolerance dose" assumed), this did not mean that they recommended an exposure limit of zero. In the wartime context, it would have been impractical to do so. Shortly after the NCRP convened in 1946, tolerance dose was replaced with "maximum permissible dose," a term that was meant to convey that there was no known safe level of exposure. However, the fact that exposure limits were still recommended reflected the continued belief of committee members that there was a dose that was "not expected to cause appreciable bodily injury to a person at any time during his lifetime."165 This kept the door open for the widespread uses of radioactive elements, which began during the Manhattan Project and continued with the testing program after the War. The success of the Manhattan

Project hinged on it.

This is not to suggest that health and safety were not serious concerns during or after the Manhattan Project. However, radiation health and safety was not the primary concern of the makers of the atomic bomb or those responsible for testing it in the years

164 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 8. 165 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 10-11. The quote in Walker's book was taken from the NCRP document, "Permissible Dose from External Sources of Ionizing Radiation." The NCRP made the decision to change its terminology as a result of H.J. Mueller's research into the genetic effects of radiation exposure. Mueller found that even radiation doses, which had previously been deemed harmless, could harm reproductive cells and be passed from one generation to the next. Mueller's research undermined the widely held assumption that there was a threshold below which radiation levels were safe. 93 after the war. American efforts to construct the first atomic bomb were propelled by fear that Germany was on the road to creating a similar weapon of its own. In 1939, this was fuelled by the knowledge that the Germans achieved a controlled chain reaction. In this context, Americans estimated the atomic bomb's value to national and international security to outweigh any risks.166 Likewise, by the end of the war, nuclear weapons had become synonymous with national security and the federal government was committed to testing and developing newer and stronger bombs throughout the rest of the 1940s,

1950s, 1960s and long after the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTB) was signed in 1963.

In order to place radiation health and safety into its wartime framework, it is necessary to draw on the historical scholarship of Barton Hacker, wrote two ground­ breaking volumes on the history of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program. In his first book, The Dragon's Tail, Hacker focuses on the years from 1942 to 1946, when the

Manhattan Project was responsible for building and testing the first five atomic bombs.167

His argument in both of his books is the same: those who were charged with radiation health and safety in the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program were "competent, diligent, and cautious." However, he also notes that during the Manhattan Project health was only one among many concerns; it was certainly not given the highest priority. It was within this context that radiation safety specialists performed their work. Those scientists tasked with ensuring health and safety during the Manhattan Project came first from the

166 Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project, 1942-1946 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 3. 167 Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail, 1987. 168 Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 9. 94 Health Division of the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory, which was established immediately after the scientists there began working with plutonium, and the

Los Alamos Health Group, which was established when the Los Alamos Laboratory went into operation. As Hacker explains, "Health Division experts believed they could hold radiation risks.. .to tolerable levels.. .but whether they did or not might have mattered little."169 The main priority of this department was to ensure the maintenance of pre-war standards, mainly by ensuring that "radiation sources were shielded, careful work habits instilled, workplaces closely watched, and workers screened to detect early signs of damage."170 This in itself was a huge responsibility; yet, it was not the only job of these

scientists. Researchers were also preoccupied with the long term issues raised by the widespread use of radioactive materials. Some of the questions they grappled with included: "How valid were extant standards? Were all the risks, ecological as well as radiological, fully perceived? Did new and strange substances pose unknown risks?

Were there better ways to detect radiation? Could radiation-caused damage be treated if not prevented?" The ability of scientists to address these big picture questions was

constrained by the immediate needs for radiation protection and, as Hacker shows, there was both dissent within the Health Division and the army over where priorities should be.171

Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail, 3. Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail, 4. Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail, 4. 95 There were similar tensions in the work of scientists from the Los Alamos Health

Group, who were responsible for protecting the health of military and civilian personnel working in and around the weapons testing site. They also had to contend with the fact that health protection was low on the list of priorities. The primary concern was that the bomb worked; while maintaining secrecy about the project ran a close second. As

Hacker points out, neither of these higher priority issues necessarily conflicted with safety as long as the test was scheduled during ideal weather conditions. However, this was not to be the case because Truman's desire to make dramatic use of the bomb at the end of the war placed undue pressure on the Project to prove that the plutonium bomb worked. Truman planned to issue an ultimatum to Japan at the Potsdam meeting, scheduled for July 16, 1945 and wanted to have the atomic bomb ready in the event that

Japan did not heed his warnings. In the end, the Trinity test took place during less than ideal weather conditions and fallout travelled far beyond the area that scientists initially predicted. Scientists in the Health Group reported that "radiation monitors found much of what they had expected on the test site itself." This was not the case beyond these borders. Hacker describes "disquietingly high levels of local fallout," which stretched far beyond the area where it was originally predicted to travel. After a lot of fretting, the scientists drew the arbitrary conclusion that no one had been harmed from the fallout.172

The fact that there was no substantial wartime focus on the long-term effects of low level

172 Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon's Tail, 6-7. Because of the secrecy surrounding the tests, no one from the local community around the Nevada test site was informed of the test or interviewed for information about health effects afterwards. Likewise, there was little to no monitoring of radiation levels beyond those areas that were already staked out before the tests and there was a complete absence of testing for internal exposure. 96 radiation exposure further confirms how - from a scientific standpoint - this was a flimsy inference.

It was not until the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was formed that scientific study into the long-term genetic effects of the atomic bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki began. It is difficult to overemphasize the significance of this study to debates about the health effects of low level radiation exposure. For decades afterwards the data therein was used in countless "worker's legal claims, legislative agendas, and energy policy programs." Susan Lindee's historical analysis of the ABCC study in her book, Suffering Made Real, is useful for understanding these early attempts to understand the genetic effects of radiation exposure on humans. Lindee examines the process, which lead to the 1956 publication: "The Effects of Exposure to the Atomic Bombs on

Pregnancy Termination in Hiroshima and Nagasaki." This represented the largest epidemiological survey of its kind up to that point. Its initial purpose was to determine the effects of the bomb blasts on those who survived. However, it quickly became more focused on the effects of the bomb on the offspring of survivors, which was believed to be more menacing than the immediate effects on survivors.

Lindee's analysis underlines the extremely complex nature of doing an epidemiological study of this magnitude. The ability of scientists to gather information on radiation exposure was limited from the outset because the radiation levels released by

7 M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 256. For another account of the ABCC study, see also, Sue Rabbitt Roff, Hotspots: The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (London: Cassel, 1995). 174 M. Susan Lindee, "The Genetics Study" in Suffering Made Real. 97 the bombs were classified. To compensate for this lack of information, researchers gathered detailed information on survivors about their location and position in relation to the blast. They then drew estimates about exposure levels based on their distance from ground zero, not from the point of explosion, which was actually several hundred meters in the air. Researchers also had no information about internal exposures and, likely due to the limited research on the topic to this point, did not draw estimates of these levels for the study. Likewise, long term exposure to radiation as a result of fallout was not measured, nor did ABCC researchers include those people entering the bomb site after the explosions, even though many of these people reported ailments in harmony with radiation sickness. The rationale for this decision was partially rooted in the fact that the military declared these levels too low to cause harm. Despite criticisms from Japanese scientists, the ABCC actually used this population of people who had entered the bomb site in the days and weeks following the attacks as its control group for the study.

Lindee also reports that the language barrier between the Americans and the Japanese posed a problem for the study. The cooperation of Japanese scientists was crucial, particularly because they had been gathering data since immediately after the bombing

M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real, 26-28. This was because pressure from the AEC to reduce the costs of the study forced the researchers to abandon their use of the population in the Japanese city, Kure, as their control group. There were also several scientists who insisted that "inhabitants who had been further than 2000 or 3000 metres from the hypocentre of the explosions had not received any radiation, or at least any of significance." See, Sue Rabbitt Roff, Hotspots, 11. Roff bases this conclusion on her analysis of the minutes left by the Committee on Atomic Casualties, which was the committee responsible for overseeing the ABCC study. On the committee were several scientists involved in "scientific and biomedical studies of the effects of nuclear energy." 98 and the American efforts to do so only began in mid-1946. It was not only Japanese scientists, but also Japanese physicians, technicians, midwives, support staff, and, of course, survivors who were crucial to the ABCC study, so the issue of language was quite a significant one.177

While companies like Commonwealth Edison described the ABCC study as the definitive word on the health effects of radiation exposure, the scientists directing the study were less confident. In fact, in October 1947, before any of their research findings were ready for presentation, the National Research Council (NRC) Committee that was directing the genetic study published an article in the journal, Science. In it, the authors announced the study to the scientific community and made the disclaimer that it was unlikely that there would be results of statistical significance. Their reason for stating this clearly in the beginning, according to the NRC, was that "the negative findings might be popularly interpreted as meaning that genetic effects had not occurred" in the survivor population. This, they declared, "would not be a legitimate conclusion., .since there was every reason to infer that heritable changes had been produced at Hiroshima and

Nagasaki."178 At the root of this disclaimer was the recognition that genetic surveying in the 1940s was fraught with limitations. The field of genetics only began development in

176 The ABCC was officially approved by Truman in November 1946 and was to be overseen by the National Research Council. The AEC was the primary funding agency for the study, but money initially came from the NAS and the army, while the ABCC funding proposal went through the proper channels of approval in the AEC. M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real, 33-36. It was finally in August 1947 that the AEC committed to long-term funding for the study, initially planned to span over several decades. M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real, 55. 177 M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real, 16-31. 178 M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real, 57. 99 the early twentieth century and was still underdeveloped in the 1940s. Likewise, it was very difficult to track genetic damage to the sperm or ovum, particularly if the damage resulted in a spontaneous abortion, an unfertilized egg, or there was simply a defective sperm that was unable to swim to the egg. The same was true in the case of recessive mutations. The use of the epidemiological survey to collect genetic information also posed several challenges. First, it was impossible to know if all births were kept track of.

Second, if there were a low number of mutations, it would not likely be revealed in an epidemiological analysis, which only reported findings of "significance." Third, it was not always easy to identify genetic anomalies in infants, nor was it easy to detect spontaneous abortions. Finally, the process of collecting radiation histories was constrained by the difficulty of gathering diffuse medical records (especially in cities that had been devastated by the a-bomb) and relying on the recollections of research subjects.179 Indeed, the ABCC struggled through many of these difficulties throughout the course of the study.

Much of the scientist's time was devoted to managing criticisms of their work. In the Japanese community, the scientists were criticized for their no treatment policy.

Although this was consistent with prevailing medical ideology of the time, many

Japanese scientists and survivors thought free treatment was the least the Americans could provide. As Lindee points out, this also might have helped improve participation in

M. Susan Lindee, "The Genetics Study," in Suffering Made Real. 100 the study.180 The ABCC's most formidable foe, however, was the AEC. The agency, which took over funding for the project in 1947, challenged the research team at every turn. Lindee records that the agency constantly criticized the ABCC for working too slow and spending too much money. Because of this, the AEC issued a major funding cut in 1951 and, in 1953, cancelled plans to continue funding the project altogether, which was ten years earlier than originally intended. Lindee claims that once the AEC began to appreciate the magnitude of the study, they got cold feet. The agency worried that the study was taking too long and was unwilling to gamble the huge financial costs involved without having the assurance that there would be something of value produced in return. This decision was also undoubtedly colored by the prevailing belief within the U.S. military and government that the long term exposure to radiation among survivors was not a significant factor in determining health. As I will make clear in my analysis of this debate during the 1970s, the AEC's unwillingness to invest in epidemiological surveying of this magnitude also plagued later attempts at understanding the health effects of low-level radiation exposure.

The actual findings of the study left much to be desired. From a genetics perspective, the study did little to further scientific knowledge. The definition of

"mutation" that was used in the study was much different than the one used in animal and drosophilia studies. A genetic mutation in a non-human included all aberrant traits, including changes in eye colour, differently shaped ears, wings, and changes in hair

180 M. Susan Lindee, "The No Treatment Policy," in Suffering Made Real. 181 M. Susan Lindee, "Political Survival in Washington," in Suffering Made Real. 101 colour. These were considered "minor" mutations in the ABCC study and so were not counted at all. Instead, only mutations that contributed to "human misery" or were

"dangerous, threatening, or socially disturbing.. .with implications for future human survival... [were] counted among the genetic effects of radiation exposure." The reason for this discrepancy was that the ABCC study of human genetics was more clearly shaped by social and political concerns. When it came time to make statistical sense of ABCC data, moreover, several more shortcomings were apparent. The study only included women who could and did reproduce after the bomb, which was not a good reflection of the average effects of the bombs on the general population. Those women who entered the study in its first year in Nagasaki only did so after their fifth month of pregnancy, meaning that still births and miscarriages were only recorded from month six to nine.

Likewise, after collecting all of the data on mothers who were 35 years or older, they decided to eliminate it from the analysis. The same was done with data on women who were married to a cousin. Together this excluded 17% of the overall data and gave the research team a study population that was unusually healthy. When combined with the limitations outlined thus far, it is not surprising that there were no significant findings reported in the study. Indeed, when the two principal scientists in charge of the study published a paper on their findings in 1954, they cautioned people about the complexity of performing an epidemiological study in a dynamic population, as compared to studies

182 M. Susan Lindee, "What is a Mutation?" in Suffering Made Real. The quote is from page 192. 183 M. Susan Lindee, 212. 184 M. Susan Lindee, "Draft Analysis: 1952-1953" and "Publication Strategies" in Suffering Made Real. Although there were several genetic studies performed on the Japanese survivors after the ABCC's genetic study was cancelled, the surveillance of newborns was not revived. 213. 102 performed in laboratories. In this publication, they were again very open about the

study's lack of definitive conclusions. Regardless, however, as soon as the study was published, the findings were used to reassure the public that low level radiation exposure was harmless. In 1955, for instance, John C. Bugher, the AEC's Director of the Division

of Biology and Medicine, used the study to assure residents surrounding the Nevada Test

Site that the radiation exposure from the testing program was of no consequence. Bugher

i or was also one of the individuals who pushed the AEC to cut its funding to the ABCC.

The AEC's optimistic pronouncements on low level radiation exposure were part

of the agency's efforts to assuage an American public that was increasingly alarmed by 1ft A

the high levels of fallout being detected around the globe. There was no pause in

weapons testing during the ABCC study and it was not long before the U.S. was joined by Great Britain and the Soviet Union, in this regard. With the exception of the

underwater test at the Bikini Atoll in 1946, public reactions to testing immediately after

the war were mainly limited to concerns about the immediate effects of bomb blasts.

Sue Rabbitt Roff, "Chapter 10," in Hotspots. Roff s more journalistic account is also based on extensive research on the archival records left by the ABCC. 186 Many American scholars have written about the effects of the atomic bomb on American culture, politics, and society. See, for example, Paul Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture At the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985); Allan M. Winkler, Life Under A Cloud: American Anxiety About the Atom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988); Margot A. Henricksen, Dr. Strangelove 's America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Joyce A. Evans, Celluloid Mushroom Clouds: Hollywood and the Atomic Bomb (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998). 187 In the first Bikini test - Able - an atomic bomb was detonated several hundred feet in the air and, by both media and scientific standards, was considered routine compared to the first test performed in Nevada. The second blast "erupted beneath the surface of Bikini lagoon" and "shocked even the experts." Hacker recalls: "As thousands upon thousands of tons of water collapsed back into the lagoon, a surgical wall of radioactive mist blanketed the target fleet. Dismayed salvage crews could scarcely approach most target vessels for days, and some ships remained off limits much longer...Three-fourths of the target fleet never 103 When the U.S. staged another test at Bikini in March 1954, however, radiation fears heightened. According to Walker, this hydrogen bomb

produced so much fallout that it forced the evacuation of Marshallese from their island homes and accidentally showered a Japanese fishing vessel eighty to ninety miles away with radioactive ash. The crew of the fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, suffered skin irritations and burns, nausea, loss of hair,

1 DO and one of the fisherman died six months later. In the aftermath of such tests, there was intensive debate in the scientific community about the effects of fallout. The AEC, which was responsible for the testing program after 1947, clearly put the importance of testing above the value of health. In 1955, an official AEC document declared: "The degree of risk must be balanced against the great importance of the test program to the security of the nation."189 The fact that the AEC cut funding to the ABCC genetic study and continued its testing program throughout the duration of the study is a clear indication that they viewed the risks worthwhile. Scientists who disagreed with the

AEC's pronouncement that fallout was harmless generally made these claims after reviewing the same scientific data considered by the AEC. Scientists like Ralph Lapp, a former Manhattan Project physicist, argued that "even low levels of continuous fallout could pollute food supplies and cause increased rates of birth defects, cancer, and other afflictions."190 The public nature of the debate eventually died down in 1963, when the

Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTB) was signed. As Walker indicates, however, it did have a left the Marshall Islands at all, either sunk in the tests or destroyed afterwards as unsalvageable." Barton S. Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 4. 188 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 19. 189 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 20. 190 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 20. 104 long term impact on "radiation protection." Public awareness about fallout hazards was greatly increased; the AEC lost much of its credibility; and the NCRP and ICRP both tightened their standards.191

The debate over low level radiation exposure resurfaced in the late 1960s and

early 1970s, but this time the controversy revolved around the expansion of commercial nuclear power in the U.S. None of these earlier debates had been resolved when utility companies began placing orders for commercial nuclear reactors and as the number of applications spread across the country, public opposition to the new form of power generation heightened. The very public debate between the AEC and John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin, two agency scientists working at Lawrence Livermore National

Laboratory (LLNL), did little to dampen the growing public opposition to nuclear power.

Ironically, the dispute between the AEC and its scientists started after Tamplin publicly refuted Ernest J. Sternglass's claim that between 1951 and 1966 "fallout had caused

375,000 deaths of infants less than one year old." Sternglass announced his findings -

among other places - in a widely publicized article in Esquire Magazine and it was not

191 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 22-28. Samuel Walker's book is an invaluable source on the history of radiation protection standards. However, while acknowledging things like the AEC's enthusiasm for the testing program, he avoids being overly critical of the agency. There are several examples of this throughout the book - in particular, his discussion of the AEC mandated radiation experiments on human subjects. In the context of the fallout debate in the 1950s, Walker makes no explicit mention of the ABCC study or Susan Lindee's historical account of the AEC's role in terminating the genetic study. At the same time, he repeatedly emphasizes how "fragmentary and inconclusive" (27) data on radiation health effects were, without acknowledging that the lack of useful data was (at least in some instances) a result of the AEC's refusal to invest in these kinds of studies. Indeed, his only mention of Susan Lindee's book comes on pages 129 to 130, where he mentions that the ABCC study represented the best data source for measuring the effects of low level radiation. He does reference the imperfect nature of the data, but instead of attributing some blame to the AEC, he emphasizes the difficulties of tracking and measuring the ever elusive radiation. 192 Refer to my discussion of this new anti-nuclear movement in Chapter 2 of this thesis. 105 only Tamplin who refuted his findings. Among the critics of his methodology was Alice

Stewart, whose controversial epidemiological research on the relationship between fetal x-rays and childhood leukemia during the 1950s caused uproar in the British scientific and medical community. Tamplin, who had worked for LLNL since 1963 as a member of the AEC team in charge of investigating the health effects of fallout, performed an assessment of Sternglass's assumptions, methodology, and findings and concluded that he had "overestimated the effect of fallout by a factor of at least one hundred." He did not completely dismiss Sternglass's findings, however. When Tamplin recalculated the effects of fallout, using his reduced estimate, the fetal mortality rate was decreased to eight thousand, while the infant mortality rate was four thousand. Although Tamplin's estimates were much lower than Sternglass's, the AEC worried that publishing his research would cause undue alarm. When the Director of the Division of Biology and

Medicine encouraged Tamplin to separate his findings from the rest of his Sternglass critique, a heated exchange followed. Despite AEC efforts to prevent him from doing so,

Tamplin published his findings in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in December

1969.193

When Tamplin and Gofman, his colleague at LLNL, extended their critique to include low level radiation exposure from commercial nuclear power, the rift between the scientists and the AEC further intensified. Gofman had a PhD in nuclear chemistry and a medical degree, both from the University of California, while Tamplin, who had studied

J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 36-38. 106 under the tutelage of Gofman at Berkeley, held a PhD in biophysics. In a paper presented before the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, the two scientists claimed

that "if the entire population of the United States received the permissible population

dose of 0.17 rad per year throughout their lifetimes, the result would be seventeen

thousand additional cases of cancer annually." They recommended that existing

standards be reduced by "at least a factor often." The AEC criticized the fact that this paper was not based on any new research, but, rather, represented a new interpretation of

old data. Indeed, Walker mentions this in his discussion of the dispute between the

scientists and the AEC.194 What he (and the AEC) does not mention, however, is that

those scientists sitting on regulatory panels such as the NCRP and ICRP also based their

conclusions on their interpretation of existing research. Neither of these bodies

performed their own research into the health effects of low-level radiation exposure, yet,

standards that were established by the AEC were determined using their

See, J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 40-43. Walker also claims that "Gofman and Tamplin made some fundamental errors in discussing existing radiation standards, the most flagrant of which was insisting that the regulations assumed a threshold below which radiation exposure was safe." See, J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 40. Those responsible for making standards beginning in 1928 had always erred on the side of caution and claimed that, because not all radiation hazards were fully understood, exposure levels should be kept as low as possible to avoid harm. He reiterates this several times throughout the book. What he does not appreciate, however, is that, regardless, official standards were set based on these recommendations and the ability of individuals to seek reparations for health damage as a result of radiation exposure was constrained by such standards. Only in the case of overexposure did people have a chance of getting compensation and even in these cases it was next to impossible unless exposure levels were so high that immediate health effects were observed. Even though experts on NCRP acknowledged - in theory - that radiation exposure at any level could cause health or genetic damage, they resisted attempts by experts like Gofman and Tamplin, who tried to quantify exactly how many people they thought would suffer as a result of exposures that fell below existing standards. After reviewing their study in 1971, the NCRP told reporters that Gofman and Tamplins' arguments were "unpersuasive" and declared their own standards "sound." J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 43. No one on these advisory boards engaged in the ways their standards might impact real people and Walker ignores this as well, preferring to talk about these as abstracted debates. 107 recommendations. In her 2008 article, "Legitimating a Nuclear Critic: John Gofrnan,

Radiation Safety, and Cancer Risks," Ioanna Semendeferi makes the compelling case that historians like Walker should begin treating anti-nuclear activists like Gofman as the

scientists that they were. Too often, she argues, historians replicate the stereotype that these scientist activists were unscientific in their critiques of radiation health and safety

standards.195 Instead of substantively engaging in the critique brought forward by

Gofman and Tamplin, the AEC launched a superficial attack on their credibility, one that

further confused (rather than clarified) knowledge about the health effects of low-level radiation exposure. By presenting only one side of the debate, Walker reinforced this

negative characterization of Gofman and Tamplin.

Ironically, several other members of the AEC regulatory staff also encouraged the

agency to adopt stricter standards; however, these discussions took place behind closed

doors. Indeed, it was not uncommon for scientific debates to occur within the AEC;

rather, it was unacceptable to publicly air these debates, especially to a public who was

already reticent about the expansion of nuclear power. Gofman and Tamplin paid a high

price for this indiscretion. When they submitted a paper to the American Association for

the Advancement of Science, the AEC "determined that those arguments should not go

unchallenged" and handed out a staff critique of their study to all conference participants,

as well as published it in several newspapers. The estrangement between the scientists

195 Ioanna Semendeferi, "Legitimating a Nuclear Critic: John Gofman, Radiation Safety, and Cancer Risks" Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (Spring 2008), 259-301. 196 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 41. 108 and the AEC only made Tamplin and Gofman more strident in their opinions about the negative effects of low level radiation exposure. As a result of their study, the AEC discontinued funding at LLNL and Gofman, who founded the Committee for Nuclear

Responsibility in 1971, eventually returned to his faculty position at Berkeley in 1973.

Tamplin left LLNL a few years later for the same reasons and took a job with the Natural

Resources Defense Council (NRDC) as Chief Scientific Advisor for the organization.

The willingness of these two men to speak on behalf of a public who was afraid of the hazards of nuclear power made them heroes of the anti-nuclear movement during the

1970s.197 Unfortunately, it also tarnished their image as credible scientists.

Despite the continued lack of scientific consensus on the issue of low level radiation exposure, the very public nature of the Gofman/Tamplin debate stimulated another overhaul of the existing standards. The Federal Radiation Council (FRC), which had been created by Eisenhower in 1959, "made arrangements with the National

Academy of Sciences [NAS] to reassess the scientific basis for radiation standards and to estimate the risks they presented to the public." The result of this arrangement was the second report of the Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, popularly known as BEIR II and released in 1972. This represented the first time

Walker's accounting of this debate between Gofman/Tamplin and the AEC is the most comprehensive. See, J. Samuel Walker, Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 338-362; J. Samuel Walker, "The Atomic Energy Commission and the Politics of Radiation Protection, 1967-1971" ISIS 85 (March 1994): 57-78; and J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 36-47. See also, Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 27-28; Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 105; and Joel Primack and Frank Von Hippel, Advice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 211. 198 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 43-44. 109 national standards had been revisited since the first NAS report was made public in 1956.

There were three things of significance declared in the report. The group accepted the linear hypothesis of calculating radiation health effects, which was also accepted within the AEC and the NCRP. The linear hypothesis "assumed that no level of exposure to radiation was certifiably safe" and "assumed a straight-line correlation between dose and somatic damage." Committee members agreed that this was an imperfect measurement because it did not account for "the effects of dose rate and cell repair," but accepted that - due to an absence of information - this was the best available means of measuring health effects. Second, the report encouraged a "careful cost-benefit analysis" of nuclear technology before decisions were made about the further expansion of commercial nuclear power, declaring that radiation exposure should only be permitted if there was

"expectation of a commensurate benefit." At the same time, the report cautioned against

"excessive protective measures." In light of this advice, the report reiterated the long held sentiment that radiation levels - from all sources - be kept "as low as practicable."

Finally, the report estimated the effects of low level radiation exposure on the public.

Members calculated that if the population were exposed to the admissible limits of 170 millirems per year, it could cause between 3000 to 15,000 additional cancer deaths per year, with a more likely range of 5000 to 7000 deaths. It was this third aspect of the report that many found unsettling, particularly because it was the first time that a federally funded advisory committee endeavored to estimate the real impact of low level radiation exposure. Because the BEIR estimates were so close to Gofman and Tamplin's

110 1969 predictions, moreover, many people, including the two scientists, saw the report as a vindication of their work.199

As subsequent scientific debates reveal, BEIRII was not the final word on the health effects of low level radiation during the 1970s. Three more scientific studies in the latter half of the decade received widespread media attention, thus, keeping the debate over low level radiation exposure fresh in the public mind. The controversy began in

1975, when a retired army sergeant named Paul Cooper learned he had leukemia. Doctor

Thomas Cosgriff, who was treating Cooper at the Veterans Administration hospital in

Salt Lake City, had formerly been an epidemiologist with the Center for Disease Control

(CDC) and wondered if there was a link between Cooper's leukemia and his service related exposure to radiation during weapons testing. Cooper worked in the Nevada

Desert during more than one nuclear test, one time participating in a psychological test where servicemen were ordered to "run an obstacle course to provide psychological data

on how the experience [of witnessing a nuclear explosion] might affect combat performance." Cooper went public with his story after the Veteran's Administration

denied his "claim for service related disability" for the third time. The widespread

coverage of the story influenced several other veterans, who had also developed

leukemia, to come forward. In addition to this, the Center for Disease Control and the

Department of Energy developed plans for studying the effects of the Nevada tests on

servicemen. When Kentucky Republican, Tim Lee Carter, heard about another veteran

J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 47-51. Ill from his hometown of Tompkinsville, he was determined to get Congress involved. In

1978, Carter, who had lost his own son to leukemia, convinced House Subcommittee

Chairman on Health and the Environment, Paul G. Rogers, a Democrat from Florida, to explore the health effects of low level radiation. This became known as the Rogers

Committee. 00 In addition to interviewing veterans, the Committee learned about three new studies, which linked low-level radiation exposure to cancer. These studies, headed by Thomas Najarian, Thomas Mancuso, and Irwin Bross, respectively, became central features in the Rogers Committee Hearings.

Thomas Najarian, a hematologist at the Veteran Affairs Hospital in Boston, performed a health study of naval shipyard workers in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He used the death certificates of men who had worked on nuclear powered submarines and concluded that nuclear workers had a 450 percent higher rate of leukemia death than other members of the population who were not occupationally exposed to radiation.

While he admitted his use of death certificates was not the best source for a scientific study, he argued that his findings were defensible. Regardless, he was widely criticized in the scientific community because of the small sample size he used in the study. The study still caused a public stir because it was featured in several Boston newspaper

Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 7-9. Hacker reports that this controversy was the stimulus behind his two books, The Dragon's Tail and Elements of Controversy. He was contracted by an AEC contractor to write a history of radiation safety during the testing program. These two books were the result. 112 articles in 1977 and, in 1978, during the "atomic soldiers" controversy the study was of special interest to the Rogers Committee.201

The findings of Thomas Mancuso's epidemiological study of workers at the

Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State lent credence to Najarian's conclusions. Mancuso was an occupational health expert with the University of

Pittsburgh, who had been under contract by the AEC since 1964 to do a health study on the effects of occupational radiation exposure at the Hanford facility, which had produced plutonium for the nuclear weapons complex since 1944. According to Rosalie Bertell,

"He is credited with having developed the basic epidemiological methods of studying biological effects of workplace hazards over a span of decades. His techniques have been generally adopted and used by other researchers in this field."202 With the assistance of

Alice Stewart and her assistant, George Kneale, who was a mathematician, Mancuso performed a statistical analysis of the Hanford worker data. Like Najarian, he also relied on death certificates in his health study. However, he had access to Hanford worker dosimetry records, which dated back to the beginnings of the Manhattan Project. This marked the first time an epidemiological survey did not have to estimate radiation exposure levels. Remember, the ABCC researchers did not have access to this classified information and had to draw estimates of exposure, which were subsequently called into question by several researchers. Mancuso "statistically correlate[ed] cause of death with

201 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 92. 202 Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger? Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth (Toronto: Women's Educational Press, 1985), 89. 113 degree of exposure [and]... concluded that those who had died of cancer had, in fact, been exposed more often and more intensely to ionizing radiation."203

The Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which had by this time replaced the AEC as the bureaucracy responsible for funding nuclear related research, wasted no time refuting Mancuso's conclusions. The estrangement between

Mancuso and the ERDA began not long before Mancuso published his findings in the scientific community. In 1978, during the Rogers Committee Hearings, it was reported that the ERDA urged Mancuso to prematurely publish his findings from the Hanford

Study. This was after Samuel Milham, Epidemiology Director of Washington State

Health Department, reported that there were significantly higher cancer rates among

Hanford radiation workers. Milham relied on death certificates among males working at the Hanford Reservation, as well as among "other industrial workers in the state" between 1951 and 1971. He found that Hanford workers had a disproportionately high incidence of pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma.204 The ERDA encouraged

Mancuso to issue a press release underlining his negative cancer findings at Hanford, but he refused to comply with the request because, according to him, the study was incomplete and premature publication "would lead to false positive findings." It was not long after this that the ERDA declined to renew funding for the study, citing

Mancuso's early retirement at 62 as their reasoning. This was despite the fact that

203 Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 260. 204 Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger?, 89. 205 Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger? 90. 114 Mancuso was eager to continue this research project. When he realized that his study was in peril and he had completed data collection, he recruited Stewart (who had been a member of the study's Advisory Committee) and Kneale to help him with the analysis.

After briefing members of the ERDA on his findings, "officials suggested that perhaps more research should be done before making the information public." Mancuso disregarded this cautioning and continued with plans to present the data at the Health

Physics Society meeting in 1976. In an act that was reminiscent of the AEC's earlier attempts to discredit Gofman and Tamplin, the ERDA timed its public rebuttal of

Mancuso's study directly after Stewart presented the positive cancer findings at the

Health Physics Society meeting. Sidney Marks (ERDA scientist) and Ethel Gilbert, a scientist for Batelle Northwest, offered completely contradictory findings in the presentation that followed. Likewise, after Mancuso, Stewart, and Kneales' summary of the Hanford Study findings were accepted for publication in the journal, Health Physics, in 1977, Marks and Gilbert prepared a critique of the study for the 1978 meeting of the

International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Likewise, the ERDA unsuccessfully attempted to confiscate Mancuso's database, first by removing the data file from the Oak

Ridge National Laboratory Computer Centre and later trying to force Mancuso and the

University of Pittsburg to relinquish Mancuso's backup copy of the file. All of these details were revealed during the Congressional Hearings.

Several historians make mention of this Congressional Hearing, but Rosalie

Bertell offers the most detail in the account she provides in her book, No Immediate

115 Danger. After the ERDA's official reason for not renewing Mancuso's funding - early retirement - was determined unsatisfactory, the agency indicated that negative peer reviews also influenced its decision. When asked by U.S. Representative Tim Lee Carter if the only peer reviews received by the ERDA came from Marks and Gilbert, a Dr.

Liverman of the ERDA responded that this was affirmative. Carter then submitted four positive peer reviews of Mancuso's study that the ERDA had also received and neglected

7 Oft to consider. This is significant because most historians who refer to the Mancuso controversy mention only the critiques of the study, thus, perpetuating the idea that his study was dismissed by the scientific community. 07 It was also disclosed during the hearings that Sidney Marks left the ERDA shortly after teaming up with Ethel Gilbert and took a job with the Batelle-Pacific Northwest Laboratory, which was a private research laboratory funded by the federal government.208 When Marks left the ERDA, Batelle was awarded a $58 million research contract and it was while working for Batelle that

Marks presented his critique of the Mancuso study at the International Atomic Energy

Association meeting in 1978.

Mancuso's was not the only epidemiological cancer study to have its funding cut at the close of the decade. In 1977, Irwin Bross and Nachimuthu Natarajan, two biostatisticians with the Roswell Park Memorial Institute (now the Roswell Park Cancer 206 See, Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger?, 92. 207 See, for example, J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 94-95; and Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 260-261. 208 See, Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, 404. 209 See Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, 404.

116 Institute) in Buffalo, New York, published the paper, "Genetic Damage from Diagnostic

Radiation," in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This article represented the preliminary findings of the Tri-State Leukemia Study, which tracked the health histories of 16 million people in New York, Maryland, and Minnesota between

1959 and 1962 to determine if there was a relationship between routine x-ray procedures and the rising leukemia rates in the United States. The study was inspired by Alice

Stewart's epidemiological survey in England during the 1950s. Dr. Bob Gibson, one of the creators of the Tri-State Study, travelled to England to meet with Stewart and learn about her methodology. As a result, the study used the same questionnaire Stewart used for the children in her study on fetal x-rays and leukemia, but broadened its scope to include leukemia for all age groups, which Stewart had not done. The data on the 16 million people tracked in the Tri-State Survey included fifty pieces of information for each individual: some of the factors considered were age, race, ethnicity, diet, socioeconomic status, occupation, past medical records (including x-ray history), mobility, building materials used in homes, and religious background. Bross created a

"mathematical model" to analyze the data and together the research team (there were 27 analysts who worked on the adult portion of the data alone) determined that there was a strong correlation between medical x-rays and non-lymphatic leukemias. Almost immediately after Bross and Natarajan published the JAMA article, the National

Institutes of Health (NIH) cut the study's funding (without explanation) and the researchers were unable to complete their analysis of the data. This happened at almost

117 the exact same time that the ERDA announced its plans to discontinue Mancuso's funding. In both cases, the Rogers Committee "declared that it was not a justified decision. Regardless, Congress could do nothing to reinstate the funding because it required a re-application."

Fitting Rosalie Bertell into the Puzzle

It was as a Senior Analyst on the Tri-State Leukemia Study that Rosalie Bertell got entangled in the debate over low-level radiation exposure. Bertell was a member of the first generation of formally trained biostatisticians in the U.S., funded by an NIH

Grant at the Catholic University of America, where she earned her PhD in 1966.

Whereas mathematics had always occupied a central place in chemistry and physics, it was not well-integrated into biology by the 1960s. So, in 1963 the NIH sponsored a program to change this and Bertell was part of this new cohort of mathematicians. Upon completion of her degree, she received "the award for outstanding graduate student in mathematics for the Washington, D.C. area." The discipline of biostatistics is defined as the application of statistical analysis to biological functions as a means of understanding patterns of health and disease in large populations over time. It is now a well-known branch of epidemiology. It was not until 1970, when Bertell started working part-time at

210LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franklin part 4, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia: Newport News Division," Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony, taken at the IICPH in Toronto on March 10, 1987 - given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants. See pages 66-77. See also, J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 92-93. To my knowledge, this is the only reference in the historical literature on low-level radiation exposure that makes reference to this particular study on the medical uses of low-level radiation from x-rays. 118 Roswell Park Memorial Institute, that she began applying her expertise in biostatistics to the question of why leukemia rates in the U.S. were on the rise. While working there between 1970 and 1978 (she left teaching and started working full-time at Roswell in

1973), Bertell became an expert in cancer epidemiology. As she explained in a 1987 deposition, while the Tri-State Survey only studied the rise of leukemia rates in the U.S., epidemiological studies of other cancers generally included the same variables used in her study.212 Tracing radiation exposure from non-medical sources proved more difficult, however, and it was this that she became devoted to as a result of her work at Roswell

Park.

In her early career, Bertell was generally ignorant about the intense debate surrounding the health effects of low-level radiation. It was not until she began working on the Tri-State team that her expertise was explicitly applied to questions about health.

Her research at Roswell, moreover, was confined to looking at the relationship between leukemia and routine x-ray procedures and she knew almost nothing about nuclear fission or nuclear technology. It was only when she was asked to be a representative of the hospital at a meeting of the Niagara County Legislature that she made a connection between her research and the expansion of commercial nuclear power. In 1974, Bertell

211 Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell: Scientist, Eco-Feminist, Visionary (Toronto: Women's Press, 2005), 26-29. 212LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franklin part 4, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia: Newport News Division" - in this file is a copy of Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony, taken at the IICPH in Toronto on March 10, 1987 - given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants. Page 124 119 agreed to speak on behalf of the Niagara region's Citizen's Energy Committee about the health effects of low-level radiation exposure. The group was opposed to plans for building a commercial nuclear reactor in Niagara County and was angry about how the

Niagara legislature organized the meeting. Bertell described that the imbalance of power between the citizens and the representatives of the New York State Electric and

Gas Company, who filed the nuclear reactor application, was apparent as soon as she arrived at the meeting. The citizens group received the questions posed by the Niagara legislature upon entering the community hall, while the utility company had had two weeks to prepare answers. Likewise, the names, affiliations, and expertise of the utility representatives were listed on the program, whereas there was a blank space left beneath the name, Citizen's Energy Committee. The four representatives from the community group were asked to sit in the audience because the stage was set aside for the five representatives of New York State Electric and Gas. These representatives of the community group also included Ann Call, a biologist from Huntington, Long Island, who was also a member of the National Interveners214 - the group that was led by the scientific expertise of UCS scientists during the Emergency Core Cooling System debate.

According to Bertell, the speeches of the individuals representing the utility company were "replete with technical jargon" and they dismissed radiation hazards from nuclear

213LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, "Group Objects to Niagara Legislature Energy Meeting," Courier Express. The article is date stamped in the file for March 14, 1974, which was the day that the community meeting took place, but the article appeared in the local paper sometime earlier than this. 214LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, Terry McElroy, "Proposed Niagara N-Plant Supported, Hit at Meeting." Date unknown. 120 power plants as "no more serious than a few x-rays." At one point the utility vice- president and chief engineer confidently declared, "nuclear plants are the safest, bar none."216 Bertell sat in the audience while promotional videos depicted sterile, high-tech nuclear power plants, where everything was "done by remote control." When it was her turn to speak, she asked utility representatives on the stage to relinquish their seats to the citizen's group and drew attention to the fact that only men represented the utility company, while the four citizen representatives were women. She postulated, "Maybe it

[wa]s concern for life" that created a divide between the men and women. She went on to question the certainty with which the men declared that low level radiation from nuclear power reactors was harmless to health. Indeed, the Tri-State findings challenged the notion that any kind of radiation exposure was risk-free. When she highlighted the fact that the proposed plant was scheduled to be built near the Cornucopia farms, which grew produce for the Gerber baby food company, she officially won the favour of the

Niagara legislature. As a result, they voted a moratorium on nuclear power plants.218

The mixed reaction to her speech emboldened Bertell to learn about nuclear fission and the history behind the regulation of radiation exposure since World War II.

People from the community showed her overwhelming support through letters and phone

215 Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 44-46. 216 LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, Terry McElroy, "Proposed Niagara N-Plant Supported, Hit at Meeting." Date unknown. 217 As I revealed in my earlier discussion, the notion that there was no such thing as a safe exposure was generally accepted by members of the BEIR committee in 1972 and after (and within the AEC and NRC as well). The thing that made Bertell unpopular by 1974 was that she opposed the expansion of nuclear power until the full implications of low level exposures could be understood, while the regulators generally accepted the permanence of nuclear technology. 218 Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 44-46. 121 calls; however, she was increasingly pressured by Roswell to censor her public criticisms of the nuclear power industry. A local newspaper featured an article with the title,

"Roswell Disavows Scientist," which prompted her boss, Irwin Bross, to write a letter in

Bertell's defense. The article quoted a letter written by Merril A. Bender, the chief of the

Department of Nuclear Medicine, who wrote to the Lockport Gazette at the behest of the hospital director, Jerauld P. Murphy, stating, "Dr. Bertell did not represent the institute in

Tig any way when making her presentation." Likewise, the assistant director of Roswell tried to dissuade her from speaking on a local television talk show, saying "how terrible it was to cause trouble in the local community and speak in the name of the hospital."220

With the growing resistance from Roswell and each new encounter with the nuclear power industry, she grew determined to understand how agencies like the AEC decided radiation health standards. As a result, she scrutinized things like the ABCC study results and the various regulatory bodies responsible for setting safety standards beginning in the

1930s. Through this research she learned how - despite the confident declarations of

New York State Electric and Gas about the harmlessness of low-level radiation - exposure safety limits were based on educated guesses, not conclusive scientific research on the health effects of low-level radiation exposure. She was particularly concerned that, while the nation rapidly expanded uses of nuclear technology, there was almost a complete absence of research into the long term effects of these low level exposures. 219 LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, "Roswell disavows remarks on nuke," Gazette. March 29, 1974. Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 44-48. Engels also makes reference to the Roswell disavowal article in her biography of Bertell. 22i Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 48-53. 122 With this knowledge and after a year of increasing requests for public appearances, in 1975 she decided to take a year sabbatical from Roswell and embarked on her first of many speaking tours across the United States. At the Pennsylvania State

Legislature, she presented expert testimony in a hearing on the safety of nuclear power plants. During the same year, she presented testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Energy and the Environment. In all of these forums, her arguments were clearly shaped by her expertise in epidemiology and underlined the need to understand the health effects of long-term exposure to low level radiation from nuclear power plants. Unlike medical x-rays, which were generally traceable through medical recording, public health infrastructure in the United States during the 1970s precluded epidemiologists from accessing the information needed to study the long term health effects of radiation exposure in, outside, and surrounding nuclear power generating stations. The

Pennsylvania hearings were called in part to address the rising cancer rates that were observed in the State and BertelPs recommendation was that they invest in finding out

"what's wrong" by improving the vital statistics recording system so that researchers could perform meaningful and comprehensive studies of the long-term health effects of radiation exposure. This was in response to the scientific platitudes often repeated in the press and in the regulatory arena: basically that there was insufficient information to conclude with certainty that low level exposures were dangerous. For Bertell, and many others, her work on the Tri-State Survey confirmed that it was possible to 'know' something about the hazards posed by low level exposures. Not only did the Roswell

123 team prove that there was a relationship between routine x-ray procedures and rising leukemia rates in the United States; according to Bertell, the study was suggestive of how radiation exposure accelerated the aging process and caused a rise in other age related diseases like "coronary diseases, artheriosclerosis, cataracts, rheumatism and arthritis."

Indeed, the explanation Bertell gave for the increased leukemia rate in adults was that, while leukemia risks naturally increased by five percent each year of aging, one rad of radiation exposure accelerated aging by one year, thus, increasing the risk of developing leukemia at a younger age. She postulated that "while the effects of low-level radiation

[we]re not visually noticeable, .. .her study confirmfed] that low level radiation [wa]s

999 producing invisible cell damage which researchers ha[d] not yet learned to measure."

While there was no genetics component to the epidemiological survey, this conclusion by

Bertell was one of the key theoretical underpinnings of the Tri-State Study. Bross (the chief scientist on the Tri-State Study) reiterated this in an article in the American Journal of Public Health. He claimed, A scientific rationale for this theory is that damage to the DNA of the cells of the blood-forming system may represent the loss of one of the enzyme systems coded in the DNA. A biological effect of this damage to the DNA structure could be the disruption or impairment of the feedback mechanisms that control the production of white blood cells. There can be other impairments, also, in the functioning of the blood system. The result of these impairments is, on the one hand, the occurrence of heart disease, and on the other hand, the occurrence of leukemia.223

222 LAC, MG31 K39, Volume 131, File 6, Press Clippings-1970s, pt. 3, Andrew Nemethy, "Carmelite Nun's Research Threat to Atom Industry," The Times Argus. December 1, 1975, Front Page, 10. 223 By 1979, Bross had expanded his analysis of the data and claimed that he found a connection between radiation exposure and heart disease. Irwin D. J. Bross, PhD, Marcella Ball, PhD, and Steven Falen, MA, "A Dosage Response Curve for the One Rad Range: Adult Risks from Diagnostic Radiation" American Journal of Public Health 69, 2 (February 1979): 130-136 (quote on 132). In this article, Bross outlined that the central theoretical claim of the Tri-State Study was that "radiation produce[d] genetic damage." 124 Indeed, this interpretation of the scientific data produced in the Tri-State leukemia study

994 was shared by all of her colleagues at Roswell. For these reasons, Bertell later became involved in disputes over not only the relationship between cancer and low level exposure, but also genetic defects, which only appeared in later generations.

This was not the first time these scientific concerns had been articulated. Indeed,

Rachel Carson's popular treatise, Silent Spring, voiced many similar ones and was the

"main narrative for the new environmentalism of the 1960s and 1970s." For Carson,

"genetic deterioration through man-made agents" was "the last and greatest danger to our civilization." While Carson's focus was mainly man-made chemical mutagens like DDT, she did discuss radiation in her book and regardless both were known to have similar histories.225 They had the potential to completely destroy "natural systems," yet were embraced by corporations, the U.S. government and military, and many scientists whose 996 enthusiasm for their uses outweighed concerns about long term risks. Likewise, as

Scott Frickel shows in his book on the formation of the field of genetic toxicology, an entirely new scientific discipline emerged during the 1960s as a result of these same concerns. Frickel shows how a group of scientists, "motivated by their understanding For instance, Lome Houten, another Roswell scientist, was quoted in a Newsweek article stating, "One rad... of radiation... ages the cell it strikes by one year. Thus, a 50-year-old man who has received 10 rads has the susceptibility of nonlymphatic leukemia - a form of the disease that strikes adults - of a 60-year- old. In addition, irradiation of men and women during their reproductive years increases the likelihood that their offspring will develop leukemia." LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, "What Causes Cancer?" Newsweek. January 26, 1976, 66. 225 Scott Frickel, Chemical Consequences: Environmental Mutagens, Scientist Activism, and the Rise of Genetic Toxicology (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 97-100. 226 This is what I have tried to illustrate by recounting some of this radiation history in the first section of this chapter. 125 that the science of genetics could do more than it was to understand the causes, scope, and human impact of chemicals in the environment," organized a new, interdisciplinary scientific discipline.227 The fact that the main laboratory for this new discipline was located at the AEC's Oak Ridge National Laboratory reveals how closely associated environmental concerns with chemical mutagens were to radiation mutagenesis. It is also a good example of how a group of scientists was able to gain mainstream acceptance of this new discipline, which proposed to study the broad public health and environmental implications of the widespread industrial, military, and household uses of man-made chemical mutagens.

Bertell, on the other hand, was confident that epidemiological analysis had the potential to solve the mystery of low level radiation health effects from nuclear power generating stations. Her vision, however, required an enormous investment in the

American public health infrastructure. She advocated "an entirely new approach to the collection of health and medical statistics on radiation... [including] measurements of radiation in teeth and vital organs," as well as "an immediate and extensive study of health in the nuclear industry.. .[including the] formation of a national medical data bank, and extensive follow-up surveys on workers in nuclear plants." Lindee's history of the first epidemiological study of the atomic bomb survivors is instructive here. She shows how difficult it was for the ABCC researchers to perform an epidemiological study of a

227 Scott Frickel, Chemical Consequences, 16. 228 LAC, MG31 K39, Volume 131, File 6, Press Clippings-1970s, pt. 3, Andrew Nemethy, "Carmelite Nun's Research Threat to Atom Industry," The Times Argus, December 1, 1975, Front Page, 10. 126 dynamic population, especially when the United States government and proponents of nuclear technology had never shown great concern for the long term impact of radiation exposure. This remained the prevalent attitude in 1975. In the case of civilians living near nuclear power generating systems, the collection of this health information would require more than just an enormous financial investment on the part of Federal, State, and

Municipal governments. It would require the cooperation of public health and medical professionals across the country, all of the utility companies operating nuclear power generating stations, and the federal bureaucracies in charge of managing and regulating nuclear power. This does not even account for the manpower and financial commitment required to analyze and make sense of the data. Bertell's insistence on the need to study nuclear workers was somewhat more promising; at least there was some information on their radiation histories. However, it was far from perfect. Hacker reveals that, as late as

1978, records on worker exposure to radiation were scattered across the country and there was no standardized method of recording these histories. It was only after the increasing scrutiny of radiation safety during the Rogers Committee hearings and the subsequent suits brought against the federal government that they were sent scrambling to centralize and make sense of the data on military personnel present during the various weapons tests that were performed after the war. Mismanagement of this project early on also resulted in the loss of much of this information. As my chapter on the doctor's movement after

See Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 262-263. 127 Chernobyl reveals, this information continued to be withheld from independent researchers as late as the early 1990s.

The Role of Bertell's Religious Vocation in Her Decision to Become an Activist

In order to fully digest the broadest implications of what she was advocating,

Bertell spent the last month of her sabbatical in seclusion. She retired to Barre, Vermont to live among the Carmelite nuns, who were the first order of religious sisters to which she belonged until 1956. She describes this period as one of "prayerful reflection."

Thinking back on that period in a 2004 interview with biographer Mary-Louise Engels,

Bertell stated,

During that retreat, I lost whatever internal resistance I had to being an activist.. .1 wanted to feel free enough to give myself to this work, to care nothing about money or status or what people think, or 'what a Sister ought to be doing' or what the Bishop thought. I had to feel the earth suffering and I had to know that it didn't have to suffer.230

As this revelation makes clear, Bertell's religious vocation was central to her decision to become an anti-nuclear activist. Indeed, this was one of the aspects of her identity that distinguished her from other expert activists in groups like UCS, Physicians for Social

Responsibility (PSR), and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

(IPPNW) - as well as the other scientists who were critical of low level radiation standards. She drew strength and support not only from the scientific community or her professional affiliations, but from the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart as well as other religious sisterhoods around the world.

Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 53-55. In these first years of her work, she was not self conscious about integrating science and religion in the various forums where she advocated a moratorium on nuclear power. When she spoke to the Pennsylvania legislature, for instance, she did more than discuss her scientific research and suggest ways to better understand the effects of low level radiation exposures. Bertell called Gerald Ford's endorsement of the construction of 200 more nuclear power plants in his 1975 State of the Union Address "immoral," stating that she would "feel more comfortable with an austerity program." She elaborated, "The best life doesn't require the most money and power, the biggest, fastest automobile, the most automated home and office." Instead, she suggested, "the best life.. .was a life of service, of friendship." Her vocation and identification with the teachings of Jesus Christ clearly influenced this world view. The fact that she had taken a vow of poverty, moreover, also reinforces the spiritual (or religious) component of this argument.

By the late 1970s, the religious sisterhoods had undergone a major transformation, initiated by Vatican II, which took place between 1962 and 1965. In her book, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, Carole Garibaldi Rogers documents the effects of the Vatican Council on contemporary American nuns through interviews with 94 of these women who lived in religious communities both before and after Vatican II. These stories make it clear that Vatican II had a profound impact on the individual freedom of

231 LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, Hannah Leavitt, "Low level radiation: how much is too much?" Harrisburg Independent Press. January 31 - February 7, 1975, 2; and Don Ward, "Sister Urges Radiation Study," The Catholic Witness. January 30, 1975. 129 nuns, life in convents, and the shape of religious vocations. While many of the stories told by Rogers are clearly examples of exceptional women who were part of the religious sisterhoods after Vatican II (because not all women religious were radicalized by these reforms), their stories are useful for contextualizing Bertell's decision to become an activist. Likewise, these stories reveal how Bertell's vocation emboldened her to devote herself to anti-nuclear activism - not to a quiet life as a research scientist.

It is useful to begin with a survey of what life in convents was like prior to this period of reform. Before Vatican II, when a woman decided she was being called to the religious life, she usually said goodbye to her family for good.232 Sister Peggy Hynes, who joined the Sisters of St. Joseph in the early 1950s, recalls that her two biggest regrets in life were not being able to go to the cemetery when her mother died and not being able to attend her sister's wedding. Other restrictions on personal freedoms included being assigned a new name, having to wear the traditional habit of the community, having to take whatever job assignment the Mother Superior designated, not being allowed to travel alone, having interactions with lay people limited, and generally having to obey the convent superiors at all times.234 Even Rosalie Bertell, who originally joined the

Carmelite Sisters in the early 1950s, lived a very different life in the convent prior to

Vatican II. She recalled,

expecting to live out a quiet life withdrawn from worldly affairs. It would be a life in harmony with nature, relying on farming, and at peace with God. It was my way

Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change: Lives of Contemporary American Nuns (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996), xii. 233 Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, 92. 4 Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, xii-xiii. 130 of changing the world by beginning with my own choice of lifestyle. In Carmel, I discovered the immense richness of my own inner being, the healing grace of silent listening, and the incredible strength developed in solitude. The Monastery was run by women for women, and we undertook plumbing, outside irrigation systems, laying cement walks, electrical wiring, graining wood, raising vegetables and all manner of interesting things. My admiration for feminine management and my trust in myself grew by leaps and bounds.235

The Carmelites are a cloistered order and prior to Vatican II they were pretty much cut off from society and all other religious communities, including other cloistered orders.236

In 1956, Bertell actually had to leave the Carmelites because she suffered a heart attack as a result of poor health and her inability to maintain a lifestyle devoted to intense manual labour. It was two years later that she joined the Grey Nuns.

The effect of Vatican II on the religious sisterhoods was almost immediate. Sister

Mary Rose McGeady, a member of the Daughters of Charity, recalls that her order's habit changed immediately after the first half of the Vatican Council. On September 22,

1963, she recalls, "45,000 of us took off the cornette and put on the blue veil."238 She describes this as an attempt by the sisters to "rid ourselves of any trappings that would prevent us from being relevant to the modern world." Many women chose the course of their educations and received MAs and PhDs in the fields of their choosing after

235 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 3, File 13, Hiroshima and Nagasaki no Shoguen no Kai, Rosalie Bertell, "A U.S. Perspective on the Aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," March 21, 1986, 2. This is an article she was asked to write for "Hiroshima-Nagasaki Shogen (Witness) Magazine." 236 Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, 137-138. 237LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 3, File 13, Hiroshima and Nagasaki no Shoguen no Kai, Rosalie Bertell, "A U.S. Perspective on the Aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," March 21, 1986,2. 238The cornette was "an elaborate white linen headdress with large white wings on each side, commonly worn by women, and men, in the fourteenth century." Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, 99. 239 Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, 99. 131 Vatican II. Sister Rosemary Rader, a Benedictine Sister, for instance, did a PhD in comparative religions at Stanford, with a focus on women and religion in the early 1970s.

Prior to Vatican II, she would have never been able to move away from her community and do a PhD of her choosing.240 Indeed, Bertell's ability to undertake a graduate degree in 1963 was undoubtedly made possible through the reforms to the church as a result of

Vatican II. Likewise, many women were given the freedom to select their ministry by the 1960s. The most profound change within the religious sisterhoods was the increasing focus on anti-poverty, civil rights, inter-faith, and social justice work around the world.

Rogers interviewed women engaged in inter-faith ministries with the Jewish community, women doing outreach in the gay community, women dedicated to peace activism, women running women's and homeless shelters, women working in inner-city public schools, women serving rural poor communities as medical doctors and acting ministers, and women engaged in civil rights and feminist activism both inside and outside the

Church.241 In fact, the name of Bertell's first non-profit organization in 1978 was

Ministry of Concern for Public Health (MCPH), which was her way of literally referencing the religious ministry she had chosen for herself after leaving Roswell.242

Even with the many reforms during Vatican II, many of the women in Rogers' book were

240 Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change, 24-29. 241 Carole Garibaldi Rogers, Poverty, Chastity, and Change. The stories of these different women run throughout the book. 242 LAC, MG31K39-Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franlin Part 4 - "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia: Newport News Division" - in this file is a copy of Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony, taken at the IICPH in Toronto on March 10, 1987 - given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants. 132 at odds with the male hierarchy in the Church over how they viewed the meaning of their vocations. Bertell also found herself at odds with the church at several points in her activist career and she clearly anticipated this when deciding to leave her position as an academic scientist. Nevertheless, this, too, was supported by Vatican II, when the

Church officially recognized people's "authority to dissent" from both the Church and the

State. Activists from all levels of the Catholic Church - including priests and parishioners - were also empowered by the Church's new commitment to social justice around the world. As a result of these Vatican II reforms and the climate of reform in the

United States, increasing numbers of Catholics joined the civil rights movement, the women's movement, anti-poverty struggles, and the growing peace movement, hence, firmly linking peace and justice in the Catholic activist community.243 All of this formed the foundation upon which Bertell decided to devote herself to activism in 1975.

Two More Years at Roswell

Even though she made anti-nuclear activism her 'ministry' by the end of 1975,

Bertell returned to Roswell in 1976 with the intention of balancing this with her scientific career. Indeed, her work as a Roswell scientist lent credibility to her every public address between 1975 and 1978. During her final two years at Roswell, she engaged in a variety of disputes over the expansion of nuclear power across the country. For example, in 1977 she rejoined members of the Citizen's Energy Council in New York State to

243 Patricia McNeal, Harder Than War: Catholic Peacemaking in Twentieth-Century America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 132. McNeal traces the Catholic social activism impulse to the 1930s and Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, but also emphasizes the importance of Vatican II. 133 publicly debate the expansion of nuclear power. Again, she criticized the lack of radiation health monitoring surrounding nuclear power plants, arguing that it made it impossible to hold the nuclear industry accountable for the damage they were doing to public health.244 Likewise, she used her holidays from Roswell to travel to Tulsa,

Oklahoma so she could testify in the hearings over the licensing of Black Fox Nuclear

Generating Stations I and II. In an interview with a local newspaper in Tulsa, she declared,

I contend that this industry is using an elaborate licensing mechanism to hide the fact that it is experimenting with human life and the genetic pool which governs the future of human life, it is condoning murder for the sake of technology, and it is thwarting every sensible method of accountability by which the results of its actions may be made apparent.245

This kind of rhetoric by Bertell appealed to citizens who feared the implications of having nuclear power plants in their backyards. The fact that she was a scientist, moreover, made her an even bigger asset in their local movements to oppose nuclear power.

However, such rhetoric also tarnished her credibility in the regulatory arena. Her participation in the hearings to license the Pilgrim II Nuclear Reactor Station in

Massachusetts is instructive here. In 1977, Bertell testified on behalf of Alan and Marion

Cleeton, who filed a petition with the NRC to prevent the licensing of this new reactor.

Bertell's testimony was solicited to substantiate the Cleeton's Contention that the

244 LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 5, Press Clippings, "Point of View: Latest Move in Nuclear Power Play," March 17, 1977. 245 LAC, MG31 K39, Vol. 131, File 7, Press Clippings, "Sister Testifies at Hearing on Black Fox Nuclear Station." 134 proposed nuclear power facility posed an undue threat to the health and safety of the

Cleeton family. Bertell's testimony was consistent with her discussions of her research findings from the Tri-State Study and her concerns about the lack of health monitoring that have been outlined thus far in this chapter. As soon as her testimony was submitted as evidence, the lawyer for Boston Edison Company, who filed the initial reactor application, submitted a motion to have Bertell's testimony striken from the record. One of the chief reasons he cited was Bertell's argumentative tone. In the testimony, she wrote, "Legally, if the exposure is within "permissible" guidelines, does it follow that the illness or death is permissible?" Likewise, Bertell repeated the exact statement she made to the Tulsa newspaper reporter:

This industry is using an elaborate licensing mechanism to hide the fact that it is experimenting with human life and the genetic pool which governs the future of human life. It is condoning excessive deaths and injuries, and allowing unprecedented damage to generations of future life for the sake of technology. It is thwarting every sensible method of accountability by which the results of its actions may be made apparent.246

After a brief conference between the lawyers and the representatives from the NRC,

Bertell's testimony was submitted into record, but all "argumentative" excerpts were striken. This included the two statements outlined above. While Bertell's statements were clearly linked to her expertise in cancer epidemiology, her emotional tone detracted from her scientific credibility. This is a good example of the pervasiveness of the stereotype that good science was disengaged from the social and political world that

246 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 11 - BOSTON EDISON CO., PART 1, "Testimony of Dr. Rosalie Bertell on Cleeton Contention E," concerning the Boston Edison Company and the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station, Unit 2. Docket No. 50-471. 135 scientists inhabited - on their days off. Especially in the regulatory arena, where scientist activists were already treated with a healthy dose of suspicion, it was particularly important to exude these stereotypical qualities of scientific objectivity. By linking low level radiation with "excessive deaths and injuries" and showing that she clearly cared,

Bertell failed, in this regard.

Bertell's use of emotional rhetoric to articulate her concerns about low level radiation were not the only thing that put her at a disadvantage in the regulatory arena.

As seen in Chapter 2, there was clearly a hierarchy among expert activists in the anti- nuclear movement. Groups like UCS occupied a position at the top of this hierarchy.

There were several reasons for this, but chief among them was the fact that their experts came from backgrounds in physics and engineering. UCS experts possessed the same methodological tools as the scientists and engineers who worked on reactor design and safety at the NRC and so were equipped to speak in the same language of these experts.

The groups' various critiques, then, probed the minutia of reactor design and safety, pointing to technological shortcomings. It was the discussion of the specifics of these things that were deemed most relevant and acceptable during licensing hearings. Not only were these two disciplines directly relevant to the question of reactor design and safety; they were well-established as hard sciences, which were integral in the historical development of nuclear technology.247 It also helped that UCS was a by-product of the

247 In his article on Rachel Carson, Michael B. Smith notes that the many negative reviewers of Carson's work clearly favoured hard sciences over soft sciences. In this case, though, the hard science was chemistry, while the soft one was biology. Michael B. Smith, "Silence, Miss Carson!" 737. 136 intellectual environment at MIT, the nation's premier institute for the development of science and technology. Because of these factors, UCS members were automatically accorded a modicum of respect in the regulatory arena. Bertell's expertise in epidemiology (and likely her degree from the Catholic University of America), on the other hand, did not command the same level of respect. As illustrated in the first section of this chapter, epidemiological analysis of the long term effects of radiation exposure was not given high priority in the nuclear bureaucracies of the U.S. The way that the

NRC (and the utility companies making applications for new reactors) went about dismissing this knowledge from the reactor hearings was by insisting that all scientific discussions be made specific to the particular nuclear reactor (for example, its' pressure vessels, containment structures, radioactive emissions, and so on) under consideration.

This reinforced the scientific hierarchy. Effectively, Bertell's credibility was undermined in the hearings because her particular expertise fell outside disciplines like physics or engineering, which - because of their central place in the history of nuclear technology - were well-regarded by the nuclear industry.

Bertell sought to re-centre the debate to discuss the ways that this technology had a direct impact on human health and mortality. It involved taking the discussion outside the abstract realm of the reactor machine and into the territory where corporeal consequences were considered. Lawyers and regulators responded to this by portraying her expert opinions as irrational or not grounded in scientific facts. This was true even during the Pilgrim II hearings, which were called to determine whether or not low level

137 radiation exposure from the reactor posed an unwarranted threat to the Cleeton family.

This began when Boston Edison's lawyer tried to have her testimony dismissed. It continued with his deconstruction of her testimony during questioning. BertelPs expertise in epidemiology and her work on the Tri-State Survey qualified her to speak about the effects of low level radiation exposure on a large scale and much of her testimony consisted of a description of this large scale problem as well as a criticism of current standards, which was also rooted in her expert knowledge of the health effects of low level radiation exposure. Because Bertell did not make all of her testimony specific to the Pilgrim Reactor, much of it was deemed irrelevant. For example, Edison's lawyer repeatedly pushed her to link her conclusions back to the Pilgrim Reactor. It is useful to recount some of this dialogue here:

Edison lawyer: You talk about the estimated discharges of radioactive material. Do you have some numbers as to these discharges, either in terms of discharges or dosages to individuals, or populations?

Bertell: I have read a great deal of this, but I don't have it committed to memory.

Edison lawyer: So your answer is that you don't have any memory as to the estimated discharges or the estimated exposures to individuals and/or populations, expected from Pilgrim 2 emissions?

Bertell: It depends on how broadly you average this and whether or not you accept an averaging technique.

Edison lawyer: I move to strike the answer to the question as not being responsive to the question.

Chairman of the hearings: Do you remember what the question was, Doctor?

Bertell: I thought he wanted specific amounts of radiation which persons would receive due to effluents from the plant. My answer was that, you know, there is no 138 overall number I can give. It depends on whether or not you accept an averaging technique of how much effluents from the plant there will be, whether you want to exclude or include abnormal instances, whether you want to include persons within a three-mile radius or a 30-mile radius or a 50-mile radius, or whether you want to average it over the whole United States. There is no way to give a number which will answer the question.

Her inability to accurately account for the exposures that would result from the operation of the Pilgrim Reactor was central to her concern with the lack of health monitoring that was performed in and around nuclear power plants in the United States. Routine

emissions were generally not tracked and recorded because they were not deemed important by the nuclear power industry. Instead of interpreting this as a shortcoming of the industry, the Edison attorney used Bertell's candidness about the complexity of estimating exposures to paint her as incompetent. For instance, when Bertell admitted that her assessment of the threats posed to the Cleeton family from low level radiation exposure was based on her own research and her evaluation of the national nuclear power program, the Edison lawyer replied: "Dr. Bertell, you really don't have any basis, do you,

for saying that the monitoring program proposed for Pilgrim 2 releases is not adequate, do you?" Regulators and utility companies used the NRC process of licensing reactors on an individual basis to fracture discussions of risk from low level radiation exposure.

In the case of Bertell, they did this by insisting that the discussion be made specific to the

248 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 11 - BOSTON EDISON CO., PART 1, "United States of America Nuclear Regulatory Commission: In the matter of: Boston Edison Company, et. al." (Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Unit 2), Docket No. 50-471. The date is Tuesday, 19 April 1977, held in the Bar Association Meeting Room, Middlesex County Courthouse, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 139 particular reactor under consideration. In the process, the lawyer for Edison portrayed

1 • • • 249 her as an incompetent scientist.

Bertell Leaves Roswell

It was very likely related to Bertell's outspoken opposition to nuclear power that the NIH announced its decision to cut funding from the Tri-State Study in 1978. Despite the fact that this was a study of the public health consequences of routine x-ray procedures, Bertell made it impossible to ignore the implications of the Tri-State Study for the nuclear power industry. She certainly gained a lot of attention in local newspapers surrounding the various places she travelled to oppose the expansion of nuclear power.250

Likewise, through the few licensing hearings that she participated in during the 1970s, the NRC was undoubtedly aware of her association with Roswell and the Tri-State team.

And, while the Tri-State Survey was funded by the NIH, this body did not oversee the review of the survey before the funding was cut. Indeed, as Walker recounts in his book,

Permissible Dose, it was the NRC which steered this process. They selected Kenneth J. This happened another time during these same hearings. Martha Drake, who for her Master's Thesis in Human Ecology performed a small epidemiological study surrounding three boiling water reactors in Michigan, also submitted testimony on behalf of the Cleeton family. As a result of the Edison lawyer's objections, the testimony was dismissed by the Chairman of the proceedings. He deemed her testimony irrelevant because her study dealt with boiling water reactors, while the Pilgrim II reactor was a pressurized water reactor. After the Cleeton's attorney noted his objections, the Chairman reaffirmed his decision because Drake had candidly outlined the limitations of her study. When Drake was given a moment to defend herself, she clarified that the study's shortcomings were not rooted in her incompetence, but in its small scale. She tried to impress upon the Chairman the need for the NRC to fund a comprehensive study. LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 11 - BOSTON EDISON CO., PART l, "United States of America Nuclear Regulatory Commission: In the matter of: Boston Edison Company, et. al." (Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Unit 2), Docket No. 50-471. The date is Tuesday, 19 April 1977, held in the Bar Association Meeting Room, Middlesex County Courthouse, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 250 Interestingly, while she received widespread media coverage in the various local disputes over commercial nuclear power in the 1970s, her name was only ever featured in one New York Times article during this period - after the meltdown at Three Mile Island. Ernest Holsendolph, "Scientists Assail Government," New York Times, April 8, 1979, 28. 140 Rothman, a professor at Harvard School of Public Health, who admittedly had no expertise in radiation health, to review the study after Brass and Natarajan published their preliminary findings in the JAMA and the Rogers subcommittee became aware of this research. In April 1978, Rothman concluded that, "although Brass's work should not "be totally disregarded," he did not believe "that his findings warranted] any revision in our thinking about the health consequences of radiation exposure."" Since it was directly after Rothman made his assessment known that the study's funding was cut by the NIH, it is difficult to ignore the connections between the NRC's assessment and the NIH's decision to discontinue funding.

Much like Gofman and Tamplin who came before her, Bertell's negative experiences with the U.S. government influenced her to leave Roswell and her secure scientific career behind. Unlike these two men (and others who decided to devote at least a portion of their lives to anti-nuclear activism), Bertell did not return to her secure position as a faculty member at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

During her tenure at Roswell she had also maintained a position there as Assistant

Research Professor from 1974 to 1978. Almost immediately after the NIH announced its decision in 1978, Bertell severed ties to both Roswell and SUNY Buffalo to establish the

MCPH in Buffalo. This decision put her in an even more precarious position as a reputable scientist. Considering that epidemiological studies required massive collections of data, collaboration between many different scientists and researchers, access to

1 Samuel J. Walker, Permissible Dose, 92-93. 141 sophisticated computer technology for data analysis, and huge investments of research dollars, this is not surprising. MCPH was an activist oriented public health "consulting firm," where Bertell had very limited access to funding.

Using the Religious Sisterhoods to Build a Safe Space For BerteU's Activism

In order to understand BerteU's decision to distance herself from mainstream scientific institutions and the security and prestige afforded those affiliations, it is necessary to revisit her role as a member of the Grey Nuns. BerteU's religious vocation not only inspired her to make anti-nuclear activism her 'ministry' when she left Roswell; it also offered her a different kind of refuge, one where she did not have to worry over the kinds of recognition, which were a precondition to being a 'reputable' scientist.252

Bertell drew upon her place in a women's religious community to stake out her place as a scientific outsider in the radiation health debate. This is less obvious in the sources because, aside from the obvious networking she did within the Church (which I will elaborate upon in later chapters), Bertell rarely drew direct links between her vows and her science in any of the various spaces that she engaged with other scientists and legal professionals. Nevertheless, on a very basic level, membership in a religious

I am not trying to suggest that these things were of no concern to Bertell; because they were. Indeed, the basis of her participation in the anti-nuclear movement was her epidemiological expertise and her work on the Tri-State Survey was something she always highlighted to reinforce this expertise. One of her major frustrations in her career, moreover, was her relatively small publication record in scientific journals. There were several reasons for this, including the extremely demanding work schedule she had as an activist. However, her lack of affiliation with a mainstream research institute or university undoubtedly placed constraints on her ability to garner recognition for her scientific opinions. 253 Her presentation before the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1975 was an exception. Indeed, when she held her position at Roswell, there was no mistaking her status as a scientist, whereas later on she fought against being dismissed as an anti-nuclear nun. This is why I suggested she was unselfconscious of drawing links 142 community provided Bertell with a place to live, while her vow of poverty prepared her to live a life without the expectation of receiving the financial rewards that might have been associated with a scientific career in a mainstream institution. Likewise, because she was not motivated by the kinds of scientific and financial recognition that were so much a preoccupation and precondition to the success of other scientists, this enabled her to maintain such an adversarial position on the issue of low level radiation exposure.

Bertell's position was rather rare. None of the UCS, PSR, and IPPNW254 scientists or doctors completely eschewed affiliation with professional associations, research institutions, or universities. In fact, the opposite was true - these individuals nurtured their affiliations with places like Harvard and MIT and used them to further promote their anti-nuclear work. 5 This is especially true because it was so difficult to protect claims to scientific credibility as a scientist activist and these affiliations - whether they were through a hospital or a university - gave more weight to the particular

expert making these arguments. Because the organizations to which Bertell belonged throughout her career were very small, often with herself as the only scientist on the payroll, she also had a lot more freedom (if not financial security) as a scientist activist than other members of UCS, PSR, or IPPNW, all three of which eventually gained status between the two aspects of her identity in her first few years as an activist. She also likely learned through experience that references to her religious vocation hindered her in the regulatory arena. 254 PSR and IPPNW will be introduced in the second section of this thesis, where I discuss the role of doctor's in the anti-nuclear movement during the 1980s. 255 Helen Caldicott is the one exception to this: she stopped practicing medicine in the early 1980s because she could not juggle the responsibilities of parenting three children, running PSR, and having a private practice. 256 Indeed, even Bertell maintained membership in places like the International Biometric Society and the American Public Health Association. 143 as national or international organizations. Even though it is clear that Bertell was also concerned with maintaining her credibility as a scientist, her affiliation with the religious sisterhoods made her less concerned about defining her research questions in ways that were amenable to those who were in the mainstream of her professional community, or the larger scientific community engaged in radiation health issues. Likewise, her vow of poverty and her vow of charity made it logical for her to advocate on behalf of the people directly affected by these industries, even though they had little ability to compensate her financially. Taking a vow of poverty put her in a unique position to do this.

The role of Bertell's status as a nun is also instructive of how her vows of charity and poverty were very much gendered as well as religious concepts. Looking at her work from this perspective reveals how pervasive gender stereotypes reinforced her work and made charity such a lasting presence in it. For centuries nuns have taken vows of poverty, thus, enabling them to adopt missions to care for others for free. Even though many women have increasingly entered scientific and academic professions throughout the twentieth century, working in such a care-giving role without pay continues to be an acceptable (even taken for granted) form of women's work. In the context of the religious sisterhoods, the most obvious corollary to Bertell's work in the late twentieth century is the work of nursing sisters in nineteenth and twentieth century hospitals. As

Barbara Mann Wall asserts in her article about the Sisters of St. Joseph's nursing work during the Civil War, these women's "mission in life was to carry out God's work by

144 serving others." Pauline Paul and Janet Ross Kerr make the same point about selfless care in their work on the Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. They describe that during epidemics nuns were generally the ones who stayed behind to assume the burden of care. While it is true that BertelPs work was distinct from that of these nursing sisters because it was performed in a very different time and place, a similar argument can be made about the maternal character of her work. Her affiliation with a women's religious community and the long history of women religious care-givers reinforced this.

This connection empowered her to ignore enduring conventions within the scientific community - a society of individuals most often revered for their ability to remain detached and unemotional about their subjects of inquiry.

Bertell's Role in Federal Radiation Injury Cases

After Bertell left Roswell, she continued opposing the expansion of nuclear power plants in various local disputes (at the behest of different citizen's groups), but she also participated in the individual cases of soldiers and citizens who began filing lawsuits against the federal government in 1979. Barton Hacker elaborates on this growing trend in Elements of Controversy. During the first half of the 1980s, the federal courts were

Barbara Mann Wall, "Called to a Mission of Charity: The Sisters of St. Joseph in the Civil War" Nursing History Review 6 (1998): 90. 258 Pauline Paul and Janet Ross Kerr, "A Philosophy of Care: The Grey Nuns of Montreal," in Edmonton: The Life of a City, eds. Bob Hesketh and Frances Swyripa (Edmonton: NeWest Publishers Limited, 1995), 130. There is a pretty extensive literature that elaborates on this theme of the nun as the selfless caregiver, especially in the context of the nineteenth century. See also, Aline Charles, "Women's Work in Eclipse: Nuns in Quebec Hospitals, 1940-1980," in Women, Health, and Nation: Canada and the United States Since 1945, ed. Georgina Feldberg, Molly Ladd-Taylor, Alison Li, and Kathryn McPherson (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003), 264-291 and Lisa Rumiel, "Keeping the Faith: The Role of Nuns and Nurses in Catholic Hospitals, 1929-1949," Major Research Paper, York University, October 2001. 145 clogged with cases of veterans and civilians seeking reparations for what they perceived to be radiation injuries. But the first cases were introduced in court during 1979. By this time, it was increasingly clear that the Veterans Administration (VA) was unwilling to acknowledge government liability and award veterans' claims. For example, between

1967 and 1979, the VA considered 291 claims in which veterans contended that they had sustained radiation injuries while participating in the nuclear weapons testing program:

283 of those claims were denied. According to the VA, "a disease was service connected.. .only if it manifested itself within a year of discharge," which was not enough time for radiation injuries to develop. Only 6 of the 283 denied claims were reversed on appeal. Prospects of success for the veterans in the federal courts were not much more promising. Because veterans had access to free health care, their ability to seek reparations in the courts was constrained. Likewise, when filing a lawsuit against the

VA, veterans were only entitled to ten dollars in attorney fees. The most formidable obstacle to the veterans' lawsuits, however, was the Supreme Court's 1950 amendment to the Federal Tort Claims Act (1946) - known as the Feres Doctrine. As Hacker reveals,

"the 1950 ruling left the government immune from liability for injuries suffered by members of the armed forces incident to military service." Despite numerous attempts to challenge this 1950 decision, it was upheld during the many cases that were brought before the courts during this period. Civilians, who were not subject to the same limitations as veterans, did not fare much better during this period.259

Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 266-272. 146 Bertell testified as an expert for the prosecution in two of these 1979 cases. One of the cases was Punnett v. Carter, a suit which sought - not damages - but "an order requiring the government to warn servicemen and their families of the increased risks of genetic defects in offspring arising from the radiation exposures during the nuclear tests."

Hope Punnett was a genetic counselor at the St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in

Philadelphia. She filed the suit jointly with Howard Hinkie, an ex-serviceman who was present for seventeen weapons tests in the Nevada Desert betweenl951 and 1962, and his wife and son, Irene and Paul Hinkie. This was the first case of its kind, where parties challenged the government's statements of "no health risk" in relation to the weapons testing program. The primary expert witness for the plaintiffs was Ernest Sternglass (the same Sternglass who sparked the controversy in the AEC between Tamplin and his superiors), who testified that the servicemen received both "direct" and "chronic" exposure to radiation during the testing program. Similarly, Bertell endorsed the plaintiffs demands and her testimony underlined that there was "no known safe threshold of radiation exposure." The Judge in the case dismissed the plaintiffs request for a preliminary injunction on March 30, 1979 and after losing their appeal in 1980, the plaintiffs counsel, Herbert Newburg, informed Bertell that he and his partner no longer

260 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 18 - CANADIAN PACIFIC EXPRESS - CARBON 14 (MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT), Barrack, Rodos, and McMahon, Attorneys at Law, Philadelphia, PA, April 5, 1979, "For Immediate Release," Herbert B. Newberg, Council, Re: LITIGATION INVOLVING GENETIC EFFECTS OF ATOM BOMB TESTING PROGRAMS - PUNNETT V. CARTER, C.A. 79-29 (E.D. Pa.). 147 had the funds to continue with the case. The basis of the Judge's decision was twofold: first, he determined that warning servicemen of the genetic risks from radiation exposure was contrary to the public interest. He declared,

Obviously, the resulting anxiety would be immeasurable. Plaintiffs have not shown what impact such anxiety could itself have on an existing pregnancy. However, a risk of unnecessary abortion is present. These participants may be unreasonably rejected as marital partners. Families that have long existed may be broken up...Couples may make unnecessary family planning decisions which they would not have otherwise made.262

Instead of focusing on the harm caused by weapons testing, the judge admonished the plaintiffs for unnecessarily proposing to frighten and harm the public. It is worth noting that Punnett v. Carter was tried only six years after Roe v. Wade was announced by the Supreme Court. Central to the plaintiffs case was the argument that greater awareness about genetic risks from radiation exposure during weapons testing would enable families to make better informed family planning decisions. The Hinkie's were considered a good illustration of this point because they had had three stillborn babies during Howard Hinkie's time working in the Nevada desert, one son who died as a result of complications from a birth defect, and another son who was also born with a birth

261 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 18 - CANADIAN PACIFIC EXPRESS - CARBON 14 (MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT), Correspondence from Herbert Newberg to Sidel, Bertell, Sternglass, and Punnett, August 12, 1980. 262 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 16, File 19, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Hope Punnett, et al vs. Jimmy Carter, et al; Civil Action No. 79-29," Philadelphia, PA, March 30, 1979,27-28. Beck speaks about this as a trend in the risk society: "suddenly it is not the hazards, but those who point them out that provoke the general uneasiness." See, Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, 75. 148 defect. The judge's decision was also clearly shaped by prevalent anxieties about the meaning of Roe v. Wade and fears over rising abortion rates in the United States.

The second rationale provided by the judge was that the plaintiffs expert testimony was flawed. Because this was a preliminary injunction, the issue before the judge was whether or not the plaintiffs had enough evidence to go to trial. In the words of the judge: "I'm not asked to decide whether the government's actions between 1951 to

1962 were responsible, or whether the government was negligent, reckless or malicious as to all or any of the men involved." The burden of proof resided with the plaintiffs and, in particular, their expert witnesses. In this case, they were expected to prove that radiation exposure from weapons testing posed serious genetic risks to test workers - on a level that was considerably higher than for the general population. This particular case is a good example of how little promise there was in getting the courts to recognize radiation damage. Sternglass's testimony was at the centre of the judge's (as well as the

U.S. Government's) critique of the plaintiffs experts. In his affidavit, Sternglass, who represented the only plaintiff expert on radiation dosimetry, attempted to estimate the average radiation exposure of a Nevada Test Site worker between 1951 and 1962. To do this, he devised an elaborate simulation of the test site. Built into his testimony were several assumptions: that test site workers were (on average) located two miles from

"ground zero" at the time of detonation; "seventy percent of the bombs.. .contained]

264 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 18 - CANADIAN PACIFIC EXPRESS - CARBON 14 (MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT), a letter from Bertell to Newburg, dated August 27, 1980. 265 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 16, File 19, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Hope Punnett, et al vs. Jimmy Carter, et al; Civil Action No. 79-29," Philadelphia, PA, March 30, 1979,7. 149 plutonium," while thirty percent contained uranium; "the average yield of the bombs was

20 kilotons;" "the total number of individual servicemen" exposed was 100,000; the total number of tests each man attended was approximately three; and so on. From this multitude of factors, Sternglass mathematically estimated average exposure levels. When questioned by the attorneys for the Federal government, virtually every one of his assumptions and estimates were refuted. The judge, moreover, focused the substance of his critique on the flaws in Sternglass's testimony, concluding that his exposure estimates

"lack[ed] any factual basis."266 It is not my intention here to argue the merits of

Sternglass's affidavit. However, as an historian it is possible to elucidate how the

'burden of proof in these cases made it possible for the federal government to avoid productively addressing the concerns of people who were exposed to radiation during the nuclear weapons testing program. The judge (nor likely the Federal government) made no mention of the fact that worker dosimetry records were classified by the AEC (and later the DOE), making it impossible for interested researchers to accurately determine these radiation exposures and scientifically study their health effects. This is why scientists like Sternglass devised these elaborate scenarios to begin with. As late as 1978, these dosimetry records were "widely dispersed" across the country and were "hard to

266LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 16, File 19, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Hope Punnett, et al vs. Jimmy Carter, et al; Civil Action No. 79-29," Philadelphia, PA, March 30, 1979, 10-18. The quote is taken from page 12. 267 For a discussion of the relationship between the law and scientific expertise, see, Sheila Jasanoff, Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), and Roger Smith and Brian Wynne, (eds.) Expert Evidence: Interpreting Science in the Law (London: Routledge, 1989). Jasanoff s chapter on "Toxic Torts and the Politics of Causation" is particularly revealing of the way the legal system often (rightly or wrongly) affirmed the innocence of polluting industries because of the courts' insistence that plaintiffs show a direct causal link between exposures and illness. 150 retrieve." It was not until February 1979 that the DOE finally approved the Central

Dosimetry Records Project, part of which included plans to make this information available "to any person or group needing them for epidemiological studies, compensation claims, or lawsuits." However, it would be a long time before any of this was possible. The realities of the circumstances surrounding Sternglass's estimations were not acknowledged by the court. Rather, the defense deconstructed his testimony until all of the credibility attached to the plaintiffs "counterexpertise" was eroded. The court further affirmed this in its decision. The substance of evidence presented by the three other "counterexperts" was dismissed because each individual (including Bertell) incorporated Sternglass's exposure estimates into their affidavits. 69 As a result, the judge avoided ever engaging the issue brought before the court, which related to whether or not the federal government should be more transparent about the genetic risks associated with radiation exposure from weapons testing.

The judge also noted his distaste for the emotional character of the plaintiffs expert testimony. He reiterated this sentiment several times throughout his decision. For instance, he said,

"these witnesses did not demonstrate the detailed intellectual objectivity that one might hope to find in a scientist testifying in a court of law. Rather, these witnesses were interested witnesses in the very realist sense and in the most obvious degree. They obviously came to this court house in support of a cause."

See Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 262-263. 269 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, 30. Beck describes that public criticism of risky technologies is fuelled by the "dialectic of expertise and counterexpertise." It is from here that I am borrowing the term "counterexpertise." 151 He also admonished them for their "editorial exhortations," accusing Sternglass, Punnett, and Bertell, in particular, of "emotional and ideological involvement with the issues of this case." They were "crusaders in search of a forum, and the weight to be given to their testimony must be affected accordingly." This was because each of these scientists clearly sympathized with the plight of the plaintiffs. Sternglass noted in his testimony that "a sense of common decency" should compel the judge to approve the warning.

Victor Sidel (a medical doctor and future member of PSR) spoke about the "absolute right" of a nuclear test worker to have access to information about "his or her own radiation exposure history." Punnett wrote, "I firmly believe that my role is to help people make decisions, the decisions about their future, their children, their reproductive

970 choices." The intersection of scientific expertise with social justice concerns clearly made this judge uncomfortable, as did the scientists' and physicians' unabashed display of empathy. He ascribed to the more 'traditional' view of the scientist as detached from social and political concerns; an ideology that was firmly rooted in the gendered notion that good objective science was antithetical to the characteristics of femininity. While this was clearly a fictitious stereotype, it was potent. By way of contrast, the judge made no mention of the defense, who undoubtedly rallied its own experts to dismantle the plaintiffs case and who (for very different reasons) were also quite interested in its outcome.

2/0 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 16, File 19, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Hope Punnett, et al vs. Jimmy Carter, et al; Civil Action No. 79-29," Philadelphia, PA, March 30, 1979,22-26. 152 Bertell, in particular, was singled out by the judge in the Hinkie case. Sternglass,

Sidel, and Punnett were all referred to as Doctors in the judgment, while Bertell was addressed using the title, "Sister." This was not for the purpose of revering her status as a member of the Grey Nuns, but rather was a way of undermining her identification as a

scientist. Indeed, the judge declared, "Sister Bertell is a mathematician. She is not a

geneticist, nor is she an expert on radiation." In the affidavit Bertell submitted to the

court, she highlighted the work of several influential geneticists and radiation scientists, whose research elaborated on the "mutagenic" effects of ionizing radiation. Among the

experts cited was H.J. Muller, whose path breaking work in radiation genetics won him the Nobel Prize in 1946. She used the examples of various laboratory studies to show that the genetic effect of radiation on human cells was clearly documented. Her work on the Tri-State Survey, moreover, was used to show that "this cumulative mutagenic effect

of radiation [wa]s occurring in the population" and had been "quantified at least roughly" by Bertell and her colleagues. Despite the national efforts to integrate mathematics

into the health sciences, which began in the 1960s, the judge clearly did not recognize her particular mathematical expertise as relevant to the question of genetic effects from radiation exposure. Moreover, the fact that she cited the work of geneticists and radiations scientists was interpreted as a weakness on her part - an indication that

(because she relied on the work of others outside her field) she was not really a scientist

271 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 16, File 19, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Hope Punnett, et al vs. Jimmy Carter, et al; Civil Action No. 79-29," Philadelphia, PA, March 30, 1979, 19. 272 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 16, File 19, "Affidavit of Rosalie Bertell," Date Unknown. 153 at all. In his book, Risk Society, Ulrich Beck suggests that the opposite was true. He argues, "As they are constituted - with their overspecialized division of labor, their concentration on methodology and theory.. .the sciences are entirely incapable of reacting adequately to civilizational risks."[emphasis in original] The demand for "pure scientific method," according to Beck, confused rather than illuminated the effects of

"global industrial pollution and contamination of air, water, ...foodstuffs," and people.

BertelPs reference to these other scientific studies was not only her way of justifying her participation in this discussion of genetics. It was a way of acknowledging the messiness of radiation health issues and highlighting that, in order to understand them, it was necessary to consider scientific research from a variety of disciplines. Regardless, this was contrary to the court's perception that good science was 'pure.'

The other lawsuit in which Bertell provided expert testimony was filed by the widows of William Nunamaker and Harley Roberts, two former test workers, who died of leukemia in 1974. In 1979, this case reached the trial stage in the federal court system.274 Roberts and Nunamaker were two of 900 workers living and working on

Rainier Mesa of Area 12 of the Nevada Test Site during the 1970 "baneberry test." At the time of the test, both men worked for independent contractors of the federal government. Nunamaker was a welder and electrician, and Roberts was a security guard.275 The case centred on "whether or not the men's relatively small doses could in

273 Ulrich Beck, Risk Society, 59. 274 Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 268-269. 275 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 19 - CANADIAN PACIFIC EXPRESS AND TRANSPORT LTD. (CARBON 14 - BACKGROUND INFORMATION, "United States District Court, 154 fact have caused their fatal disease." The judge "found the AEC negligent in several areas, notably, in failing to use proper decontamination procedures on all eighty-six workers found to have radioactivity on their persons or clothing." However, he did not find the plaintiffs expert testimony on the relationship between the radiation exposure

01 ft and leukemia compelling. Bertell was one of these experts for the plaintiffs. There were two reasons for the court's decision on the issue of the men's leukemia: the experts did not establish a causal link between the radiation exposure and leukemia; and exposure limits were "officially" within acceptable limits. This case further underlines the futility of using the federal courts to seek damages for people suffering from radiation injuries - whether they were real or perceived.

The fate of this case was not helped by the fact that many of the plaintiffs scientific experts were outsiders in the scientific community and the institutions that were responsible for establishing radiation health standards. These experts included Bertell and Alice Stewart, who were both associated with scientific studies on low level radiation that lost funding after the first publication of their research findings, and John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin, who both left employment with the AEC funded LLNL after a long and protracted debate with their employers over radiation safety standards. When the

District Court of Nevada" In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259. "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law." 1983. 276 Barton Hacker, Elements of Controversy, 269. See also, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 3. 155 judge first introduced the plaintiffs list of scientific experts on the relationship between low level radiation exposure, he put quotation marks around the word "experts," as if to indicate that there were questions about this fact.277 Moreover, in response to Bertell,

Stewart, Gofman, and Tamplin's assertion that occupational radiation exposure standards were inadequate, the judge replied that those responsible for setting the standards were

"distinguished scientists...qualified...in radiation matters...and the Court will not question their correctness." Because the 1980 BEIR committee had again rejected the pleas of these scientists to further reduce exposure limits, the judge took this as evidence of the BEIR committee's prudence and the plaintiff experts' naivete. The judge also refuted the plaintiffs use of the linear no-threshold theory, which was supported by the

97Q

1972 BEIR Committee report because the 1980 BEIR report repudiated it. Likewise, he rejected the plaintiffs reliance on the Tri-State Study - as evidence that low level radiation exposure caused leukemia - because it had been "widely and correctly criticized and not accepted by the majority of recognized authorities in the radiation

277 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada" In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259. "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," 59. 278 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 57-58. 279 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 64. 156 community."280 He drew the same conclusion about Alice Stewart and her reference to the Hanford Study: he declared, "There is wide agreement that the Hanford Study does not represent a valid statistical interpretation of the actual data."281 The message of the court was clear: because none of these scientific experts were on or had the favour of mainstream regulatory bodies like BEIR, they were wrong. Together, these two federal lawsuits reveal how the courts were - in most instances - organized to reaffirm the policies of the U.S. government. Indeed, part of the judge's decision in the

Nunamaker/Roberts case was an affirmation of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program. He wrote, "The United States of America, in furtherance of its duty to protect the national security and deter attack from hostile foreign forces, conducts underground tests of nuclear devices and weapons." Likewise, he accepted that "5 to 20 tests may be necessary in the development of a nuclear device in order to confirm the fundamental physical processes involved and to verify engineering changes to assure that no mistakes

280 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 65. 281 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 67. 282 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 4. 157 were made in the design." This is yet another example of how American enthusiasm for nuclear technology overshadowed concerns with public health.

Conclusion

This chapter illustrates that the debate over the health effects of low level radiation was not only about questions of science; it was intensely political. In order to understand how radiation standards were arrived at throughout the twentieth century, it is impossible to ignore the long history of American enthusiasm for nuclear technology.

Because the U.S. government was so thoroughly invested in nuclear technology, activist scientists like Bertell, who challenged the safety of even the lowest doses of radiation, occupied an extremely tenuous place in this debate. The fragility of her position was reinforced by the fact that she was an epidemiologist, who used her methodological tools to refocus the discussion to account for the human impact of nuclear technology. Not only were the AEC and the NRC uninterested in investing in the epidemiological analysis of the long term health effects of radiation exposure from nuclear technology; these bureaucracies (as well as the many utility companies seeking applications for nuclear power) tried to destabilize this kind of scientific knowledge entirely. The same was true in the courts, where judges and the federal government portrayed Bertell (and other scientists raising concerns about low level radiation exposure) as unscientific, irrational, and overly emotional for openly aligning herself with citizens whose health was effected

283 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada: In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259: Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," June 14, 1984, 6. 158 by these exposures. Because these were qualities that were more readily associated with femininity, they were rendered antithetical to the work of rigorous scientists. The fact that Bertell was associated with the Tri-State Survey, which had its funding cut by the

NIH, reinforced this portrait of the unfit scientist. Likewise, the fact that she was a member of a religious order, who disavowed her association with mainstream science in

1978, when she left Roswell and SUNY Buffalo, made it even easier to have her dismissed. Regardless, however, she carved out a space for herself within the activist community of people concerned about the effects of radiation on their health. It proved impossible to completely dismiss her because her scientific opinions continued to be in demand throughout the 1970s. The fact that she was a member of a women's religious community provided her with even more security. Regardless of the many scathing critiques of her work, Bertell had a religious community that supported her activism and made it possible for her to continue her work long after she left Roswell and the financial security that position provided. The 1970s were only the beginning of what would be a very long activist career for Bertell. She devoted the remainder of her working career to advocating on behalf of communities and individuals affected by nuclear technology.

Discussion of her further work will be taken up again in the context of this dissertation's examination of the work of expert activists in the anti-nuclear movement from 1980 to

1986. First, to accord with the chronology established in the first section of this dissertation, I will turn to the work of UCS during these later years.

159 160 Part II: The Role of Scientists and Physicians in the Disarmament Movement, 1980 to 1986

161 Chapter 4: "Sex and Death in the Rational World' of Scientist Activists: The Role of Union of Concerned Scientists in the Anti-Nuclear Movement., 1980 to 1986"

On June 12, 1982, Randall Forsberg, the leader of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze

Campaign, declared,

We've done it. The nuclear freeze campaign has mobilized the biggest peacetime peace movement in United States history. The politicians don't believe it yet. They will. They think this is a fad. It's not. The American people are fed up with the nuclear arms race. We're scared of the nuclear arms race, and we should be. Until the arms race stops, until we have a world with peace and justice, we will not go home and be quiet. We will go home and organize.

The years between 1980 and 1986, roughly, marked a transition in anti-nuclear activism in the United States. Opposition to nuclear power, which had consumed the movement for the decade leading up to this period, began to wane. Likewise, national media coverage of nuclear power issues decreased significantly. Replacing nuclear power in the public eye was a renewed fear about the impending threat of nuclear war and the large

Nuclear Freeze rally organized by Forsberg in Manhattan was the culmination of two years spent organizing this opposition to the arms race in the U.S. Whereas anti-nuclear activists were previously focused on raising alarm over the public health threats of radiation exposure, unsafe nuclear reactors, mounting nuclear waste, and the impending danger of accidents like that which took place at Three Mile Island (TMI) in 1979, the national movement in the 1980s focused instead on apocalyptic visions of nuclear war and devised methods of prevention.

284 Robin Herman, "Rally Speakers Decry Cost of Nuclear Arms Race," New York Times, June 13, 1982, 43. As a result of these changes, the role of biomedical and scientific experts within the anti-nuclear movement was transformed. This chapter traces the changing role of scientist activists through the example of Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The first section of the chapter is devoted to a discussion of broader trends in the anti-nuclear movement between 1980 and 1986. In particular, I examine the shift away from nuclear power and towards disarmament by 1982 and describe the kinds of groups who belonged to this new expression of anti-nuclear activism. The second section places the work of

UCS into this broader context through an examination of the organization's newsletter,

Nucleus, as well as the extensive coverage of the group in the New York Times. Unlike many other groups who abandoned the nuclear power opposition by the 1980s, UCS continued to focus on the public health and safety problems of nuclear power, while expanding the organization and broadening its focus to include the issue of disarmament.

As the issues covered by the group expanded, so, too, did the number of people who supported the work of UCS. For example, in 1983, UCS Executive Director, Eric Van

Loon, reported that the group increased its number of supporters by 40,000, bringing the total number of UCS members to 100,000.285 My analysis of Nucleus and the New York

Times illustrates how UCS balanced its nuclear power opposition with its disarmament activism. It is also a good illustration of how focused on lobbying Congress and trying to influence foreign policy decision making the group became. By the 1980s, there was a diverse enough group of scientists affiliated with UCS, making it possible for the group

285 William Robbins, "Diverse Antiwar Movement Cites Gains," New York Times, July 18, 1983, A6. 163 to continue drawing on the technical expertise of its members. This lent greater credibility to UCS and secured the group an audience with government representatives and policymakers, who were concerned about the foreign policy directions of President

Ronald Reagan's government.

The third (and final) section of this chapter draws on Carol Cohn and Brian

Easlea's feminist critiques of masculinity within the work culture, professional identities, and language of defense intellectuals and Manhattan Project physicists, respectively, to show how UCS so successfully navigated its transition towards disarmament activism.

Indeed, the title of Cohn's article, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense

Intellectuals," is the inspiration behind this chapter's title. I will also show how the emphasis on expertise and professional status by UCS was used to create a clear distinction between UCS and other non-scientific (lay) activists from the rest of the anti- nuclear movement. While UCS was undoubtedly an active and influential group in the anti-nuclear movement during the 1980s, the organization was careful to distinguish its position on the issue of disarmament from the larger movement of concerned Americans, who joined the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. I will argue that it was UCS's scientific identity and desire to be taken seriously by their scientific peers and the defense community that influenced the activist group to limit its direct connections with the larger disarmament movement. Indeed, as was the case during the organization's involvement in anti-nuclear activism during the 1970s, the background of most key UCS members in either physics or engineering gave them an advantage because they spoke the same (or a

164 similar) sanitized, technological language as government proponents of nuclear technology. UCS scientists were most comfortable using this language and in a lot of ways they had more in common with defense intellectuals than with other members of the anti-nuclear movement. As a result, however, the group's discussions of nuclear weapons were often out of touch with the very real fear and outrage they inspired in so many people. Likewise, the central role of scientific expertise in engineering and physics to their work meant that they rarely made connections with people who were directly affected by nuclear technology.

The Broader Landscape of the Anti-Nuclear Movement 1980-1986

Although there were several factors influencing the shift away from nuclear power in the American anti-nuclear movement, the primary reason was that the utility was declining by 1980 and so the movement lacked an arch nemesis. The accident at

Three Mile Island (TMI) was the most visible cause of nuclear power's decline; but, the utility was suffering long before this. In his book, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy,

Christian Joppke reveals how orders for new nuclear power plants declined significantly as early as 1974 and dropped to zero in 1978 because plant construction costs had skyrocketed. He explains that between 1971 and 1978 "nuclear capital costs increased by

142 percent," which was twice that of the coal industry. The accident at TMI further sealed the fate of the nuclear power industry. In 1979 there were 70 nuclear power plants generating 13% of U.S. electricity and 92 reactors in the process of construction.

However, by 1982, 40 of the reactors under construction were scrapped, despite the fact

165 that over $50 million had already been invested in them. In addition, by the early

1980s the energy crisis was over and with it the intensive debate over energy alternatives had cooled.287 Likewise, the rising costs of nuclear power plant construction and the poor safety record of existing plants tarnished the promise of nuclear power in the public eye.

Despite the fact that nuclear power fell off the national radar, the technology did not die completely with TMI. Accordingly, local pockets of opposition to specific nuclear power facilities continued. Both Joppke and Thomas Raymond Wellock, who wrote an historical study of nuclear power opposition in California, explain that anti- nuclear power activism in the 1980s was more diffuse and centred around the specific communities living in the vicinity of nuclear reactors. The targets of activism were no longer proposed nuclear power plants, but rather, those already in operation or in the process of construction. These localized efforts to curb nuclear power focused on three things: nuclear waste disposal, emergency planning, and regulating the utility. It was in these localized disputes with utility companies that UCS continued to work throughout the 1980s and after. It was not until April 26, 1986, when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown occurred, that nuclear power again received widespread attention internationally and within the U.S. Indeed, it sparked a new wave of anti-nuclear activism in the U.S., as will be seen in the third section of this dissertation.

Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 135-136. Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 130. See Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958- 1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 243-246; and Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 150-151. 166 Growing fear over nuclear war was the single most influential factor pushing the issue of nuclear power to the background in the 1980s. Reagan's election was significant in this regard. By the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency, the move away from detente foreign policy towards massive weapons build-up had already begun. But Reagan's plans to devote massive funds to defense spending, his administration's belief that a

"limited nuclear war in Europe" could be fought and won by the United States, his plans to bring the weapons race to space, and develop the country's "first strike" capability scared many Americans.289 Defense experts quickly developed a new language about nuclear war, discarding old talk about how the sheer destructive nature of nuclear weaponry in both the U.S. and Soviet arsenals was insurance enough to prevent nuclear war. Instead, they began drawing up battle plans and developing weapons that would not only "ensure" U.S. survival, but "promise" victory.

Shortly after Reagan's election, organized opposition to nuclear weapons began.

However, these efforts did not garner a massive following and national media attention in the U.S. until 1982. The infrastructure to build an anti-nuclear weapons movement was already present in the early 1980s. Arms control groups who pushed for the Nuclear Test

Ban and opposed the development of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense in the 1950s and

1960s still existed in 1980 and were keen to organize a new opposition to nuclear weapons build-up in the U.S. These groups included UCS, Federation of American

289 See Paul Boyer, By The Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 360; and Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 147. 167 Scientists (FAS), Council for A Liveable World, and SANE. Likewise, as is evident by the latter two years of the 1970s, Rosalie Bertell quickly expanded her concerns about low level radiation exposure to include a focus on how nuclear weapons technology also affected human health. Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and International

Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the two groups who will be introduced in Chapter 6 of this dissertation, were also prominent actors in both the national and international opposition to the nuclear arms race during this period.

Likewise, pacifist and anti-war groups were anxious to fill the empty space left by the absence of armed conflict in the U.S. after the Vietnam War ended. These groups included the American Friends Service Committee, Fellowship of Reconciliation, the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, War Resister's League, Women

Strike for Peace, and the newly formed coalition, Mobilization for Survival.290

As David S. Meyer shows in his book, A Winter of Discontent, the coalition of these disarmament and pacifist groups attracted a broad group of Americans to the anti- nuclear movement. Because Reagan's social and economic policies, poor environmental record, and bellicose foreign policy positions invited so much opposition in the United

States, it was relatively simple to achieve this goal. Women's rights groups, minority groups, anti-nuclear power groups, environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth

290 David Meyer, A Winter of Discontent: The Nuclear Freeze and American Politics (New York: Praeger, 1990), 149. Meyer's treatment of the history of the Freeze Movement is the most comprehensive one I have come across. For other earlier accounts see Paul Boyer's "Epilogue" in By the Bomb's Early Light; Michael Kazin, "Politics and the New Peace Movement" Socialist Review 1-2 (1983): 109-121, and "The Freeze: From Strategy to Social Movement," in Search for Sanity: The Politics of Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament, ed. Paul Joseph and Simon Rosenblum (Boston, 1984), 445-461. 168 and the Sierra Club, civil rights groups, and conservative and reactionary groups joined the ranks of the disarmament and pacifist groups to form what would later be known as the Freeze Movement. Indeed, as New York Times columnist Robin Herman, revealed,

Freeze members freely linked their particular activist concerns to the disarmament campaign. "There were black and Hispanic leaders pointing out the connection between big military budgets and reduced social programs for the poor, union leaders asking for jobs instead of costly weapons, doctors voicing concerns about current radiation levels and mothers worrying about their children's future."

In order to maintain the support of this diffuse conglomeration of activists, the

Freeze message was quite broad in its appeal. Establishing goals that were palatable to all of these activists was further complicated by the fact that the groups joining the

Freeze came from the left, right, and middle of the road politically. According to Meyer, the result was a list of watered-down demands, the basic outlines of which included a bilateral freeze on weapons testing, weapons production, and weapons deployment; and a demand that military dollars be redirected "to fund human needs." Ironically, the movement first gained national media attention at a non-Freeze event on November 11,

1981, during the UCS organized Veteran's Day Convocation. Freeze groups quickly capitalized on UCS's plans to hold teach-ins on nuclear weapons proliferation across the

Robin Herman, "Rally Speakers Decry Cost of Nuclear Arms Race," New York Times, June 13, 1982, 43. 292 David Meyer, A Winter of Discontent, 150. 293 David Meyer, A Winter of Discontent, xiii. 169 country and joined in on the event. Subsequently, the Nuclear Weapons Freeze

Clearinghouse was set up in St. Louis, Missouri in January, 1982 - a symbolic statement that the Freeze was a movement for all Americans. On June 12, 1982, the movement entered the national media again when one million supporters marched on Washington to oppose Reagan's support for weapons proliferation.

Each of these groups brought its own brand of activism to the movement.

Disarmament experts staged demonstrations on nuclear sites, gave expert testimony in

Congress, resisted paying taxes, organized educational campaigns on radiation and nuclear war, ran local campaigns opposing weapons deployment, lobbied members of

Congress to oppose specific arms proposals, and organized large demonstrations. Civil rights activists did many of the same things, but also rallied the support of the local peace churches and staged massive acts of civil disobedience. The anti-war movement staged large demonstrations and organized teach-ins, and also experimented with the idea of using litigation to challenge U.S. nuclear weapons policy. The women's movement pushed for democratic decision-making within the anti-weapons movement, while the nuclear power wing of activists organized localized dissent. The anti-tax and consumer movements pushed for state referenda on nuclear weapons issues, while mobilizing opposition in state legislatures and among elected officials.

Balancing UCS's Focus on Nuclear Power and Nuclear Arms

294 UCS never did join the Freeze Movement. See my discussion of the UCS publication, Beyond the Freeze^ later in this chapter for an explanation of this. 295 David Meyer, A Winter of Discontent, xiii, 180-181. 296 David Meyer, A Winter of Discontent, 150-151. 170 While UCS was certainly swept up in the flurry of national activity in the area of disarmament activism by the early 1980s, the group was one of the few national groups that did not try to distance itself from the nuclear power opposition. The organization maintained a focus on both power and weapons during this period. There were several factors supporting this decision. First, when UCS joined the activist scene in 1969 it was in opposition to weapons proliferation in the United States, so the group had a direct history of disarmament activism to draw on. There was also a long history of nuclear weapons protest in the wider scientific community, most notably, the group of Manhattan

Project scientists who mobilized opposition to nuclear weapons during World War II and formed FAS in 1945. In 1969, when UCS was initially established, moreover, it was a registered affiliate. Third, UCS members came from diverse backgrounds of scientific expertise, giving the group relevant knowledge to offer both movements, without being overextended. Fourth, UCS drew its support from people opposed to nuclear power during the 1970s and because the utility did not completely disappear in the 1980s, the group maintained a focus on its opposition in various ongoing conflicts over nuclear power. Finally, while conscious of possible tensions among its supporters, 7 the group viewed nuclear power technology and nuclear weapons technology as mutually threatening if not properly policed.

297When UCS began publishing two newsletters in 1982, Nucleus, which was established in 1979 and focused mainly on energy issues, and Braking Point, which focused on disarmament, they began surveying their supporters to determine where people's concerns resided. In 1984, the group decided to fold Braking Point into Nucleus to create one UCS newsletter because, as they reported, "most have told us in surveys that they are concerned about both energy and arms control issues." See, Nancy Maxwell, "Introducing the New Nucleus," Nucleus 6, 3 (Fall 1984), 12. 171 In order to illustrate the shift towards disarmament and to measure how UCS balanced this change in its work raising awareness about nuclear power issues, this section relies on UCS's quarterly newsletter, Nucleus, and coverage of the group in the

New York Times. An analysis of Nucleus is a useful illustration of the groups' mutual focus on nuclear weapons and nuclear power between 1980 and 1986. While most of the articles focused mainly on nuclear power or nuclear weapons in the United States, the publication also included articles on energy alternatives/renewables and nuclear waste disposal. These latter two topics were part of UCS's broader concern with the shortcomings of nuclear power, which they viewed to be an expensive, short-term solution to the energy crisis. Basically, they not only focused on criticizing nuclear power technology; they also proposed what they viewed to be viable alternatives to nuclear power. Most of these articles discussed the promise of solar and wind powered technology, neither of which the US government seriously considered investing in during the energy crisis. Likewise, nuclear waste was one of UCS's additional concerns over the long-term public health and environmental threats posed by nuclear power. Specifically, the group raised alarm over the fact that neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

(NRC) nor the utilities running the reactors had sufficiently dealt with the problem of nuclear waste disposal.

For the purposes of clarity, I have considered nuclear power, nuclear waste disposal, and energy alternatives activism as all directly related to UCS's overall strategy of limiting the expansion of commercial nuclear power technology in the U.S. With

172 these three issues in combination, UCS's critique of nuclear power technology in Nucleus between 1980 and the Spring of 1986 consisted of approximately 56 percent of the page coverage in each newsletter.298 By contrast, 44 percent of the content was devoted to nuclear weapons issues. Despite the fact that Chairman of the Board, Henry Kendall, announced UCS's shift to nuclear weapons protest by 1980, indicating that he had always viewed "the dangers of nuclear power [as] so small compared with nuclear war," there was more attention given to nuclear power between 1980 and 1986.299 Moreover, my analysis of the New York Times during this same period shows that the paper referred to

UCS's expertise in the area of nuclear power more often than in relation to nuclear weapons technology.30 Of course, this can also be explained because the group's nuclear power expertise was more well-established due to its high profile work in the area throughout the 1970s. As a result, Times journalists were more likely to highlight the group's work in this area. Between 1980 and 1984, Nucleus clearly favoured the issue of nuclear power; however, between 1982 and 1984, UCS created Braking Point, another newsletter devoted exclusively to the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation. It was not until 1985 that UCS began to favour nuclear weapons protest over nuclear power, which was also when Braking Point was folded into Nucleus, creating one cohesive

All of the statistics on Nucleus are based on my own calculations of the average number of pages and articles on either nuclear weapons, nuclear power, nuclear waste disposal, or energy alternatives between the first issue printed in 1980 and the Spring issue of 1986. I chose the Spring issue as the cutoff point because it was printed before the Chernobyl accident, which is where my analysis in Chapter 7 begins. 299 Fox Butterfield, "Anatomy of The Nuclear Protest," New York Times Magazine, July 11, 1982, 17. 300 Between 1981 and 1986 there were 210 articles referencing UCS in the New York Times. Of this number, 110 focused exclusively on nuclear power, while 85 focused on nuclear weapons - with 7 making explicit reference to both topics. 301 The average number of pages devoted to nuclear power between 1980 and 1984 was 5.1, while only 3.1 were devoted to nuclear weapons. 173 organizational newsletter that was redesigned to look more like a newspaper, with longer and more diverse articles. Between 1985 and the Spring of 1986, 64 percent of Nucleus page coverage was devoted to nuclear weapons and only 29 percent was assigned to nuclear power.

Much of UCS's work in the area of nuclear power opposition during the 1980s was an extension of battles left unfinished during the 1970s. While the group's activism in the 1970s was mainly devoted to opposing proposed nuclear power plants, most of its work in the 1980s was focused on preventing the operation of already existing plants across the country. For example, by 1980 the group had eight legal petitions before the

NRC, calling for the shutdown of nuclear power plants with "serious safety problems."

Leading these battles was UCS general council, Ellyn Weiss. One of these actions dated back to November 1977 and centred on UCS's concern with the safety of emergency shutdown equipment at plants. Newly filed petitions included: UCS's attempt to prevent the restart of TMI Unit 1 on the grounds of unresolved safety concerns at the undamaged reactor; the organization's collaboration with Natural Resources Defense Council and

Sierra Club to "challenge the export of a Westinghouse nuclear plant to a site in the

Philippines which represented] unique seismic and volcanic hazards;" and a request to shutdown the Indian Point nuclear power plants because they were located less than 30 miles from downtown Manhattan and posed an unnecessary risk to the surrounding

174 population. Indeed, UCS opposition to the Indian Point plants was the struggle most frequently reported on in Nucleus and the New York Times.

This is not to say that there were no new concerns with commercial nuclear power that emerged during this period. Despite the fact that the utility was dying because of cost overruns, bad press from TMI, design flaws, public health and safety violations, and the fact that reactors were held up in regulatory hearings by groups like UCS, Reagan was unwilling to completely abandon the technology during his presidency. This also had UCS on high alert in the early 1980s. In his 1981 Energy Plan, Reagan announced plans to allocate an 87 percent "share of federal energy funds" to nuclear power.303

According to UCS Executive Director, Eric E. Van Loon, this included plans of

"speeding up nuclear power plant licensing, lifting the ban on commercial reprocessing of nuclear fuel, continuing the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, and rushing to implement questionable radioactive waste disposal techniques." UCS Chairman, Henry Kendall, characterized Reagan's plans as "a get-well card for the nuclear industry and counter­ productive to the nation's long-range energy interests." UCS's concrete response to these plans was to join forces with "13 other public interest groups including the Cousteau

Society, Friends of the Earth, the Sierra Club, and the National Audubon Society" to put together a formal critique of Reagan's energy plan and outline a more realistic and sustainable U.S. energy plan for the future. With Chief UCS scientist, James MacKenzie,

302 "The UCS Legal Program," Nucleus 2, 3 (March-April 1980), 9. 303 Charles Komanoff and Eric E. Van Loon, "Too Cheap to Meter or Too Costly to Build?(How Nuclear Power Has Priced Itself out of the Market," Nucleus 4, 1 (Spring 1982), 3-7. The quote is on page 3 of the article. 175 at the helm, the coalition released the report, "The Reagan Energy Plan: A Major Power

Failure," in March 1982. The goal of the group was to stimulate concern among the general public, as well as to inspire members of Congress to rethink their support of

Reagan's plans for energy. 4 In other words, a combination of old and new struggles characterized UCS's work in this area between 1980 and 1986.

After 1981, articles focusing on nuclear waste were few and far between, with one appearing in 1984 and one in 1985. Likewise, newspapers such as the New York Times had no interest in covering nuclear waste articles and none of the references to UCS made mention of the issue. A statement from the former general manager of the AEC illustrates why there was a lack of attention generally paid to nuclear waste management:

Chemists and chemical engineers were not interested with waste. It was not glamorous; there were no careers; it was messy; nobody got brownie points for caring about nuclear waste. The Atomic Energy Commission neglected the problem.. .the central point is that there was no real interest or profit in dealing with the back end of the fuel cycle.305

This explanation is also useful for understanding why activists did not give serious consideration to the problem of waste management during the 1980s. It was not a sensational issue with the ability to capture the attention of a large group of people.

Rather, it was an issue that only garnered the attention of people with waste problems in their own backyards. Moreover, it was not until 1978 that President Carter finally appointed an "Interagency Review Group on Nuclear Waste Management, composed of

304 Eric E. Van Loon, "Executive Director's Message," Nucleus 4, 1 (Spring 1982), 2. 305 Carroll Wilson was the former AEC general manager and the quote was taken from an article he published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1979. See, "Radioactive Waste: The Grim Legacy of the Atomic Age," Nucleus 2, 3 (March-April 1980), 2. 176 representatives from fourteen federal agencies." And before the group really got its research underway, Reagan scrapped the initiative. The articles appearing in Nucleus between 1980 and 1981 highlighted UCS's efforts to mobilize public opposition to a

"shoddy" bill proposed in Congress and discussed the shortcomings of the temporary waste solution in the country.307 The references appearing in the later 1980s were much less substantial.

Coverage of energy alternatives and renewables in Nucleus was more consistent throughout this period. While there was never an overwhelming emphasis on alternatives or renewables in the newsletter, at least two thirds of the issues included some reference to this topic between the Spring of 1980 and the Winter of 1986. Moreover, as I asserted earlier, most of UCS's discussions of energy alternatives and renewables were linked to the group's opposition to the further expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. For example, in UCS's 1981 book-length report, Energy Strategies: Towards A Solar Future, a substantial portion of the discussion is devoted to criticizing nuclear power, while touting the promise of solar energy for meeting future energy demands. There was

306 "Radioactive Waste: The Grim Legacy of the Atomic Age," Nucleus 2, 3 (March-April 1980), 2. 307 See, "Radioactive Waste," 1-3; "Capital Eye: Senate Action Imminent on Waste Legislation," Nucleus 2, 4 (Summer 1980), 6; "Capital Eye: Waste Legislation Stopped in House; 'Lame-Duck' Session Key," Nucleus 3, 1 (Fall-Winter 1980), 7; "Spent Fuel Pool Risks: UCS Joins Main Attorney General in Opposing Spent Fuel Pool Expansion at Reactor Site," and "Spent Fuel Pool, Re-racking, Pin Compaction Explained," Nucleus 3, 3 (Fall 1981), 4-5. 308 Eric E. Van Loon, "Testimony of UCS on the National Energy Plan," Nucleus 3, 2 (Spring-Summer 1981), 4-5. 177 almost no reference to UCS's expertise in this area in the New York Times between 1980 and 1986.309

"Outsiders' Acting as Scientific Advisors to the Pentagon

This dearth of media references to issues such as nuclear waste and energy alternatives is hardly surprising considering the growing concerns about the threat of nuclear war during the Reagan presidencies. UCS's move towards disarmament activism during the 1980s brought the group in new directions and influenced members to use scientific expertise in new ways. Whereas earlier UCS used its expertise to challenge the health and safety protocols of nuclear power plants, the organization's disarmament work brought it closer to the foreign policy arena. For this shift, UCS relied on the path that had been blazed by physicists during and after World War II. As Brian Balogh discusses in his book, Chain Reaction, the marriage between scientific expertise and the federal government during the Manhattan Project was a turning-point in the history of American science and technology. Prior to this, scientists largely relied on voluntary agencies like the Rockefeller Foundation to fund scientific research. Indeed, there was a deliberate distance between science and government, rooted not only in fears over the federal control of science, but a larger cultural reluctance to expand the role of government in

American society. The new age of collaboration between the American government and scientific researchers led not only to scientists participating in the development of

309 There were only two articles in the New York Times during this period, which made a reference to UCS's expertise in this area. Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and Public Participation in American Commercial Nuclear Power, 1945-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 6. 178 nuclear technology, however. Scientists also began seeking a voice in the making of

American policy as it related to ethical issues in science and technology. Many of the physicists who worked on the Manhattan Project and who joined FAS renounced the governments' development and deployment of nuclear weapons and organized a successful opposition to Eisenhower's May-Johnson Bill, which would have given the government and the military full control of atomic energy development after the war.311

Following in the footsteps of these earlier physicists, members of UCS used their scientific expertise to influence the directions of U.S. foreign policy. By the 1980s, a new generation of scientists who were disillusioned with the American nuclear program used organizations such as UCS to build professional support and organize scientific critiques of the U.S. administration's nuclear defense program. In 1985, Henry Kendall explained this estrangement from the U.S. government, linking it directly to Reagan: he said that scientists felt the current administration was overly "ideological" and had little

ill

"appreciation for technical criticisms." Many scientists, within and outside of UCS, even organized opposition to Reagan's plans to invest in top universities to perform SDI research and development because of the scientific community's growing distaste for defense research and the strict controls placed on the publication of scientific research

Balogh, Chain Reaction, 57-58. 312 In order to test the public perception that scientists who acted as political activists, particularly in the area of arms control, were motivated by political and not scientific concerns, Michael R. Nusbaumer, Judith A. DilOrio and Robert D. Bailer surveyed all of the academic scientists who signed the Star Wars Boycott Pledge in 1985. The researchers found that at least 40% of the individuals who signed the petition were motivated by their technical concerns with Star Wars. See, Michael R. Nusbaumer, Judith A. DilOrio and Robert D. Bailer, "The Boycott of 'Star Wars' by Academic Scientists: The Relative Roles of Political and Technical Judgment," Social Science Journal 31, 4 (1994): 375-388. 313 Wayne Biddle, "Scientists Compare 'Star Wars' to ABM Debate," New York Times, May 30, 1985, B6. 179 findings.314 UCS's opposition to the kinds of scientific research at universities that was funded through the military-industrial-academic complex had roots dating back to 1969, when the group was founded and staged its first protest on the MIT campus.

UCS's critiques of nuclear defense programs were widely reported in the national media. For example, between 1981 and 1986, there were 85 references to UCS's disarmament activism in the New York Times. Of that number, 61 articles included some statement of the groups' opinions on the direction of U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

This included instances where the group directly linked its scientific knowledge to its foreign policy suggestions; cases where UCS justified its interventions because of the professionally prestigious status of the scientists who were affiliated with the group; and instances where the organization commented exclusively on national security issues.315

Several articles cited the 106-page report put out by UCS in 1984, highlighting the lack of technological feasibility in Reagan's Star Wars Program. One article, stated, UCS

"undertook detailed mathematical analysis of the major components of the

Administration research program and.. .suggested] they would be unworkable, individually or in an integrated system." The piece went on to detail how UCS scientists discredited every aspect of the SDI program, arguing that those aspects which had some promise of success - like "chemical laser 'space battle stations'" - were economically

314 See, for example, David E. Sanger, "Campuses' Role in Arms Debated As 'Star Wars' Funds are Sought," New York Times, July 22, 1985, Al, A12. I kept track of the different ways that the groups' opinions on nuclear weapons were recorded during this period. In 28 of the New York Times articles, the group clearly linked their expertise as scientists with their commentary on foreign policy; in 27 they limited their comments strictly to nuclear policy; and in 6 cases they championed their professional prestige as scientists to tout their significant contribution to the foreign policy debates over disarmament. 180 unfeasible, while arguing that all proposed means of detecting Soviet missiles in orbit were technologically unsound. In a 1985 paid advertisement, UCS likened the Star

Wars Program to science fiction, calling its various aspects "Buck Rogers components."317 To reinforce the strength of its assessments, moreover, UCS commissioned a poll of all American physicists, including those working inside and outside the defense industry. When Henry Kendall explained UCS's decision to focus exclusively on physicists in the poll, saying, they were "chosen because their specialty is vital to any high technology missile defense," he further reinforced the important place

1 i o that UCS physicists had to play in the debate over defense research. Likewise, the fact that 54 percent of the physicists polled "viewed [the missile shield] as a move in the wrong direction," while only 29 percent supported it, reinforced the legitimacy of UCS's place at the centre of the debate.319

It was when the group publicly declared its foreign policy suggestions that it highlighted the scientific prestige of its members. For example, UCS's paid advertisement that was put out in April 1982 listed its most prestigious supporters, who included several very prominent physicists. Robert F. Bacher was an Emeritus Professor of Physics at California Institute of Technology, a former Manhattan Project member, 316 See, Charles Mohr, "Study Assails Idea of Missile Defense," New York Times, March 27, 1984, Al 1. 317 See UCS advertisement, "Star Wars Will Cost Taxpayers A Trillion Dollars or So. And Look What You Get For Your Money," New York Times, May 30, 1985, A15. Accompanying this title is an image depicting complete nuclear annihilation. They also offer a four point critique of the Star Wars program, including a statement about its technological naivety, which reads: "There is not a shred of scientific evidence that it will work." 318 Charles Mohr, "Physicists Call Missile Shield an Error, Poll Finds," New York Times, March 23, 1986, 26. 319 Charles Mohr, "Physicists Call Missile Shield an Error, Poll Finds," New York Times, March 23, 1986, 26. 181 part of the first Atomic Energy Commission, and a member of the President's Science

Advisory Committee from 1957-1960. Hans A. Bethe was an Emeritus Professor of

Physics at Cornell University, the Former Head of the Theoretical Division at Los

Alamos Weapons Laboratory, a Member of the Presidents' Scientific Advisory

Committee from 1959-1969, a Member of the U.S. Delegation to Discussions on

Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapons Tests, and he also won a Nobel Prize in Physics in

1967. Jerome B. Weisner, who initially opposed the actions of UCS when the group organized its research strike in 1969, was the President of MIT from 1971 to 1980, a

Science Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, he was a former Chairman of the

Technology Assessment Advisory Council of the Office of Technology, U.S. Congress, and Staff Director to the Geneva Conference for the Prevention of Surprise Attack.

Likewise, Richard L. Garwin, Henry W. Kendall, Norman F. Ramsey, Victor F.

Weisskopf, Robert R. Wilson, and Herbert F. York listed similar positions in the nation's top universities, as well as within the U.S. government bureaucracy and the military research establishment.320

To further buttress UCS's authority to speak on behalf of the nation's security, the group named supporters with defense expertise like Herbert Scoville, Jr., who was the former Assistant Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the

Deputy Director of Research for the CIA. The content of the 1982 advertisement outlined a four step "Framework for a New National Security Policy." First, the

320 "Two Paths Lie Before US. One Leads to Death, The Other To Life," New York Times, April 25, 1982, 206. 182 signatories declared that "the NATO alliance should...announce its intentions to adopt a

Policy of No First Use of Nuclear Weapons in Europe." Second, they recommended that

"the U.S. and USSR should immediately begin negotiations ... [to].. .greatly reduce arsenals by the end of the decade." Third, "the U.S. should.. .announce its readiness to engage in an immediate bilateral freeze on the build-up of strategic nuclear weapons, and on the flight testing of new strategic missiles; and announce its intentions to renew negotiations leading to a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty covering all nuclear explosions." Finally, the signatories declared, "the U.S. and the USSR should develop

"201 and implement a joint program for curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons." While very little of this proposal spoke directly to the scientific expertise of UCS members, the fact that the advertisement highlighted the professional prestige of the signatories, along with the legacy of scientific activism in the Post-World War II era, justified this foray into the foreign policy arena and ensured that UCS efforts were taken seriously. This was especially true because so many members of UCS had scientific backgrounds in physics, which was central to the development of nuclear weapons technology. The fact that the group built alliances with prominent defense intellectuals like Scoville, moreover, also reinforced its credibility.

UCS's Place in the Overall Anti-Nuclear Movement

321 "Two Paths Lie Before US. One Leads to Death, The Other To Life," New York Times, April 25, 1982, 206. 183 As was the case in the 1970s, UCS occupied a unique place in the anti-nuclear movement between 1980 and 1986. While the group was situated firmly on the side of the activists, a diverse group of very passionate opponents of nuclear technology, UCS used the scientific expertise of its members to build a protective wall around the group.

This was signified by things like the old school clothing of the scientist, his conservatism, his detachment from emotion, his direct engagement with the technical aspects of nuclear power and nuclear weaponry, and his connections to prestigious members of the U.S. government and scientific community. The above two paragraphs underline the deep rooted connections of UCS members to the national security state and the scientific community that cycled in and out of it throughout the postwar period. In their books,

Roots of War and Limits of Power, Richard Barnet and Gabriel and Joyce Kolko, respectively, reveal how since the Second World War the U.S. national security community was culled from a very small and closed circle of upper class Americans.324

In his review essay of these two books, Thomas A. Krueger writes,

The key members of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, the President's advisory staff, and the Defense, Treasury, and State Departments have come almost to a man from the most privileged sectors of American society. They have either inherited great wealth and status or their careers in big business, high finance and corporation law have earned them lucrative and prestigious rewards prior to their recruitment into the national security hierarchy. Such recruits as there are from the middle and

During the 1980s, this term generally referred to nuclear weapons opposition in the United States, but I am using it here to indicate both opposition to nuclear power and nuclear weapons. As I emphasized in Chapter 2, UCS was mainly a group of white, privileged, male scientists. 324 Gabriel and Joyce Kolko, Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper Collins, 1972) and Richard Barnet, Roots of War (New York: Penguin Books, 1973). 184 lower classes quickly ape the life styles and adopt the attitudes of their upper-class colleagues.

Furthermore, David Halberstam's journalistic account of the Kennedy and Johnson presidencies reinforces how this close-knit community of national security experts, all of whom were trained at prestigious universities like Harvard, Princeton and Yale, continued to surround the Oval Office and worked closely with the Pentagon throughout the 1960s.326 The most prominent members of UCS were also a part of this small and closed circle of upper class Americans. All of them trained and worked at the nation's premier institutions of scientific excellence and spent at least part of their careers working within the national security state. In addition to having these important affiliations at one point in his career, longtime UCS Chairman, Henry Kendall, was also independently wealthy. Indeed, Carol Cohn's definition of defense intellectuals fits closely with the career trajectories of the various UCS members outlined above.

According to Cohn, "they are civilians who move in and out of government, working sometimes as administrative officials or consultants, sometimes at universities and think tanks."327 The only appreciable differences between the majority of these defense intellectuals and UCS members were the latter's scientific expertise and devotion to influencing nuclear weapons strategy from within a non-profit activist organization.

Thomas A. Krueger, "Review: The Social Origins of Recent American Foreign Policy," Journal of Social History 7, 1 (Autumn 1973), 94. (Article goes from 93-101) 326David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Fawcett Crest Books, 1969). 327 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12,4 (1987), 688. (full page range 687-718) 185 Likewise, as scientists - most of whom were physicists - UCS members exemplified the traditionally masculine qualities of detachment, objectivity, and rationality that were also used to characterize defense intellectuals. Carol Cohn's research in the defense community is suggestive. Cohn spent two weeks during the summer of 1984 participating in a "workshop on nuclear weapons, nuclear strategic doctrine, and arms control, taught by distinguished "defense intellectuals." At the end of the workshop, she stayed on as a participant observer "at the university's center on defense technology and arms control" for an additional year. She describes this environment as a male-dominated world (with the exception of the female secretaries) where "nuclear weapons, nuclear strategy, and nuclear war" are "calmly and intricately

•59Q reasoned.. .without any sense of horror, urgency, or moral outrage." Indeed, as Cohn shows, using the example of her own interactions with these defense experts, the only way to be taken seriously among these men was to adopt this same sanitized language, which relied heavily on the use of acronyms and phrases like "clean bombs" and ill

"collateral damage," all of which created a distance between the analyst and the reality of nuclear war. To account for the ways that the technological aspects of nuclear weaponry completely governed how defense intellectuals spoke about nuclear war, Cohn describes this as a unique "technostrategic" language. Only a privileged few knew how to speak it, leaving the majority of people in the world basically "voiceless in the 328 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," 687-688. 329 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," 690. 330 These are bombs which - despite their immediate potential for destruction - do not give off as much radiation and so do not have as much potential to harm surviving populations. 331 This refers to the death of innocent people. 186 debate." The problem, according to Cohn, is that "technostrategic language can be used only to articulate the perspective of the users of nuclear weapons, not that of the victims."333 For instance, there was no word for "peace" in the lexicon of these defense intellectuals, the closest phrase being "strategic stability."334 Cohn reports that when she herself tried to engage these men using "English," she was dismissed and treated as either

"ignorant" or "simpleminded." But when she adopted their language, she was welcomed with open arms.

As will be seen, UCS was conscious about how those who spoke these technostrategic languages - both with relation to nuclear power and nuclear weapons - were rewarded with a modicum of respect and credibility by the U.S. nuclear bureaucracy. The group was also uniquely suited to learning and using this detached and rational technostrategic language because - as scientists - their own professional vernacular shared many similarities.335 The fact that UCS representatives who were directly involved in disarmament activism generally had backgrounds in physics made them well-equipped to participate in such detached discussions of nuclear disarmament.

As Brian Easlea argues in his book, Fathering the Unthinkable, physics had always been the epitome of "masculine science." Indeed, all of the scientists working on the

Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," 703. 333 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," 706. 334 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," 708. 335 See also, JoAnne Brown, "Professional Language: Words That Succeed," Radical History Review 34 (1986): 33-51. This article is about how various professional groups use language to increase their professional power. 187 Manhattan Project were male. Easlea writes about how, during the Manhattan Project, the discourse of the male physicists working on the bomb was filled with images of aggressive male sexuality and birth metaphors, which suggested that the bomb represented the birth of a new and powerful form of life. That this new life form was male was reinforced through the names of the bombs which obliterated both Hiroshima and Nagasaki - "Little Boy" and "Fat Man," respectively.337 During the 1970s and

1980s, physics continued to be a very male-dominated profession. Likewise, physicists in the post-war period were trained by many of these same scientists and all of them matured within this masculine culture of science, where it was the norm (rather than the exception) to court close relationships with the defense community.

Maintaining the illusion of rational expertise was one of the challenges of mixing science and activism in UCS's work: many people viewed the two pursuits as mutually exclusive, the first requiring objectivity and detachment, and the second characterized by subjectivity and passion. Even though UCS took a position contrary to mainstream scientists by publicly opposing misuses of nuclear technology - as the group viewed them - UCS tried as much as possible to fit its activism into the scientist mold. This was especially necessary because all of the scientists supporting UCS were career scientists and the majority of them worked at the nation's top universities. A loss of credibility in the activist arena could signify an even greater loss of face among one's colleagues. This

336 See Brian Easlea's discussion of this in his book, Fathering The Unthinkable: Masculinity, Scientists, and the Nuclear Anns Race (London: Pluto Press, Ltd., 1983), 6. 337 See also Carol Cohn's discussion of birth metaphors, 699-702. 188 distinction manifested itself materially through a more conservative approach to activism on the part of UCS members, as compared with lay activists. There are several examples of this in UCS's work in opposition to nuclear power between 1980 and 1986. One reporter's depiction of the public protest during the NRC hearing to determine if TMI

Reactor 1 should be permitted to restart six years after the accident at TMI Reactor 2 is an excellent illustration of the very different approach each faction had to anti-nuclear activism. In his article, "Blood, Boos and Court Appeals," Bill Rankin of the Energy

Daily recounted that one activist asked for a moment of silent prayer, while another poured a vial of "symbolic blood" on the conference table, and others hurled insults like

"Criminals.. .thieves.. .robbers... [and] You are murdering our children" at NRC

Chairman Nunzio Palladino.338 This is behavior from which UCS scientists and staffers, alike, sought to distance themselves from. News articles reporting on UCS's activism in the area of commercial nuclear power, on the other hand, referenced the group's concern with "the embritflement of...pressure vessel[s]," "weakened tubes," "off-site releases," and "defects" in "vitally important pumps."339 Building a critique of nuclear power based on the group's technical expertise in the area of reactor health and safety gave the larger movement credibility, while also distancing UCS from these more frenzied indictments.

Moreover, the fact that Robert Pollard, who joined UCS in 1976, was a former engineer

338 MITIASC, MC434, UCS Fonds, Box 84, Apr-June 1985. Bill Rankin, "Blood, Boos and Court Appeals Greet NRC's Vote on Restarting TMI Unit 1," Energy Daily, May 30, 1985. 339 MITIASC, MC434, UCS Fonds, Box 84, VIII UCS Mentions, Dec. 87 - Mar 88, Tom Nutile, "Pilgrim protest's fallout may engulf Yankee Atomic," Boston Herald, Jan. 10, 1988; Box 80, Jack Anderson, "Nuclear commission stymies conscientious safety efforts," Burlingtom Times, Jan. 5, 1988; Box 84, Apr- June 1985, Mick Rood, "NRC rips restart proposal," The Patriot, April 19, 1985. 189 with the NRC gave the group's criticisms an insider's authority, further reinforcing the distance between UCS and lay activists in the anti-nuclear movement. It is true that the group was often cited in newspapers launching scathing critiques at the NRC for its lax enforcement of health and safety regulations, but UCS never relied on "emotional" rants, like the one directed at Chairman Palladino.

Indeed, one reporter noted that people publicly speaking about "milk-dry cows, giant dandelions, a spastic cat and informal surveys of neighbors purportedly stricken by

TMI caused cancers" were "shunned" by groups like UCS.340 UCS members themselves went to great lengths to distance themselves from these kinds of people. In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, UCS Executive Director, Howard Ris, sought to set the record straight. He claimed that UCS was not in the minority of American scientists, contrary to claims made by columnist, John Cony, in his review of ABC documentary,

"The Fire Unleashed." Ris argued that all scientists opposed "sloppy construction and dilatory management of nuclear plants" and that UCS was not completely opposed to nuclear power, as the article suggested. Instead, the group wanted the technology to be made safer and thought the government needed to pursue new ways of producing energy, ones that were much safer and more efficient than nuclear power.341 This was not the position held by most anti-nuclear activists. Rather, it was more common for people to

340 MITIASC, MC434, UCS Fonds, Box 80, Matt Yancey, "ABC special frightens more than enlightens," Arkansas Democrat, June 6, 1985. 341 Howard Ris, "Concerned Scientists No 'Small Minority," New York Times, Jan. 24, 1985, A14. 190 oppose the utility outright. UCS's position was a more cautious one, which it seems reasonable to conclude was designed to limit scientific critiques of its activism.

Efforts to distance the group from the larger anti-nuclear movement of lay activists did not stop people from labeling UCS part of this "lunatic fringe." This was most often the case with regard to its work in opposition to nuclear power. Just because

UCS avoided speaking directly about the health and environmental impact of radiation exposures, for instance, did not mean the media made this distinction when speaking about the group's activism. For example, a Seattle newspaper reported that UCS was one of those "renegade organizations" presenting the public with misinformation on the negative health and environmental effects of radiation exposure. While one could certainly deduce that the group was concerned about these things, UCS members rarely

(if ever) spoke about them directly. Despite these efforts, newspaper reporters were often unaware of or uninterested in the nuances of the different activist platforms, as is evident in the newspaper coverage of the ABC documentary, "The Fire Unleashed," on nuclear power, nuclear arms, and weapons proliferation world-wide. Despite the fact that UCS was not affiliated with the film, newspapers such as St. Louis, Missouri's Globe-

Democrat credited UCS with the views therein, calling it "a highly politicized sermon."343 A reporter with the San Diego Evening Tribune declared that UCS, along with others like Jane Fonda, Daniel Ellsberg, Ralph Nader, and the Friends of the Earth,

342 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 84, VIII UCS Mentions, Dec. 87 - Mar. 88, Larry Ganders, "U.S. Misled on Chemical Health Risks, Dixy Says," Pasco WA Tri-City Herald, May 3, 1988. 343 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 80, Editorial: "Nuclear Sermonizing," Globe-Democrat, June 19, 1985. 191 was part of "a wacko fringe that is determined to uninvent the atom." Even though

UCS would not have aligned the group with any of these media representations of its work, the organization was unable to control completely the ways people interpreted its role in the anti-nuclear movement.

The most obvious example of UCS's detachment from the disarmament wing of the anti-nuclear movement during the 1980s was that the group never actually joined the

Freeze movement. Ironically, the Freeze movement first gained national media attention on November 11, 1981 during the UCS organized Veteran's Day Convocation. Freeze groups joined UCS, which planned to hold teach-ins on nuclear weapons proliferation across the country. In its book, Beyond the Freeze, UCS took issue with the simplicity of the Freeze proposal, arguing that a bilateral freeze on weapons production, testing, and deployment would never achieve the goal of securing peace between the superpowers.

This was true and many of the groups who joined the Freeze were similarly dissatisfied with the watered-down demands of the movement. Others viewed it as a first step towards reducing the superpower stockpiles. Instead of portraying the proposal as a first step towards achieving peace, UCS portrayed the Freeze demands as the movement's panacea to the arms race, one that did not take into consideration the implications of the already large arsenals of weapons in both nations' stockpiles. By distinguishing its

344 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 84, Apr - June, 1985, V.H. Krulak, "Our energy picture darkens," Evening Tribune, June 7, 1985. Just as an aside, it is also the case that the New York Times tended to favourably represent the group, while it was these smaller dailies in small towns across the country that more often depicted UCS as part of this lunatic fringe. 345 Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze: The Road to Nuclear Sanity (Beacon Press: Boston, 1982), 94-95. 192 position on disarmament from members of the Freeze, UCS set the group up as the voice of reason on the issue.

The conservatism of UCS's approach is best illustrated in its commentary on the role of nuclear weaponry in protecting national security. Here the group was concerned about both the U.S. and the Soviet Union's determination by the 1980s to invest in new weapons technology that would enhance each nation's "first strike capability." UCS warned that the development of such weaponry might "create the incentive for preemptive strikes." The group also argued that the mission to invent a foolproof nuclear warhead defense system was beyond the realm of science. Further, UCS argued that

Reagan's plans to develop space weapons and cruise missiles would only invigorate the arms race and make it even more difficult to control in the future.346 None of these technologies had been fully conceived or developed by this time; thus, making UCS's focus on these contemporary initiatives more practical and achievable. Nucleus contains a good explanation of the more pragmatic reasons for UCS's activist strategies. As an organization committed to seeking changes from within the American government, UCS acknowledged that winning Congressional support required conservatism and compromise on the part of the lobbying activist. In 1986, Charles Montfort wrote,

"Lobbyists, by themselves, have no power." He outlined the need to build coalitions of influential people in both the House and the Senate and highlighted several areas, most notably UCS's work opposing the development of anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) during

346 Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze, 85-87. 193 1985, where the group had to compromise its broader objectives to gain the favour of

Congress. He concluded, "In order to succeed, the coalitions thus created must cover the widest possible spectrum: liberals and (at least) moderates, Democrats and Republicans, and the largest possible number of Members who sit on the key committees."347

UCS's main concern was Reagan's enthusiasm for discussing nuclear war as though it were something that could be fought and won by the U.S. It was here that

UCS's adoption of the detached and rational language of defense intellectuals was most striking. Reagan's position was a big departure from U.S. deterrence policy, which had dictated the terms of the arms race since World War II. Rather than oppose nuclear weapons entirely, a stance adopted by many lay people in the disarmament movement,

UCS echoed the sentiments of many defense experts (who disagreed with Reagan's nuclear weapons policy) by advocating a return to deterrence policy, which would ensure a permanent role for nuclear weapons in both the United States and the Soviet Union.

For example, in Beyond the Freeze, the group explicitly argued that "arming themselves with nuclear weapons [was] a secure deterrent against nuclear attack." The authors even went so far as devising a numerical equation to ensure both nations maintained adequate levels of destructive potential, while satisfactorily reducing their nuclear arsenals - as if there was some magic number which could be determined through rigorous scientific analysis. Indeed, this is how defense experts talked - in hypothetical

Charles Monfort, "Lobbying for Change in National Defense Policy," Nucleus 8, 1 (Spring 1986), 2, 5. Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze, 85. 194 scenarios, where numbers and strategies were bandied back and forth. Regarding the

Soviet Union, UCS wrote: "About 25 percent of the Soviet population and 50 percent of its industry is concentrated in the country's 100 largest cities. One hundred well-placed bombs would therefore inflict unprecedented devastation. Allowing for misfires and inaccuracies, far fewer than 1,000 secure and reliable bombs would provide a very

OCA adequate deterrent.'''' [emphasis mine] UCS discussed "well-placed bombs,"

"unprecedented devastation," "misfires," "inaccuracies," and "adequate deterren[ce]" without once candidly acknowledging the human dimension of nuclear conflicts. For instance, bombs were said to be "well-placed" because of their potential to destroy populations in the 100 largest Soviet cities. Likewise, "misfires and inaccuracies," presumably, referred to hitting the wrong target and killing thousands of innocent people.

By accepting the permanency of nuclear weaponry in the U.S. and the Soviet Union and using language that was acceptable to defense experts, UCS ensured itself an audience with government officials and defense intellectuals, who were unable or unwilling to consider the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals. The negative impact of this tactic, however, was that the group's descriptions of nuclear war were out of touch with the very real fear and outrage that the arms race inspired in so many people.

There are several other examples where UCS adopted the detached and rational language of defense intellectuals. In its 1983 report, No First Use, which was written in

349 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," 709. Cohn identifies this as one of the most frightening things about the way that defence intellectuals speak about nuclear war and reinforce their detachment from the broader human implications of nuclear armament. 350 Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze, 96. consultation with a long list of military and defense experts, including former U.S.

Ambassador to the Soviet Union, George Kennan, retired US Navy Admiral, Noel

Gaylor, and members of the Brookings Institution, UCS outlined its recommendations for adopting a No-First-Use policy within NATO. To establish the credibility of the report at the outset, the authors asserted "our strategy is a nuclear strategy." They continued,

"Today, the nuclear weapon is not operationally usable. Its only rational function—and this function is essential—is nuclear deterrence." To further reinforce the rationality of its nuclear strategy, UCS acknowledged the possibility of nuclear war still happening and concluded,

Each side would, of course, find it essential to provide for the possibility of the other using nuclear weapons in violation of the No-First-Use declaration, or for nuclear operations being triggered by accident, mistake, insubordinate initiative, or third parties. A nuclear threat would still exist, and each side would need to be able to retaliate.352

Just as Cohn describes with relation to the defense intellectuals she studied, the core of

UCS's discussions about nuclear war were directly linked to the technology of nuclear weapons, rather than to the effects of them on humans. By adopting this technostrategic language, the group was limited in the degree to which it could challenge the central role of things like militarism in U.S. foreign policy. In fact, the group ended up affirming its legitimacy. One of the few places where UCS acknowledged the human impact of adopting a No-First-Use policy was with relation to the NATO forces in Europe. The authors suggest that, while this new policy would require radical changes within these

351 A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, No First Use (Cambridge, MA: February 1, 1983), 4. 352 A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, No First Use, 9. 196 armed forces, "the basic dignity of the conventional combat forces would be restored."

This was presumably something that UCS learned from the various military experts who consulted on the report. It was a sentiment that would have resonated with other military officials, who might have chafed at the ways that nuclear weapons had changed

'traditional' rules for combat or perhaps undermined the importance of conventional forces. Removing nuclear weapons from Europe, then, had the potential to restore their feelings of importance, reaffirm their masculinity, and reinforce the validity of U.S. militarism abroad.

UCS did make some acknowledgment of the plight of the "victims" of nuclear weaponry in its many reports. Indeed, it would have been impossible for this group of disarmament activists to completely divorce its discussion of nuclear war from this context. Likewise, it is reasonable to conclude that many UCS members even identified with the same fears of lay activists in the anti-nuclear movement. In Beyond the Freeze, for example, UCS refers to creating a "stable peace" between the superpowers.354

Likewise, in the conclusion to the book, titled, "Coming Up for Air," the authors declared,

As if the tide against humankind were not strong enough, the second half of the century has witnessed a relentless buildup of exterminating weaponry whose potential ill effects dwarf all calamities in man's troubled past. As trauma follows trauma, a sanguine view of the prospects for human survival becomes difficult to sustain.355

A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, No First Use, 9. Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall, and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze, 98. Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall, and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze, 116. 197 Another important indication that the group was committed to protecting the welfare of ordinary people is that it also advocated for alternative uses for technology, which would benefit both the civilian economy and American citizens. These sentiments are echoed in the UCS report, No First Use, which begins with the assertion: "General, all-out nuclear war would destroy the peoples, institutions, and cultures of the targeted nations, as well as damage the rest of the planet to an unpredictable but dangerous degree."357

Regardless, however, it is clear that by adopting the detached language of the defense community, UCS was limited in what it could say about nuclear war. As a result, the group created a distance between its work and the work of other lay activists in the anti- nuclear movement and actually reaffirmed the central role of nuclear weapons in

American national security.

Washington Post journalist, Mary McGrory's 1985 article, "Help Our First

Atomic Victims," illustrates another way that scientist activists from UCS were detached from the larger community of ordinary Americans who made up the disarmament movement. On the 40th anniversary of the Trinity tests in New Mexico, two important groups gathered in Washington. The first was a group of Manhattan Project scientists, including Hans Bethe and Victor Weisskopf, who were brought together in the Senate by

UCS to plead "for a reduction of a stockpile to which they made the first contribution."

The second was a group of veterans who had laboured in the South Pacific between 1946 and 1962 when the U.S. military performed its 235 nuclear weapons tests. These men

356 Daniel Ford, Henry Kendall, and Steven Nadis, Beyond the Freeze, 117-118. 357 A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, No First Use, 3. 198 appeared before the Veteran Affairs Committee seeking redress for "radiation-related ailments" incurred while working aboard the ships used in the tests. McGrory noted that the two groups represented the same cause and called for their unity, saying that the

"striken scientists who are now pleading for the lives of potential nuclear casualties might do well to lend an expert hand to these actual, unintended victims of their genius."

[emphasis added]358 Now while none of the actual UCS staffers were Manhattan Project

Scientists, this description of disunity is instructive of UCS's relationship with members of the larger anti-nuclear community. The group performed its activism in the name of specific communities; for instance, the people living in and around nuclear weapons plants and the people living in close proximity to the proposed site for the MX Missile

Launch System. However, the group never engaged directly in the individual struggles of people who were hurt by nuclear technology.

A lot of this detachment from the larger movement can be explained by virtue of the nature of UCS scientists' expertise. For instance, Robert Pollard, who was the nuclear power critic during the 1980s, was formerly an NRC nuclear health and safety engineer. His expertise was located in objects and machines, not directly in human bodies and health. Likewise, Henry Kendall and James Mackenzie were both physicists.

These men did not have the expertise to speak directly about the biological impact of radiation, so it did not necessarily make sense for them to act as advocates in the human

358 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC434, Box 80, Mary McGrory, "Help Our First Atomic Victims," Washington Post, July 18, 1985, A2. 359 See, for example, "The True Cost of MX: Energy Independence and Economic Upheaval," Nucleus 3, 1 (Fall-Winter 1980), 1-3. 199 struggles of people affected by radiation exposures. Nevertheless, as is indicated by the already diverse and expanding variety of scientific experts associated with UCS in the

1980s, if the group had wanted to advocate on behalf of these people, it could have procured the services of scientists with relevant expertise. In other words, explaining

UCS's detachment from the victims of nuclear technology strictly in relation to the limited expertise of its scientific specialists is insufficient. It was a conscious choice among this group of scientists because they felt most comfortable speaking about the threats of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the realm of abstractions.360 This relates to my discussion of Rosalie Bertell's scientific activism, where I examine the value placed on objectivity in science. The experiences of ordinary people - as they felt and interpreted them - were not generally something scientists - especially engineers and physicists - used to explain the effects of nuclear technology on people. By putting people squarely in the centre of UCS's work, the organization would have more readily been linked with passion and emotion and the objectivity of its members would have been more in question. By avoiding this, the group was able to strike a balance in its activism. UCS's decision to deal with abstractions, then, should be understood as an attempt by the group to maintain a position at the centre of the debate between credible scientists and other experts over nuclear technology.

Conclusion

Carol Cohn also uses the word "abstraction" to describe the ways that defense intellectuals discussed nuclear war in this same period. See, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals," 709- 710. 200 My goal here is not to leave the reader with the impression that UCS did nothing

to connect with the larger anti-nuclear movement between 1980 and 1986. Indeed, that

would not be an accurate portrayal of the group. At the very least, there was significant public awareness about the work of the group through the widespread media coverage it

enjoyed, both in large news publications like the New York Times and in small

newspaper dailies across the country. It was the group's high profile within the

American national security community (and nuclear power bureaucracy) that ensured

UCS's prominent presence in newspaper stories about the anti-nuclear movement and

increased public awareness about the group both within and outside the movement.

Aside from alluding to it earlier, I have not discussed the educational work performed by

UCS. The group's first activity in 1969 was a teach-in, which was held on the MIT

campus as well as at several other universities across the country. The group continued

holding these days of education once a year throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The 1981

Veterans Day Convocation, which I earlier credited with gaining the attention of the

national media and marking the beginnings of the national Freeze Movement, was held

on 150 campuses, in 42 different states, and in two foreign countries. There were

100,000 people who attended this UCS sponsored "Convocation on the Threat of Nuclear

War" and even more people who learned about UCS's message through the many newspapers that reported on the event. Likewise, UCS joined the National Education

Association in 1983 to develop a curriculum for adolescents. The New York Times story

361 Eric E. Van Loon, "Special Message from the Executive Director," Nucleus 3, 4 (Winter 1982), 2. 201 on the new curriculum described that "the unit acknowledges the fears of adolescents and tries to provide some relief by emphasizing not the horrors of nuclear war, but the choices that might avert it."362

Nevertheless, most of the group's work throughout this period was focused on lobbying Congress and influencing key members of the national security community to limit the expansion of the U.S. nuclear arms race. To achieve this goal, UCS relied heavily on the scientific expertise and professional prestige of its members, as well as the historical connections between the physics and engineering community, on one hand, and the national security (or nuclear technology) community within the U.S. government, on the other. These factors - scientific expertise and professional prestige - not only had a direct impact on the shape of activism within UCS. They also produced a tension in the overall relationship between UCS and the rest of the anti-nuclear movement between

1980 and 1986. It is clear that the groups' scientific expertise in physics and engineering made it indispensible to the larger anti-nuclear movement during this period. Yet, in many ways its scientific expertise and identity influenced the group to limit its direct connections with the larger disarmament movement. UCS scientists and engineers were more comfortable using the detached language of science and engineering and in many ways they had more in common with defense intellectuals than with other members of the anti-nuclear movement. The result, however, was that it created a hierarchy within the

362 Gene I. Maeroff, "Curriculum Addresses Fear of Atom War," New York Times, March 29, 1983, CI. For more on the influential role of academic scientists in creating elementary and high school science curriculums during the Cold War, see, John L. Rudolph, Scientists in the Classroom: The Cold War Reconstruction of American Science Education (New York: Palgrave, 2002). 202 disarmament movement and further reinforced the validity of discussing nuclear war as though it were some abstract thing and not something that directly affected millions of people around the world. As the next two chapters illustrate, not all scientific or biomedical activist groups had the same relationship with lay activists in the anti-nuclear movement, nor were their relationships with the victims of nuclear technology identical.

First, I will turn to the story of Rosalie Bertell and the ways that her activism expanded and changed between 1980 and 1986.

203 Chapter 5: Getting to the Heart of Science: Understanding Rosalie Bertell's Activism as Anti- Colonial Feminist Science Work. 1980 to 1986

Introduction

The U.S. military and economic strategy depends on the willingness of people to handle radioactive material and tolerate its pollution and waste. It is the Pentagon which cannot afford to have the public understand that babies and the elderly, and other fragile people die when exposed to so called "low level" ionizing radiation.

This excerpt from a piece of Rosalie Bertell's correspondence in 1981 reveals how her activism was also shaped by the changing American political climate. While she had entered the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s because of her concerns with the public health effects of commercial nuclear power, she became increasingly critical of American militarism and advocated peaceful approaches to solving the world's problems by the

1980s. This was consistent with broader trends in the American anti-nuclear and peace movements by this time, which basically merged over concerns with the election of

Reagan and the growing nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It also makes sense in the context of Bertell's own expertise in epidemiology and her health concerns with low level radiation exposure, which brought her in close contact with all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle and the people who worked in the various nuclear industries. The term nuclearism becomes useful for describing the parameters of

Bertell's opposition to nuclear technology by the 1980s. According to Valerie Kuletz,

"nuclearism...refers to the entire complex of nuclear weapons testing, research and development, production, stockpiling, and waste disposal from nuclear weapons

204 development and nuclear power plants." This chapter continues to examine the period from 1980 to 1986, looking at the evolution of Bertell's work to include opposition to all aspects of nuclearism. While her concern with American militarism shared several characteristics with Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), she continued to have a unique approach to expert activism during the 1980s, one that was distinguished from UCS (and other groups) not only by her particular expertise in epidemiology, but also by her politics and her relationship with the people on whose behalf she advocated. Instead of focusing on the ways that Bertell's work was dismissed as irrational, emotional, and unscientific, which was central to my earlier discussion, this chapter will substantively discuss Bertell's activist work and her direct relationship with the communities negatively affected by nuclearism. In particular, I argue that Bertell's activism between

1980 and 1986 should be understood as anti-colonial feminist science work. Valerie

Kuletz and Barbara Allen's insights into nuclear colonialism and feminist science, respectively, are central to understanding how my argument took shape.364

Defining Terms

Valerie L. Kuletz, The Tainted Desert: Environmental and Social Ruin in the American West (Routledge: New York, 1998), 291. 364 Valerie L. Kuletz, The Tainted Desert and Barbara L. Allen, Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003). See also, Hilary Rose, Love, Power, and Knowledge: Toward a Feminist Transformation of Science (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). Rose, a sociologist of science, devotes much of her analysis to discussing the possibility of creating a feminist science. She argues that love and respect are necessary components of science if it is ever going to be socially responsible, ethical, and accountable to the people it affects. Also, Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986) and Whose Science, Whose Knowledge? (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991). In the latter book, Harding draws on the insights of white feminists, people of colour, male feminists, lesbians, and others to illustrate the ways that scientific knowledge and practice are androcentric. She also devotes her conclusion to defining what feminist science might look like. 205 By the 1980s, Bertell became increasingly frustrated with her inability to help the people who were affected by nuclearism. Despite her expertise in cancer epidemiology, her advocacy on behalf of the victims of nuclearism never succeeded in slowing the spread of nuclear technology or gaining reparations for radiation health damage. These failures convinced Bertell that there needed to be a new, more effective method of supporting these people. As a result, she resolved to study the health of the individuals and communities who were persistently exposed to low level radiation at the source of contamination. This was despite the fact that she repeatedly learned in the regulatory arena and when testifying in the courtroom that her interpretation of objective science was at odds with those in positions of power, who frequently dismissed her opinions as unscientific. Regardless, she continually challenged notions of scientific objectivity in her work by consistently aligning herself with victims of nuclearism and studying the health effects of low level radiation exposure from their perspectives. It is this that I view as a feminist approach to science. Barbara L. Allen makes a similar argument in her book, Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor

Disputes. Allen defines feminist science as follows:

feminist or citizen-oriented science workers...approach scientific knowledge making beginning with the problems identified from within the exposed communities. While they continue to use their own expert skills to design research studies, they are careful to situate their work, including the observations and concerns of the residents.

365 Lorraine Code also makes a similar argument about Rachel Carson's approach to scientific research and knowledge production. See, Lorraine Code, Ecological Thinking: The Politics ofEpistemic Location (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 25-62. 366 Barbara L. Allen, Uneasy Alchemy, 148. 206 This definition is particularly useful for explaining Bertell's approach to community health studies, which she began performing as early as 1978. Allen articulates very effectively the message Bertell sought to convey through her particular way of practicing science. She argues that feminist, "community-situated science" has the potential to be more objective because it incorporates not only "government or corporate scientists'" perspectives, but also "local knowledge." This was completely contrary to standard scientific practice both within and outside the nuclear bureaucracy, which generally treated personal experiences or narratives about health and disease as a hindrance to objective science. Bertell's feminist science work extended much further than the community driven health studies she performed; her activism in the regulatory arena, in the court room, as well as while she was speaking to public audiences can also be characterized as such.

The characterization of Bertell's scientist activism as feminist is reinforced because she personally identified with many different kinds of feminism, including the feminist peace movement, as well as maternal and eco-feminist beliefs in the unique role of women in protecting and nurturing life. This is most clearly illustrated in Bertell's

1985 book, No Immediate Danger. Bertell's biographer, Mary-Louise Engels, aptly describes the book as a combination of "scientific, political, and historic information" on nuclear technology and the health effects of ionizing radiation and notes that "it has been

367 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada" In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259. "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," 95-96. 368 Barbara L. Allen, Uneasy Alchemy, 118. 207 compared to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring." Indeed, No Immediate Danger fits neatly into the genre of science writing that was created by Carson when she published Silent

Spring in 1963. Similar to Carson (whose focus was on pesticides), Bertell combined her scientific expertise and the knowledge she gathered about the history and politics of nuclear technology, expressing a concern for the environment and human health that was unapologetically shaped by a maternal feminist vision of women's unique role in caring for, nurturing, and protecting the earth.370 In the final chapter, fittingly titled, "A Time to

Bloom," Bertell wrote: "Traditionally charged with birthing and assisting the dying, women have been generally more attuned than men to the signs of sickness and death in the earth's biosphere." Her book was also reminiscent of what Helen Caldicott did in her

1982 publication, Missile Envy, which will be a subject for discussion in the next chapter. Bertell herself acknowledged the influential place of women like Carson and

Caldicott for her work and concluded: "Women, less hampered by society's economic and social censures because they have less in the first place to lose in these areas, are freer to speak and mourn for the dying earth system."371 She used this conclusion to call

Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 126. 370 For a discussion of the maternal roots of feminist peace activism in the post-World War II period, see, Amy Swerdlow, Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth (Toronto: Women's Educational Press, 1985), 307. Her book enjoyed the most popularity in England, where "it was voted one of the best 20 peace books since 1945, and chosen by two Book of the Month clubs." While it did not sell very well in Canada, she did receive a grant from the federal government to do her Canadian book tour. There was a renewed demand for the book in 1986 after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in the Ukraine and it was subsequently translated into Swedish, German, Russian, Japanese, and Finnish. The only place that the book went virtually unrecognized was in the U.S. Indeed, the only reference I have seen to the book in the U.S. was in the list of further resources on radiation exposure in Barton Hacker's book, Elements of Controversy. This is despite the fact that Bertell continued to be involved in local disputes 208 on more women to join the movement to protect the earth from what she saw as the destructive forces of militarism. Here, she clearly articulated how she envisioned her approach to anti-nuclear activism as feminist. She wrote: "The inclusion of women and a feminist perspective in the idea, decision-making and implementation sectors of society is vital for species survival."

The anti-colonial component of Bertell's activist work was shaped through her years working with the politically, economically, ethnically, racially, and culturally marginalized people who were most immediately affected by nuclearism. During the

1980s, Bertell became increasingly involved in anti-nuclear struggles not only in the

U.S., but also in various other countries around the world. This included working closely with several Indigenous, rural, and working class communities, ethnic minorities, and colonized peoples in the U.S., Canada, the Marshall Islands, Malaysia, and various other islands in the South Pacific. Her new international approach to anti-nuclear activism made her increasingly aware of central place of the U.S. in perpetuating nuclearism, both at home and abroad. Her grassroots approach to anti-nuclear activism, moreover, put in perspective for her how consistently people from cultural, racial, and class backgrounds that were different from those in the nuclear bureaucracy of the U.S. government were

over the spread of nuclearism in the U.S. throughout the 1980s. It was through word of mouth and the small network of environmental/anti-nuclear groups and litigators that she continued to be sought out in nuclear disputes across the country. I think the discrepancy here lies in the fact that the American publication of her book was done by a small press (Book Publishing Company) with a very small distribution and she never did a promotional tour in the U.S. Her activism was also not reported on in the national news media. 372 Rosalie Bertell, No Immediate Danger, 374. 209 chosen as the bearers of the health risks associated with nuclear technology. In her

"in A book, The Tainted Desert, Kuletz calls this "nuclear colonialism." She discusses it in the context of the inter-desert region of the American Southwest, calling it a kind of

"internal colonialism." She writes, "internal colonialism is characterized by one region - usually a metropolis that is closely associated with state power - exploiting a colonylike peripheral region. In the case of nuclear colonialism, what is seen as usable, sparsely populated, arid geographic space is used as a dumping ground or a testing field to allow more powerful regions to continue their present form of energy production or to continue to exert military power globally. The relationship between the core and periphery is typically one of exploitation, where the human populations in the periphery usually consist of people with a different cultural, racial, or class background."375

Bertell's work with many American and Canadian Indigenous groups confirms the persistence of nuclear colonialism during this period. Likewise, her work in the South

Pacific (and elsewhere) illustrates that nuclear colonialism was not only something that took place within U.S. borders, but extended to the many other regions where nuclearism proliferated. These same people were not given a voice in questions about their community/individual health and, as was the case in the 1970s, Bertell viewed her place as one where she could lend her expertise to people who were concerned about the spread of nuclearism in their communities.

The Demands on Berteil's Time

In her book, Whose Science, Whose Knowledge? Sandra Harding devotes a chapter to discussing the often negative role that science has had in the developing world, as compared to the developed world. Although not specific to nuclear technology, Harding's analysis is useful for placing this trend into a broader context. See, 218-248. 37 Valerie Kuletz, The Tainted Desert, 8. 375 Valerie Kuletz, The Tainted Desert, 8. 210 Bertell's activism during this period expanded and changed in several ways.

Most notably, in September of 1980, Bertell agreed to join the Jesuit Centre for Social

Faith and Research (JCSFR) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada as the resident expert on low level radiation exposure. It was originally planned as a temporary situation, but Bertell

did not resume residency in the U.S. until she retired in 1996.376 Part of the reason

Bertell chose to leave the U.S. was because of the increasingly hostile reception of anti- nuclear activists across the country, particularly those who raised awareness about the health effects of low level radiation exposure. Indeed, in 1979, there was an attempt

"inn made on Bertell's life, when she was driving on a New York highway. Her tenure at the JCSFR lasted until the end of 1983, when she joined University of Toronto physicist

and peace activist, Ursula Franklin, and Dermot McLoughlin, a medical radiologist, to

form the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH), which was incorporated as a Canadian non- profit organization in 1984.378 IICPH was also located in

376 While Bertell is technically retired at the Grey Nuns Motherhouse in Pennsylvania, she remains very active in the peace, anti-nuclear, and environmental movements. 377 The story of this accident was widely reported in the local papers and Bertell was frequently compared to Karen Silkwood, whose own mysterious death from an automobile accident was considered by many to be linked to a political cover-up at the Kerr-McGee plutonium processing plant in Oklahoma. See, Mary- Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell: Scientist, Eco-Feminist, Visionary (Toronto: Women's Press, 2005), 93-96. See also, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol.131, File 7 "Press Clippings," Mark Winiarski, "Is someone trying to kill Sr. Bertell?" National Catholic Reporter 16, 21 (March 21, 1980), 1 and 19. In this particular article Bertell reports several other suspicious incidents, where she became mysteriously ill or felt physically threatened. 378 Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 108. Although IICPH was founded jointly by these three people, Bertell led all health initiatives embarked upon in the name of the organization. I found little evidence of the sustained involvement of either Franklin or McLoughlin in IICPH, although I did not examine the board meeting minutes or other administrative files about the general running of the organization, so they may have maintained a role that way. 211 Toronto. Through each of these transitions in Bertell's activist career, the demands on her time steadily increased.

By 1980, Bertell's work schedule was packed. She was devoted to anti-nuclear activism full-time and the MCPH was well established internationally as a non-profit organization providing professional consulting and educational services on the health effects of low level radiation exposure. Once she joined the JCSFR in September of

1980, Bertell brought virtually all of this work with her. Each year between 1979 and

1982 she averaged approximately 80 speaking engagements or workshops on as many as four different continents - North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe. In 1983 alone,

Bertell went back and forth between Toronto; Louisville, KY; Montreal; Quebec City;

Greenham Common, England; Nuremburg, Germany; Hamilton, ON; Pennsylvania;

Tahiti; New Zealand; the Marshall Islands; Fiji; Vanuatu; Vancouver; Chicago;

Cincinnati; and Nova Scotia, frequently embarking on regional speaking tours or returning to an individual destination several times. In any one of these destinations, she might have spoken before a variety of religious audiences, groups of health professionals,

Colleges or Universities, women's groups, public meetings, conferences, done interviews for radio, television, or print media, given expert testimony, or any combination of these activities. Throughout her tenure with MCPH, the organization's staff was limited to

Bertell and another nun named Audrey Mang, who lent her secretarial and administrative

379 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 126, File 6, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1983, "Activities - 1983." This was typical of Bertell's work until the end of 1986 and after. See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 126, File 8, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1983-1984; File 11, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1985; and File 15, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1986. 212 services to the organization. The same was true at JCSFR: Bertell was the resident expert on low level radiation exposure and there was very limited administrative support available to her. This was quite extraordinary because Bertell was in her fifties by this time and as her biographer, Mary-Louise Engels, notes, "her health was not robust."381

BerteH's Continued Opposition to Commercial Nuclear Power

Even though the commercial nuclear power industry was struggling to stay afloat by the time of the TMI accident in 1979, Bertell's services continued to be requested in several hearings over proposed nuclear reactor applications that were still under review in the 1980s. In 1979, for example, at the request of the Environmental Defence Center

(EDC), Bertell submitted expert testimony on the dangers of "toxic gaseous effluence[s]" from the proposed Diablo Canyon Pressurized Water Nuclear Reactor in California. In the year following her declaration, Bertell continued to respond to requests from the EDC attorney for more consultation on the proposed reactor, liaised with other local community groups opposed to the reactor, and received continuous updates on the status of the legal action, until the EDC ran out of money to oppose the new reactor sometime around 1980. Likewise, after being contacted late in 1979 by the Rockford, Illinois

Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 82. 381 Mary-Louise Engels, Rosalie Bertell, 85. As I mentioned in the previous chapter on Bertell's work in the 1970s, she actually suffered a heart attack in the late 1950s and was periodically ill throughout her childhood. This continued throughout her adult life. 382LAC, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 12, Eichenberg, Timothy. The last piece of correspondence Bertell received from the EDC attorney, Timothy Eichenberg, was on May 12, 1980. In the letter he notified Bertell that they were running out of money and he asked for her presence at the upcoming court hearing on the Diablo reactors as a showing of "moral support:" he also asked her for any other support she could lend them. See also, "Declaration of Dr. Rosalie Bertell," May 2, 1979 - from the same file. Construction on the Diablo Canyon Plants began in 1968 and was completed in 1973. However, Unit 1 did not go online until November 1984 and Unit 2 followed in August 1985. This was because in 1973 there was an 213 Chapter of the League of Women Voters, who were acting as the Intervenors in the licensing proceedings for Commonwealth Edison's application to build two new reactors in Byron, Illinois, Bertell provided expert testimony in 1980. Among other things,

Bertell argued that Commonwealth Edison's Environmental Impact Statement

"base[d] estimates of radiological health impact on an incorrect biological model, and fail[ed] to consider biological diversity in the population; fail[ed] to deal with non-cancer somatic effects of exposure; fail[ed] to deal with impacts on persons in the high risk triangular region bounded by the Quad Cities Nuclear Plants, the Dresden Plant and the Byron Plant; and it fail[ed] to deal with the total impact, integrated globally and into the future (to infinity), from the entire fuel cycle required to provide fuel for the Byron Plants.

She not only addressed the need for utility companies to consider how nuclear reactors might impact the health of different people in unique ways (for example, infants or the elderly), she also encouraged Commonwealth Edison to account for the unknown health effects of radiation exposure, ones that were not considered linked to radiation exposure because they were never studied. Likewise, instead of treating the licensing procedure on a case by case basis, she encouraged regulators to theorize about the ways that radiation exposure from multiple reactors and all other aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle combined to affect human health on a global scale. In addition to providing expert testimony,

Bertell suggested several other experts who might be willing to speak on behalf of the unknown earthquake fault line discovered and the Pacific Gas and Electric Company had to alter the plant design to address this new safety problem. Public opposition to these plants was the most organized in the country. For a detailed discussion of the local opposition to the plant during the 1970s, see Thomas Raymond Wellock, Critical Masses: Opposition to Nuclear Power in California, 1958-1978 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). 383 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 15 - BYRON NUCLEAR REACTOR HEARINGS, PART 1 (BERTELL AFFIDAVIT/BYRON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT), "Affidavit of Rosalie Bertell, BEFORE THE ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD, in the matter of: Commonwealth Edison Co. Byron Stations 1 and 2, Docket nos. 50-454, 50-455, Operating license," October 28, 1980. 214 League of Women Voters, namely scientists with expertise in radiation dosimetry and

"high tension wire, non-ionizing radiation effects."384

Although there were no new applications for nuclear reactors filed in the U.S. during the 1980s, plans to expand the technology continued elsewhere. As a result,

BertelPs activism in this area continued to flourish in places like England, where she testified on September 19, 1984 during the Sizewell B public inquiry into building a new nuclear reactor in Suffolk.385 Sizewell B was the first and only Pressurized Water

Reactor built in England, eventually beginning operation in 1987. Bertell's testimony during the public inquiry is useful for illustrating how alienating speaking out in opposition to nuclear power could be for her. The proponents of the Sizewell B reactor had "at their disposal teams of lawyers, staff, assistants, computers, word processors, printing, copy editing" and "millions of pounds." Bertell, on the other hand, submitted her testimony at "the request of two citizen organizations with very limited financial resources, no legal counsel, and with only one person (with no experience in radiation health problems) assisting [her] with the bureaucratic process at the Inquiry." While she submitted her testimony two months in advance of the inquiry, lawyers working for the

3S4 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 15 - BYRON NUCLEAR REACTOR HEARINGS, PART 1, letter from Bertell to Betty Johnson, Chairperson of the League of Women Voters in Rockford, Sept. 28, 1979. Despite opposition from the League of Women Voters, the Unit 1 Byron Reactor went on line in February 1985, while Unit 2 was up and running by January 1987. This successful licensing and operation of this reactor (and others that were ordered shortly before the TMI accident) were a result of Reagan's persistent promotion of nuclear energy throughout the 1980s. This was despite the fact that the industry was basically bankrupt by the time of the TMI accident. For a more complete discussion of Reagan's refusal to abandon nuclear power, see my chapters on the work of Union of Concerned Scientists between 1980 and 1986 and 1986 to 1992. 385LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 126, File 8: Travelling and Speaking Engagements, 1983-1984, "Summary of Public Speaking and Educational Endeavors 1984." 215 Sizewell team waited until the last minute to get her testimony ruled out. First, they complained that because they did not have access to one of the sources Bertell cited, which was still in press, the testimony was inadmissible. When she sent them a copy of the relevant document by "Special Courier," she received a phone call just two days before leaving to give her oral testimony, informing her that she needed to submit

"complete photocopfies] of the text of each of the 82 research articles" cited in her testimony. She recalled, "I had no lawyer to protect me from this unreasonable request."

So, with the help of two female volunteers in Canada, she "spent two and a half days photocopying the eighty two references," finishing just three hours before her flight to

London was scheduled to leave. After being given approximately one half hour to discuss her testimony, she was subjected to six hours of cross-examination. About this experience, she wrote:

Cross-examination appeared to me more like a male game of one-upmanship than an attempt to learn what the witness knew. It is designed primarily to trap and discredit. With no friendly lawyer to allow me to later express in full the ideas suppressed by the hostile questioning, the Inquiry placed me at a distinct disadvantage and can in no way be said to have listened to my presentation of research findings on the health effects of low level radiation exposure.386

She wrote this to the Editor of the British Magazine Everywoman after they published a critique of Bertell written by the public relations officer of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.

Her point was to highlight two things: how difficult it was for citizens to oppose nuclear

J86LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 3, File 32, Rosalie Bertell, "Letter to the Editor, Everywoman," June 19, 1985. See also, Volume 11, File 19, "Sizewell B Public Inquiry, Report by Sir Frank Layfield, Volume Three, Part II, Sections 6-10." This is the portion of the report that discusses BertelPs testimony during the Inquiry. 216 power and to describe why it was that so few scientists were willing to speak out on behalf of these citizens.

All of this was consistent with her work during the 1970s and reinforces how

Bertell's activism can be understood as a type of feminist/citizen oriented science. It is signified here by the fact that she performed her work at the behest of groups who lacked the scientific expertise to oppose the expansion of nuclear power generating stations in their communities. Indeed, in a 1987 deposition, Bertell informed the lawyer who was deposing her: "I have not ever advertised or tried to do it." Everything she did was "by invitation." She stated, "If I can do it, I do it." I am not suggesting that she was the only expert activist to do this, nor am I claiming that scientists who did advocate directly on behalf of exposed communities were exclusively feminist. Nevertheless, it is true that women were more likely to be at the helm of localized community opposition to environmental hazards like radioactive isotopes - both as concerned citizens and as expert activists.388 Some of these expert activists were indeed men, who had values (anti- nuclear, pacifist, anti-colonial, and feminist) that were similar to Bertell. Bertell's activism reflected her belief that a democratic society provided citizens with all the necessary information needed to assess the expansion of nuclear technology. In one 1982

387 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franklin part 4, Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony, taken at the IICPH in Toronto on March 10,1987 - given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants, page 86. 388 See, for example, Phil Brown, "Popular Epidemiology and Toxic Waste Contamination: Lay and Professional Ways of Knowing," in Illness and the Environment: A Reader in Contested Medicine, ed. Steve Kroll-Smith, Phil Brown, and Valerie J. Gunter (New York: New York University Press, 2000): 364- 383; and also Barbara Allen, Uneasy Alchemy, 117-150. 217 interview, for instance, she declared, "There's been a campaign since 1951 to convince the public that low-level radiation is harmless. People have a right to know what's

-500 happening to human health...The patriotic thing to do is to get it all out into the open."

This included full disclosure about the health effects of low level radiation exposure from the individual, community, and environmental perspective, without factoring in the related economic or (in the case of the nuclear weapons complex) military benefits.

There was never a point at which she assessed the plans for expanding nuclear power in the context of relative risks versus benefits (economic or otherwise). Many people in the nuclear bureaucracy highlighted this fact to portray Bertell as antiquated, unrealistic, and alarmist - characteristics that were at odds with the conventional view of an objective scientist.390 When placed in the context of Allen's definition of feminist science, however, it is possible to see that doing this enabled Bertell to assess nuclear technology from the perspective of those seeking her services.

This quote was taken from the website for Rat Haus Reality Press, which is administered by David Ratcliffe. It originally appeared in Chapter 2 of Leslie Freeman's 1982 book, Nuclear Witnesses, Insiders Speak Out, titled, "Rosalie Bertell, Mathematician and Medical Researcher." See, www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwRB.html, 1. (accessed January 30, 2009). 390 See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 5, File 12, Rosalie Bertell, "Radiation Kills," Leadership Conference of Women Religious: Women For Peace 10, 2 (July 1982). This represents one example among many, where Bertell criticized the use of terms like "permissible dose." In this speech she discusses the reactions to studies about the negative health effects of low level radiation exposure. She says, "Reaction to new findings ranges from outright denial of evidence and personal attack on researchers to pleas for cost-benefit analysis." Of this approach to determining risks, she revealed that "permissible" did not signify "safe." Cost-benefit analysis was something adopted from risk researchers in the automotive and aviation industries, whereby the number of deaths from each industry was weighed against the perceived benefits of the technology; thus, "giving witness to the "acceptability" of such deaths to the public." In the case of radioactive pollution, Bertell's concern was that this cost-benefit analysis did nothing to account for the long term and very "subtle damage to the gene pool, making future generations less able to cope with the hazard we are generating." 218 This philosophy informed Bertell's approach to all of her activist work. In addition to consulting in various cases where citizens opposed the expansion of nuclear power or sought reparations in the courts from weapons testing, she offered her expertise to workers in the nuclear weapons industries, uranium mines, and people whose health was negatively affected by any other aspects of nuclearism worldwide. In 1980 alone,

Bertell "provided professional consultation on 15 health related projects, testified and/or provided affidavits in legal suits" from her position at MCPH. When she joined JCSFR in September of that same year, Bertell proceeded to submit affidavits/testimony in six different legal suits and acted as a consultant for three different communities before the end of the year. In addition to several disputes over the expansion of nuclear power, this included cases where she provided testimony before the House of Parliament in Adelaide,

Australia on the negative health effects of uranium mining; in the Marshall Islands over whether or not it was safe for islanders to resettle on Eniwetok Atoll, after decades of exile because of the Atoll's contamination from the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program; and in a Japanese case that was assessing the effects (health and otherwise) of dumping nuclear waste off the U.S. occupied coast of the Territory of Guam.391 The breadth of Bertell's activist opposition to all aspects of nuclearism by the early 1980s - military and commercial - accounts for how she came to the conclusion that the U.S.

391 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Box 126, File 1, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1978-1982, "Ministry of Concern for Public Health: Description of Activities 1980," 2-3. For a history of nuclear waste dumping in oceans, see, Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Poison in the Well: Radioactive Waste in the Oceans at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008). 219 military was most responsible for perpetuating the health and environmental problems associated with nuclear technology proliferation.

The Insecurity of Bertell's Income

The fact that Bertell often performed her work for little to no financial reward reinforces how her feminist/citizen oriented science work was shaped by gendered notions of selflessness. Indeed, MCPH's "Description of Activities" for 1980 outlines that the Ministry "provided $9,272 in professional services to grass-roots organizations and radiation victims without compensation." Considering that Bertell's daily consultation fee in 1983 was $250 per day, this amounts to approximately thirty seven days of unpaid labour. When considered in the context of how much an institutionally supported scientist could potentially earn, the sacrifice Bertell made in order to serve the people who sought her services is very clear. Bertell's willingness to continue doing so much pro-bono work was undoubtedly rooted in her religious vocation to provide charity.

And, as I have shown, Bertell's religious vocation was as much a gendered construct as it was a religious one. Just as women with children tend to perform unpaid (or underpaid) domestic and childcare work, Bertell's position in a religious sisterhood normalized the fact that she often worked for free. Of course, nuns were not the only Catholic religious

392 This is obviously an oversimplification of the fee structure of MCPH or JCSFR, particularly because I am applying her 1983 fees to 1980. If the $250 per day figure is divided by the standard eight hour work day, her hourly wage can be estimated at $31 per hour. However, in another case, where she consulted between 1979 and 1980, she indicated that her hourly fee was $25 for research/consultation. (See, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 12 - Eichenberg, Timothy - correspondence 1979, Correspondence from Bertell to Timothy Eichenberg, date unknown) The fact that some of these "free" services were likely provided by Audrey Mang, Bertell's administrative assistant, whose wage was much lower, it is possible that even more time was allotted to pro-bono work. My purpose here is to provide a general idea of how overworked and underpaid Bertell was. 220 orders to take vows of poverty. Religious orders of priests - like the Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans, who have historically done missionary work - do take the vow of poverty. Regardless, however, patriarchal ideas about male and female roles in society have historically guided the Catholic Church's designation of duties for male and female religious orders in the mission field and elsewhere. Likewise, the emphasis on selfless care in religious sisterhoods was frequently touted as uniquely feminine (and timeless) by the Catholic Church.394

BertelFs role in the TMI litigation, Kiick vs. Metropolitan Edison, is a good illustration of the insecurity of her income, combined with the stress she suffered due to the multiple demands on her time. The Kiick case revolved around a woman who gave birth to a stillborn approximately five months after the TMI accident. The plaintiffs argued that the stillbirth was caused by the release of iodine-131 after the reactor meltdown of TMI Unit II on March 28, 1979. Fellow scientist activist, Ernest

Sternglass, wrote Bertell seeking her help in the case. In a phone conversation between the two scientists, Bertell spoke about the frenetic pace of her work schedule and the

"enormous" pressures she felt.396 Nevertheless, she proceeded to provide her services once again in this case, advising the Kiick's legal counsel. This was done in a very

See, for example, Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy Lutkehaus, Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice (University of Michigan Press, 1999). 394 See, for example, Lisa Rumiel, "Keeping the Faith: The Role of Nuns and Nurses in Catholic Hospitals, 1929-1949," Major Research Paper, York University, October 2001. 395LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 19, File 8 - Kiick v. Metropolitan Edison, 1982-1984, Correspondence from Dr. Ernest Sternglass to Sam Abloesser, Shein and Brockman, P.A., July 7, 1983. Iodine-131 is a radioactive isotope that when ingested in food is absorbed in the human body, mostly concentrating in the thyroid gland. 396LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 19, File 8 - Kiick v. Metropolitan Edison, 1982-1984, Correspondence from Sternglass to Bertell, October 10, 1983. 221 informal way: first Bertell wrote to the Kiick attorneys at Sternglass's request; they responded asking her to put something more formal in writing, which she did; and they continued to correspond over a period of two months, where Bertell continued responding to additional inquiries as they were received. It is not clear from the correspondence how much she was actually paid for her services, but it is evident that she performed the work at the Kiick attorneys' request and only later submitted requests for compensation. It was common for Bertell to scramble to respond to the needs of the various people seeking her services without knowing for certain that she would receive compensation. During October and November of 1983, when she was consulting in this case, she also maintained a hectic speaking schedule, giving thirteen public talks and one radio interview in as many as nine different Canadian and American cities and some of them, like her participation in the "Methodist Global Ministry Conference" in New York

City, spanned a period of several days.397 Indeed, some of the pressure to fulfill so many speaking engagements was rooted in the fact that the majority of MCPH, JCSFR, and

IICPH's institutional income depended on the honoraria they provided. This was especially true because so many of the individuals and communities on whose behalf she provided expert testimony were unable to adequately compensate her.

Finding New Ways to Perceive Radiation Health Damage

Bertell also sought ways to more concretely use her expertise in epidemiology for the benefit of public/community health. In 1980, she first undertook the task of creating

397 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 126, File 6, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1983, "Activities - 1983." 222 a "Citizen Health Register." This was particularly significant because Bertell's major critique of the commercial nuclear power industry during the 1970s was that the industry relied on the lack of human health monitoring to portray low level radiation exposure as harmless. In virtually every public address and expert testimony Bertell provided during the 1970s she advocated for the expansion of the public health infrastructure in the U.S. to collect baseline data on human health in communities located near already operating and proposed nuclear reactor facilities. She also extended this recommendation to communities who were affected by other aspects of nuclearism. While this information was often collected for workers in various nuclear industries, citizens living near these industries had no similar repository of health information against which to assess the impact of nuclear technology on their health in the long term.398 In 1979, she first proposed creating what she called Health Watch International. In a speech that was given at a conference on "Science and Technology and The Future," she theorized about creating a "technology to monitor technology and humanize it." She announced,

My purpose is to propose a sophisticated measurement of the health variables so that control mechanisms can be built into both planning for the future and accountability for the past. Quantification of factors now left nebulous would aid in obtaining legal recognition of harm and focus public opinion to bring about change.399

See also, Leslie Freeman, Nuclear Witnesses, Insiders Speak Out, "Rosalie Bertell, Mathematician and Medical Researcher," taken from www.ratical.org/radiation/inetSeries/nwRB.html, 6. (accessed January 30, 2009). In 1982, Bertell reiterated this: "We need to stop the total preoccupation of Public Health departments with infectious diseases and convince them to collect information needed to document environmental illnesses. We're legally helpless now. Take the Three Mile Island accident. The public does not have a piece of paper saying what their health characteristics were before the accident, so how can they prove there's been a change?" 399LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31 K39, Volume 4, File 9 - "New Structures for Growth," May 4-7, 1979, Pre- Conference to the World Future Studies Conference, organized by the German Foundation for International Development, 345-352. 223 The Citizen Health Register was MCPH's model for fulfilling this goal on both a community and international level. Bertell wrote: "Such a Register will provide a record of health against which any question of changed community health could be estimated, as well as enable the combining and analysis of information among groups by standardizing and computerizing data." As I underlined in the previous chapter on Bertell's work in the

1970s, implementing such a system on even a national scale would be a massive undertaking. Nevertheless, Bertell argued that it was necessary to collect this information if the health effects of low level radiation exposure were ever going to be fully perceived.400 This was rooted in her own personal frustrations as an epidemiologist who was repeatedly undermined by the nuclear bureaucracy because of her inability to quantitatively illustrate these health effects. It also reinforces the central place of community and individual health in her work, while reinforcing how important it was for

Bertell that this information about public health be made accessible and useful to these lay persons.

Bertell also liaised with other scientists to find new ways of perceiving radiation damage for concerned individuals. Indeed, one of the goals of MCPH (as well as JCSFR and IICPH after it) was to bring together scientists from a variety of disciplines who were interested in applying their "research and health expertise to major global problems." In

1984, when Bertell established IICPH, she also created the journal, International

400 By using the term "perceive" I am referring to the use of the methodological tools of science - in this case, epidemiology - to observe the health effects of radiation exposure. It was Bertell's argument that just because the health effects were not observable, it did not mean that there were none. Nevertheless, she was aware that, in order to have them recognized, they had to be illustrated using conventional scientific tools. 224 Perspectives in Public Health. The purpose of the journal was "to publish some of the work and high quality research papers [of various international scientists] now being

suppressed because they are labelled controversial."401 Although the journal was

intended to publish scientific articles on all "environmental hazards," most of the articles published during the 1980s (and after) dealt with the health effects of radiation exposure.

The journal was not only a means for publishing dissident science, but also forging links between researchers with similar health concerns.

One of the ways Bertell sought to apply different scientific methodologies to the question of the health effects of low-level radiation exposure was by having chromosome testing performed on people who had been exposed to radiation. For example, in

MCPH's 1980 description of activities, it was reported that "testing for chromosome

aberrations and sister chromatid exchange (SCE)...was made available to a number of radiation/chemical victims during 1980." Dr. Avery Sandberg, a cytogeneticist at

Roswell Park Memorial Institute, where Bertell worked for the majority of the 1970s, was the individual MCPH relied on to perform the testing. For a fee, Sandberg

0 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 1 - Downing, Part 6 , Bertell's deposition that she gave in the matter of the claim of: James R. Downing (Deceased), Claimant, v. The Dow Chemical Company and Rockwell International Corporation (Employers), The Travelers Insurance Company (Insurer) and Director, Colorado Division of Labour (For the Subsequent Injury Fund), Respondents - Colorado Division of Labour, Workmen's Compensation Section. It is the discovery deposition of Bertell given on November 11,1988. 124. 402 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Box 126, File 1, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1978-1982, "Ministry of Concern for Public Health: Description of Activities 1980," 1. According to the website, Good Gov, Bad Prez - http://goodusgov.org/iaoarc/Chromosome%20Testing.htm - "When radiation damages DNA, one result is an increase in the number of chromosomes which suffer breaks and recombine to give anomalous centric ring and dicentric chromosomes. These can be seen and counted using an ordinary light microscope. The method can be used to estimate historic radiation exposure over a long period of time." 225 performed these tests in his Roswell laboratory. While cytogenetics is currently

"considered the most accurate way to assess the body's injury from radiation," this has not always been the case.404 One of the first research papers to show that ionizing radiation caused strand breaks to the DNA of irradiated cells was published in 1966 in the journal Nature.405 The fact that Bertell ordered these tests through her small non-profit organizations during the 1980s, however, suggests that the testing was neither standardized for radiation workers, nor was it very accessible for people seeking to understand whether or not there was a relationship between their radiation exposures and their various health problems. Arranging chromosome breakage and chromatid sister exchange tests was only one of the non-epidemiological ways that Bertell sought to perceive the effects of radiation on the human body. For example, at the request of the

Citizens Task Force in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, Bertell arranged for Hari Sharma, a nuclear chemist from the University of Waterloo, to perform urine analyses on 58 residents to test for the presence of lead-210. The goal in this 1986 case was to perceive the health effects of uranium tailings on the local population and it was Bertell's hope that the urine tests (which did show high levels of lead-210) would encourage the

403 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 6, Correspondence from Sr. Lois A. Bordowitz (JCSFR) to Dr. Susan Lambert, November 9,1983. 404 Frank Munger, "Munger: Oak Ridge institute to reopen lab to measure radiation doses," online version of the Knoxville News Sentinel, June 7, 2006. See, http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2006/jun/07/munger- oak-ridge-institute-to-reopen-lab-to/ (accessed January 28, 2009). 4051 was made aware of this article through email correspondence with Richard Setlow at the British National Library. See, R. A. McGrath and R. Williams, "Reconstruction in vivo of irradiated /Escherichia coli/ deoxyribonucleic acid: the rejoining of broken pieces," Nature 212 (1966): 373-390. 226 government to perform a more complete health study on the Canonsburg population.406

Bertell maintained a relationship with Sharma throughout the 1980s and he coordinated blood and urine testing for several of the community health studies Bertell performed while she worked at IICPH.

Bertell's First Attempts at Independent Health Studies

Examining the independent health studies performed by Bertell is another obvious illustration of the feminist/community oriented nature of her activism. These studies are also a good illustration of the role of sympathetic scientists in popular epidemiology - or barefoot epidemiology, as Bertell termed it. Reflecting back on this work in 2005, she stated,

I took my clues from people and started doing what's called barefoot epidemiology to try to document in a scientific way what was happening to the people who were downwind or downstream from some polluting industry, and provide them with a scientific document which they could use politically.

Sociologist Phil Brown has written extensively about popular epidemiology in the context of toxic waste contamination, in particular, the childhood leukemia cluster in

Woburn, Massachusetts and its relationship to chemically contaminated water wells in

406 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12 - File 10 - Canonsburg, Pennsylvania - Clippings, Linda Ritzer, "Radioactive lead found in children," Observer-Reporter, August 3, 1986 and Sandy Trozzo, "Dump site, residents' health in Canonsburg may be linked," The Pittsburgh Press, August 3, 1986. 407 This quote is taken from a documentary description on the Snowshoe documentary film website, which features a seven part series on Bertell. See, www.snowshoefilms.com/rbertell.html (accessed January 28, 2009). 227 the community. In his article, "Popular Epidemiology and Toxic Waste

Contamination," Brown defines the term as follows:

Popular epidemiology is the process by which laypersons gather scientific data and other information, and also direct and marshal knowledge and resources of experts in order to understand the epidemiology of disease. In some of its actions, popular epidemiology parallels scientific epidemiology, such as when laypeople conduct community health surveys. Yet popular epidemiology is more than public participation in traditional epidemiology, since it emphasizes social structural factors as part of the causal disease chain. Further, it involves social movements, utilizes political and judicial approaches to remedies, and challenges basic assumptions of traditional epidemiology, risk assessment, and public health i • 409

regulation.

As Brown reveals in his toxic cases model of the "stages of citizen involvement,"

BertelFs intervention in these public health disputes was generally a small part of a much larger effort at community mobilization. It was only after people became aware of health problems and pollutants; "hypothesize[d]" that there might be a relationship between the two; met as a community group to share information and formed networks, where research could be organized; and sought the help of government agencies that independent scientists like Bertell might be contacted.410

See, for example, Phil Brown and Edwin J. Mikkelsen, No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). For more on the role of lay citizens in political and legal disputes over toxic contamination, see, Frank Fischer, Citizens, Experts, and the Environment: The Politics of Local Knowledge (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000); Alan Irwin, Citizen Science: A Study of People, Expertise, and Sustainable Development (New York: Routledge, 1995); and Wolff-Michael Roth, Janet Reicken, Lilian Pozzer-Ardenghi, Robin McMillan, Brenda Storr, Donna Tait, Gail Bradshaw, and Trudy Pauluth Penner, "Those Who Get Hurt Aren't Always Being Heard: Scientist-Resident Interactions over Community Water," Science, Technology, and Human Values 29 (2004): 153-183. 409 Phil Brown, "Popular Epidemiology and Toxic Waste Contamination," 366. 410 Phil Brown, "Popular Epidemiology and Toxic Waste Contamination," 367. Brown outlines a nine stage model of action and it is only at stage seven that "community groups bring in their own experts to conduct a health study and to investigate pollutant sources and pathways." This is based on his own 228 In addition to sharing concerns over the health effects of radiation exposure,

Bertell also felt the same frustrations that various community groups had with professional epidemiological studies. Like these groups, her dissatisfaction was very personal. BertelPs work on the Tri-State leukemia study during the 1970s is a good example of the limitations of large epidemiological studies. She spent eight years working with the Tri-State team of researchers, analysing one slice of the data set on sixteen million people (the adult non-lymphatic leukemia group). The actual study was initiated in the 1960s and Bertell only joined after the data collection phase was completed. When the National Institutes of Health (NIH) cut off Tri-State funding, it was a huge blow to all researchers on the team. The controversial nature of the study's early findings - basically, that there was a relationship between low level radiation exposure from routine x-ray procedures and leukemia - and their implications for the commercial nuclear power industry influenced the decision, in 1978, to stop funding the study. It only took the unfavourable criticisms of a few scientists, most of them somehow affiliated with the NRC, who disagreed with the Tri-State team's interpretation of the data, to have the study completely dismissed. To this day, there is very little awareness in any of the historical or mainstream epidemiological literature about this particular study and its contribution to understanding the relationship between low level radiation exposure and leukemia. ' Likewise, it had little direct impact on health policy, either

research in Woburn, as well as several other toxic cases. He notes that while it is not always true that one stage is completed before another is initiated, this is the consistent order of the stages. 411 See my chapter on Bertell's activism during the 1970s for a more detailed discussion of the Tri-State Survey and Bertell's role as a senior research epidemiologist from 1970 to 1978. 229 with relation to using routine medical x-rays or to the expansion of nuclear power. While this work on the Tri-State Study prepared Bertell to work as an expert activist in the anti- nuclear movement and lent her some epidemiological credibility, it was also a kind of black mark on her resume frequently used to discredit her. On the other hand, when community groups successfully agitated for "government agencies" to perform "official" health studies, the consistent trend (especially in the case of epidemiological studies) has been that they do not find a relationship between the toxic elements and the particular community health problems. My research into the various epidemiological studies that have found a correlation between cancer and low level radiation exposure shows that the dismissal of the Tri-State Study by mainstream scientific bodies like the NIH was not an aberration. Those official studies which confirmed community health concerns with low level radiation exposure during the 1970s were subsequently discredited by conservative scientists (that is, scientists who argued the need to be more 'cautious' in ones scientific conclusions) and nuclear industry representatives.413

Brown tells us that the reason there is such a discrepancy between community understandings of health and disease and the official/accepted studies is that 'modern' epidemiology has become detached from its roots. He argues, in its current form, epidemiology adheres to a "laboratory science model, often more concerned with protecting the increasingly rigid standards of scientific procedures than with safeguarding public health." Indeed, it is easy to see how this might have occurred in the post-war

412 This is Brown's argument. 1 Again, see the previous chapter on Bertell's work in the 1970s for elaboration on this point. 230 period when the discipline was fighting for status as a legitimate science alongside more established hard sciences like physics and chemistry and the virtual explosion of new scientific disciplines.414 Brown identifies John Snow's 1854 "discovery of the relationship between water contamination and a cholera epidemic" as the birth of epidemiology and notes that this early form of epidemiology is far more similar to popular epidemiology than it is to the discipline's modern approach to studying patterns of disease. Snow's investigation was directly shaped by community concerns that there was a relationship between the disease outbreak and water and he confirmed it by mapping out the area where the outbreak was most severe, deducing that London's Broad

Street pump was the source of contamination. Brown views popular epidemiology as a progressive step backwards to this earlier approach to community health. Not everyone shares this view. As I will illustrate below, popular epidemiological studies that take as their starting point specific community/individual concerns with disease and toxic contamination are considered biased and unscientific by mainstream researchers and government bodies.

Brown also identifies a small community of scientists from within the epidemiological profession who consistently align themselves with "community groups, or who on their own are pursuing a critical approach to epidemiology." He writes:

414 For a discussion of this trend in the post war period, see Brian Balogh, Chain Reaction: Expert Debate and Public Participation in American Commercial Nuclear Power, 1945-1975 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). See also, Susan Lindee's discussion of the complexity of modern epidemiological studies. M. Susan Lindee, Suffering Made Real: American Science and the Survivors at Hiroshima (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 231 By 'critical epidemiology' I mean the approach from within the discipline of epidemiology that argues against a value-free model, that focuses on the social context of environmental hazards and diseases, and that seeks to remediate and prevent future occurrences of the circumstances that cause those hazards and diseases.415

This is a useful way for understanding Bertell's place within the profession. She was influenced both by her negative experience of losing valuable NIH funding at a crucial point in the Tri-State Leukemia Study (and, arguably, her career) and by the repeated dismissal of her expert opinions on the health effects of low-level radiation exposure in the nuclear regulatory arena. Her lack of success at influencing the decisions to expand nuclear power in the United States, as well as the dismal record among individuals using the Federal Courts to gain recognition for radiation related health damage influenced

Bertell to begin experimenting with doing these independent health studies.

In 1978, Bertell first experimented with doing a small-scale epidemiological study that was shaped directly by community concerns with the relationship between leukemia and nuclear weapons testing. In this case, the 'community' was represented by the eighty six civilian nuclear workers, who participated in the 1970 Baneberry nuclear weapons test in the Nevada Desert.416 Part of Bertell and Alice Stewart's testimony in the

Nunamaker/Roberts leukemia litigation was a health study designed and performed by the two epidemiologists. The health survey included the eighty six men, including

Nunamaker and Roberts, who were present during the Baneberry test, and followed them from 1970 until the deaths of Nunamaker and Roberts from leukemia in 1978. As a

415 Phil Brown, "Popular Epidemiology Revisited," 147. 416 For a more complete discussion of this case, see the chapter on Bertell's activism during the 1970s. 232 control group, Bertell and Stewart chose a similar group of men (age, health, and so on) in the general population and followed them for the same period of time. They found that there was an unusually high level of leukemia in the test worker population. This was a unique approach to an epidemiological study for several reasons: because it was a very small sample size and the decision to perform the study was directly related to the leukemia deaths of these two men. According to the judge in the case, this was a major flaw. He wrote: "The Court finds that the group was selected because two of its members had been reputed to have leukemia: it was a group preselected to reflect the epidemiologists' bias that low-level radiation causes cancer, rather than a random group selected by impartial scientists."417 This reinforces my above claim that it was difficult to garner positive recognition for doing health studies from the perspective of the affected community. As feminist historians of science reveal, few in the mainstream of scientific institutions questioned the ethical implication of the national science budget going almost exclusively towards military and industrial research applications. According to Suzanne

Le-May Sheffield, "This science is pursued for its usefulness in maintaining the male- dominated status quo, its ability to allow humans control over nature, and for its

41 R profitability." As demonstrated by the judge's opinion in this case, the courts generally affirmed this approach to doing science and resisted efforts by activist scientists

417LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 19, "United States District Court, District Court of Nevada" In the matter of Dorothy Roberts, et. al. Plaintiffs vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 1766 RDF; and Louise Nunamaker, Plaintiff, vs. United States of America, Defendant, Civil LV 76-259. "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law," 95-96. 418 Suzanne Le-May Sheffield, Women and Science: Social Impact and Interaction (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006), 197. 233 to challenge the male-dominated status-quo and make the U.S. federal government accountable to the people who were harmed through the weapons testing program.

While Bertell and Stewart would not have disagreed completely with the judge's characterization of their study, they would have disputed his contention that the study was shaped by their bias. Both Bertell and Stewart were discouraged by the trend in large epidemiological studies with large randomly selected study populations. More often than not, these (supposedly, value-neutral) studies tended to confuse rather than illuminate the health effects of radiation in communities that were located in close proximity to nuclear weapons testing sites. This was because, in order to generate results that were "statistically significant," researchers were burdened with the challenge of proving that their findings were not "due to chance." Barbara Allen tells us that standard epidemiological studies in the 1980s and 1990s required a "95 percent assurance rate...[or] less than one chance out of twenty that the results [we]re due to chance." The problem with this, according to Allen, Bertell and others, is that a health problem need not be statistically significant in order to exist. Demanding such a high assurance rate, moreover, enabled toxic industries to continue polluting local environments and damaging the health of even more people. The larger the study population, the more likely health effects in communities located downwind of toxic industries are going to be

(or were) diluted, particularly because the populations of these communities are (were) so small. Epidemiological critic, Richard Couto writes, "The degree of risk to human health

234 does not have to be at statistically significant levels to require political action. The degree of risk does have to be such that a reasonable person would avoid it."419

By 1980, Bertell had completed an independent health study of low birth weight infants in Wisconsin and initiated a new one on "birth defects in children and grandchildren of Navajo uranium miners."420 Together these studies represent Bertell's efforts not only to respond to local health concerns, but also to expand research on low level radiation exposure to include analyses of not only cancer effects, but also birth defects and low birth weight infants - things that often went unexplained. She was commissioned to do the Wisconsin Study by a community group that went by the title,

Land Leaf, Incorporated. The group consisted of concerned citizens living near three of the nuclear reactor generating stations in the state - the two Units of the Point Beach

Nuclear Generating Stations and the one reactor at the Kewaunee Nuclear Generating

Station. All of these reactors were located in the region southeast of Green Bay, near the small towns of Two Rivers, Manitowoc, and Carlton, respectively. In addition to these three plants, the Lacrosse Nuclear Generating Station began operation in 1969 and was located on the western border of the State, ninety miles northwest of Madison; and there were three nuclear power plants operating in Minnesota (one at Monticello and two Units at Red Wing). Bertell was called upon by this community group during a time when the

State of Wisconsin was considering building another nuclear reactor and they "wanted to

Barbara Allen, Uneasy Alchemy, 132-133. The quote from Richard Couto is also taken from Allen. 420 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, File 126: Travel and Speaking Engagements, 1978-1982, "Ministry of Concern for Public Health: Description of Activities 1980." 235 know if there was any indication of problems from the plants that were already built" during the 1960s and 1970s. Because all of the plants were relatively new and not enough time had elapsed for cancers to surface, it was too early to perform a study on whether or not there was a relationship between the nuclear plants and cancer rates in the

State.421 Bertell found that there was an increase in the deaths of low birth weight infants in two of the three regions of the State that were included in the study - all of the areas were downwind of one or more of the seven reactors mentioned above. She was not aware that there was an increase before she started the study, but chose this population because it was a particularly vulnerable one, where it was more likely that health effects would be detected. The study found that there was an excess of 100 deaths among low

499 birth weight babies, who were born weighing between 1500 and 2500 grams.

Apparently, the State of Wisconsin was an ideal place from which to perform this study because it kept detailed health statistics that were accessible to interested researchers or laypersons. For example, the death certificates captured the birth weight in all infant mortality cases (which most states at this time did not do), enabling Bertell to perform a study on only low birth weight infants, without having to do the arduous work of correlating death and birth certificates to find information about birth weight.423

421 Point Beach Unit I went online in 1970; Unit II in 1973; and the Kewaunee plant opened in 1974. 422 The study looked only at this weight grouping because infants born below 1500 grams almost always died, regardless of efforts at nurturing their health. 423LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franklin part 4, Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony, taken at the IICPH in Toronto on March 10, 1987 - given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants, 116-124. 236 Bertell's Navajo birth defect study was less successful. It was initiated at the request of the Navajo Reserve after physicians at Shiprock Hospital, located on the reserve and operated by Indian Health Services, reported that there was an excess of birth defects occurring among reserve Indians. The hospital also reported that there was a reversal of the standard sex ratio - whereas there were "usually more boys born than girls," there were only "72 to 75 boys born for every 100 girls." Bertell's study was partially funded by a March of Dimes Grant, but before data collection was finished the grant was reduced from $25,000 per year to $10,000. According to Bertell, this was not even enough to cover the costs of gas that would be needed to travel between New

Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, the four states intersecting the Navajo Nation.

The portion of the study that was completed was the collection and computerization of

"infant birth records" and the "mother's [hospital] records," but she was unable to collect any of the anecdotal information like where the mother and father worked, where they lived on the Reserve, and whether or not they were present on the Reserve during the 18 weapons tests that were performed upwind.424 The failure of Bertell to complete this particular study is a good illustration of how difficult it could be to perform independent epidemiological studies. She had little financial support and the funding she did have was severely reduced not long after the study was initiated.

424 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franklin part 4, Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony, taken at the IICPH in Toronto on March 10,1987 - given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants, 112-116. 237 These were only two among many different health studies Bertell performed for concerned communities in North America. She also undertook a study of the "health effects of residents near the site of a uranium processing plant in Canonsburg,

Pennsylvania," as well as another "study to determine if such environmental factors as hazardous waste and chemical industries] have played a role in the occurrence of Down

Syndrome in Warren County, Pennsylvania." Both of these studies were initiated in 1983.

As is evident by the number of speaking engagements Bertell had in Canada after 1980, she also became embroiled in anti-nuclear struggles there. By 1983, this also included at least two health studies: one performed for the Mississauga, Serpent River, and Spanish

River Native Reserves, located near the shores of Lake Superior and northern Lake

Huron and another in residential Scarborough, Ontario.425 Residents living on McClure

Crescent in Scarborough were living on top of nuclear waste that had been buried there by the Ontario Government in the 1940s. After this was discovered by the residents of

McClure Crescent, the government resolved to remove the waste from the community, which had been situated there since the 1970s. In 1984, Bertell's role was to provide expert testimony on the storage of the waste, as well as to work with the McClure

425 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 10, File 2 - Bane, Franklin, pt. 1 "International Institute of Concern for Public Health: Health For All by the Year 2000." This information was included in an IICPH pamphlet that Bertell shared with the lawyer deposing her for the Franklin Bane lawsuit in 1987. See also, Volume 15, File 11, "Health Assessment Report: Mississauga Band, December 1983;" and "Joint Health Report: Serpent River, Mississauga and Spanish River Reserves, January 1984." 238 community to explore possible health effects from living on the waste pile for almost fifteen years.426

Bertell's Work in the South Pacific

While Bertell began expressing concerns over the militarization of the South

Pacific and started building contacts by 1980, her sustained involvement in the region began in 1983. To varying degrees, she reached out to communities in the Marshall

Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Malaysia, Hawaii, Vanuatu, and elsewhere. In Vanuatu,

Bertell participated in the ten day Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Conference, where she was invited to give the Keynote Address on the "Health Effects of Ionizing

Radiation" and its links to the process of "nuclearization" in the Pacific.427 Her involvement in this conference is a good illustration of how Bertell became part of an international movement opposing military/nuclear colonialism. The conference was attended by 160 people from 33 different nations and the symbolic importance of having the conference in Vanuatu was that it was "the only Pacific nation to declare itself

Nuclear Free." Militarism and nuclearization were understood by the delegates at the conference to be a form of neo-colonialism. On the one hand, all of the decisions to test nuclear weapons, dump nuclear waste, and create new military bases in the Pacific

Islands since 1945 were made by the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, Britain, and

426 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 19 - CANADIAN PACIFIC EXPRESS AND TRANSPORT LTD. CARBON 14 - BACKGROUND INFORMATION: WASTE NOT WANTED, INC. "WASTE NOT WANTED INC. V. HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN IN RIGHT OF CANADA ET. AL. (INTERVENORS); FEDERAL COURT OF CANADA [TRIAL DIVISION], J. COLLIER - JUDGEMENT - JUNE 15, 1987. 427 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 3, File 3, Rosalie Bertell, "Pacific Nuclearization: Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation," July 10-20, 1983. 239 Australia, all of whose respective military strength was increased by these displays of prowess. On the other hand, the costs of this were keenly felt by the Pacific Islanders, whose fish, oceans, coral reefs, island habitats, and health were threatened by contamination and destruction. Moreover, these island people had little ability to influence decision-making about continued militarization. For instance, even though

Vanuatu citizens drew up a "nuclear free constitution," the U.S. government refused to acknowledge it because the island was "an independent part of the Pacific Island Trust

Territory," negotiated after Japan surrendered at the end of World War II. The anti- colonial sentiment at the conference was also reinforced by the declaration of solidarity with other independence struggles around the world and a statement affirming the "right to self-determination of the Aboriginal, Maori, native Hawaiian, North American Indian, and Chamorro people, condemning the racist policies of the Australian, New Zealand,

U.S. and Canadian governments toward these indigenous people." As I have shown,

Bertell's commitment to the right to self-determination among people who were opposed to nuclearism was much more than lip service. Rather, the anti-colonial position taken at this conference was an affirmation of Bertell's values and her approach to anti-nuclear activism.

Between 1983 and 1986, Bertell was most actively involved in health activism in the Marshall Islands. This was mainly because, after the Marshall Islands officially became a self-governing territory in 1979, the government was eager to assess the

428 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 21, File 6 - Marshall Islands - Correspondence, 1983-1984, "Fourth Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Conference, July 10-20, 1983, Port Vila, Vanuatu." 240 damage to the area and its people from weapons testing. Jeton Anjain, who was the

Minister of Health and a Senator in the Marshall Islands parliament, was the person most receptive to the idea of performing independent health studies in the region. He and

Bertell developed a close working relationship during the 1980s, with Bertell supporting

Anjain's efforts to raise awareness about the health problems of Marshall Islanders, to achieve the goal of doing the independent health study, and to hold the U.S. government accountable for the environmental and health damage done to the Islands. Through this relationship, Bertell developed a strong sense of responsibility to these particular islands because they had been so mistreated by the U.S. government since they were made a

Trust Territory in 1947. The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands included a series of islands located in Micronesia and was set up by the United Nations - to be administered by the U.S. Rather than protect the islands - as the U.S. was meant to do - they used it as a testing ground for nuclear weapons, performing 66 tests between 1946 and 1958. This included the well-known 1954 Bravo test of the hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. The winds carried the fallout from Bravo to the Rongelap Atoll of the Marshall Islands, more than 100 miles away and the Rongolap people suffered acute radiation sickness. The

U.S. government did not evacuate people from the Island until two days later and, despite evidence that it was still contaminated by radiation in 1957 the U.S. government resettled the people, assuring them that all health concerns were eliminated. It is now well- established in the literature that concerns with the health effects of weapons testing were

241 secondary to national security in the American government. In this case, the AEC was even more cavalier about the health effects of exposure because the Marshall Islands were so remote from U.S. soil. By the 1980s, the people of Rongelap suffered abnormally high levels of cancers and birth defects, but the U.S. Department of Energy

(DOE) continued to ignore (or deny) the relationship between the weapons testing program and the health problems on the Island.430 Because of her long history of involvement in various other public health disputes over low level radiation exposure with the AEC, the NRC, and the DOE, Bertell joined the Marshall Islanders, who distrusted these platitudes about safety.

There were a variety of ways that Bertell became involved in the health politics of nuclearism in each of the various places that she worked in the South Pacific. In

Malaysia, for instance, the Consumer's Association of Penang (CAP) became aware of her work upon reading Leslie Freeman's 1982 book, Nuclear Witnesses: Insider's Speak

Out, and they made contact with Bertell through the publishing company. CAP was acting on behalf of the community of Bukit Merah, whose citizens were concerned about the location of a "tantalum ore dump" in their backyards. The dump contained radioactive uranium and thorium particles that were blowing into the community and many residents reported a series of health problems. One resident of Bukit Merah, along

429 See my discussion of this in chapter three for elaboration on this point. 430 For a description of Jeton Anjain's role in health activism on the Marshall Islands, see the website for the Goldman Environmental Prize - http://www.goldmanprize.org/node/72 - and the Right Livelihood Award - http://www.rightlivelihood.org/rongelap.html. These were two international prizes awarded to Anjain as a result of his work in the Marshalls. See also the speech he gave upon receiving the Right Livelihood Award, also taken from the organization's website - http://www.rightlivehhood.org/anjain speech.html. (accessed January 28, 2009). 242 with CAP, had plans to sue the company in question and they sought BertelPs expert services. They wrote: "It is our fervent hope that you will be able to help us in this matter. In fact, we have been closely following reports of your work and are highly impressed by the outspokenness, dedication and sincerity in you. For us also it is rare to find people-oriented experts to testify for us. It is for this precise reason that we appeal to you for help."431 In French Polynesia, on the other hand, it appears that Bertell made contact through her connections to the international women's peace movement. She corresponded with Marie Therese Danielsson, who was a member of the Women's

International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) chapter in French Polynesia, over

AT.') plans to perform a health study of the region. In 1983, Danielsson hosted Bertell on

one of her speaking tours of the area and plans to perform the health study unfolded from there.433 These are only three of the many ways that she forged ties to the Pacific. The presence of the Church in the South Pacific was also important for Bertell's efforts to

431 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 6 - Malaysia General Information, Correspondence from President of CAP to The Publishers of W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., March 30, 1983 and February 8, 1983; and Correspondence from the President of CAP to Bertell, February 8, 1983. While the community group first made contact with Bertell in 1983, it was not until 1987 that she became involved in any community protest against the Asia Rare Earth Company that managed the waste or became an expert witness in the litigation against the company. I will discuss this further in the next chapter on Bertell's work from 1986 to 1992. 432 For a brief biography of Therese Danielsson, see the Right Livelihood Award website - http://www.rightlivelihood.org/danielsson.html. (accessed Janury 27, 2009). Along with Jeton Anjain, Danielsson and her husband, Bengt, were awarded the Right Livelihood Award (the Alternative Nobel) in 1991 for their long history of environmental and women's activism in French Polynesia. 433 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 14, File 20, Correspondence from Bertell to Marie Therese Danielsson, September 7, 1983 - included in the package was Bertell's proposed health study. Her specific concern was the long history of weapons testing in the Pacific region - by the U.S., the British, and the French - and she proposed the health study for these reasons. See also, correspondence from Marie Therese Danielsson to Bertell, October 10, 1983. Plans for this study continued on through 1988, by which time another peace activist from New Zealand - Andy Beidermann - became involved in plans for the study. 243 build relationships with these communities, especially women's religious communities.

This was especially true in the Marshall Islands.

Likewise, she regularly visited hospitals, building relationships with medical professionals. While speaking to these institutions about her concerns with radiation health issues, she learned about the broad based health needs of each place. Indeed,

Bertell's original draft of the "Pacific Island Assessment Project" outlined the need to assess health needs on the Pacific Islands of both Polynesia and Micronesia and to explore the "feasibility" of "emergency medical assistance" in the form of supplies and medical personnel as well as funding to meet the needs of the people.434 In this same year Bertell was a guest speaker at the Christ Church Hospital in New Zealand, the

Majuro General Hospital in the Marshall Islands, and the Latoka Hospital and Hoodless

House General Hospital, both located in Fiji. 5 During her visit to the Majuro General

Hospital, she learned of the shortage of medical equipment there and used her connections in the U.S. to arrange for the St. Francis Medical Center donation of an

Electrocardiogram (EKG) machine.436 Likewise, she also made arrangements for the

World Medicine Relief Corp. to provide "ongoing assistance" to the Majuro General

Hospital and she offered to help the hospital raise the necessary funds for transporting the

434LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 126, File 7, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1983 (May-Dec), "Pacific Island Assessment Project," June -July 1983. The original plans to perform the health study were much broader in scope than the later plans to do the study of only the Marshall Islands. Once the U.S. Congress agreed to fund a study, plans were scaled back even further to include only the Rongelap Atoll of the Marshall Islands. 435 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 126, File 6, Travel and Speaking Engagements 1983 - "Activities 1983." 436 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 21, File 6 - Marshall Islands - Correspondence, 1983-1984, Correspondence from Dr. Luis Jain, Chief of Staff at the Marshall Islands Hospital to Bertell, November 11, 1983. 244 donated equipment overseas.437 In 1984, Bertell also coordinated plans to have two nurses, who also happened to be Franciscan Sisters, named Ruth Goodwin and Irene

Nieland, trained at the Maryknoll Mission Institute in San Francisco and sent to the

Majuro General Hospital as volunteers for a period of four to six months. J0 In 1985, she followed up this effort at offering medical aide by sending Bernie Lau, a Chinese

Canadian physician, to work in the hospital for six months. His trip was sponsored by

IICPH, which by this time Bertell had been running for over a year. Upon returning from his trip in the Marshalls, he recalled, "In the hospital I worked at, we had only seven beds and three doctors for 10,000 people."439 These examples are good illustrations of how

Bertell could also be attentive to non-radiation related health needs. When her motives for doing this particular kind of health advocacy work were questioned by the Catholic priest who was living in Majuro during this period, Bertell replied,

437 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 21, File 6 - Marshall Islands - Correspondence, 1983-1984, Correspondence from Bertell to Dr. Luis Jain, the Chief of Staff at the Marshall Islands Hospital, October 21, 1983. See also the letter from Bertell, which is addressed, "Dear Friends." She describes her trip to the Marshall Islands, explains her plans to perform a health study of the region, and appeals to American health care institutions to send necessary supplies to the hospital, which is in very poor condition. 438 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 21, File 6 - Marshall Islands - Correspondence, 1983-1984, Correspondence from Bertell to Bryan Herir, U.S. Catholic Conference, April 6, 1984; correspondence from Bertell to the Catholic Medical Mission Board, April 9, 1984; Correspondence from Bertell to Bishop Martin J. Neylon, S.J., June 12, 1984; correspondence to Bertell from Father Francis Hexel, S.J., June 25, 1984; correspondence from Bertell to Hexel, July 6, 1984; correspondence from Father Thomas R. Marciniak, S.J. to Bertell, July 17, 1984; correspondence from Bertell to Marciniak, July 18, 1984. This series of correspondence is a good example of how Bertell attempted to use the international Catholic community, in this case the one located in the South Pacific, to aide her in her activism. It is also a good illustration of the fact that her work was not always consistent with the priorities of the Church, as they were understood by the male hierarchy. While the local Majuro priest agreed to house the two nursing Sisters at the local convent during their stay in the Marshall Islands, she was unable to secure funding from the Catholic diocese for their trip and she engaged in a disagreement with at least one priest over the health needs of the Marshall Islanders and the role that the Church should play in helping. 439LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 9, Susan G. Cole, "Marshall Island Malaise: Just back from the South Pacific, Bernie Lau found hell in paradise," NOW Magazine, July-August 1986. 245 There is indeed a hidden agenda for their (the nurses) coming. I would like the Marshall Islanders to understand quite clearly that we care about them and would like to assist their agenda, i.e. moving the hospital, as well as our agenda. My personal hope is to heal the scars inflicted on the Marshalls by U.S. preoccupation with its own "security," to make friends, to decide ways to maximize the health potential for future Marshallese, and to help the U.S. understand and "see" the folly of war and preparation for war.

Bertell understood from past experience how long it might take to realize her goals of organizing an independent health study in the region and was eager to maintain her connections with the Marshall Islands, even if they took the form of these small attempts at providing medical aide.

She also spent this waiting time between 1983 and 1986 engaging the international community of medical experts to try and find medical explanations for the mysterious births of what Islanders called, jellyfish babies. In 1983, there were ten reported incidents of these previously unknown birth defects. The proceedings of the

Vanuatu Conference reported:

Of grave concern this summer was the birth often "jelly fish babies" who were born of third generation radiation victims in the Marshalls. These human "babies" develop for nine months, and have some semblance of hair and bone. They live only as long as they are attached to the mother by the umbilical chord. Their occurrence, which is so unheard of among the islanders, pales the other cases of metal retardation, deformities and abnormalities with which families have been coping since the 1950s.

In 1983, Bertell corresponded with David Stewart, an obstetrician at Brandon University and he suggested that perhaps they were "hydatidiform moles...known for decades to be more prevalent in the Pacific area, particularly western Pacific countries such as the

44U LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 6, Correspondence from Bertell to Thomas R. Marciniak, S.J., July 18, 1984. 246 Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore." He informed her that they were - to the best of his knowledge - unexplained and that their appearance antedated weapons testing.441

Another physician, Susan Lambert, agreed that the hydatidiform mole was a likely possibility and also suggested several other case studies in the biomedical literature that

Bertell might follow up to better understand the birth defects.442 Bertell also tried to influence others to take up the issue of the jelly fish babies in the Marshall Islands. For instance, when she learned that South Pacific Commission was planning to perform a study of women's health in the region, she shared her knowledge of the jellyfish babies

(along with the clinical explanations she had received) and encouraged the group to include a section in their study for the hydatidiform mole and related birth defects.443

Despite the efforts of Anjain, Bertell and many others, it would be several years before the details of the independent health study would be decided upon and the process of data collection could begin. In 1985, plans for the health study were forced to take a back seat to the relocation of the Rongelap people to Mejato Island. Plans for the move began in 1983 when islanders became aware of a 1978 DOE study, which showed that the island was as contaminated as Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, both declared uninhabitable by the US government in the 1950s. When repeated requests for the U.S.

Congress to fund the independent health study and relocate the Rongelap people were

441 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 6, Correspondence from David Stewart to Bertell, December 2, 1983. 442 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 6, Correspondence from Susan Lambert, MD, MPH to Bertell, January 12, 1984. 443 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 6, Correspondence from Judith Whitmore, Health Education Officer, South Pacific Commission to Bertell, July 16, 1984. 247 ignored, islanders, under the leadership of Anjain, took action on their own. Anjain secured the assistance of Greenpeace, who lent the services of their ship, Rainbow

Warrior, to help with the relocation of the Rongelap people.445 It was not long after this that the Rainbow Warrior was blown up by two French foreign intelligence agents while it was docked in a New Zealand harbour. After the relocation of the Rongelap people,

Anjain devoted much of his attention to "helping the people adjust to the new island and making sure that money and supplies [got] through to them."447

It seems that the dramatic act of self imposed exile got the attention of the U.S.

Congress, which finally agreed to allocate $3 million for the independent health survey.

However, it would be several years before any money was released. In the meantime, the increasing politicization of health concerns in the Marshall Islands made Anjain extremely wary about how to proceed with the study. Because the U.S. government had denied health problems in the Marshall Islands for so long, he was worried about alienating the Islands further through association with overtly political figures. This included some of the people who had advocated so passionately for the rights of the

Pacific Islanders up to this point. While Bertell was not included in the list of people

Anjain attempted to distance himself from, many of these people were her close

444See Jeton Anjain's acceptance speech on the Right Livelihood Award website - http://www.rightlivelihood.org/anjain_speech.html. (accessed January 28, 2009). 445 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 21, File 6, Correspondence from Glen Alcalay to Rosalie Bertell, October 6, 1985. 446 See the description of this on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior. (accessed January 28, 2009). 447LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31 K39, Vol. 21, File 16, Correspondence from Anjain to Bertell, December 18, 1985. 248 confidantes and supporters of Bertell throughout the 1980s. Among these supporters was

Glenn Alcalay, whose involvement in the Marshall Islands began in 1975, when he worked as a Peace Corp volunteer on the Utirik Atoll for two years. In 1995, Alcalay reported that he had performed 1200 interviews with Marshallese women and he was the researcher to record the oral accounts from women who gave birth to the jelly fish babies.448 The same was true for Giff Johnson, a reporter with a long history of reporting in the Marshall Islands and who was clearly sympathetic to the plight of the

Marshallese.449

Regardless of the slow pace of progress on the health study, Bertell remained committed to helping the Marshall Islanders on their own terms. For instance, in a letter to Glenn Alcalay, she wrote, "We must give them every bit of respect, freedom and unobtrusive assistance possible." She continued,

My past experiences of working with American Indians has made me quite comfortable with a slow pace, many explanations and direct participation by the indigenous people. In this way they know and understand the findings and enter into making decisions and future plans based on the information.450

448 "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RADIATION EXPERIMENTS," March 15, 1995. Contained in this document is Glen Alcalay's testimony before the committee. See pages 61-69. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meetl2/trnscl2a.txt. (accessed January 26, 2009). 449 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31 K39, Vol. 21, File 16, Correspondence from Anjain to Bertell, December 18, 1985. 450 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31 K39, Vol. 21, File 16, Correspondence from Bertell to Alcalay, December 18, 1985. 249 Bertell would maintain this commitment to helping the Marshall Islanders for many years to come - which I will discuss further in Chapter 8, which focuses on her work from

1986 to 1992, when the health study finally got underway.

Conclusion

By the time of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in April 1986, Bertell's work was quite well-known internationally. This is evident from the spread of her activism both inside and outside the U.S. - in places like Canada, Malaysia, French

Polynesia, the Marshall Islands, Australia, Japan, Britain, and elsewhere. In all of these places her anti-nuclear activism took place at the grassroots of small communities of workers and citizens who were concerned about the effects of nuclearism on their everyday lives and health. Bertell worked closely with these people and allowed her approach to activism to be shaped not only by her scientific expertise, but also the very specific health concerns of each of these different places. Through these experiences,

Bertell became aware of how often it was class, racial, and ethnic minorities who were expected to accept the many health risks associated with nuclear technology. Indeed,

Bertell's increasing involvement in struggles to oppose nuclearism in the Pacific region made it impossible to ignore this. Even in the case of nuclear power generating stations, while they were intended to meet power demands in larger metropolitan centers, the actual reactors were generally located in very small towns, characterized by small populations, limited industry, and poor economies. This consciousness would continue to shape her activism after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown, when she received even

250 more demands for her expert services in various public health disputes worldwide. This will be examined in Chapter 8, which looks at BertelPs activism from May 1986 to the end of 1992, a period in history that is characterized by an increasing focus on the environmental hazards of nuclear technology, the end of the Cold War, and new concerns over non-nuclear environmental problems. First, though, I will round out my analysis of the role of scientific and biomedical expertise in the anti-nuclear movement between

1980 and 1986 to examine the work of PSR and International Physicians for the

Prevention of Nuclear War.

251 Chapter 6: Conjuring Up the Post-Nuclear Apocalypse: The Activist Strategies of Physicians for Social Responsibility and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1980 - 1986

Introduction

An examination of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and International

Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War's (IPPNW) work between 1980 and 1986 reinforces my argument that different kinds of scientific and biomedical expertise uniquely shaped activism within different expert activist organizations. Likewise, it reveals how it was not only expertise that shaped activism; rather, gender and power relations, professional concerns, organizational size, and foreign policy relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were all important factors that shaped the institutional identity of both PSR and IPPNW during this period. This chapter will focus on how PSR and IPPNW attempted to align their organizations with more prestigious expert driven activist organizations such as Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and

Federation of American Scientists (FAS), which were distinguished from lay activists in the anti-nuclear movement by their scientific expertise and historical relationship with the

U.S. national security community. Indeed, PSR and IPPNW emerged from the same dynamic community of social activism as UCS - Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Nevertheless, the impetus for social activism for the physicians' movement was rooted in the Harvard School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health.

252 Compared to UCS and Rosalie Bertell, PSR and IPPNW occupied a much more one-dimensional role in the anti-nuclear movement during this period. In 1979, PSR was vocally opposed to nuclear power when the group re-emerged onto the activist scene, but by 1980 it became a single issue organization with its focus on opposing nuclear weapons build-up. Likewise, as is evident from the name of the organization, IPPNW, which was established in 1981, was exclusively devoted to preventing nuclear war world wide.

While both PSR and IPPNW were often spoken about in tandem with UCS in the media, the doctors' movement had a very different approach to activism. The main reason was that UCS had very specific areas of scientific specialty directly relevant to the technologies that constituted commercial nuclear power reactors and nuclear weapons.

The same was true of Bertell, whose epidemiological expertise qualified her to speak about the public health effects of all aspects of nuclear technology. The doctors, on the other hand, could only really speak intelligently about the likely effects of a thermonuclear explosion. Between 1980 and 1982, both groups focused exclusively on educating the public about the medical consequences of nuclear war. The emphasis on the public health implications of nuclear war was the way that the doctors' movement situated its biomedical expertise at the centre of its activist work, thus, firmly aligning

PSR and IPPNW with the rather exclusive wing of expert activists in the anti-nuclear movement.

Once it became clear that predicting the catastrophic effects of nuclear war, while effective for mobilizing the public, was not having an impact on efforts to slow the

253 escalation of the arms race, in 1982, PSR joined groups like UCS and others in the mainstream Freeze Movement and tried to influence policy through lobbying. IPPNW followed suit shortly thereafter. However, unlike UCS, these two groups' foray into foreign policy was not supported by any legacy of doctors acting as advisors to the president; nor did they really have relevant expertise to add to the debate over the feasibility of different plans to produce new nuclear weapons systems in the U.S. As this chapter will show, both groups used every available opportunity to stress the moral superiority and unique concern for humanity that characterized the work of physicians. I view this as a defensive move to compensate for the lack of relevant expertise the physicians' movement could offer the disarmament movement during this period.

Likewise, the leaders in each of these groups presented doctors as above the realm of politics and, therefore, uniquely suited to striking a peace between the superpowers. The coup de grace was when PSR - with the support of the IPPNW leadership - pushed PSR founder, Helen Caldicott, out of the organization only five years after she spearheaded the revitalization of the doctors' movement in 1979. I will argue that this latter move was an attempt to distance the doctors' movement from the feminist peace movement, in which Caldicott was also very involved, to attract a larger group of physicians (mostly male) to the organization, and to increase the political power of the movement by more closely aligning the groups with the values of powerful white men, who, by and large, occupied the major positions of power in governments around the world. Like UCS, both

PSR and IPPNW did these things to secure themselves a place at the top of the hierarchy

254 in the anti-nuclear movement, thus creating a distance between their work and that of lay activists in the anti-nuclear movement. The tenuousness of these groups' expertise, as it related to nuclear weapons systems and foreign policy, however, influenced PSR and

IPPNW to more closely align the two groups with the Nuclear Weapons Freeze

Movement (where they acted as leaders), while there was a clear distinction between

UCS's work and that of the Freeze.

The Re-emergence of PSR and the Formation of IPPNW

It was not a coincidence that PSR and IPPNW were established within two years of one another. The connections between the two organizations dated back to 1961, when IPPNW founder, Bernard Lown, first established PSR with doctors Jack Geiger,

Richard Feinbloom, and Victor Sidel, all of whom were in some way connected to PSR or IPPNW in later years. For instance, PSR was revitalized by old and new physicians, including Helen and Bill Caldicott, Ira Helfland, Eric Chivean, Richard Feinbloom (from the earlier movement), Rick Ingrasi, Katherine Kahn, and Andy Kramer.451 While these were the physicians to join the first few meetings, where the new PSR order was discussed, people such as Geiger quickly re-joined the group and played a leadership role for many years.452 On the other hand, IPPNW was Lown's baby. Along with American physicians James Muller and Eric Chivean (one of PSR's founders in 1979), Lown traveled to Geneva in 1980 to discuss the creation of an international doctors' movement

451 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 160. 452 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 198-199. Caldicott recalls that Geiger made his first appearance on behalf of PSR in 1979 at the first conference on the "Medical Consequences of Nuclear War." 255 with doctors Eugueni Chazov, Leonid Ilyin, and Mikhail Kuzin from the Soviet Union.

The result of this meeting was the establishment of IPPNW, which became the international umbrella organization for different doctors' organizations around the world.

In 1982, the PSR Board of Directors voted to join IPPNW and become the official

American affiliate to the international doctors' organization.453 IPPNW went from having 12 national affiliates when the group was founded in 1981 to having 80 in

1988.454

PSR made its second debut in 1979 just one day after the nuclear reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island. The group put out advertisements in the New England

Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the New York Times, the Washington Post, and several other American newspapers, announcing the groups' return to the revitalized anti-nuclear movement. Its core message was that nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation were public health problems in need of medical attention.455 Although the group spent much of 1979 devoted to raising awareness about the problems with commercial nuclear power and low level radiation exposure in the United States, it abandoned the issue by

1980. The historian Christian Joppke explains that the group was advised to do so by the

Rockefeller Foundation, which put a proviso on its decision to fund PSR based on its

453 Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC), PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 2. 454 For a timeline of IPPNW's actions see their website - http://www.ippnw.org/IPPNWHistoryDecades.html. 455 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives - Official Statements, "Medical Statement on Nuclear Power" and "Danger-Nuclear War," as the advertisement appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, 300, 13 (March 29, 1979), xxxiv. This was a two page add, with the first title on the first page and the second one on the second. 256 compliance with this issue. The fact that many of PSR's allies favoured the "peaceful atom" further complicated its work on this issue. For example, Caldicott recalls the first

PSR organized symposium on the medical consequences of nuclear war, stating that there was "awkward[ness]" between her and George Kistiakowsky, a prominent disarmament specialist, because of her "avid stand against nuclear power."457

A more compelling reason for the organization to abandon its opposition to nuclear power, however, was the fact that very few physicians opposed all aspects of nuclear technology. Indeed, several physicians who joined the movement were radiologists who relied on radiation technology in their everyday work lives. According to historian, J.

Samuel Walker, medical uses of radiation accounted for ninety percent of "the total radiation other than natural background" radiation during the 1970s, while other man- made sources coming from nuclear power generation, weapons testing, uranium mining, and nuclear waste accounted for the remainder of human exposure. In 1972, the author's of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation Report (BEIR II), as well as officials within the National Committee on Radiological Protection (NCRP) and the International

Committee on Radiological Protection (ICRP), declared, "medical radiation can and should be reduced considerably." Likewise, in 1971, health physicist, Karl Morgan, who was a long time chairman of the NCRP and ICRP committees on internal doses, reminded colleagues in a public address, "There are some fairly large communities in our

Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy: A Comparison of Germany and the United States (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 148. 457 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 198. 257 country where your wife would not be able to get a doctor to take her pregnancy case unless she were x-rayed."458 This was fifteen years after Alice Stewart first published her findings on the relationship between childhood leukemia and pre-natal x-rays.

Nevertheless, there was almost no regulation of medical uses of radiation in the 1970s and many physicians sought to keep it that way. For example, when the AEC and the

NRC sought to "strike a balance between" their efforts to regulate radiation exposure and that of the medical licensees in the United States, the agencies met with resistance from both individual physicians and professional medical associations. Medical criticism remained high even after stories of medical misuses of the technology gained press in the popular media, showing that patients had died as a result of overexposure to radiation in routine treatment procedures.459

In 1980, the fact that PSR's transition to a single issue organization opposed to nuclear arms resulted in the expansion of its membership from only a few hundred doctors to several thousand is evidence that low-level radiation hazards were not serious concerns among medical professionals in the 1970s and 1980s.460 Indeed, shortly after

PSR began speaking publicly about the organization's concerns with the health effects of the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear reactor meltdown, several physicians spoke out in opposition to the group. In response to PSR member Eric Chivean's article in the NEJM, where he postulated that there would be 50 excess cancer deaths among residents who

458 J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 80. 459 For a full accounting of this debate see, J. Samuel Walker, Permissible Dose, 80-90. 460 Christian Joppke, Mobilizing Against Nuclear Energy, 148. 258 were exposed to radiation as a result of the accident, Dr. Arthur C. Upton of the National

Cancer Institute wrote:

There may be some risks associated with every radiation exposure, no matter how low; hence, no exposure should be assumed to be entirely free of harmful effects. However, care must be taken not to exaggerate presumptive risks and not to exclude the possibility of benefit when considering issues of major importance to society.

Richard Ahrens, Dwight Damon, Erich Isaac, Alexander von Graevenitz, Miro

Todorovich, and Richard Wilson, who represented a mix of physicians and scientists, also formulated a joint response to the Chivean NEJM article and made the much more controversial claim that: "If not ingested or inhaled and if kept at a distance, nuclear wastes will not cause cancer." The overall point this group tried to impress, however, was that "nuclear power is a small addition to the problems of proliferation of nuclear weapons." IPPNW emerged in 1981 as a single issue organization in the disarmament movement for the same reasons that PSR decided to abandon its focus on nuclear power.

In fact, Caldicott noted in her autobiography that Lown did not regard nuclear power as a significant health concern. When recollecting a visit to his home, she claimed that he told her, "You're too radical.. .You shouldn't be talking about nuclear power; nuclear war is the really important issue to tackle."

461 SCPC, PSR FONDS, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR History, Arthur C. Upton, MD, National Cancer Institute, "Radiation Risks from Nuclear Power Exaggerated: Letter to the editor" and Richard Ahrens, University of Maryland, Dwight Damon, University of Connecticut, Erich Isaac, City University of New York, Alexander von Graevenitz, Yale University, Miro Todorovich, City University of New York, and Richard Wilson, Harvard University, "Letter to the editor," New England Journal of Medicine 302, 21 (May 22,1980), 1205-1206. 462 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 174. 259 A final compelling reason for PSR to abandon the issue of nuclear power relates to my discussion of the extremely contentious debate over the public health effects of low level radiation exposure in chapter three of this dissertation. The public health debate over nuclear power was dominated by these concerns with low level radiation exposure.

For even those health scientists with training in genetics, biostatistical methods for understanding the dispersion of disease in complex and dynamic populations, and other relevant areas of specialty, it was enormously difficult to prove that there was (or could be) health damage as a result of low level radiation exposure. Physicians who belonged to PSR and IPPNW - by and large - did not possess the relevant biomedical or scientific expertise to render an informed scientific opinion on the questions surrounding the health effects of low-level radiation exposure. Indeed, as I illustrated through the example of scientists such as Rosalie Bertell, Ernest Sternglass, Alice Stewart, Thomas Mancuso,

Arthur Tamplin, and John Gofman, even those scientists who did possess many of the necessary methodological tools needed to discern the health effects of low level radiation exposure suffered professionally for sharing these concerns with the public. Helen

Caldicott's 1977 testimony - alongside Rosalie Bertell's - in opposition to the construction of another nuclear reactor at the Pilgrim Nuclear Reactor Generating Station in Massachusetts is a good illustration of how the absence of very specific expertise excluded PSR members from the debate between 'credible' scientists in this area.

Caldicott's testimony, while certainly informed by the relevant studies that raised concerns with the health effects of low level radiation exposure, was anecdotal and not

260 based on any of her own research expertise. She was a pediatrician with expertise in the treatment of cystic fibrosis. Because of this, the attorney for the utility company forcefully undermined her testimony by repeatedly highlighting for the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission her lack of expertise.463 Other PSR members who had expertise in areas like cardiology, general medicine, radiology, and different areas of biomedicine that were focused on the treatment of diseases would not have fared much better had they also positioned themselves as experts on the health effects of low level radiation exposure. Since, as I will show, expertise was so clearly important to these physicians, it made practical sense for PSR to avoid commenting on the public health effects of commercial nuclear power after 1980.

The Centrality of Professionalism, Conservatism, and Morality to Identity in the Doctors'

Movement

Early on PSR and IPPNW highlighted the professionalism and conservatism of doctors as a means of establishing the groups' credibility in both the doctors' community and the anti-nuclear movement. In a 1981 article appearing in the NEJM, for example,

Lown (along with three other IPPNW physicians) reminded his fellow physicians that doctors were well-respected as teachers. He wrote, "Physicians bring excellent credentials to the task of public education on this topic... [they are] accustomed to

4W LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 11 - BOSTON EDISON CO., PART 1, "United States of America Nuclear Regulatory Commission: In the matter of: Boston Edison Company, et. al." (Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Unit 2), Docket No. 50-471. The date is Tuesday, 19 April 1977, held in the Bar Association Meeting Room, Middlesex County Courthouse, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 7151- 7183. 261 interpreting complex scientific findings for their patients and the public at large." On another occasion, Lown underlined the conservative nature of the medical profession to reinforce that their assessments of the nuclear dilemma were reliable and that they could be trusted to speak rationally about the medical consequences of nuclear war. He said,

"Medicine is an empiric science. We do not go overboard. We do not wear jeans or long hair. We think through an issue carefully." He credited this fact with the anti-nuclear movement attracting bankers, writers, physicists, physicians, and other conservative constituents.465 By making this distinction Lown was creating a physical distance between the doctors and lay activists in the anti-nuclear movement. His reference to long hair and jeans was reminiscent of the style associated with peace activists during the

Vietnam War and also accurately represented many of the common characterizations of anti-nuclear activists in the media - as I showed in chapter 2 of this dissertation, where I discussed the commercial nuclear power opposition during the 1970s. This was an image from which both doctors and scientists in the movement wanted to disassociate themselves. A photo of PSR members who participated in the Freeze Movement rally on

June 12, 1982 in New York City reveals that this was more than a rhetorical strategy.

The majority of the men and women who walked behind the PSR banner were dressed in white lab coats. Virtually everyone was dressed in conservative business attire and at least one male physician in the foreground of the photograph was wearing the badge of

464 SCPC, PSR FONDS, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives, Bernard Lown, MD, Eric Chivean, MD, James Muller, MD, Herbert Abrams, MD, "Sounding Board: The Nuclear Arms Race and the Physician," New England Journal of Medicine, 304 (March 19, 1981): 728. (full page range 726-729) 465 SCPC, PSR FONDS, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives, Transcript from: Inside Story, Special Edition, "Nuclear War: The Incurable Disease," October 13, 1982. 262 1980s conservative geekdom - a pocket protector. Likewise, Lown's reference to the

"empiric" nature of medical science was an attempt to more closely align the doctors' movement with that of the scientists'. This was as much an attempt to convert other doctors - who by their own admission tended to be rather conservative - to the anti- nuclear movement as it was an attempt to set PSR and IPPNW apart from the lay activists in the movement.467 This dual goal was a product of the two groups' aspirations of creating a massive national and international following of physicians who could influence the redirection of nuclear weapons policy in the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Lown also claimed that physicians were perfect leaders in the anti-nuclear movement because they were unburdened by political concerns and were instead "deeply committed to the service of mankind." He applied this characterization to all physicians, claiming that doctors were the ideal group to broker a peace between the super powers because of this shared commitment to protecting human life. In the same 1981 NEJM article, he wrote, physicians "make up a natural constituency - a forceful, nonpolitical pressure group - for rational control of these destructive weapons." Later in the article, he asserted,

Physicians share traditions, language, and practices that transcend national boundaries. This common ground enables them to initiate dialogues with foreign colleagues and to join together to make their collective voices heard and possibly even heeded. Together with other interested and informed groups, physicians can

466 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 3. 467 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 8. It was while discussing the work PSR members did trying to gain the support of regional and national medical associations that the AGM report characterized these bodies as "conservative segments of society." 263 spearhead a worldwide movement away from the disaster toward which the world appears to be moving. The physician must participate in this last moral conflict.468

Indeed, it was this rationalization that led to the creation of IPPNW. This theme of the

'apolitical' and inherently moral physician repeatedly surfaces in the rhetoric of the two groups.

To reinforce the notion that nuclear war was a medical problem requiring medical expertise, many physicians also drew analogies to other public health threats - ones that were more conventionally recognized as the domain of physicians. This was usually done to convince other medical professionals that they had an important role to play in the anti-nuclear movement. In PSR member and Harvard School of Public Health physician, Howard Hiatt's 1980 talk, titled, "If an N-Bomb Dropped...," he used a public health vernacular to discuss nuclear war, comparing its aftermath with the 1854 cholera epidemic. He argued that the use of nuclear weapons would lead to a series of epidemics.

As was the case with infectious diseases, Hiatt claimed, the only way to avoid this epidemic was through prevention. In the case of nuclear war, the only means of prevention was the removal of nuclear weapons from the international arena. Because physicians led the way in preventing infectious diseases, Hiatt reasoned that they were best equipped to lead in the prevention of "the last epidemic."469 Likewise, in Lown's

1981 NEJM article, he justified the importance of medical expertise to the increasing

468 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives, Bernard Lown, MD, Eric Chivean, MD, James Muller, MD, Herbert Abrams, MD, "Sounding Board: The Nuclear Arms Race and the Physician," New England Journal of Medicine, 304 (March 19, 1981): 728. (full page range 726-729) 469 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR History, Howard H. Hiatt, "If an N-Bomb dropped..." Boston Globe, March 2, 1980. 264 threat of nuclear war. This was in response to criticisms both within and outside the medical profession claiming that nuclear war was a "political and social" issue and "that

[the only way] physicians need confront it" was "as concerned citizens." Lown argued that because nuclear war threatened to "undermin[e] health, [foment] disease, and caus[e] the death of untold millions," physicians had a very important role to play in opposing it: physicians needed to advocate for the prevention of nuclear war in the same way that they would advocate for the prevention of an influenza epidemic, especially because physicians would be one of the first groups called upon to deal with the aftermath of such a conflict.470 By casting nuclear war as a medical problem in need of prevention, PSR and IPPNW firmly situated physicians at the centre of the solution.

Educating the Public about the Medical Consequences of Nuclear War

The major focus during PSR and IPPNW s first three years of activism, however, was educating the public about the medical consequences of nuclear war. This was the groups' way of emphasizing the importance of medical expertise for solving the nuclear dilemma in the U.S. and around the world. IPPNW, moreover, sought to do this on an international scale. PSR held conferences and symposia on the "Medical Consequences of Nuclear War" in all major American cities, while IPPNW used its yearly Congresses to speak about these issues. Indeed, these conferences formed the core of both groups'

470 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives, Bernard Lown, MD, Eric Chivean, MD, James Muller, MD, Herbert Abrams, MD, "Sounding Board: The Nuclear Arms Race and the Physician," New England Journal of Medicine, 304 (March 19, 1981): 727. (full page range 726-729) 471 See, for example, Eric Chivean, MD, Susanna Chivean, Robert Jay Lifton, MD, John E. Mack, MD, (Eds.), Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War (New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1981). This publication was a product of the first IPPN^V Congress, held in 1981. 265 work during these years. They were forums that were attended mainly by physicians, but also by scientists, political analysts, and ordinary citizens opposed to the escalating arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Likewise, these gatherings were regularly reported on in the national media. At the height of the Freeze Movement in 1982, for example, "local PSR speakers gave literally thousands of talks describing the effects a one-megaton bomb would have on their city or town." In addition to this, there were several hundred films depicting the medical consequences of nuclear war that were shown by PSR Chapters across the country, while "local newspaper coverage of PSR facts and events.. .figured in thousands of column inches." The PSR Chapter in Los

Angeles even initiated a syndicated radio program, entitled, "Prescription for

Survival."472

PSR's overall goal was to capture a national following of individuals who believed that physicians had a unique set of credentials for leading the anti-nuclear movement and convincing other doctors that nuclear technology posed a medical problem which was in need of medical attention. It was quite successful in this regard because the group used these medical conferences and symposia not only as a forum to educate medical professionals and the public, but also to mobilize these groups to action.

As evidence of this, PSR highlighted the fact that chapters across the country assumed a leadership role in "local freeze campaign coalitions in almost every large city in the country - not only metropolitan centers one would expect, such as New York City,

472 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 4. 266 Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Francisco, but in more difficult areas such as Kansas City,

Iowa City, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and throughout the South." Seattle's weeklong series of events, which was named Target Seattle by PSR Washington

President, Judy Lipton, MD, was so successful that it was estimated to have reached an audience of 600,000 people. When Caldicott gave the closing address for the initiative there were 25,000 people who crowded into Seattle's Kingdome to hear her speak.473

The fact that there were forty new PSR chapters established in 1981 and an additional sixty-one new chapters established in 1982 is a testament to the salience of PSR's message for physicians across the country. What had begun as a group of a few hundred physicians in 1979 had exploded to almost 20,000 official PSR physician members in a few short years. 7

1982 was also the year that the doctors' movement captured the attention of influential members in the U.S. government. For example, Geiger was invited to join

Senator Edward Kennedy when he announced the nuclear freeze resolution to the Senate and the national media. PSR physician, Jennifer Leaning, "provided the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee with a medical critique of the Crisis Relocation Plan and of civil defense for nuclear war." PSR physician Herbert Abrams, along with Geiger, also gave testimony during the hearings on the Consequences of Nuclear War on the Global

Environment, which was held by the House Committee on Science and Technology.

473 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 5. 474 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: 1981 Annual Report," 11; and "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 16-17. 267 Other PSR physicians presenting testimony to government officials in 1982 included

Peter Joseph, Paul Milvy, and Tom Wesson. The most significant interaction between

PSR and the U.S. government was when President Reagan met with Caldicott for forty- five minutes, where she "urged him to consider what his nuclear strategy would actually do to the Americans he hoped to protect." The respect PSR members were so clearly accorded by these government groups and individuals made the group even more appealing to Freeze members, who were eager to influence foreign policy decision making.

The doctors' rather vivid and emotive renderings of the "Medical Consequences of Nuclear War" were a striking contrast to UCS's more detached engagement in discussions of nuclear war. Consider, for instance, the following recollections of a

Hiroshima survivor describing her experience of the nuclear detonations in the immediate aftermath. In the book, Cranes at Dusk, Hisako Matsubara, wrote,

Everything was black, had vanished into the black dust, was destroyed. Only the flames that were beginning to lick their way up had any color. From the dust that was like a fog, figures began to loom up, black, hairless, faceless. They screamed with voices that were no longer human. Their screams drowned out the groans rising everywhere from the rubble, groans that seemed to rise from the very earth itself.476

Indeed, as was the case with the PSR produced film, "Race to Oblivion," PSR wove such recollections into their own educational materials as a means of impressing their

475 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 3. 476 As quoted in Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defence Intellectuals," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12, 4 (1987), 705. 268 audiences with the very real consequences of nuclear war. Likewise, IPPNW's book,

Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War, included accounts of the Japanese bombings, told from the perspective of several doctors, at least one of whom was in

Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.477 Take Dr. Michito Ichimura's rendering of a scenario similar to Hisako Matsubara for comparison. He wrote,

When I went outside, the sky had turned from blue to black and the black rain had started to fall.. .there were fires everywhere... [Peoples] clothes were in rags, and shreds of skin hung from their bodies. They looked like ghosts with vacant stares. I cannot get rid of the sounds of crying women in the destroyed fields.. .There were dead bodies everywhere.478

It is impossible to ignore the detailed descriptions of human suffering and destruction in both narratives. The recollections of the Japanese doctors, however, are also a useful illustration of how the doctors' movement perceived its role in the anti-nuclear movement. As was the case in any armed conflict, medical professionals played an integral role in helping the wounded and rebuilding communities. As the story of Dr.

Ichimura reveals, though, the medical community in Nagasaki was just as devastated by the bombings as the many citizens located in the city centre. When he traveled to the medical school the day after the bombing he reported that the school was in ruins and most of his classmates, although still alive, lay helpless in the rubble. He wrote, "Some were still alive. They were unable to move their bodies. The strongest were so weak that

See for example, Michito Ichimaru, M.D., "Nagasaki, August 9, 1945: A Personal Account," Takeshi Ohkita, M.D., "Acute Medical Effects at Hiroshima and Nagasaki," and "Delayed Medical Effects at Hiroshima and Nagasaki," in Last Aid, 43-47, 69-92, and 93-107, respectively. 478 Michito Ichimaru, M.D., "Nagasaki, August 9, 1945: A Personal Account," m. Last Aid, 43-44. 269 they were slumped over on the ground.. .All of them died in the next few days."

IPPNW and PSR used these narratives to reinforce how difficult recovery from a nuclear attack would be, largely because of the complete devastation of medical infrastructure and the deadly effects of radiation exposure. The groups, then, repeatedly highlighted these things, devoting themselves to predicting the effects of nuclear war as a means of raising awareness and influencing peace negotiations between the superpowers.

Both PSR and IPPNW relied heavily on imagery to convey this message. Each talk that was given by a medical professional was accompanied by all sorts of grisly images reinforcing the apocalyptic potential of nuclear war. In the popular 1980 PSR film, The Last Epidemic, for instance, while doctors such as Geiger and Caldicott discussed the devastating effects of thermonuclear war on human populations, the screen behind the lectern depicted bombs exploding, mushroom clouds, the complete devastation of infrastructure, bodies mutilated by atomic blasts, and people suffering from radiation sickness as a result of exposure to radioactive fallout.480 Likewise, Last

Aid, is interspersed with the same images. Indeed, the PSR video library during the

1980s was full of educational materials, which elaborated on this theme of death and destruction. PSR-produced educational resources included copies of the documentary films "Race to Oblivion" and "A Question of Survival," both of which featured PSR physicians discussing the medical consequences of nuclear war, while "Race to Oblivion" also included an interview by Hollywood film star, Burt Lancaster with Hiroshima

479 Michito Ichimaru, M.D., "Nagasaki, August 9, 1945: A Personal Account," inLastAid, 44. The Last Epidemic: The Medical Consequences of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War, PSR Film, 1980. 270 Survivor, Shigeko Sasamori. Non-PSR produced resources included the documentary film, "Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang," which discussed the U.S. nuclear weapons program and its cover-up of the hazards of radiation; another documentary titled, "The

Day After Trinity: J.R. Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb," which chronicled the

Manhattan Project physicist's life;483 and other titles like "Growing Up in the Nuclear

Shadow," "Gods of Metal," "The War Game," "Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD),"

"Acceptable Risk? The Nuclear Age in the United States," and "Destruction Before

Detonation." The purpose of using such provocative and unsettling imagery was to evoke an immediate response from audiences and to illustrate the very human and environmental consequences of nuclear conflict.

More deeply embedded in the doctors' rhetoric, however, are indicators of differences between their discussions of nuclear war and those recollections of the

Japanese survivors. PSR and IPPNW generally organized their discussions around different evaluations of the medical consequences of a nuclear attack, all of which they took great pains to root in the scientific method. This, combined with the comportment of physicians while they delivered these speeches, gave their public addresses a kind of boring sterility. Take, for example, the speeches given by Geiger and Caldicott in "The

Last Epidemic:" if you removed the disturbing imagery behind the lectern, it would be

481 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175 Series 1, Box 25, File 7, Advertisement for Race to Oblivion, put out by the Los Angeles Chapter of PSR; and Box 25, File 6, Advertisement for A Question of Survival. 482 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 25, File 9, Advertisement for Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang. 483 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 25, File 43, Film and Video: Pyramid, Advertisement for Day After Trinity: J.R. Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb. 271 easy for the audience to tune out the message being communicated because both physicians adopted the traditional speaking style of objective' and 'detached' experts.

Their voices were monotone; they wore conservative professional attire; and their mannerisms were completely controlled. The most popular topic among PSR representatives was the medical effects of a thermonuclear weapon being dropped on a major metropolitan centre in the U.S. Geiger's discussion of a one-megaton bomb being dropped on Detroit in the IPPNW published volume, Last Aid, is a good illustration of this kind of speech. He used a diagram of the city centre, which was broken down into six concentric circles, "each demarcating a zone of destruction in which the magnitudes of radiation, blast, and heat, and their effects on buildings, can be roughly estimated."

Using this model, Geiger determined that those living at ground zero - within the first 1.5 mile radius of detonation - would be completely destroyed. He estimated that the "blast" would measure between 200 and 20 pounds per square inch; that winds would reach up to

600 miles per hour, "hurl[ing] debris outward at lethal velocities;" that temperatures would rise to approximately "27 million degrees Fahrenheit;" and that "direct radiation would range from 11,000 rads near ground zero to 1100 at the circle's rim." Herbert

Abrams' chapter, which was also published in Last Aid, tried to determine the effects of a

"6500-megaton attack" - the "model used by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management

Agency" - quantifying the exact impact this would have on such a population. He

484 The Last Epidemic: The Medical Consequences of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War, PSR Film, 1980. 485 H. Jack Geiger, M.D., "The Medical Effects on a City in the United States," in Last Aid, 141. A rad is a unit of radiation. 272 reported that such an attack would kill 86 million people, and severely injure 34 million.

The survivors, likewise, were predicted to suffer from a range of health complications, such as "flash burns," "trauma," "flame burns and smoke inhalation," "acute radiation,"

"fallout radiation," "general lack of medical care," "dehydration," "communicable diseases," "malnutrition," "cancer," and "genetic defects."486

From such efforts to quantify the effects of nuclear war, doctors drew five major

"medical and scientific" conclusions. First, such an attack "would result in death, injury, and disease on a scale that ha[d] no precedent in the history of human existence."

Second, due to the massive destruction of medical infrastructure, there could be no

"effective medical response" to nuclear war. Third, civil defense planning was pointless because "the blast, thermal, and radiation effects would kill even those in shelters, and the fallout would reach those who had been evacuated." Fourth, the "economic, ecologic, and social fabric on which human life depends" would be completely destroyed, making recovery from nuclear war impossible. Finally, "worldwide fallout would contaminate much of the globe for generations and atmospheric effects would severely damage all living things," leaving no winners.487 Variations on this particular speech were repeatedly given by members of PSR and IPPNW at the various symposia held on the

"Medical Consequences of Nuclear War" over the years. Indeed, it was common for physicians to tailor the speech to apply to the particular urban centre where they were

486 Herbert L. Abrams, M.D., "Survivors of Nuclear War: Infection and Spread of Disease," in Last Aid, 211-213. 487 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives - Official Statements, "Danger-Nuclear War," The New England Journal ofMedicine, 300, 13 (March 29, 1979), xxxiv. 273 delivering it - whether it was Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles or some other major metropolitan centre around the world.

By attaching numbers and statistics to these discussions of nuclear war, the doctors distinguished themselves from the more personal accounts given by people who had survived the Japanese bombings. Another stark contrast in their work was that they mainly discussed hypothetical scenarios where nuclear war took place, whereas the

Japanese were familiar with the reality. True, the doctors relied on the imagery and story telling around Hiroshima and Nagasaki to get their message across. However, similar to

UCS, IPPNW and PSR largely spoke about nuclear war in the abstract. Geiger reflected on this fact: he wrote, "On the one hand, we can describe the consequences of a thermonuclear explosion in physical and environmental terms and even...express them scientifically.. .On the other hand, we can neither fully imagine nor truly comprehend the event we are describing, for it defies comparison - qualitatively and quantitatively - with anything we have already known." The main difference between the doctors and UCS scientists, though, was that the nature of medical expertise made it necessary for the physicians to speak about nuclear war as it related to the body and human mortality.

Indeed, it was the only way to link their expertise to their disarmament activism.

Becoming Doctor-Diplomats

See, for example, H. Jack Geiger, "The Medical Effects on a City in the United States," Andrew Haines, "The Possible Consequences of a Nuclear Attack on London," and Naomi Shohno and Tadatoshi Akiba, "Fatalities from a One-Megton Explosion over Tokyo," in Last Aid, 137-150, 163-172, and 173-177, respectively. 274 By May of 1982, however, the limitations of PSR's educational campaign became apparent. By this time, the arms race was escalating under Reagan's leadership and the

Nuclear Freeze Movement was well-established in the United States. It was no longer enough to predict the grisly consequences of nuclear war. PSR recognized this and in order to remain on top, the group decided it needed to play a leadership role in the Freeze

Movement. This included PSR's endorsement of "the bilateral nuclear weapons freeze, supporting a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and opposing military strategies that are based on the assumption that nuclear war can be won, limited, or survived." The organization made strategic decisions based on the recommendations of the newly formed Policy and Legislative Committee and coordinated this work from the new PSR office that was opened at this time in Washington, DC. To increase PSR's credibility in this new phase of its activism, the group hired Jane Wales in late 1982 as the new

Executive Director.490 Wales had previously been the deputy assistant secretary of state and had many years of experience in the Washington political scene.491 PSR chapters

n) SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 6. In her autobiography, Caldicott credits herself with this decision. She notes that she had to fight hard to convince other PSR members that Wales's lobbying skills would be an asset to PSR. Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 277. 491 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, Jane Wales, "Realistic Choices for Preventing Nuclear War," The Seattle Times, October 30, 1983, and "Dr. Helen Caldicott Addresses National Press Club," Release Embargoed until February 25, 1983. Jane Wales clearly offered the group a lot of guidance on how to proceed in this second phase of their activism. In a speech made before the membership at the 1983 AGM, Wales outlined the need for the group to form coalitions with "likeminded organizations," and to become very "issue-specific so as to directly influence the policy decisions of our government." The two major initiatives she emphasized were the "Comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Freeze" and the "Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban." There were workshops set up for members to learn lobbying tactics at the AGM. See, SCPC, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, "MAD and Grappling Promo," Jane Wales, "PSR Policies and Opportunities for Action," January 22, 1983, 2. 275 wrote letters and set up meetings with members of Congress; they liaised with other anti- nuclear groups; and they used the media to garner nuclear opponents among the

American citizenry. The coordination that went into these new areas of activism was impressive, particularly in the area of lobbying. For example, on March 21, 1983, Wales organized a "major Freeze educational campaign" for the chapters and legislative contacts. In preparation of this event, she provided these contacts with detailed histories of Congressional activity in the area of nuclear weapons; a list of official PSR responses to Freeze questions; a list of possible Congressional supporters; and detailed instructions on how to conduct individual educational initiatives.492 In 1986, PSR continued to focus on these arms control initiatives; specifically, the group was focused on the

Comprehensive Test Ban, opposing American Nuclear War related Civil Defense plans, as well as Reagan's MX Missile Defense and Star Wars plans.493

Conscious of the reservations that many PSR members would have about becoming doctor-diplomats, PSR leaders declared at the Annual General Meeting for

1982: "the extension of the medical model to include criticism of concepts of long-term survivability and destructive advantage gives us a philosophical basis from which to

*JZ SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR - Survey, Jane Wales, "Urgent: Memorandum for: Chapter and Legislative Contacts, Subject: Freeze Action Alert," March 21, 1983. 493 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, "MAD and Grappling Promo," Jane Wales, "PSR Policies and Opportunities for Action," January 22, 1983, 6-9. In this early speech, Wales identifies U.S. Civil Defense planning, the MX Missile Defense System, the deployment of Pershing II Missiles in Europe, and D-5 Missiles, scheduled to be added to the "Trident submarines" as "opportunities for [PSR] action." 276 approach the complex questions facing the country." In essence, the medical concerns of PSR members made it prudent for them to embark on this next phase of activism.

They also continued to rely on the medical language to further reinforce the important role for physicians at the centre of the disarmament movement: whereas PSR's educational campaign consisted of making "the diagnosis," working with Congress to influence policy making represented leading "the way to a cure."495 Or, as Helen

Caldicott put it in her press release on February 23, 1983, it was time for PSR to move beyond focus on the medical consequences of nuclear war and begin prescribing a

"therapy." Putting Caldicott's use of the medical lexicon aside, this particular therapy was decidedly not a medical one. Rather, it required a diplomatic agreement between the

U.S. and the Soviet Union and many physicians within the movement needed to be convinced of the soundness of the group's decision to expand its mandate to include lobbying Congress to endorse PSR approved arms control agreements.

It was not only shifts in the larger movement that informed PSR's decision to expand its activism. By 1982, the group was increasingly criticized by several different sectors of American society. Conservative critics who did not oppose Reagan's nuclear policy began castigating PSR (and IPPNW) for being alarmist and spreading anti-nuclear propaganda because of its continual emphasis on a nuclear war that had not taken place.

For example, the infamous conservative columnist, Phyllis Schlafly, depicted Helen

494 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 2. 495 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Annual Reports, '81-83, "Physicians for Social Responsibility: Annual Report, 1982," 2. 277 Caldicott as "a Typhoid Mary carrying the germ of despair." Schlafly also criticized

PSR's message, claiming it was a lot like arguing that "it is light in the daytime and dark

at night" - in other words, no one disputed that nuclear war would be destructive.496

Schafly is also widely known for successfully leading the opposition to the Equal Rights

Amendment during the 1970s and her scathing critiques of second wave feminists, a

group to which Caldicott decidedly belonged.497 It is likely that her characterization of

Caldicott in this particular editorial was also rooted in her hostility towards feminism.

Another article complained that a 10-part TV series on "The Threats of Nuclear War"

featuring commentary from people like Caldicott was guilty of "overkill," arguing that

the material within "cover[ed] a lot of familiar territory, but rarely [broke] new

ground."498 Likewise, PSR Board member, Irwin Redlener, reported being interrupted by

an audience member at a church during one of his speeches on the medical consequences

of nuclear war. The individual stated, "Doctor, we know all that.. .What do we do?"

Basically, PSR and IPPNW's persistent talk of doomsday had not achieved the desired

goal of slowing the arms race and people became tired of their apocalyptic predictions,

challenging them to make a more concrete contribution to the disarmament movement.

Some of people's frustration with PSR and IPPNW's message can be attributed to

the abstractness of the overall discussion about the effects of nuclear war. Remember

496 SCPC, PSR Fonds, Box 25, PSR Archives, Phyllis Schafly, "Talk of Doomsday Poisons Youth," Buffalo News, November 3, 1982. 497 See, for example, Phyllis Schlafly's 1972 missive, "The Fraud of the Equal Rights Amendment." Taken from Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty: An American History, Second Edition, Volume 2 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008),1035. 498 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, Jack Thomas, "Series on Nuclear War is guilty of overkill," Boston Globe, November 26, 1982. 278 from my discussion of UCS's work during this period, Reagan's belief that a limited nuclear war could be fought and won by the U.S. made many Americans fearful by 1982.

And it was this hypothesis that most experts within the anti-nuclear movement set about disproving. Carol Cohn's analysis of defense intellectuals is useful for illustrating my point here. She writes,

the greatest problem with the idea of 'limited nuclear war,' for example, is not that it is grotesque to refer to the death and suffering caused by any use of nuclear weapons as 'limited' or that 'limited nuclear war' is an abstraction that is disconnected from human reality but, rather, that 'limited nuclear war' is itself an abstract conceptual system, designed, embodied, achieved by computer modeling.

She concludes from this that it would not matter if a group - as PSR and IPPNW did - used "more descriptive language" to describe nuclear war. The only difference between the description of limited nuclear war that directly references human suffering and the one that relies on vague phraseology like "collateral damage," according to Cohn, is that the more emotive account "does not roll off the tongue or slide across one's consciousness quite as easily." In short, "there is [still] no need to think about the concrete human realities behind the model; what counts is the internal logic of the system;" for example, the ability of those predicting the consequences of limited nuclear war to accurately enumerate death and destruction. Indeed, there were no concrete human realities behind this model; it was all theoretical. Keeping this in mind, it is understandable that people tired of these discussions about the medical consequences of

499 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12, 4 (1987), 709-710. Cohn was not making specific reference to the physicians' movement here. Rather, she was trying to make sense of the fact that she herself kept losing sight of the human dimension of nuclear war while she was immersed in this world of defense intellectuals. 279 nuclear war, particularly because the physicians' message was so repetitive. The combination of these two things began having a numbing effect on the people listening to it.

The shift towards foreign policy initiatives in the international movement was a little slower. It was not until the Fourth World Congress held in Helsinki in 1984 that

IPPNW officially declared its plans to pursue the Comprehensive Test Ban. At this meeting, IPPNW announced its "dramatic; achievable; comprehensive; verifiable, and substantive" four step proposal for peace between the superpowers. The group called for:

Step One - Either the government of the United States or the government of the Soviet Union should announce an independent initiative in which it declares a moratorium on all nuclear explosions. Step Two - The government that makes that announcement should invite a reciprocal moratorium by its counterpart. Step Three - The two governments should then call upon all nations to join them in signing a treaty for a comprehensive nuclear test ban."500

To justify IPPNW's work on the CTB, moreover, Lown highlighted his work with PSR in the 1960s on the same campaign.501 The unique challenge of IPPNW, however, was to include nations other than the U.S. and the Soviet Union in its struggle for the CTB.

Lown's 1985 letter appealing to the physicians movements around the world was one of

Francis Countway Library of Medicine, Rare Books and Special Collections (FCLMRBSC), Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 9, File: CTB Correspondence 2, 1985, "The 1984-1985 Medical Prescription of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War." See also, Box 10, File: World Congresses - 4th Congress - Finland, 06/1984, June 4, 1984, Bernard Lown - "The Urgency of a Unique Initiative." 501 FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 10, File: World Congresses - 4th Congress - Finland, 06/1984, June 4, 1984, Bernard Lown - "The Urgency of a Unique Initiative." He said, "While the USA government denied that stronthium 90 from atmospheric tests threatened children, the then newly founded Physicians for Social Responsibility working in collaboration with the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information provided scientific data to the contrary. We collected thousands of deciduous teeth from children and had them analyzed. The evidence was incontrovertible. Stronthium behaved like calcium, worked its way up the food chain, concentrated in milk, and was deposited in bones and teeth." 280 the ways the group did this. He asked these members to go to their U.S. ambassadors, expressing their moral outrage at the U.S. refusal to sign the CTB. He also urged members to visit their own political leaders, influencing them to pressure the American

SO? political leadership to sign the treaty. Presumably in an effort to make these member groups feel important - as compared to their more high profile American and Soviet affiliates - IPPNW declared, "If war is too important to be left to the generals, then peace is too important to be left to the superpowers. The nuclear-weapons states may propel the arms race, but other nations are needed to reverse its direction."503

Banking on Professional Prestige

As a result of PSR and IPPNWs immersion in Soviet-American foreign policy, medical expertise had a declining importance in their work. The groups still paid lip service to this original message, but they acted more like foreign policy experts than medical ones during these years. As will be shown, PSR justified its foray into foreign policy by placing even greater emphasis on the ways its members' professional identity equipped the group to lead peace negotiations between the super powers. PSR representatives repeatedly referred to the physicians' creed - the Hippocratic oath - of valuing and protecting human life at all costs. Not only was this a commitment of

American doctors; rather, PSR and American IPPNW members forged stronger ties with

Soviet physicians. The purpose of this alliance was to show Americans and Soviets that so? FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 9, File: CTB Correspondence 2, 1985, August 21, 1985 - This is a letter from Bernard Lown to IPPNW members worldwide, addressed, "Dear Councillor." sen FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 9, File: CTB Correspondence 2, 1985, May, 1985 - IPPNW Report, Vol. 3, No. 1 - FORUM - "Non-Nuclear States and Nuclear Disarmament." 281 these were universal qualities among medical professionals. In the words of IPPNW, both groups of doctors "promoted Soviet-American dialogue at the height of the Cold

War by organizing Soviet and American doctors to bring a non-partisan anti-nuclear message to the people of both countries." For example, co-founder of IPPNW, Dr.

Yevgeny Chazov of the Soviet Union, appeared on the American TV show, Inside Story, in late 1982. He noted that physicians from both nations were brought together because of their mutual "desire to protect life on earth." This, he said, was despite the fact that they were "people of different nationalities, [and] of different political and religious views."504 This was something that repeatedly came across in both PSR and IPPNW literature. Both groups argued that physicians were ideal arbiters of peace because they somehow transcended politics. Between the years of 1983 and 1986, the Soviet physicians PSR hosted, who made trips around the United States, issued similar declarations. Likewise, American physicians routinely traveled to the Soviet Union to do the same.505 In 1985, when PSR and IPPNW were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace

Prize, their work as the peacemakers between the superpowers was validated. The groups successfully adapted to changes in the anti-nuclear movement and used their professional identity to leverage a leading role in this next chapter. In turn, the status of their members as doctors gave the movement a greater sense of legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.

SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives, Transcript from: Inside Story, Special Edition, "Nuclear War: The Incurable Disease," October 13, 1982. 505 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 12, File 3: J.W. Speeches, "Original J.W. Annual Meeting Speech," 4. In this speech, Wales notes that during 1985 PSR alone sponsored four Soviet-American exchanges, and had a delegation of Chinese doctors at this particular general meeting. 282 PSR's Decision to Distance the Doctors' Movement from Helen Caldicott

PSR's decision to push Caldicott out of the organization in 1984 was a further attempt to elevate the groups' credibility and status in the anti-nuclear movement, especially in this new phase of its activism. Part of achieving this goal, in the minds of a few influential male physicians like Geiger, required that PSR disassociate the doctors movement from any sort of feminist critique of the arms race and also the overly

'emotional' ranting of Caldicott. Of particular concern was that Caldicott thought nothing of pursuing her own independent projects. For instance, she wrote the controversial book, Missile Envy, during her tenure at PSR and it was published in 1984.

She also starred in Canadian documentary filmmaker, Terri Nash's 1982 documentary, If

You Love This Planet, which was deemed so controversial that it was banned from

American distribution by the U.S. government. This brought Caldicott a lot of fame when, despite this, it won the Academy Award for best documentary short. A good example of this newly earned notoriety is Candace Bergen's endorsement of Missile

Envy. On the first page of the book, Bergen praises Caldicott, saying, "Hers is the voice of reason in a time of insanity." Additionally, Caldicott embraced feminist peace organizations during her PSR tenure and actually founded Women's Action for Nuclear

Disarmament (WAND) during this time. PSR's Executive Director, Wales, was still performing damage control after Caldicott left PSR because of Caldicott's continued

Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (New York: Bantam Books, 1984). 283 engagement in the feminist peace movement. In 1985, for example, she responded to an angry letter from one member of the Grand Rapids, MI chapter of PSR. Wales wrote,

Your concern that Helen's harsh rhetoric is counter-productive to PSR's image is one that has been voiced by other PSR members and constituents as well. I can only say, however, that Helen speaks to audiences in her capacity as founder of Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament. She specifically stepped down from the presidency of PSR in order to give this sort of political talk, from which PSR disassociates itself. While I too am a great admirer of Helen's, I agree that kind of speech is not in PSR's interest.

It is important to place the decision to push Caldicott out of PSR into the context of the organizational growing pains the group was experiencing by 1983. What began in

1979 as a small group of doctors, operating out of someone's living room in Cambridge,

Massachusetts exploded into a national group of approximately 20,000 physicians across the country by 1983. The group took the first step towards solving its problems when they hired Wales. However, PSR was still grappling with how to balance the relationship between the President and the Executive Director, the staff and the volunteer doctors, and the staff and the Board of Directors. In short, the movement grew faster than the organizational infrastructure, which created serious internal problems by 1983. In an attempt to resolve some of the growing tensions within the organization, the group commissioned the services of the Planning and Management Assistance Project (PMAP) to suggest solutions for them. In light of PMAP's ultimate conclusion about Caldicott's role in organizational breakdown, it is ironic that the group was only hired after

i0' SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175-Acc.94A-073-Seriesl-Box 12, File 5, January 9, 1985 - A letter from Jane Wales to a Mr. Paul Hoffman of PSR Grand Rapids, MI. 284 Caldicott's insistence to the Board of Directors that PSR would benefit from having

PMAP come in to solve the organization's internal turmoil.

The thing PMAP learned through interviewing PSR staff and physicians in the national office in 1983 was that the majority of these individuals viewed Caldicott's leadership as the major problem with PSR. PMAP's final report provided several insights into the conflict between Caldicott and the PSR staff and membership. The main complaint was that Caldicott made no distinction between her personal politics and that of the larger organization. Indeed, because she was so influential in the establishment of

PSR, the consultants concluded that she viewed the two things as one and the same.

About the kinds of side projects Caldicott was engaged in, PMAP wrote, that the "chief spokesperson" of PSR "must be an institutional role" and

the president must realize that s/he is representing the institution and that everything s/he says will therefore be seen as the institutions' position - both by the public at large and by PSR's own membership. That means that the president needs to operate within the bounds of the institution, speaking out only where there is a clear institutional policy, and going back to the institution for guidance and direction when there is no clear institutional stand.509

Because Caldicott failed to do this - and presumably refused to do so in the future - the consultants recommended that she step down.510 They wrote,

There is no question that the charismatic qualities of PSR's current president - her vision, her creativity, her commitment, her ability to inspire and activate, her

Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 276. 509SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR - Survey, "Planning and Management Assistance Project: Memorandum," May 27, 1983, 23. This was an assessment of PSR's institutional development done by a consulting firm and it included several recommendations for reform within the organization, one of which was the resignation of Helen Caldicott. 510 Caldicott recalls efforts made by Jack Geiger and other PSR members to censor her. She openly admits that she "flatly refused to consider such a thing." Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 211. 285 brilliant, intuitive sense of strategy, and her drive to achieve what at times seems impossible - have been a key factor in the organization's success and a major reason why the organization has come so far so quickly. But there reaches a point in any organization's life where a charismatic leader can become overpowering rather than empowering. Like an adolescent breaking away from its parents, an organization needs to discover that it can operate on its own.511

This analogy to the parent-child relationship is interesting because Caldicott often depicted her relationship to PSR in the same terms. In Margaret Cavin, Katherine Hale, and Barry Cavin's article, "Metaphors of Control Toward a Language of Peace: Recent

Self-Defining Rhetorical Constructs of Helen Caldicott," for instance, they analyze

Caldicott's use of maternal language to discuss her role in the anti-nuclear movement.

They quote from a "Farewell" speech she made in 1986, where she declared, "I love those doctors, I nurtured them, I looked after them, I brought them in.. .My baby was taken from me and it is now dying. I feel that I have been raped, psychologically raped."512 When PMAP released its report to the organization in 1984, Caldicott considered it (and the negative portrayal of her by her PSR colleagues) as such a betrayal that she voluntarily stepped down as PSR President and completely disassociated herself from the movement.

To fully understand why PSR pushed Caldicott out of the organization, it is necessary to analyze her rhetoric. For this purpose, I will use her very popular

511 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR- Survey, "Planning and Management Assistance Project: Memorandum," May 27, 1983, 24. 512 Margaret Cavin, Katherine Hale, and Barry Cavin, "Metaphors of Control Toward a Language of Peace: Recent Self-Defining Rhetorical Constructs of Helen Caldicott," Peace & Change 22, 3 (July 1997), 250. 286 publication, Missile Envy.513 Ignoring the sexual connotations suggested in the title of the book, its overall appearance is consistent with much of the writing of PSR doctors.

The cover of the book boasts that its contents contain an "expert's account" and that

Caldicott is both a "doctor and activist," which is how PSR and IPPNW physicians portrayed themselves publicly. Likewise, the catchy titles of each chapter imaginatively link the expertise of the physician with the problem of nuclear war, much like Lown and

Hiatt did in their emphases on the physicians' central role in preventing nuclear war. For instance, Caldicott provides her medical "Prognosis" in chapter one; gives the "Case

History" in chapter 2; refers to the "Dynamics of the Arms Race" as the "Pathogenesis" in chapter 5; and the actual occurrence of nuclear war appears as the "Terminal Event" in chapter 7. The purpose of using the medical lexicon in her chapter titles and weaving it into the content of her book was to situate herself- the physician - at the centre of the cure to "nuclear madness."514 Again, this is consistent with the rhetorical strategies of all

PSR and IPPNW members. Further, she shows an extensive knowledge of the history of the arms race in the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which was something that PSR and

IPPNW physicians also incorporated into their activism, particularly once the groups began acting as doctor-diplomats after 1982. Indeed, being knowledgeable about nuclear war was essential to entering into an informed debate about the direction of U.S. and

Soviet foreign policy.

513 The book went through at least three publications according to the York University library catalogue, which holds a 1986 copy of the book. Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy. 514 This was the title of an earlier book published by Helen Caldicott. Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do, Revised Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994). 287 Yet, Caldicott's ideas surrounding nuclear war differentiated her from the more conservative constituency of male doctors who made up the majority of the membership rolls of PSR after 1982. First, while PSR and IPPNW devoted much of their time between 1980 and 1983 to predicting the medical consequences of nuclear war, both groups avoided using overly emotional language, presenting apocalyptic calculations and scientifically-grounded predictions. While Caldicott certainly did this as well,515 her discussions were more often infused with passion and emotion. For example, when discussing her decision to leave pediatric medicine and devote herself to the anti-nuclear movement, she wrote, "What was the use of keeping these children alive for another five to twenty years by the application of meticulous and loving medical care, when during this time they could all be vaporized in a nuclear war?"516 Being passionate and emotional was viewed by most physicians in PSR and IPPNW as a liability, especially since they were trying to position themselves as experts in the anti-nuclear movement.

They attached the same qualities of detachment and rationality to this term as did scientists and defense intellectuals. Caldicott was aware of these critiques, but she was unapologetic, arguing, "It is absolutely inappropriate to be unemotional as one contemplates the fiery end of the earth." Indeed, it was Caldicott's refusal to tailor her language that led to her downfall. When she asked the Board to explain why they sought

515 See, for example, Helen Caldicott's speech in Terri Nash's documentary, If You Love This Planet, National Film Board of Canada, 1982. When she discusses the "Medical Consequences of Nuclear War, Caldicott references the famous 1962 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, which served as the basis for many of the talks given by other members of PSR and IPPNW. 516 Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 8. Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 324. See also, If You Love This Planet, where Caldicott makes a similar declaration. 288 her resignation, one of the top reasons cited was that she was "too emotional." Another reason was that, in the spirit of her oratory, she often spoke unscripted and made factual errors in her assessments of the medical consequences of nuclear war.518 These examples are useful for illustrating how the ideas surrounding scientific and medical expertise were sexist. 'Feminine' characteristics like emotion were viewed as the anti-thesis of expertise in these cases. Caldicott's refusal to adhere to the masculine traits of detachment and professionalism made her an outsider among her colleagues and ultimately led to her leaving PSR.

Another disparity between Helen Caldicott's public persona and the large group of white upper middle class men such as Geiger and Lown, was Caldicott's feminist interpretation of nuclear war. This is hinted at in the cleverly worded title of her book -

Missile Envy - and is elaborated on extensively in the text. She wrote, "There is another dynamic operating in the arms race, and that is one of overt sexuality." She compares the virile sexuality of adolescent boys and suggests that the men wielding power in the arms race were simply older versions of these same boys, who had never matured.

Indeed, she explained the arms race in terms of feelings of male sexual insecurity and the need to prove one's manhood. For instance, she wrote, "These hideous weapons of killing and mass genocide may be a symptom of several male emotions: inadequate sexuality and a need to continually prove their virility plus a primitive fascination with

58 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 287. 519 Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 318. 289 killing." Caldicott also suggested that missiles were big phalluses, born of the male imagination. When describing the launching of an MX missile, she described, "It rose slowly out of the ground, surrounded by smoke and flames and elongated into the air - it was indeed a very sexual sight, and when armed with the ten warheads it will explode with the most almighty orgasm." Similar analogies have been written about extensively in feminist literature. Indeed, Cohn shows in her work how the sexual subtext surrounding nuclear weapons development, strategy, and testing was shockingly explicit in the day-to-day discourse between defense intellectuals. She writes,

I think I had naively imagined myself as a feminist spy in the house of death - that I would need to sneak around and eavesdrop on what men said in unguarded moments, using all my subtlety and cunning to unearth whatever sexual imagery might be underneath how they thought and spoke...I was not prepared for what I found.522

Physicians from PSR and IPPNW were not comfortable being associated with these ideas. Furthermore, it is not unreasonable to think that many even felt threatened by Caldicott's discussion of "primitive" male desires and sexuality, particularly because she did not make many distinctions between the men she worked hand in hand with at

PSR and those war mongerers she discusses in this section of her book.523 This is more apparent when analyzing her ideas surrounding the biological and gender differences of izu Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 319. 521 Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 319. 522 Carol Cohn, "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals," 692-693. The discussion of this discourse extends from page 692-702. See also, Brian Easlea, Fathering the Unthinkable: Masculinity, Scientists and the Nuclear Arms Race (London: Pluto Press, 1983). 523 When talking about Carl Jung's "two basic psychological principles" she did say, "The positive anima is the nurturing, caring, loving principle, which women embody and which is also present powerfully in some men." (emphasis added) However, it is unlikely that many people bothered about the nuances of Caldicott's argument, particularly people who felt threatened by her. Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 321. 290 men and women. While Caldicott described that men "never show emotion, never admit mistakes.. .are always sure of themselves, are always right, and above all they are very tough and strong," she portrays women as the polar opposite. According to her, they are

"very in touch with [their] feelings,... [have] very strong and reliable intuition,... and are generally born with strong feelings for nurturing of the life process."524 She used a combination of biological and social arguments to make these distinctions between the sexes.525 Moreover, she did not stop at delineating the differences between men and women, but went on to declare, "The age of woman has arrived." She called on women to educate men about getting "into contact with their emotions" and saving the world from certain "exterminate[ion]." It was statements such as this that made many of her

PSR colleagues feel threatened. It is certainly true that Caldicott did paint the male physicians who pushed her out of PSR with this same brush. In her autobiography, she attached very feminine qualities to her reign as PSR President, depicting the era as one ruled by "love, mutual support, and honesty." On the other hand, she claimed that

Geiger's new influence over the Board ushered in the era of "power and control," qualities which were consistent with her vision of the negative aspects of masculinity.5 7

She draws this comparison to illustrate why there were irreconcilable differences between

524 Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 315 and 316, respectively. 525 For example, she discusses how women are "anatomically" and "physiologically" suited for giving and nurturing life. She also discusses the role of hormones in sex role behavior - saying that androgens are "responsible for making men more psychologically aggressive than women," while the high levels of estrogen and progesterone in women uniquely suit them to mothering. At the same time, though, she links women's mothering roles to their learned ability to nurture and she also concedes, "I am sure that some aggressive behavior in men is conditioned."Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 316-317. 526 Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy, 322-323. 5 7 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 286. 291 her and the organization by 1984 and why she could not continue working within it, in any capacity.

Part of Caldicott's emotional side was her willingness to openly criticize political leaders. This was something else from which PSR and IPPNW sought to distance the doctors' movement. When she wrote about her meeting with Reagan in Missile Envy, she questioned his intelligence. In her autobiography, moreover, she called him senile.

Wanting to court both the political right, left and centre, PSR shied away from making disparaging comments towards political candidates and refrained from financially backing specific individuals. Caldicott chafed under such restrictions and when she left

PSR in 1984, she actively campaigned for democratic candidate, Walter Mondale. PSR's decision to elect Dr. Sidney Alexander as Caldicott's successor served its purposes well.

As she described, he was quite conservative politically and attracted like-minded supporters for PSR's CTB campaign between 1984 and 1986. Likewise, Alexander was more likable to Lown at IPPNW and it made collaboration between the two groups easier. Indeed, in her autobiography Caldicott makes reference to several instances, where there was tension between her and Lown over the directions of the doctors'

528 movement.

This analysis reveals that the reasons for Caldicott's dismissal were quite complex. The conclusions made by PMAP were certainly true. Caldicott became much bigger than PSR. She was a representative of the women's peace movement and she

See, for example, Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 174. 292 became quite notorious, internationally, after the release of If You Love This Planet. At the same time, PSR had grown considerably with many new physician members vying for a leadership role. However, there was much more to the story. The physicians struggling for a leadership role in PSR were mainly white upper middle class men, with very specific ideas about the role of doctors in the anti-nuclear movement. Physicians as a group belonged to a professional culture that continued to be dominated by men in the

1980s. Indeed, it was a professional culture that had been nurtured by the interests and prerogatives of privileged white men for centuries. And while the overall goal of the doctors' movement was to prevent nuclear war - an objective that no one should disparage - there was little interest among this group of professionals in challenging the foundations of white male privilege. This was especially so when PSR and IPPNW made the decision to focus their activism on changing American foreign policy. The importance of professionalism and prestige were paramount, in this regard. These two qualities were not only defined by the moral superiority of the physician, but his or her acceptance as an expert and, as I have shown throughout this dissertation, the definition of expertise was intimately tied to the traditionally masculine traits of objectivity, reason, and detachment. These same masculine characteristics also dictated behavior within foreign policy circles and the closer PSR and IPPNW adhered to them, the more respect they were accorded within these circles.

According to Caldicott, some of these physicians included Jack Geiger, Irwin Redlener, and Jennifer Leaning. Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion, 278. 293 Keeping this in mind, it is impossible to ignore the role that sexism and misogyny played in Caldicott's demise within the doctors' movement. She refused to conform to the ideal of the unemotional, detached, rational physician. Indeed, she did the complete opposite, calling on the women of the world to teach men how to get in touch with their emotions and put a stop to the nuclear arms race. Her demise within the movement is also instructive of the difficulties faced by women in positions of considerable power. It was not only Caldicott's emotional rhetoric that irked her PSR colleagues, but her outspokenness and her refusal to be silenced by the will of the Board of Directors. As the movement grew, these male physicians were less and less comfortable having a female leader like Caldicott, who defied feminine stereotypes like passivity and deference, particularly when her ideas clashed with the collective interests of the doctors' movement. For these reasons, I conclude that PSR's decision to disassociate itself from

Caldicott was the organization's way of making a fresh start and reinforcing its credibility as a group of experts and professionals in the anti-nuclear movement. This is not to say that women could never play a leadership role in PSR. There were several female physicians who worked closely with the doctors' movement. Indeed, in 1988, Dr.

Christine Cassell assumed the position of PSR President. However, Cassell fit better into the PSR mold than Caldicott. She accepted that hers was an institutional role and, aside from her own work as a physician, that institutional role was the central one in her work

• • 530 as an activist.

530 As I will show in chapter 9 of this thesis, even this was not enough to completely insulate Cassel from 294 Conclusion

I have tried to reaffirm through this chapter that activism among scientific and biomedical professionals in the anti-nuclear movement was shaped by the particularities of each groups' expertise. PSR and IPPNW both portrayed their membership as part of the select category of anti-nuclear activists with special scientific or biomedical expertise that was pertinent for understanding the broader implications of the arms race and eliminating the threat of nuclear war. While this was certainly true in terms of the medical profession's ability to understand the immediate public health impact that such a war would have on a given population, there were clear limitations in the amount to which PSR or IPPNW could continue to command a presence as experts in the disarmament movement. This became apparent when, in 1982, only three years after the doctors' movement was revitalized in the U.S., the groups were forced to reassess the effectiveness of their educational campaigns for reversing the tide of the arms race. The groups successfully made the medical consequences of nuclear war common knowledge.

This, combined with the fact that the groups mainly spoke about hypothetical scenarios that were repeated over and over across the country and around the world - in the media, through films, and in public symposia, made people weary of PSR and IPPNW's message.

In order to remain relevant in the anti-nuclear movement, the groups were forced to consider expanding their focus to include lobbying for things like the Comprehensive

misogynistic attacks on her leadership. 295 Test Ban. This work fell outside of the two groups' relevant areas of expertise and so it was difficult for either of them to continue claiming status as expert activists. I see this as one of the main reasons that UCS and the doctors' movement followed different paths after 1982, the former working outside the Freeze Movement and the latter working within it. The tenuous relationship of biomedical expertise to this next phase of PSR and

IPPNW's activism influenced the groups to repeatedly underline the importance of each member's professional prestige, morality, and humanity to their work as physicians. The insecurity of PSR's place as a member of this exclusive collection of expert driven activist organizations also led to the reactionary decision to remove Caldicott from the organizations' leadership. In the process, this revealed the deep rooted place of misogyny and sexism within both the medical profession and the doctors' movement as a whole. This is instructive of the limited role that feminism and/or a radical critique of science or militarism could play in the expert wing of the anti-nuclear movement. Only in an organization like the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH), which Bertell established in 1983, was there space for such things to flourish. Unlike the international movement of thousands of physicians, Bertell's organizations were so small that she did not need to worry about a conflict between her identity and the organizational identity of IICPH - the two were one and the same.

The final section of this dissertation moves forward to examine the period after

Chernobyl until three years after the end of the Cold War and focuses on how UCS,

IICPH, PSR, and IPPNW adapted their work to remain relevant in this changing

296 international context. First, I turn to the work of UCS during this period and analyze how the group navigated this shift and expanded its work to include non-nuclear environmental issues.

297 Part III: Reframing Anti-Nuclear Activism in the Post-Chernobyl, Post-Cold War World

298 Chapter 7: Moving onto "Greener Pastures:" Union of Concerned Scientists Regroup in the Aftermath of the Cold War, 1986-1992

Introduction

With the Cold War over, many scientists are converting their professional skills and their activist convictions from national security and nuclear weapons to other issues, particularly the environment. This intellectual shift is driven variously by principle, by a growing interest in the environment among younger scientists, by a hunger for new challenges and - not least - by the search for new sources of financial support.531

For Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) this meant that three fourths of its 1992 budget was allocated to "climate change and related issues." Compared to the concentration of three quarters of its budget in arms control and nuclear disarmament just three years earlier, this was by all accounts a pretty radical transformation. During the time the above New York Times article was written, moreover, long time UCS Chairman and physicist, Henry Kendall, was on leave from MIT, learning more about the "human impact on the global environment."532 This shift towards non-nuclear environmental issues was UCS's way of capitalizing on the window of opportunity presented by the end of the Cold War, while coping with the waning appeal of anti-nuclear activism in the

United States. Even though the threat of nuclear war was not eliminated with the end of the Cold War, international celebrations of peace and the removal of the Berlin Wall from the European landscape gave the illusion of calm and people were generally happy

531 William K. Stevens, "With Cold War Over, Scientists Are Turning to 'Greener' Pastures," New York Times, October 27, 1992, C4. The title of this article inspired the title of this chapter. 532 William K. Stevens, "With Cold War Over, Scientists Are Turning to 'Greener' Pastures," New York Times, October 27, 1992, C4. 299 to ignore the issue. This chapter will focus on the work of UCS between 1986 and 1992, examining the group's transition to environmental issues like air pollution and global climate change after the Cold War. I will argue that this shift in UCS's activism, while drastic in light of the groups' total devotion to nuclear technology concerns since 1971, was fairly seamless due to the groups' roots in the modern environmental movement during the early 1970s; its consistent focus on the environmental and public health implications of a poorly run commercial nuclear power program from 1971 through to

1986; the group's longstanding interest in energy alternatives, renewables, and energy efficiency throughout the 1980s; and the fact that the group's name had the potential to attract multiple groups of scientists from divergent specialist backgrounds.

Union of Concerned Scientists' Roots in the Modern Environmental Movement

When UCS was established in 1969, there was a burgeoning environmental movement growing across the U.S. and around the world. There were several things making this new movement unique: most significant among them was the increasingly political nature of debates about environmental pollution and contamination from toxic substances.533 The increased concern about environmental toxicity was a product of a long period of industrialization, where little thought went into the long term impact of the

Samuel Hay, Beauty. Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States. 1955-1985. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1987, 177. For more scholarship on the environmental movement during the 1970s, see, Mark H. Lytle, The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), Michael Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), Andrew Szasz, Ecopopulism: Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), Scott Lash, Bronislaw Szerszynski, and Brian Wynne (eds.), Risk, Environment, and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology (London: Sage, 1996). 300 carcinogenic and toxic materials like lead, radiation, asbestos, or pesticides that were so central to industrial production in late capitalist societies. Unlike eighteenth and nineteenth-century concerns with sanitation,534 the contamination caused by this pollution travelled through all living organisms, linking human and environmental health in previously unknown ways.535 In response to the concerns raised by this new movement, the Nixon government established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on

December 2, 1970. This was the first time that an agency of the U.S. government was created to deal with the overlapping concerns of environmental contamination and harm to human health from industrial, chemical, or radioactive pollution. It was also in 1970 that the first International Earth Day was celebrated.

It is evident that UCS was influenced by this new movement because many of their first organizational planning meetings considered a wide range of environmental issues as potential targets for concern. Some of the subcommittees on the environment in

1970 included one focused on air pollution, another on the relationship between air pollution and highway transportation, and others concentrated on pesticides, population, natural resources, and a study of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's record

See, for example, S.K. Schultz and C. McShane, "To engineer the metropolis: Sewars, Sanitation, and City Planning in Late Nineteenth Century America," Journal of American History 65, 2 (1978): 389-411, M.V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000), Harold L. Piatt, Shock Cities: The Environmental Transformation and Reform of Manchester and Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), Sam Alewitz, Filthy Dirty: A Social History of Unsanitary Philadelphia in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York: Garland Press, 1989). I mention the sanitation movement because this is another instance where concern with public health was definitely linked to concern with the environment. However, this was considerably different than the ways that these modern concerns with toxics linked health and environment. 535 For an excellent discussion of this, see Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards A New Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1992). 301 on environmental protection. In 1970, Nuclear reactor technology was only one of many environmental concerns considered by the group. In that same year, UCS members were contacted by former UCS organizer, Murray Eden, who was working for the World

Health Organization and was looking for scientists interested in planning the United

Nations Conference on Global Pollution, scheduled for 1972. Likewise, in 1973, when

UCS applied for its first grant to support its work on the "hazards associated with nuclear power reactors," the group not only listed its work in relation to commercial nuclear power and radioactive waste, but also included a profile on the "major technical, research and public education projects" it had done on "air and water pollution" and "oil spills."537

Although the group focused almost exclusively on nuclear power by 1971, this work flowed naturally out of the groups' originally very broad emphasis on modern environmental issues. Indeed, UCS's opposition to commercial nuclear power between

1971 and 1979 was shaped by these early environmental concerns, namely, the public health and safety risks associated with large releases of radioactivity into the environment from a reactor melt down. And even though UCS was focused heavily on the technological shortcomings of the U.S. nuclear weapons program between 1980 and

1986, its commercial nuclear power opposition continued throughout this period.

Chernobyl and Its Impact on UCS's Activism

536 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC 434, Box 80, "UCS Committee on Environmental Pollution: Notice of Meeting and Newsletter," May 27, 1970. 337 MITIASC, UCS Fonds, MC 434, Box 80, "The UCS Fund: Description, Budget, and Funding Proposal," 1973. 302 Because UCS had consistently raised awareness about the problems of the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States and spent the 1980s trying to shutdown unsafe reactors throughout the northeast of the country, the accident at the

Chernobyl commercial nuclear power facility did not have a huge impact on activism within the group. As chapter 8 shows, the same was true of Rosalie Bertell's activism after Chernobyl. Chapter 9 will illustrate that it was Physicians for Social Responsibility

(PSR) and later International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) whose activism was profoundly affected by this accident. The accident did, however, reinvigorate UCS's emphasis on the shortcomings of the U.S. nuclear reactor program and the poor record of safety within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). This is evident from the spike in nuclear power coverage in the group's newsletter, Nucleus. immediately after the accident. Whereas the one and a half years prior to the accident saw an average of approximately three articles devoted to commercial nuclear power, the two issues published directly after the meltdown each contained five articles devoted to nuclear power, while the third issue included six. Most of these Nucleus articles highlighted how many U.S. commercial reactors had similar designs to the Chernobyl commercial reactor. The editorial published in the first issue after the accident underlined how the Chernobyl reactor, which was the most modern one in the Soviet

Union, was modeled after many of the reactors operating in the U.S. Indeed, the

"pressure suppression" chamber around the Chernobyl reactor core was similar to the ones in over half of the American reactors. The group also compared the fast pace of reactor construction in the Soviet Union to the U.S. practice of "shoddy" design and construction at the Zimmer plant in Ohio, as well as the NRC's practice of letting plants with long lists of "safety issues" to continue operating. On the issue of Soviet secrecy after the accident: UCS reminded Americans that "for the first 24 to 36 hours" after the

Three Mile Island (TMI) meltdown "utility officials kept a bland public face, insisting that there was no danger to local residents." The editorial concluded, "We should not ignore [the implications of the Chernobyl accident] in a nation where utilities and federal regulators, in comfortable togetherness, have for four decades evaded their responsibility to discipline this wayward technology."53

The same message was more widely communicated through the national news media. For instance, Robert Pollard was quoted saying, "Once again, this accident has brought home the idea that, when you build a commercial nuclear power plant, you decide to accept the risk, however small, of killing a few thousand people."539 Likewise, in 1986, Daniel Ford and Pollard put out an advertisement, stating, "in case you think the

Russians are the only ones covering up nuclear dangers, just read these memos."

Featured in the ad were images of several NRC documents detailing major safety problems at the General Electric designed nuclear power plants and explicit instructions -

"Viewpoint," Nucleus, 8, 2 (Summer 1986), 1. See also, "Chernobyl's Message: Look Again at Containment Units in the United States," and "Three Mile Island Look-Alikes Still Without Safety Changes," of the same issue, 3; and "Viewpoint" and "A Chernobyl-Style Containment in the U.S.: G.E.'s Mark I," Nucleus, 3 (Fall 1986), land 3, respectively. 539 Stuart Diamond, "Chernobyl Rouses Bad Memories, New Fears," New York Times, May 4, 1986, E3. 304 given by high ranking NRC employees - to avoid "mentioning] the problem publicly".540

This was particularly vexing to members of the NRC and other government bureaucrats who used the Chernobyl accident as an opportunity to paint the Soviets in a bad light, highlighting the negligence, secrecy, and deception, which governed their actions around the accident. In a candid letter sent by Herbert Romerstein, the Senior

Policy Officer on Soviet Active Measures at the U.S. Information Agency, to a Senator

Durenberger, he advised, "Now that there is conclusive evidence that the breakdown of a

Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor produced a considerable quantity of radioactive fallout, we have a chance to utilize this fact for propaganda purposes." Romerstein urged that the U.S. government take advantage of the Soviet silence immediately after the accident and have its own stories of the accident toll be the first reported by the European media. He recommended the U.S. account highlight that there were 2,000 to 3,000 victims (far more than the 29 casualties reported by the Soviet government), mass evacuations within a 100 mile radius, public panic, transportation problems, along with social and political breakdown. To maximize the propaganda potential of the accident, he also recommended that the U.S. circulate visual imagery depicting the devastation wrought by the accident. To increase the damage to the Soviet Union he also advised that "our allies should be recommended to stop imports of food and other commodities from Eastern bloc" countries due to air pollution. His suggestion that "our allies should

"In case you think the Russians are the only ones covering up nuclear dangers, just read these memos," New York Times, May 19, 1986, B12. 305 be influenced so as to make a request for compensation for contamination of their territory"541 is ironic since the U.S. government had fought so hard to avoid similar liability suits since the Second World War.542 UCS's campaign to expose similar safety problems and deception in the American commercial nuclear power program was aimed at people like Romerstein who sought to use Chernobyl to influence public opinion against the Soviet Union and in favour of the U.S.

Since UCS still focused much of its work on opposing nuclear power, it made sense for the group to address this accident. Because of this, most of its commentary was limited to the accident's relevance in relation to commercial nuclear power. But just like other disarmament groups, UCS also saw in Chernobyl an opportunity to create a new sense of urgency over the need for disarmament. This time, UCS's focus was not only on the technical shortcomings of missile defense, but on the very real public health and environmental hazards of nuclear weapons technology for Americans living around and working in nuclear weapons complex facilities. For example, UCS joined the newly formed Coalition of Environmental/Safe Energy Organizations, who not only called for the eventual phasing out of commercial nuclear power in the United States, but also raised alarm over the five Department of Energy run plutonium producing reactors,

541 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, Correspondence from Herbert Romerstein, Senior Policy Officer on Soviet Active Measures, United States Information Agency to Senator Durenberger, April 29, 1986. This letter was sent to IPPNW anonymously. 542 As I showed in chapter 3, this began with the American WWII veterans seeking redress for health problems caused by working with nuclear materials during the Manhattan Project and extended across the United States to communities and individuals living and working in commercial nuclear power plants, weapons production sites, uranium mines, and other industries related to nuclear technology production. 306 which also lacked containment structures around their reactor cores. Members of this coalition came from a wide variety of citizen and scientist driven groups and included

Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Environmental Policy Institute, Friends of the

Earth, Government Accountability Project, Blacks Against Nukes, Christie Institute, and

Solar Lobby - PSR was not listed among them.

As was the case in the 1970s and early 1980s, however, there were similar tensions within this coalition of citizens and scientists. UCS's desire to protect its scientific credibility and that of its members limited the group's flexibility and when it joined the Coalition, the partnership had to temper its demands and critiques of nuclear technology. The first instinct of most groups was to demand an immediate shut down of all U.S. nuclear power plants, but UCS refused to endorse such a statement and the compromise was a statement calling for the accelerated "phase-out" of nuclear power.

To make sure UCS's stance was clear, Howard Ris, the Executive Director of UCS, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times, clarifying the groups' public position on the issue. He wrote, "Some readers may have inferred that the Union of Concerned

Scientists supports shutdown of all operating nuclear reactors in this country. This is not, and never has been, our organization's view." He went on to explain that, due to persistent negligence, the federal government and the NRC had left the organization with no choice but to call for the phase out of nuclear power. Just in case, though, he highlighted several recommendations that the two could adopt to save the utility from

543 Irvin Molotsky, "Phase-Out of A-Plants in U.S. is Urged," New York Times, April 30, 1986, A12. 544 Irvin Molotsky, "Phase-Out of A-Plants in U.S. is Urged," New York Times, April 30, 1986, A12. 307 death. As I have shown, UCS's desire to maintain its credibility continued to prevent the group from making more radical critiques of nuclear technology. By showing a willingness to continue pursuing nuclear power options, UCS members reinforced their position as objective or impartial observers of technological issues. Preserving claims to objectivity were complicated by the groups' status as an activist organization, which many saw as antithetical to scientific pursuits. UCS's position was also more practical because the group knew that public health and safety issues were not the only ones under consideration by agencies like the NRC. The U.S. government had invested billions of dollars in the development of commercial nuclear power since the 1960s and it had repeatedly shown that public health concerns were not the only things under consideration when weighing the costs and benefits of the technology. This economic investment was of paramount importance to interested parties and UCS understood that ignoring this reality would not make the technology disappear.

In 1987, UCS joined a more exclusive coalition of scientist and physician driven groups to expand its opposition to the nuclear weapons complex. Together with PSR and other groups like the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Natural Resources

Defense Council (NRDC), UCS formed the Plutonium Challenge. Among the concerns of these environmental and public health groups was the disregard for the environment and public health within the Department of Energy (DOE). As I will outline in greater detail in chapter 9, these groups challenged the federal government to stop plutonium

545 Howard Ris, "Letters: Chernobyl Is A Warning to Improve Nuclear Safety," New York Times, May 7, 1986, A30. 308 production for two years. In an article published in the Fall 1987 issue of Nucleus, UCS outlined the massive safety problems at the nation's nuclear weapons production facilities, as well as the enormous waste problems and environmental contamination caused by each. The bulk of the article outlined how Chernobyl put DOE facilities under the microscope and ended in the shutdown of "nine research or weapons production facilities."546 This was the first time that an article in Nucleus addressed the public health and environmental problems caused by the DOE nuclear weapons complex. Prior to this, articles devoted to the nuclear weapons complex were limited to discussions of the technological and diplomatic shortcomings of the American nuclear weapons program.

The Role of Disarmament between Chernobyl and the End of the Cold War

Yet, this was only one article among many and between 1986 and 1989, when the

Cold War ended and George Bush Sr. succeeded President Ronald Reagan in the White

House, most of UCS's work remained focused on its more traditional approach to disarmament. On average, each issue of Nucleus contained approximately two more articles devoted to arms control than there were to commercial nuclear power.

Additionally, every issue of Nucleus in these years leading up to the end of the Cold War headlined with an article on arms control. The first issue published after Chernobyl featured an article about a UCS survey conducted among members of the "American

Physical Society, the nation's leading organization of professionally trained physicists."

The survey vindicated outsider claims that UCS members were a minority in the

546 Jennifer Scarlott, "DOE Nuclear Reactors: The High Public Risk of Weapons Production," Nucleus, 9, 3 (Fall 1987), 2, 8. 309 scientific community, revealing that 54% of physicists "view[ed] Star Wars as a step in the wrong direction for America's national security policy."5 7 Another Nucleus headline story during this period urged policymakers to protect the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile

(ABM) Treaty in the face of Star Wars plans to wildly expand American missile defense systems beyond the limits outlined in the Treaty. There were also two headline stories discussing the Soviet-American talks to "eliminate all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from" each national arsenal. While UCS research associate, Robert Herman, heralded the INF Treaty as a first step in arms reduction planning between the superpowers, he spent the majority of the article discussing the need to follow the INF

Treaty with meaningful reductions in the "strategic arsenals" of each superpower.549 All of these articles together reflected UCS's concerns with reducing nuclear weapons through treaty negotiations between the superpowers, while also limiting the expansion of the nuclear arms race into space. Failing at the latter, according to UCS, had the potential to undo any success achieved by agreements like the ABM or INF treaties. The heavier emphasis on nuclear disarmament in the pages of Nucleus was consistent with the group's work since 1984, when nuclear war became its primary focus.

Going Greener: UCS's Decision to Expand Its Focus on the Environment

Immediately after Bush entered the White House, UCS shifted its focus to non- nuclear environmental issues like the greenhouse effect. Making this transition was quite

547 "Physicists on SDI: Unworkable, Unwarranted, Too Costly," Nucleus, 8, 2 (Summer 1986), 1,4. 548 "Fortify the ABM Treaty Against Star Wars' Onslaught," Nucleus, 8, 3 (Fall 1986), 1, 4. 549 Robert Herman, "After the INF Treaty: The Road to Deep Cuts," Nucleus, 9, 4 (Winter 1988), 1, 4 and Jonathan Dean, "U.S.-Soviet INF Talks: A Possible Turning Point," Nucleus, 9, 3 (Fall 1987), 1, 8. 310 easy for UCS, particularly because the group had a longstanding interest in U.S. energy policy, which dated back to the 1970s. Indeed, its opposition to commercial nuclear power had been framed not only in terms of the groups' concern with the health and safety risks of the technology, but also with reference to other, safer, more energy efficient, and renewable technologies of power generation. UCS argued that the federal government ignored these other forms of power generation because of its blind commitment to the expansion of commercial nuclear power since the 1950s. Articles on solar power, wind power, and energy efficiency, while not present in every issue, appeared in the pages of Nucleus throughout the 1980s. During the presidential primaries in the 1988 election and just months before UCS announced its plans to add the greenhouse effect to its list of concerns, the organization devoted its Voter Education

Project to energy policy. This was the groups' attempt to get energy policy on the list of priorities debated by the candidates, particularly because discussions to that point were preoccupied with things like the national deficit, arms control, foreign trade, and education. UCS outlined three priority areas for the next administration to address: the first was the "well documented" problem with the regulation of nuclear power by the

NRC; the second was the American "dependence on imported oil;" and the third was the need to "design and implement a long-term energy strategy emphasizing energy efficiency."550 Since excess carbon dioxide, emitted from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, was the major culprit in the greenhouse effect, it followed that UCS should

"Viewpoint," Nucleus, 10, 1 (Spring 1988), 1. 311 focus its energies on this subject in 1989. The groups' solution, not surprisingly, was that industrialized nations like the U.S. invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal power. In response to nuclear power enthusiasts, who were touting the expansion of commercial nuclear power as the solution to the problem of global warming, UCS sited not only safety problems, but also the high costs of generating and expanding nuclear power, along with the unresolved question of what to do with nuclear waste in the United States. These commercial nuclear power devotees conveniently ignored the back end problem of nuclear waste disposal when praising the technology's zero emissions of greenhouse gases. Indeed, when UCS formally announced its expanded activist portfolio, the group presented its work on the

"alarming trend of global warming" as part of an expansion in the groups' "energy-policy research and education."

UCS Expands Its Areas of Expertise: Policy and Scientific Experts

To meet the needs of its expanding energy policy research and education work,

UCS hired new scientists and policy experts. In 1988, Michael Brower, who had a PhD in physics from Harvard University, was touted as an arms specialist at UCS, but he began working on energy issues for the organization the following year. The first article

Brower wrote for Nucleus, for example, was titled, "From MARVS to Microwaves: New

551 Michael Brower, "The Greenhouse Effect, Part 2: Meeting The Challenge," Nucleus, 10, 4 (Winter 1989), 2-3, 5. This article on the Greenhouse Effect was a follow-up to one in the previous issue, which I have been unable to locate. 552 "Viewpoint," Nucleus, 11, 1 (Spring 1989), 1. 312 Weapons for Nuclear War." Almost immediately after this first submission, however,

Brower devoted himself to UCS energy issues. He was the author of the two-part series on the greenhouse effect appearing in the Fall and Winter issues in 1989, which were the first major works addressing this new focus by UCS.554 Likewise, he was an important presence in the UCS lobbying efforts long after 1992, where he was engaged in all of

UCS's work on energy, global warming, and the greenhouse effect. In 1990, Brower authored the UCS report, titled, "Cool Energy: The Renewable Solution to Global

Warming," "an analysis of renewable-energy technologies - their near - and long-term prospects and their potential role in mitigating global warming."555 With the scientific expertise acquired by Brower, UCS was better equipped to participate in this next phase of its activism.

Alden Meyer joined UCS in 1989 as the senior energy analyst. He brought with him several years experience in environmental policy activism as the former executive director of both the League of Conservation Voters and Environmental Action, Inc. His job was to direct UCS's "policy analysis and lobbying efforts on energy issues" from the

Washington, D.C. office.556 As soon as Meyer joined the UCS team he got busy working with Senators Al Gore, Tim Wirth, Patrick Leahy, and Representative Claudine

Schneider to drum up support for four environmental bills put forth in Congress. Gore's

553 Michael Brower, "From MARVS to Microwaves: New Weapons for Nuclear War," Nucleus, 10, 1 (Spring 1988), 1,4-5. 554 Michael Brower, "The Greenhouse Effect, Part 2: Meeting the Challenge," Nucleus, 10, 4 (Winter 1989), 2-3, 5. 555 "UCS Publications," Nucleus, 12, 1 (Spring 1990), 8. 556Alden Meyer, "Energy," Nucleus, 11, 1 (Spring 1989), 6. 313 "World Environmental Policy Act of 1989" was quite broad in its environmental focus, but also included an "energy-related section [which] would effectively require automobile manufacturers to raise the average fuel efficiency of their fleets." The Wirth legislation, called the "National Energy Policy Act of 1989," was more specifically targeted at addressing the problem of global warming, mainly through a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide by the year 2000 and allocating "substantially higher funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy research, development, and demonstration," and more research into the causes of global climate change. Remarkably, this particular bill also included a provision to dedicate $500 million for research and development of

"'advanced' nuclear reactor technology". Leahy's "Global Environmental Protection Act of 1989," which similarly proposed several measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, also proposed to expand investment in "inherently safe" nuclear reactor technology.

Finally, Representative Schneider's "Global Warming Prevention Act," while incorporating many aspects of the three previous bills, did not include a provision for the development of commercial nuclear power. Meyer encouraged UCS supporters to write their congressional representatives in both the House and Senate, encouraging them to support these bills. It was also Meyer's responsibility to engage directly with the

Congress members to influence the shape of these pieces of environmental legislation, while pushing for amendments as well.

5 Alden Meyer, "Energy," Nucleus, 11,1 (Spring 1989), 6. These examples are not exhaustive of the work done by UCS to address global warming in the House and Senate after 1989. This is a topic for another historian; rather, my intention here is merely to point out some signposts of this shift in UCS's activism. 314 UCS's support for this new legislation on the environment is useful for understanding one of the challenges of expanding its activism to include global climate change. While the group was extremely critical of the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States, it had always maintained that UCS was not completely opposed to the technology. Rather, UCS's critiques were always framed in terms of the individual private utility companies' and the NRC's neglect of public health and safety.

As Howard Ris maintained in 1986 after the Chernobyl accident, UCS publicly favoured the expansion of commercial nuclear power as long as the technology was made safe for the public and the environment. However, the group was clearly cynical about the ability or willingness of U.S. government regulators or private corporations to design, operate, and adequately invest in commercial nuclear reactors, which would satisfy UCS's standards of safety. Yet, we see them endorsing these two bills that promised to keep the commercial nuclear power industry afloat. The key feature of these new "advanced" reactors was supposed to be increased safety; however, the U.S. government still had no long term plan for nuclear waste disposal, another very important environmental issue, which was a continued focus for UCS.558 For a group of scientists who sought to maintain credibility, keep audience with powerful members of Congress, and ultimately influence changes from within the existing power structure of the federal government, this endorsement of advanced reactors was a necessary evil. Senators Wirth and Leahy,

558 Matthew Wald, "New Reactor Designs Are Criticized in Report," New York Times, July 18, 1990, D7. In this article, Robert Pollard explains that UCS is opposed to the construction of new reactors until the U.S. government devises a long term plan to store radioactive waste. This article is published almost one year after UCS endorses these two energy bills that allocate significant funding for "advanced reactors." 315 who had reputations as progressive democrats, were practical enough to know that a national energy strategy which completely excluded the option of nuclear power had little chance of passing through both levels of Congress. UCS, while it continued to push for alternatives to nuclear power, was also being pragmatic when the group endorsed these bills. UCS also inadvertently supported U.S. investment in international family planning schemes by endorsing the Wirth and Schneider bills, a topic that was highly contentious among feminists, development experts, environmentalists, social conservatives, social justice advocates, and the Catholic Church. This was certainly uncharted terrain for an organization that had no experience with this issue. It is also unlikely that UCS really delved too deeply into the particular population policy being endorsed by the bills.

Deborah Gordon, who was also hired as a senior energy policy analyst in 1989, further expanded UCS's focus in this area to include transportation policy. Gordon came to UCS straight after graduating with an MA from the Goldman School of Public Policy at Berkeley. Prior to this, she spent five years working as a chemical and regulatory engineer for Chevron.559 In addition to writing the 1990 report, "Steering a New

Course," which demonstrated how the "transportation sector [wa]s a major source of energy use and delineate[d] a more energy-efficient transportation policy,"560 Gordon developed policy proposals on energy, transportation, and the environment, as well as

There is a link to Deborah Gordon's cv on the following google pages website, entitled: Deborah Gordon, Policy Consultant, http://dxgordon.googlepages.com/home. (accessed September 27, 2008). See, Deborah Gordon, "How To Avert The Coming Crisis in Transportation," Nucleus, 12, 3 (Fall 1990), 1,4. 316 gave expert testimony on a combination of these issues in several different arenas during her tenure with UCS from 1989 to 1996.

It was not only in the area of energy that UCS was expanding by 1989. The organization also added both policy and scientific experts in disarmament during the late

1980s. In 1983, Peter Clausen was the first major disarmament policy expert who joined

UCS. He was a "nationally known expert on nuclear nonproliferation" and worked as

UCS's director of research, coauthoring two major critiques of Star Wars: The Fallacy of

Star Wars and Empty Promise: The Growing Case Against Star Wars. He continued to be active in UCS after the Cold War ended and, among several other things, directed work on the reports, "In Search of Stability" and "Presidential Priorities: A National

Security Agenda for the 1990s."561 Clausen was hired to compliment the scientific expertise provided by UCS leader, Henry Kendall, making the organization sawier at addressing the policy aspects of disarmament negotiations between the U.S. and Soviet governments. Clausen had previously worked as a political analyst for the Central

Intelligence Agency and was a "nuclear specialist" with the DOE. By the end of the Cold

War, several more names were listed among UCS experts on disarmament, both in the area of science and policy. Alan Krass, a professor of physics and science policy at

Hampshire College in Amherst, joined UCS as a senior arms analyst. Jonathan Dean, who held a PhD in political science, joined UCS in 1984 and worked as the senior arms

561 Howard Ris, "Peter Anthony Clausen (1944-1991)," Nucleus, 13,3 (Fall 1991), 1, 7. This is taken from Clausen's obituary - he died in 1991 from lymphoma. Similar to Robert Pollard, who came to UCS after several years working for the NRC, Clausen had previously worked as a political analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and "nuclear specialist" with the DOE. 317 control advisor. His presence was increasingly visible in the post-Cold War issues of

Nucleus and he was touted as having several years experience working in policy prior to working with UCS.563 Kevin Knobloch (UCS President in 2009) worked as the legislative director for arms control and national security from 1989 to 1992 and came to UCS with an MA in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Before he joined UCS, he worked as the legislative director for Senator Wirth of Colorado and the press secretary and legislative director for Representative Ted Weiss of New York.564

Together, these scientific and policy experts equipped UCS to engage with the U.S. government over issues of science policy and disarmament. The fact that these new policy experts had experience working on the issue of arms control within the federal government greatly increased the organization's credibility. This was as important as having reputable scientists on staff.

By comparison, the amount of UCS staff and funding resources devoted to nuclear power was much smaller. To the best of my knowledge, there were no new scientific or policy experts hired to work in this department. Robert Pollard, who was hired in 1976, after several years spent working as a safety engineer for the NRC, was the one and only resident expert. Daniel Ford, who spearheaded UCS's nuclear power

562 This information was culled from the section of the UCS website that offers profiles on the organization's experts, http://www.ucsusa.org/news/experts/jonathan-dean.html. (accessed September 27, 2008). 56 Nucleus. 11,1 (Spring 1989), back page of the newsletter. Dean authored an important "guide to the Vienna negotiations," titled, "A Trimmer NATO at 40: Building Down the NATO-Warsaw Pact Confrontation." 564 Nucleus. 11,2 (Summer 1989), 6. See also, the profile of Kevin Knobloch on the UCS website section devoted to profiling the organization's experts, http://www.ucsusa.org/news/experts/kevin-knobloch.html. (accessed September 27, 2008). 318 opposition until Pollard was hired, left UCS around 1986. Likewise, Kendall, who acted as the resident scientific expert on nuclear power during most of the 1970s, was more focused on disarmament throughout the 1980s as well as his increasingly demanding position as Chairman of this ever expanding organization. Pollard, along with

Steven Krauss, and Michael Phillips, Nucleus's editor and staff writer, respectively, wrote the bulk of articles on nuclear power in Nucleus after the Cold War ended.

Likewise, virtually all newspaper articles referencing UCS's expertise in this area after

1989 cited Pollard.566 This was a big difference compared to UCS's commercial nuclear power heyday in the 1970s, when newspaper articles cited UCS legal expert, Ellen Weiss, policy expert, Ford, scientific expert, Kendall, and later Pollard, who was both a nuclear policy and engineering expert.

UCS as Part of the Growing National and International Environmental Movement

It was not only the end of the Cold War that shaped changes in UCS's organization and activism; rather, the group was emboldened to broaden its

Ford continued his work on nuclear power long after Pollard was hired. His last known publication on nuclear power with UCS is Daniel Ford, Cult of the Atom: The Secret Papers of the Atomic Energy Commission (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982). He also co-authored the UCS publication, Beyond the Freeze: The Road to Nuclear Sanity, with Henry Kendall and Steve Nadis. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982); and Daniel Ford, The Button: The Pentagon's Strategic Command and Control System (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985). In his capacity as Executive Director of the organization, he was inevitably pulled away from nuclear power work and into the groups' increasing emphasis on disarmament by the mid 1980s. I was unable to locate anything online to indicate when exactly he left UCS or where he went afterwards. 566 The number of articles citing Pollard as UCS's resident expert in this area are too numerous to recall here. See, for example, Alberto Bianchetti, "Scientist Recalls Nuclear 'Sins'," The Post-Standard (Syracuse), December 7, 1989; Ken Little, "Shut down NM1, Farm Bureau says," The Palladium-Times (Oswego), December 8, 1989; Deborah Duffy, "State to decide who pays bill of nuclear plant," Courant (Hartford), February 19, 1990; and Matthew Wald, "New Reactor Designs Are Criticized in Report," New York Times, July 18, 1990. 319 environmental activism by the re-emerging international environmental movement.

This growing movement of environmentalists is referenced in the opening quote of this chapter. It was not only UCS, but many scientists, activists, and organizations who eagerly filled the Cold War void by intensifying their focus on the perils of environmental degradation. In several measurable ways, UCS was part of this broader movement. For example, the organization devoted its 9th (1989) and 10th (1990) Annual

Week of Education to the greenhouse effect and fossil fuels, respectively. The 1989 campaign was coordinated across 300 university and community settings, in 46 states, and included participants from the scientific, political, and local activist communities.

All of these locations relied on the cooperation of local environmental activists as well as university faculty to discuss the problems of global warming and the U.S.'s over-reliance on fossil fuels. These education weeks were designed to engage not only UCS members, but a diversity of Americans, both through the actual events organized across the country and by garnering widespread media exposure. The timing of each event, in the fall of each year, was used to build momentum for Earth Day Celebrations across the country,

By using the word re-emerging, I am referring to the explosion of environmentalism in the 1970s. This movement certainly did not die in the 1980s; however, it was overshadowed by the international pre­ occupation with cold war tensions between the superpowers and the need for disarmament. See, for example, Michele Zebich-Knos, "Global Environmental Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era: Linkage to an Extended Security Paradigm," Peace and Conflict Studies 5, 1 (June 1998), found on the following weblink for George Mason University, www.gmu.edu/academic/pcs/zebich.htm, 1-2. (accessed September 15, 2008). In 1972, the United Nations (UN) Conference on the Human Environment (aka Stockholm Conference) had participants from 114 nations - excluding the Soviet Bloc countries - and between 1972 and the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development there were "several hundred bilateral and multilateral environmental treaties...signed." 320 which took place in the spring. Indeed, part of the 1989 Week of Education was devoted to encouraging individuals and groups to coordinate follow-up sessions for the

20th Earth Day Celebration in 1990.569 UCS also participated in events like the "national coalition that [wa]s searching for successful environmental programs on a local level."

The winner of this particular contest was scheduled to be awarded at the 1990 Earth Day celebration in Washington, DC.570 The group also participated in Earth Day celebrations by "providing reports, briefing papers, brochures, videos, and speakers to local organizers."

UCS also reached out internationally, meeting with other scientists and policy experts concerned about global warming and other environmental issues. In 1991, the group took part in the foundation of the International Network of Engineers and

Scientists for Global Responsibility (INESGR). Some of the other member groups included National Scientists for Peace (Germany), the Committee of Soviet Scientists for

Global Security, Scientists Against Nuclear Arms (UK), Engineers for Peace (Hungary), the African Peace Research Institute, the Asia Peace Research Association, Engineers for the Prevention of Nuclear War (Sweden), and likeminded groups from Egypt, Argentina,

Finland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, France, India, and Italy. Most of these groups came from disarmament backgrounds, and, like UCS, this continued to occupy much of

INESGR's attention. However, each group shared UCS's desire to branch out into other

568 "1989 Week of Education," Nucleus, 11,2 (Summer 1989), 7, "10th Annual Week of Education," Nucleus, 12, 3 (Fall 1990), 7. 569 "1989 Week of Education," Nucleus, 11,2 (Summer 1989), 7. 570 "Searching for Success," Nucleus, 11,2 (Summer 1989), 7. 571 "Earth Day," Nucleus, 11,4 (Winter 1990), 7. 321 important scientific and technological concerns related to "environmental security." As

Michelle Zebich-Knos argues, the decline of bipolar divisions in the world presented policy makers and interested parties with an opportunity to broaden their focuses to include the environment. Zebich-Knos discusses how, in the post-Cold War period, traditional understandings of national and international security were expanded to include a focus on the ways that environmental contamination posed domestic and cross-border threats. The creation of INESGR is an excellent example of the role activist organizations played in expanding this definition of security. By presenting international environmental concerns within the foreign policy framework of security, these groups built on their long histories of disarmament activism, while presenting a logical rationale for their decision to shift focus onto international environmental concerns. INESGR had a diverse list of environmental concerns, including "climate change, ozone depletion, and loss of species diversity" and linked them to "energy use, population growth, and other aspects of development."573 UCS's role in this network was limited to its expertise in renewable energy technology and energy efficiency, at least in the early stages.574

UCS also participated in many inter-governmental meetings on climate change.

In 1990, Alden Meyer attended a number of international conferences, for instance, the

"Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" in Stockholm and the "World Climate

Michele Zebich-Knos, "Global Environmental Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era: Linkage to an Extended Security Paradigm," www.gmu.edu/academic/pcs/zebich.htm. 573 Howard Ris, "UCS Strenghtens Ties to International Groups," Nucleus, 13, 4 (Winter 1991-92), 3. 574 Howard Ris, "UCS Strenghtens Ties to International Groups," Nucleus, 13, 4 (Winter 1991-92), 3. 322 Conference" in Geneva. At issue in most of these conferences and international meetings was the U.S. government's unwillingness to seriously commit to reducing

carbon dioxide emissions. At the conference on "atmospheric pollution and climate

change" in the Dutch town, Noordwijk, in November 1989, the U.S. -joined by Japan

and Russia - "blocked all attempts to set any specific goals or timetables for such

stabilization efforts." The U.S. hid behind scientific uncertainty to justify its inaction,

claiming, "more scientific research and economic analysis [we]re called for before any

firm commitments [we]re made." Robert Proctor's work on the history of cancer is useful for illustrating how demands for more research are often highly politicized.

Proctor made this argument with reference to trade association scientists like those

employed by the tobacco industry. Because these corporations wished to avoid

culpability for the health hazards caused by tobacco smoke, they funded research into

other causes of lung cancer, not related to tobacco use. Scientific doubt essentially became the product of tobacco corporations and worked to delay tobacco regulation

efforts.577 In the case of global warming, virtually all scientists agreed there was more research needed to understand the complexity of the phenomenon. However, as Mostafa

Tolba, a scientist and the director of the UN Environment Programme argued, "in the

575 "Travel," Nucleus, 12, 3 (Fall 1990), 7. This was the assertion of Bush's scientific advisor, Allan Bromley, at the conference's closing press conference. Alden Meyer, "Bush Administration Stonewalls at Global-Warming Conference," Nucleus, 11, 4 (Winter 1990), 3. 577 Robert Proctor, Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don't Know About Cancer (Basic Books: New York, 1995), 101-132. See also, Michelle Murphy. Sick Building Syndrome and The Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 131-150. 323 face of catastrophic possibilities," it was untenable to "await empirical certainty," particularly because scientific knowledge was comprehensive enough to warrant action.578 It was as though the Bush Administration (and others) accorded the same rights to potentially harmful technologies as they did to individuals accused of a crime - deeming them innocent until proven guilty. It was not a coincidence that the U.S. was heavily reliant on fossil fuels.

In addition to Congressional lobbying, UCS tried a variety of ways of influencing the Bush government's position on climate change. In 1990, the group hired Vince

Breglio to poll the American public on their opinions about a variety of environmental issues - Breglio was well known for the national polling he did during the Bush-Quayle campaigns. The results revealed not only that seventy two percent of Americans believed the U.S. government "should take the lead in combating global warming," but also that

"Republicans [we]re more concerned about environmental issues than Democrats or independents." This was a particularly important revelation for Bush, who inherited not only the Presidency, but also Reagan's shoddily managed environmental infrastructure, which had been dismantled in favour of massive military spending.

During the 1980s, environmental concerns were routinely "squelched by pocketbook,

Alden Meyer, "Bush Administration Stonewalls at Global-Warming Conference," Nucleus, 11,4 (Winter 1990), 3. 579 See also, Alden Meyer, "The 'White House Effect': Bush Backs Off Carbon Dioxide Stabilization," Nucleus, 12, 1 (Spring 1990), 3; and Alden Meyer, "United States Increasingly Isolated on Global Warming," Nucleus, 12, 2 (Summer 1990), 3. sso «ucs poll. us should Lead Fight on Global Warmmg;' Nucleus, 11, 4 (Winter 1990), 3. 324 fO 1 foreign policy, and defense issues." Additionally, UCS coordinated a massive "Appeal

By American Scientists to Prevent Global Warming." This appeal was signed by fifty two Nobel laureates and 725 members of the National Academy of Sciences and was presented to President Bush in February 1990. Together these scientists urged the U.S. to take a leading role - as "the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases" - in preventing global warming. Among the suggestions put forth by these scientists were the

"steady increase in motor vehicle fuel economy standards;" "a substantial increase in federal funding for research on energy efficiency technologies;" the "development, demonstration, and commercialization of renewable energy technologies on a massive scale;" "a nuclear energy program that emphasizes the protection of public health and

safety, [and] resolution of the problem of radioactive waste disposal;" and "full

consideration of environmental, social, and economic impacts in the establishment of

federal subsidies and regulatory standards for development of energy sources." These

scientists also acknowledged the need for more research into global climate change, but

echoed Mostafa Tolba's claim that "uncertainty was no excuse for complacency."582

UCS also played a large role in preparing for the widely anticipated UN

Conference on the Environment (Rio Summit), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Meyer

acted as the U.S. representative to the Climate Action Network, which met several times

leading up to the Rio Summit. The goal of the group was to "complete an initial climate 581 "UCS Poll: US Should Lead Fight on Global Wanning," Nucleus, 11,4 (Winter 1990), 3. 582 "Appeal By American Scientists to Prevent Global Warming," Nucleus, 12, 1 (Spring 1990), 3. For more of UCS's opinions on U.S. energy policy, see also, Alden Meyer, "Bush National Energy Strategy: Fossilized?" Nucleus, 12,4 (Winter 1991), 3 and 5; and "Special Issue: The National Energy Tragedy," Nucleus 13, 1 (Spring 1991). The entire issue was devoted to discussing Bush's National Energy Policy. 325 treaty" before the Conference in June 1992. Likewise, Henry Kendall was chosen as the delegate of international environmental non-governmental organizations at the United

Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting on February 28, 1992. In his speech, he echoed the concerns outlined in the U.S. scientists' appeal to Bush two years earlier. He also declared that the U.S. government was to blame for the slow progress of negotiations on the climate change treaty, stating, "Yesterday's announcement of a new

"action plan" by the U.S. delegation was useful, but we must have a firm U.S. commitment on emissions limits by the time these negotiations resume later this spring."

In response to the cynics of environmental reform, Kendall highlighted the results of a

UCS sponsored study. Instead of harming national economies, Kendall argued, "the

United States could cut its energy-related carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by

2005, and 70 percent by 2030, at a net savings of over $2 trillion to US energy consumers!"5 In the U.S., the organization also coordinated a letter writing campaign, encouraging President Bush to "soften his hostile stance on the [Climate Change] treaty."

As of May 1992, UCS had delivered 10,000 letters to the White House.585 Despite the best efforts of UCS (and several others), the Bush government continued to drag its heels on climate change and the treaty did not concretely outline national goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.586

583 "International Climate Negotiations," Nucleus, 13, 4 (Winter 1991-92), 7. 584 «uc§ Chairman Speaks at United Nations," Nucleus, 14, 1 (Spring 1992), 1 and 4. This piece contains the full text of Kendall's speech. 585 "UCS Sponsors Appeal to President Bush," Nucleus, 14, 1 (Spring 1992), 4. 586 "Viewpoint: UCS Tackles Global Problems," Nucleus, 14, 2 (Summer 1992), 1 and 5. 326 Nevertheless, the Rio Summit experience had a strong impact on UCS and the group further broadened its focus on the environment thereafter. This was alluded to in the New York Times article quoted at the beginning of this chapter, which reported

Kendall was on hiatus, learning more about the human impact on the environment.

Further, in Nucleus editor, Janet S. Wager's post-mortem on the conference, she discussed how UCS was affected by its experience at the Rio Summit. The organization was struck by the "complex set of interconnected global problems that threaten[ed] to devastate the environment and irreparably harm the quality of life for future generations."

She claimed that UCS's role would be to link the multiple scientific disciplines, each possessing unique tools that were useful for solving the many environmental problems facing the earth, to continue increasing awareness about environmental concerns within the American public, and to promote "positive solutions."587 One of the most remarkable changes in UCS's activism, which was announced directly after the conference, was its intention to focus on population control policy. It was not at all unusual for environmental organizations to present population control policies as a solution to environmental degradation. What was unique here is that, while UCS clearly viewed population control as an important component in improving the environment, the group was unmistakably influenced, not only by environmental groups concerned with the issue, but also the feminists organizations that were present at the Rio Summit.

"Viewpoint: UCS Tackles Global Problems," Nucleus, 14, 2 (Summer 1992), 1 and 5. 327 In her book, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs, Betsy Hartmann reveals how common it was for environmental groups - particularly ones with roots in the conservation movement that predated the modern environmental movement - to identify environmental degradation and poverty in the third world with over population. The problem with this, according to Hartmann, was that these conservation groups ignored larger problems like the role of corporations in environmental pollution and instead unnecessarily targeted poor women and families as the cause of population growth. The process of laying blame by many of these conservationists was devoid of concerns with the equitable distribution of resources, the need for universal healthcare, and the necessity of linking efforts to control population growth with initiatives to educate poor women in third world countries about fertility and birth control. Indeed, Hartmann identifies key figures in organizations like the Sierra Club (SC) and Friends of the Earth (FOE), two organizations who had a history of alliances with UCS at one time or another, who

supported these population control initiatives. Hartmann alternately calls conservationist population policy the "greening of hate" or the "conservation of racism." One particularly revealing example of this in the U.S. during the 1990s was "when conservative anti- immigrant forces began mobilizing within the Sierra Club, the nation's largest membership-based environmental organization, to pass a ballot initiative supporting a

588 Betsy Hartmann, Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control (Boston: South End Press, 1995). In this book, Hartmann refutes Neo-Malthusian arguments about population control, like those inspired by Paul Erlich's classic work, The Population Bomb (1968). Ehrlich predicted that millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s because population growth was set to rapidly expand beyond the capacity of the earth to produce food. The only solution according to Ehrlich and his disciples was population control. 328 "reduction of net immigration" as a component of a "comprehensive population policy

for the United States." The solution here was not only to limit the reproduction of poor women, but to keep undesirable immigrants out of the U.S. entirely.589

UCS did not acknowledge the controversial debates over population policy in the pages of Nucleus. However, the organization clearly aligned itself with feminist and

environmental justice groups who sought to create a more woman-friendly population policy, which acknowledged the role of "poverty and oppression" in high fertility rates.

Much of its rhetoric mirrored the Neo-Malthusian arguments about the limited carrying

capacity of the earth and the need to "roughly triple world food production and triple or

quadruple energy services by the middle of the next century." This quote comes from

one of Kendall's speeches. The group's solution, though, outlined the need to increase

contraceptive and educational resources for poor women. One Nucleus editorial,

declared, not only that "promoting women's equality and greater access to education and health care w[ould] achieve declining fertility and eventual stabilization of population," but that "women.. .also [needed to] play a full role in determining development policy at

all levels." UCS saw itself as an ideal mediator of this process, claiming that "by bringing world leaders from the sciences together with their counterparts from the

diplomatic, women's, and development communities, UCS can play an important role in

Betsy Hartmann, "Conserving Racism: The Greening of Hate at Home and Abroad," located on the website, Mostly Water, http://mostlywater.org/conserving_racism the_greening_of_hate_at_home_and abroad, (accessed September 12, 2008).

329 dealing with population and consumption issues." The extent to which this became a serious focus of UCS is unclear, particularly because it is not currently one of the areas of activism outlined on the organization's website. Likewise, I have been unable to find any related UCS publications on overpopulation. Nevertheless, the organization's endorsement of a pro-women population policy is significant to show not only the extent to which UCS expanded its environmental focus, but also its awareness and sensitivity to the different politics within the environmental, feminist, and social justice movements.

Conclusion: Change, Adaptation, and Continuity

The bulk of this chapter has focused on UCS's smooth transition to mainly non- nuclear environmental issues by 1992. The fact that the organization's name - Union of

Concerned Scientists - was so far-reaching in its potential to appeal to a wide variety of scientists and concerns made it easier for the organization to continually expand, refine, and change its environmental focus after the Cold War. The importance of this should not be underestimated, particularly when compared to a group like IPPNW. As I will show in chapter 9, when faced with the decision of how to proceed after the Cold War, it was more difficult for IPPNW to expand its focus to non-nuclear environmental issues because of the explicit reference to nuclear war in its name. It is also significant that

UCS was formed around the very general concern over misuses of science and

590 "Viewpoint: UCS Tackles Global Problems," Nucleus, 14, 2 (Summer 1992), 5. See also, "Global Warming: World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," Nucleus, 14, 4 (Winter 1992-93), 1-3, 12. This was an appeal signed by 1600 scientists from around the world. Within the statement is a section on population control, where they outline the need for "improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning." They also called for the reduction and eventual elimination of "poverty" and stressed the need to "ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions." The majority of those listed as signatories to the appeal were male scientists. 330 technology by the U.S. government. UCS's initial purpose was to be a body of scientific experts which acted as a bridge between the U.S. government and its citizens, who lacked the tools to understand complex scientific and policy debates. In the 1970s, the group inserted itself into the complex debate surrounding commercial nuclear power safety; and in the 1980s, its focus expanded to include the scientific and policy debates surrounding nuclear weapons proliferation. In both cases, this was largely due to the widespread popular concern, first, with the U.S. governments' rapid expansion of commercial nuclear power, and, later, with Reagan's determination to build U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities. Once the Cold War ended, a host of new scientific controversies emerged, many of which were related to the degradation of the environment and UCS was poised to act as the public's advocate once again. This began with energy related issues and by

1992 expanded to include population control policy.

However, this period of UCS's activism cannot only be characterized by change.

There was continuity in its work as well. This chapter has mainly focused on the connection between the groups' early emphasis on the environment, its opposition to commercial nuclear power, and its expanded emphasis on energy and global warming.

But UCS continued to allocate one quarter of its revenue to disarmament in 1992. The group's work in this area was diverse, ranging from UCS's continued critique of Star

Wars, which did not die with the end of the Reagan presidency;591 and its critique of the

591 See, for example, Peter Clausen, "The New Look of SDI," Nucleus 13, 2 (Summer 1991), 1 and 4; and David Wright, "The Limitations of a Limited Missile Defence," Nucleus, 14, 1 (Spring 1992), 2 and 5. Wright's article is a critique of Bush's plans to redirect SDI away from the goal of protecting the U.S. from large missile attacks and onto limited ballistic-missile defence. 331 public health and environmental disaster created by poorly run DOE nuclear reactors.

Likewise, the group sought a role in the process of disarmament after the Cold War. In its 1992 report, "Nuclear Security in a Transformed World," the group "proposed reduced alerts, deep cuts in nuclear arsenals, and restructuring of U.S. military forces." UCS also urged that the U.S. government assist Soviet states in the process of dismantling nuclear warheads; that they promote a bilateral reduction in the arsenals of both former superpowers; influence growing nuclear powers to reduce plans for expanded arsenals; and create stronger "international enforcement mechanisms" of non-proliferation.592

These last two concerns became particularly salient when the Gulf War began.593 Prior to the War, the group focused more broadly on the threat of regional nuclear conflict. In addition to the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and China - the last country to "openly join the nuclear club" in 1964, countries like India, South Africa, Pakistan, and Israel "obtained de facto" nuclear capabilities by the late 1970s. U.S.-friendly nations like South Korea and Taiwan were successfully deterred from establishing nuclear capabilities; however, the same was not true for places like North Korea, Libya, and Iraq. It was these last three nations that were a concern to the U.S. government and also UCS, which advocated for more effective control of the international exchange of nuclear capabilities.594 By the time of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein's nuclear aspirations were well-known and, while both the U.S. government and UCS shared

592 Kurt Gottfried and Jonathan Dean, "UCS Urges Slashing of Nuclear Arsenals," Nucleus 13,4 (Winter 1991-92), 2 and 5. 593 Peter Clausen, "Iraq and the Bomb," Nucleus, 12, 4 (Winter 1991), 1 and 4. 594 Peter Clausen, "The Next Threat: Regional Nuclear War," Nucleus, 12, 2 (Summer 1990), 1 and 4. 332 concerns over this, they were at odds over how to eliminate this threat. My point here is to highlight that it was not only with relation to environmental issues that UCS's work in this period was characterized by change, continuity, and adaptability. It was also the case for its disarmament work. While many of UCS's disarmament projects flowed directly out of the organization's work during the Cold War, it also adapted to the new threats and realities of nuclear weapons proliferation in the post-Cold War world. The following chapter will focus on how Rosalie Bertell's activism within IICPH evolved during this same period.

Peter Clausen, "Iraq and the Bomb," Nucleus, 12, 4 (Winter 1991), 1 and 4. 333 Chapter 8: Health, Human Rights, and the Dispossessed: The Continued International Focus of Rosalie Bertell's Public Health Activism. 1986 to 1992

Introduction

More than twenty years after the Chernobyl Unit IV nuclear reactor meltdown on

April 26,1986 in the Ukraine, an area extending thirty kilometres around the accident site remains uninhabited by the people who lived there in the years before the accident. This thirty kilometre region has been declared uninhabitable by the Soviet government and is now known by its new status as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The space is demarcated by various checkpoint stations, which are manned by members of the Ukrainian and

Belarus militaries, and travel in and out of the area is strictly controlled by these two national governments. The space between the checkpoints and the failed Chernobyl reactor is inhabited by abandoned towns and villages, where unoccupied buildings, showing obvious signs of neglect and decay and are surrounded by overgrown trees, shrubs, and grass. Inside these abandoned buildings lies the detritus left over by previous occupants, much of which was destroyed by the looting that took place in the immediate aftermath of the accident. In one online photo journal created twenty years after the accident, pictures of abandoned schools and homes depict a depressing scene where empty desks, overturned furniture, discarded books, toys, student artwork, peeling wallpaper, water damage and two decades worth of accumulated dust, dirt, and debris remain. There is now a barbed wire fence surrounding the town of Pripyat, which is located nearest to the reactor site, and travel in and out of this area is most strictly

334 controlled. At the time of the accident the city's population was close to 50,000, all of whom were evacuated a couple days after the meltdown. They were told by the government to take three days worth of clothing and necessities with them; yet, they were never allowed to return. As knowledge about radiation contamination increased, the

Soviet government eventually evacuated over 50,000 more people from their homes in the areas between Pripyat and the current location of the thirty kilometre checkpoints.596

As late as 2006, employees working inside of the Exclusion Zone were only permitted to work in the area for two week intervals, alternating between two weeks working inside and two weeks outside.597

While information about the magnitude of the accident at Chernobyl was released very slowly in 1986 (and thereafter), Rosalie Bertell was well aware of its environmental and public health implications on both the immediate and international community. Not only had she spent several years prior to Chernobyl engaged in the health struggles of the

Marshall Islanders who were also displaced because of the many years spent testing nuclear weapons on their island habitats, but she spent the better part of thirteen years raising awareness about the long term health effects of low level radiation exposure. This chapter will examine the activism of Bertell after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident until three years after the Cold War ended in 1989. Similar to Union of Concerned

596 The number of people who were evacuated varies, depending on the source. Mary-Louise Engels, Bertell's biographer, puts the number at over 135, 000. Mary-Louis Engels, Rosalie Bertell: Scientist, Eco- Feminist, Visionary (Toronto: Women's Press, 2005), 147. 597 The information for this narrative is taken from the following online essay/photo journal: Mark Resnicoff, "My Journey to Chernobyl: 20 Years After the Disaster," http://www.chernobylee.com/articles/chernobyl/my-journey-to-chernobyl-l.php. (accessed June 1, 2008). 335 Scientists (UCS) and (as I will show in the next chapter) Physicians for Social

Responsibility (PSR) and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

(IPPNW), the accident at Chernobyl both affirmed the importance of Bertell's work and placed her activist services in higher demand. There were no great changes in Bertell's activism after either the Chernobyl accident or the Cold War ended. However, she continued to refine her approach to public health activism during this period and the links between health, human rights, internationalism, and the people who were dispossessed by nuclearism became even more tightly bound in her work.

Putting Bertell's Activism into the Big Picture

More and more of Bertell's community activism was done outside of the United

States during the 1980s and by 1986 she was more well-known internationally than she was in her home country. This is somewhat ironic because Chernobyl, revelations about environmental contamination by the American nuclear weapons complex, and the publication of the new National Academy of Sciences Report on the Biological Effects of

Ionizing Radiation in 1989 (BEIR V) made her opinions on the health effects of low-level radiation exposure increasingly mainstream in the U.S.598 Because her approach to anti- nuclear activism was more international by this time, she not only advocated ways that the American government could clean up its nuclear act, she began targeting international bodies like the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

598 See, for example, SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, Glenn/Alvarez Report, R. Jeffrey Smith, "Low-Level Radiation Causes More Deaths Than Assumed, Study Finds," The Washington Post, A3, Wednesday, December 20, 1989; and Box 11, BEIR V/Radiation 89-90, Eliot Marshall, "Academy Panel Raises Radiation Risk Estimate," Science 247 (January 5, 1990): 22-23. 336 While she continued to speak about her public health concerns with nuclear technology around the world, the substance of her work continued to be focused on a few specific communities who were harmed by nuclearism. Indeed, she noted in a 1986 newspaper article that the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) made a special effort to do its work on behalf of Indigenous people.599 Likewise, it was in the post-Chernobyl period that the focus of Bertell's public health activism expanded to include not only ionizing radiation, but the public health implications of all sorts of industrial and military pollution. Indeed, it was her intent to expand her work to include a variety of public health/environmental problems when IICPH was established in 1984, but, like other activist groups at the time, this did not happen in any substantive way until after Chernobyl and then the Cold War ended.

As Bertell's work around the globe expanded between 1986 and 1992, so too did the size of IICPH, which remained the principal organization that Bertell worked with during this period. For example, in 1987 Bertell reported that IICPH had a staff of four individuals, including her, while, by 1989, she stated that IICPH's staff had expanded to eight people. Bertell also began commanding a higher consulting fee for her services.

Between 1987 and 1989, the established daily fee to hire Bertell as a consultant was

$500, which was double her fee in 1983. However, most of this extra income went towards running the Institute and keeping up with the steadily increasing requests for

Bertell's expert services in anti-nuclear struggles around the world. This included her

599LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 131, File 1, "Media File," Carolyn Raeke, "Ex-Buffalonian Will Get International Prize," November 1, 1986. 337 continuing work with the Marshall Islanders, the Native communities living Downwind of the Nevada Test Site, several Native/Inuit Communities in Canada, the ethnic Chinese community in Malaysia, the community of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, the survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in the Ukraine (and surrounding areas), as well as several individuals like Franklin Bane's widow, who was involved in litigation in the

U.S. over whether or not her husband's fatal cancer was caused by his workplace exposure to radiation in a Naval Shipyard. Bertell's personal salary during this period was only $20,000 per year and as a member of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart she was obligated to turn this salary over to her religious order, which in turn took care of all her material needs. So, while her work clearly expanded and her organization undoubtedly grew, she still remained connected to the religious (and gendered) values of selflessness, which guided so much of her work throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, as Bertell revealed on several occasions, IICPH continued to adjust its fees for groups who were unfunded and, in some cases, the organization did work for free and actively raised funds on behalf of different groups.600

Compared to groups like UCS, PSR, and IPPNW, the size, scope, and impact of

IICPH's work was modest. The former three groups received much more media attention in the U.S. and, in the case of IPPNW, the international arena. They also had much larger membership lists and big donors, particularly from sources within the U.S. Likewise,

600 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12 - File 14 - Caribou - Correspondence, 1987-1988, correspondence from Bertell to Wayne Davidson, May 25, 1987; correspondence from Maria Rault in the Netherlands to Bertell, May 28, 1987; and Volume 19, File 10 - Labrador - Goose Bay Environmental Impact Statement - Labrador Inuit Association, 1989-1991, Correspondence from Bertell to Peter Armitage, September 18, 1989. 338 they all garnered more respect within mainstream government bodies, political circles, and activist organizations. Much of this had to do with the fact that they focused on issues that had wider popular appeal; for instance, UCS's emphasis on nuclear reactor safety in the 1970s and the focus of all three groups on preventing nuclear war during the

1980s. Even after the BEIR V report in 1989, expert activists raising awareness about low-level radiation exposure and the specific people who were harmed by it did not

attract large groups of followers. The dearth of financial resources at Bertell's (and

IICPH's) disposal also had some bearing on her lack of popular appeal in the U.S. and her relatively small impact. Nevertheless, this was not a total detriment. The relative smallness of IICPH - as compared to UCS, PSR, and IPPNW - enabled Bertell to more

freely choose the kinds of activism she engaged in. This was why she continued to work at the grassroots level throughout her activist career, working directly with the people and communities whose health was affected by nuclearism. Of course, it was also significant that she identified as closely with her religious vocation as she did with her epidemiological expertise. The former emboldened her to continue working as a scientific advocate for these people, regardless of the professional (scientific) costs.

The Right Livelihood Award

The fact that Bertell was awarded the Right Livelihood Award at the end of 1986 reveals how entrenched she was in the international peace, environmental, and social justice movements by this time. Moreover, the award also helped increase international exposure both for her work and that of IICPH. The Right Livelihood Award Foundation

339 was established in 1980 as a registered non-profit organization in Stockholm, Sweden.

Popularly known as the Alternative Nobel, the award has been given each year to various individuals who exemplify the Foundation's mission to support the work of people who

"contribute to a global ecological balance," "are aimed at eliminating material and spiritual poverty," and "contribute to lasting peace and justice in the world."601 The

Foundation's description of the Award is useful for understanding its purpose:

Unlike the Nobel Prizes (for Physics, Physiology/Medicine, Chemistry, Literature, and Peace), the Right Livelihood Award has no categories. It recognises that, in striving to meet the human challenges of today's world, the most inspiring and remarkable work often defies any standard classification. For example, people who start out with an environmental goal frequently find themselves drawn into issues of health, human rights and/or social justice. Their work becomes a holistic response to community needs, so that sectoral categories lose their meaning.

This description matches closely with Bertell's own approach to activism by the 1980s, which incorporated her concerns with the environment, health, human rights, and social justice. Likewise, the use of the word "holistic" as well as the mission statement's emphasis on eliminating "spiritual poverty" aptly captures the role of Bertell's own spirituality (as a Sister of the Catholic Grey Nuns) in her work. As revealed by the list of individuals associated with the Right Livelihoods, either as recipients of the award or as members of the foundation's jury, board, or advisory council, the Foundation is firmly rooted in the circle of international human rights, environmental, and social justice advocates. These include various political leaders, members of different international

601 This was taken fromthe website for the Right Livelihood Foundation, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/foundation.html. (accessed June 5, 2008). 60 Also taken from the Right Livelihood Foundation website, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/award.html?&no_cache=l. (accessed June 5, 2008). 340 governments, Ambassadors, members of the United Nations, as well as heads of grassroots environmental, disarmament, peace, social justice and development focused non-profit organizations from every continent. This was a community that Bertell increasingly identified with by 1986 - as her activism shifted away from its North

American focus during the 1970s and onto the international stage.

The designation of the award as the Alternative Nobel was not incidental. It was established in 1980 after the journalist, Jakob von Uexkull's proposal to create two new

Nobel Awards categories in ecology and anti-poverty work were turned down by the

Nobel Committee. Uexkull argued that the Nobels were too much a reflection of "the interests of the industrialised countries to be an adequate answer to the challenges now facing humanity." The Alternative Nobel evolved directly out of Uexkull's exchange with the Nobel Committee and since 1985 the awards ceremony has been held in the

Swedish Parliament one day before the Nobel ceremony. By way of comparison, fourty-nine percent of the Right Livelihood Awards between 1980 and 2007 have been awarded to men, twenty-four percent to women, and twenty-seven percent to organizations, while the Nobel Prize Committee during this same period has designated ninety percent of its awards to men, six percent to women, and only four percent to organizations. IPPNW was one of these few groups who were awarded the Nobel Peace

Prize. Likewise, the Right Livelihood Awards have been evenly distributed to people in

603 Right Livelihood Foundation website, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/jury.html. (accessed June 5, 2008). 604Right Livelihood Foundation website, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/history.html. (accessed June 6, 2008). the industrialized and developing nations of the world, while eighty-nine percent of the

Nobels between 1980 and 2007 were awarded to people from industrialized nations, with

eighty-two percent of those people coming either from North America or Europe.605

From this comparison, it is possible to see how the Right Livelihood Foundations'

approach to challenging the values of industrialized societies involved rewarding both men and women, as well as organizational collaborations of people from both privileged

and under-privileged nations. The Nobel Prizes, on the other hand, reinforced the 'great man' tradition in Whig history, by designating the majority of the awards to privileged white men from industrialized nations. Some other scientists who have received the

Right Livelihood Award since 1980 include Alice Stewart, with whom Bertell shared her

award in 1986; John Gofman, who also devoted much of his career to raising awareness

about low level radiation exposure; and Samuel Epstein, the well-known environmental

scientist who spent much of his career raising awareness about the environmental causes

of cancer. To varying degrees, all three of these scientists shared with Bertell the

designation of 'scientific outsider' by many of their peers in mainstream scientific

institutions in North America and the United Kingdom.

Bertell's Right Livelihood Award acceptance speech offers a useful template for understanding her activism by 1986. First, it reveals the central place that her concerns

over low level radiation exposure continued to occupy in her work. The bulk of her

speech was used to discuss the effects of Chernobyl on the international community; its

605Right Livelihood Foundation website, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/comparison.html. (accessed June 6, 2008). 342 similarities to accidents like Three Mile Island (TMI) and the U.S. government's handling of the nuclear contamination on Eniwetok Atoll; contemporary predictions about the health effects of routine reactor operations in the U.S.; her own research into the health effects of low level radiation exposure; and the continued disregard for non- cancer health effects from routine reactor operation and weapons testing since the 1940s.

She used the example of Chernobyl to highlight how ill-prepared world governments were more than forty years after the first nuclear bombs were constructed. She declared,

"Forty years into the Nuclear Age, the Chernobyl accident found nations in panic and disarray, with conflicting public health and radiation protection criteria, empty assurances for the public at risk, and questionable practices of disposal of contaminated food." For example, despite knowledge about contamination caused by fallout that resulted after things like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, TMI, and weapons testing, contaminated milk in the

Chernobyl region was disposed of on farmland, where it could re-enter food and water supplies, and people were sent out to harvest crops "without proper clothing or respirators." Likewise, despite the fact that the U.S. government's attempts to bury contaminated materials in cement on Enewetok Atoll failed due to local and scientific concerns about the effectiveness of this practice, this was what the Russians did with the waste leftover after the Chernobyl accident. She concluded:

Careless damage of the biosphere compounds the problems, as people physically less able to cope than their parents and grandparents will try to live in an increasingly hazardous environment. The increasing hazard stems from the intractable problems of uranium, nuclear, and other military pollution and waste. The raised voices of the exploited at this moment in history are indicative of the deepest and best survival instinct. 343 Each of Bertell's five recommendations for improving life on what she called

"this lovely habitable planet" reinforced her belief that there needed to be international solutions to the problems caused by nuclearism. First, she called on people of the

"United Nations" to support two upcoming conferences, which planned to provide radiation victims from around the world with the opportunity to raise awareness about their plight. Second, she reiterated her criticisms of the International Commission on

Radiological Protection (ICRP), which had been central to her anti-nuclear message since she became an activist in the early 1970s, and recommended that it be replaced with an

International Institute for the Safeguarding of Communities and Workers from

Preventable Exposure to Ionizing Radiation. This new organization, according to Bertell, needed to

be appointed by relevant scientific and public health organizations, be subject to scientific peer review, be responsible for public health recommendations rather than risk benefit tradeoffs, and be composed of persons trained in epidemiology, public health, toxicology, and worker health problems.

This was in contrast to the practice of populating ICRP with nuclear technology proponents. Third, she declared that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) needed "to be relieved of its mandate to promote nuclear energy." She recommended that it be slowly phased out so that IAEA could oversee the "dismantling" of the commercial nuclear power industry worldwide, but indicated that the task of monitoring health and safety needed to be immediately relocated to an organization, where there was not a conflict of interest between promotion and protection. In its place, she

344 recommended that an International Energy Agency be established based on the recommendations outlined during the 1981 UN Conference on New and Renewable

Sources of Energy. Fourth, she advocated the "phasing out of the United Nations

Security Council which merely reinforces the dominant position assumed by the nuclear nations in the face of international disorder." Fifth, she encouraged people to oppose the

Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, which was planned by the UN for

1987.

Underlying several of her recommendations was Bertell's awareness of the clear imbalances of power between the industrialized nuclear nations and those located in the developing world. This was an appreciation she developed while working so closely with

Indigenous people, members of the working class, ethnic minorities, and others who were dispossessed in some way by nuclear technology. Part of her rationale for advocating the creation of an International Energy Agency was that she wanted knowledge about energy alternatives to be made available to "developing nations." These people were under enormous pressure to purchase nuclear technology, including technologies that had been rejected in industrialized nations like the U.S., and Bertell argued that this would

"exacerbate present health, environmental and financial difficulties," which were already acute in many of these places. Likewise, much of Bertell's opposition to the UN

Conference on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy was linked to her concerns with health in the developing world. One of the major items on the 1987 conference agenda was

345 going to be food irradiation. She argued that the mainstream research to that point was misleading:

Inconclusive research done on well nourished laboratory animals is being used to substantiate promises of healthful food to populations already severely decimated by hunger, malnutrition and starvation. Food irradiation delivers stale food disguised as nutritious, polluted with unique radiolytic by-products to children suffering from deprivations which are already life threatening.

As was the case for proponents of other kinds of nuclear technology, Bertell also claimed that the advocates of irradiated foods all but ignored things like "long term health implications, problems of transportation of irradiation sources, worker health and safety, and disposal of the radioactive waste from this new industry."606

The Chernobyl Fallout

Bertell's concerns with the health effects of the accident at Chernobyl were more than rhetorical. Indeed, the accident had a direct impact on the directions her work took her in the years following. This was because there were high levels of radioactive fallout detected around the globe for several years afterwards. Scientific analyses revealed that varying levels of different radioactive particles released during the accident travelled to parts of Austria, Bangladesh, the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia,

Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Italy, Japan, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia and other nations of the former USSR, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom,

606 Right Livelihood Foundation website, http://www.rightlivelihood.org/bertell_speech.html. (accessed June 6, 2008). 346 Yugoslavia, and the U.S. Together, these studies disrupted contemporary assumptions

about the extent of global contamination that would occur in a reactor accident matching the magnitude of Chernobyl. To this day, the extent and effects of the fallout remains unknown because so few places adequately monitored radiation levels after the accident,

while information remains classified in others. Even those places that did release information on radioactive releases present an incomplete picture of the impact of the

accident on local flora, fauna, and human inhabitants. Likewise, within various national contexts there were debates about the seriousness of contamination and the necessary precautions which should be taken to protect the public from exposures to

toxicity. This was one of the ways that Bertell came to engage the implications of the

Chernobyl accident for communities exposed to fallout in northern Canada.

When heightened levels of radioactive cesium-137 were found in caribou throughout the Arctic region of northern Canada, concerns with the health effects of

contaminated meat on Inuit peoples resurfaced. Similar fears during the 1960s were validated when the Canadian federal government performed scientific studies in 25

northern Inuit communities between 1965 and 1969, which found cesium-137 levels to be

20 to 100 times more concentrated in these northern populations than in the rest of the

607 There is a website supported by the Center for Biological Monitoring, named RADNET. According to the online description, "RADNET is the cyberspace manifestation of twenty-five years of collecting radiological surveillance data, monitoring reports and research publications pertaining to the biogeochemical cycles of anthropogenic radionuclides in the biosphere." There is an entire section of this website devoted to cataloguing information on Chernobyl and within this is a breakdown of all the various scientific studies done in each of the countries I have listed here. See, "RADNET: Information about source points of anthropogenic radioactivity, A Freedom of Nuclear Information Resource, Section 10: Chernobyl Fallout Data: Annotated Bibliography," http://www.davistownmuseum.Org/cbm/Rad7.html#genbiblio. (accessed June 7, 2008). 347 country. The source of this earlier contamination was from atmospheric contamination that resulted from the many nuclear weapons tests performed in the Nevada desert and the South Pacific region between the 1940s and the 1960s, before the Limited Test Ban

Treaty was signed in 1963. In both instances, the caribou ingested the cesium-137 when they ate lichens during the winter months. In turn, the Inuit - who were estimated to consume anywhere from 100 to 300 kilograms of caribou meat yearly - absorbed the cesium-13 7. According to one professor of botany at the University of Toronto, cesium-

137 deposits itself in the "muscles of animals that ingest it" and thereafter its radioactivity doubles. When the people of the north learned that the Chernobyl accident re-contaminated northern caribou herds, several individuals advocated that new health studies on the effects of these new exposures be performed. The Inuit people waited until December 1986 (after the caribou ate the lichens) to send meat samples to

Health and Welfare Canada for assessment and in February 1987 the Nunatsiaq News - the English-Inuktitut newspaper of Nunavut and the Nunavik region of Arctic Quebec - reported that the region was still awaiting the results.

In the meantime, Bertell was contacted by non-Inuit northerners who (along with many Inuit peoples) were suspicious of the Federal government's handling of the public

608 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12, File 16 - Caribou - media, part 1 - 1987, Jim Bell, "How safe is caribou meat? Effects of fallout still unknown," Nunatsiaq News, February 6, 1987, 1, 6. 609 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12, File 16 - Caribou - media, part 1 - 1987, Kelly Curwin, "Health and Welfare 'mum': No word yet on results of radiation testing done on caribou meat," Nunatsiaq News, February 13, 1987, 1, 7. 348 health inquiry. They sought Bertell's opinions on the contamination and sent her the correspondence they had had with Health and Welfare Canada (HWC). The press release put together by IICPH in March 1987 advocated that the federal government issue a ban on the caribou meat, provide Inuit communities with a dietary substitute, compensate caribou hunters, and perform an immediate health assessment of the area. The fact that less than twenty-five percent of the cesium-137 found in the caribou meat after

Chernobyl was attributed to the accident further heightened fears about the contaminated meat the Inuit had been consuming since the 1950s. Bertell highlighted this point, along with the caveat that no warnings had ever been issued to Inuit people in the past.6"

IICPH's official statement on the effects of the accident on the Canadian north was at odds with the federal government, who determined that the cesium-137 levels were

"within an acceptable level" and the meat was "perfectly healthy to eat."612

Not only is this a good example of how Bertell became more involved in

Canadian political disputes over the health effects of radiation exposure on indigenous peoples. It is a useful illustration of how her role in this debate helped the Inuit northerners gain wider exposure for the health issues they were concerned about. Bertell and IICPH's persistent refutation of HWC s claim that the exposures were safe ultimately

610 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12, File 14 - Caribou - Correspondence, 1987-1988, Correspondence from Michael Davidson to Bertell, March 27, 1987. 611 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12 - File 18 - Caribou - media, part 3 - 1987-1988, IIPCH Press Release: "Inuit Exposed to Harmful Radiation Levels," March 27, 1987; "Caribou meat called no risk despite radiation," Globe and Mail, March 31, 1987, and "Radiation in caribou blamed on Chernobyl," Toronto Star, March 31, 1987. 612 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 12 - File 16 - Caribou - media, part 1 - 1987, Kelly Curwin, "Feds release caribou radiation report," Nunatsiaq News, April 10, 1987, p. 1,9. 349 led to the commitment by the department to perform new health studies on the Inuit.

This debate took place only minimally in the national news media - with a few articles in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the Nunatsiaq News - and mostly in private correspondence between Bertell and scientists within the Bureau of Radiation and

Medical Devices at HWC between 1987 and 1988. This began when Bertell became aware of a critique of IICPH's press release being circulated to various scientists by

HWC. In the critique, Dorothy Meyerhof, the Chief Physicist with the Environmental

Radiation Hazards Division, characterized Bertell as emotional and claimed she overestimated the health effects of radiation from caribou meat by inflating the levels of exposure and using the example of embryos, which were particularly vulnerable to exposure. What followed was a technical debate over the biometrics of understanding exposures and a frank discussion between the two women about the broader implications of these exposures for Inuit people. Basically, Meyerhof felt Bertell did not appreciate how diligent HWC was in ensuring radiation levels were below accepted guidelines, while Bertell argued that HWC had lost sight of its mandate to protect public health.614

Despite the continued disagreement between the women, HWC set plans in motion to

613 LAC, MG31 K39, Bertell Fonds, Volume 12, File 21 - Caribou and Cesium-137, HWC Memo from Chief Environmental Radiation Hazards Division to Dr. E. Somers, Director General, Environmental Health Directorate, April 8, 1987. 614 LAC, MG31 K39, Bertell Fonds, Volume 12, File 15 - Caribou and Cesium-137, Correspondence from Bertell to Dr. E. Somers, August 11, 1987; Correspondence from Meyerhof to Bertell, October 26, 1987; Correspondence from Bertell to Meyerhof, November 6, 1987; Correspondence from Meyerhof to Bertell, December 10, 1987; Correspondence from Bertell to Meyerhof, January 12, 1988; Correspondence from Meyerhof to Bertell, February 1, 1988; and Correspondence from Bertell to Meyerhof, April 8, 1988. 350 perform a health study of the northern Inuit by April 1988.615 This was in the same month that Bertell sent a letter to Meyerhof, stating, "I do not doubt that you and your staff have good intentions, but I do wonder if what you and your staff are "trying to accomplish" has colored the reality of basically non-protective Canadian standards."

According to Bertell, the Canadian standards for "ionizing radiation doses permissible to the general public" were "five to ten times more permissive than other first world radiation protection standards." In an earlier letter, she outlined that the Inuit were the only population that stood to be seriously harmed by these standards because they consumed such large quantities of caribou meat. Bertell (and the community on whose behalf she advocated) were clearly at a disadvantage in the debate because regulatory power remained located in the hands of this government bureaucracy of scientists who disagreed with her interpretation of radiation health issues. In this case, however,

Bertell's activism undoubtedly influenced HWC plans to perform a new health study of the Inuit. Thereafter, she continued to act in a consultant role with the Inuit people through the Keewatin Regional Council (KRC), whose offices were located in Rankin

Inlet.617

Bertell Builds Bonds with Canadian Aboriginal and Inuit Peoples

615 LAC, MG31 K39, Bertell Fonds, Volume 12, File 21 - Caribou and Cesium-137, Correspondence from Bliss Tracey, PhD, Project Coordinator, Environmental Radiation Hazards Division to Executive Director, Science Institute of the Northwest Territories, April 28, 1988. 616 LAC, MG31 K39, Bertell Fonds, Volume 12, File 11 - Caribou-Correspondence 1987-1988, Correspondence from Bertell to Meyerhof, April 8, 1988. 617 LAC, MG31 K39, Bertell Fonds, Volume 12, File 21 - Caribou and Cesium-137, Correspondence from Jack Hicks, Executive Officer of the Keewatin Regional Council to Bertell, May 4, 1988. 351 As a result of Bertell's advocacy on behalf of the Canadian Inuit, she was asked to intervene in the organization of a local response to plans for establishing an open pit uranium mine in Baker Lake, which is located 900 km northeast of Yellowknife in the current territory of Nunavut. Bertell was asked to visit Yellowknife in 1988 by a group called Nuclear Free North, who sponsored her trip in September of that year. She spoke to a group of "local peace, environmental and church groups" about the Kiggivak mine, which was being proposed by the German company, Urangesellschaft Canada Ltd. She cautioned Inuit leaders who expressed interest in the potential employment opportunities promised by the project, arguing that the long term health and environmental problems that would accompany the establishment of a uranium mine in the north far outweighed any short term benefits. She encouraged leaders to use government funding to establish more "socially beneficial" job opportunities. She also recommended that, in order to equip the community to trace health damages that result from the uranium mine, they

"insist on a three year study of current health conditions...including cancer rates and birth defects." She also used this speaking opportunity to reinforce her earlier critiques of the

Canadian government's handling of the contamination of northern caribou herds from the

Chernobyl fallout. She declared,

The government has tried to play down the health concerns by narrowly defining risks in terms of the potential for radiation-produced death by cancer...But this ignored all the other health problems - including cardiovascular ailments, hormonal disruptions and spontaneous abortions - associated with exposure to radioactive wastes.618

618 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 12, File 21, Caribou and Cesium-137, "Mine proposal threatens Inuit health, doctor says," Edmonton Journal, September 13, 1988. 352 When Nuclear Free North was renamed Northern Anti-Uranium Coalition

(NAUC), Bertell's expert role in the opposition to the uranium mine at Baker Lake was formalized. She made an arrangement with Jack Hicks, the Executive Officer of the

Keewatin Regional Council (KRC), and the person responsible for coordinating the activities of NAUC, to review the information on the mine and help the community devise the list of questions they wanted to be addressed in the Environmental Impact

Statement (EIS). For her services, Bertell was going to be paid two thousand dollars, as well as an additional five hundred dollars per day when she visited the community on

April 14, 1989.619 Members of NAUC included the "Speaker" of the KRC, as well as

"representatives...from the Keewatin Inuit Association, the Keewatin Regional Health

Board, the Keewatin Wildlife Federation, the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut, and the

Baker Lake Concerned Citizens Committee." According to Joan Scottie, an Inuit woman representing the Citizens Committee, Bertell's work with NAUC was integral. In 1992, at the World Uranium Hearing in Salzburg, Austria, Scottie noted that the federal government took a new approach to the EIS process, giving NAUC the opportunity to determine the questions that were ultimately posed to the mining company. According to

Scottie, Bertell worked with the community to craft

very precise wording for all kinds of questions we wanted answers to. After all, we decided, it's our community and we should be able to ask any question we want. Many of the questions we raised were included in the final EIS guidelines that the

619 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 18, File 18, Kiggavik Uranium Mine, Baker Lake - Correspondence, Notes, Resolutions, Printed 1988-1990, an undated note written by someone at IICPH, and Correspondence from Jack Hicks to the Ontario Press Council, May 19, 1989. environmental assessment panel gave to the company. This made [Urangesellschaft Canada Ltd.'s] job much harder.

In total, Bertell and her staff at IICPH (which by this time consisted of eight people, including Bertell) drew up a list of twenty-eight detailed questions, requiring the company to address not only local health concerns, but also technological, environmental, and ecological ones as well. They asked the company to address things like the demonstrated need for the uranium mine; the amount of radioactivity that would be left in open spaces after extraction; plans to train local people in monitoring and safety; the amount of insurance the company intended to take out in the event of an accident; the type of ongoing scientific assessments that would be done before and during the operation of the mine; the kinds of radioactivity being released through the mining process; the waste management plans of the company; the plans for ongoing monitoring of worker health and safety; the effects of the uranium mining on the "Beverly caribou herd [that] is already stressed with a body burden of cesium-137;" and the qualifications of radiation safety personnel.

Bertell's role in NAUC's opposition to the Kiggivak mine was consistent with her work as a critical epidemiologist throughout the 1980s. It is also indicative of her increasing involvement in public health and environmental activism with Canadian

Aboriginal and Inuit people between 1986 and 1992. This included cases that were not

The text of this presentation was found on Jack Hicks' personal website, "Joan Scottie's presentation to the World Uranium Hearing held in Salzburg, Austria, September 1992," http://www.jackhicks.com/el07_files/downloads/Joan%20Scottie%201992.pdf. (accessed June 10, 2008). 621 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 18, File 18, Rosalie Bertell, "Environmental Concerns: Proposed Kiggivak Uranium Mine Project, Baker Lake, NWT," April 12, 1989. 354 directly related to radiation health and safety. In 1989, for instance, Bertell's services were sought by another group of Canadian Inuit people: this time, the ones located in

Labrador and Quebec, where the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) proposed to establish a NATO Tactical Fighter and Weapons Training Centre. The concerns of the Labrador Inuit Association, Naskapi Montagnais Innu Association, and other Inuit people located near the planned training centre included the effects this would have on the migration patterns of caribou, as well as the economic, cultural, and health impact it would have on these northern communities. Bertell was asked by Peter

Armitage, an Anthropology Professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland, to participate on the panel of experts he was assembling to review the NATO facility's EIS

statement for the Inuit people. Bertell's expertise was procured to assess the impact of

sonic booms on the Inuit and the risk of accidents from flight testing. This is only one example of how after 1989 Bertell began to substantively expand the environmental portfolio of IICPH to include non-radiation related health and environmental concerns. It was not a complete departure for Bertell to become an advocate for the Inuit cause here.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, it was IICPH's goal to expand the

focus of Bertell to other environmental and public health concerns when it was

established in 1984. Moreover, Bertell's involvement with the Inuit in this case reflects

622 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 19, File 9 - Labrador - Goose Bay Environmental Impact Study - 1989-1990, included in this file is a list of "technical experts" reviewing DND's Environmental Impact Statement for the Naskapi Montagnais Innu Association, November 6, 1989. 355 her overlapping concerns with militarism, the exploitation of Indigenous peoples, the environment, and health, which had shaped her work throughout the 1980s.

Her shift towards non-radiation related health and environmental issues was also consistent with the broader shifts in activism among anti-nuclear/disarmament groups after the Cold War ended. UCS had begun expanding its activist portfolio to include critiques of the U.S.'s lack of responsiveness to the threats of climate change. While

UCS's decisions to expand to non-nuclear environmental issues were mainly shaped by the particular scientific expertise of its members, Bertell's decisions were shaped by more than her expertise. There are several explanations for why Bertell's work was not as strictly defined by her expertise, including the fact that Bertell's organization was more closely aligned with individual community struggles than UCS, which sought to appeal to a broader audience and had a more nationally focused approach to activism. Likewise, the rejection of Bertell's scientific expertise by many mainstream bodies influenced her to build stronger bonds with and define herself within non-scientific groups. Bertell's women's religious community, to which she belonged even before she became an epidemiologist, also played an equally important role in her activist identity. In addition to her epidemiological expertise and the broader public health expertise she had gathered through her years of activism, her work was shaped by the increasing intersection of health, anti-militarism, human rights, and the environment in the activism she performed on behalf of various communities around the world. Some other examples of her shift away from strictly radiation related health issues during this period include her role as a

356 founding member of the International Commission of Health Professionals (ICHP), which was established to address the intersection of health and social justice issues. By the 1990s, moreover, Bertell acted as the Director of the International Medical

Commission on the Bhopal chemical disaster that happened at the Union Carbide plant in

India in 1984.623

HEALTH 2000: An Innovative Approach to Community Health

Through her work with Canadian Native people, Bertell also formalized IICPH's approach to the community health survey. This time, it was her advocacy on behalf of the Mississauga First Nation, located near the town of Blind River, Ontario. As I have noted, Bertell began building a relationship with this community in the early 1980s, when she performed a preliminary health study of three Native reserves - the Mississauga,

Serpent River, and Spanish River Native Reserves - located near the shores of Lake

Superior and northern Lake Huron.624 At the request of Chief Douglas Daybutch, IICPH agreed to perform another health study of the Mississauga First Nation, which was located downwind of the CAMECO Uranium Refinery that began operation in 1983. The

Mississauga First Nation was prompted to seek the expert services of Bertell once again when an accident at the CAMECO refinery between May 16 and 17, 1990 resulted in the release of approximately 178 kilograms of uranium from its stack. While the Atomic

Energy Control Board of Canada (AECB) "ordered the plant to shut down until the cause

623 This information was taken from the website for the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, http://www.ccnr.org/bertell bio.html, (accessed June 11, 2008). 624 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 15, File 11, "Health Assessment Report: Mississauga Band, December 1983;" and "Joint Health Report: Serpent River, Mississauga and Spanish River Reserves, January 1984." 357 of the accident was ascertained and corrected," no one on the Mississauga Reserve was

notified until "several days after it occurred." According to the final study, "In their judgement, Band members, especially children and the elderly, had been put at

unnecessary risk both by the accident and by not being informed of the problem." So,

when Chief Daybutch approached Bertell at IICPH, he sought her help in "determining:

the need for comprehensive monitoring for uranium on the Reserve, and the need for a

comprehensive health study of Band members." IICPH responded by performing a

preliminary health study of the reserve's residents, arranging for both blood and urine

tests. Bertell partnered with Bernie Lau, the physician IICPH had sponsored to work in

the Marshall Islands hospital in 1985, and Professor Hari Sharma, who had also worked

with Bertell in the past. Lau worked on interpreting the medical tests, while Sharma

coordinated the environmental sampling of the reserve. The results of this preliminary

study were shared with Reserve members in July 1991. IICPH determined that a

comprehensive health and environmental study of the Mississauga First Nation was

warranted due to several indications that higher than expected levels of uranium were

present in both the reserve environment and its inhabitants.

The follow-up study on the Mississauga First Nation, served as IICPH's pilot for the

creation of a new community health study model, known as HEALTH 2000. The

inspiration for IICPH's new health study came from the World Health Organization's

motto, "Health for all by the year 2000." This particular community was an ideal

625 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 16, Health 2000 - Report of the Mississauga First Nations - Oct. 1993, Final Report, "Health 2000: Report to the Mississauga First Nation," 1-8. 358 candidate for testing this new model because IICPH had performed a study of the reserve before the CAMECO plant began operation, so it possessed good baseline health and environmental data. The Mississauga HEALTH 2000 study also marked the first time that IICPH (and Bertell) received substantial funding from a government source. It was announced in 1991 that Bertell's new community health study model would be given the

Health Innovator Award from the Ontario Premier's Council on Health, Well Being, and

Social Justice.626 According to an IICPH pamphlet,

HEALTH 2000 is a community participation health study designed to meet the specific needs of communities. It is a tool, developed by Dr. Bertell, for communities to evaluate and prioritize their health concerns. HEALTH 2000 is carried out with the full cooperation of the community - its health professionals and trained individuals assisting.

The pamphlet also outlined seven steps required for organizing a community health study and they were very similar to the ones outlined in Phil Brown's sociological work on popular epidemiology, which I outlined in chapter five. The first step was to organize the community, followed by the nomination of "12-20 community leaders to meet with a

HEALTH 2000 representative," "enlist[ing] the support of local health professionals,"

"undertaking] fundraising," "administering] the HEALTH 2000 questionnaire,"

"returning] data to the Institute for evaluation," and "participating] in determining appropriate follow-up." IICPH ensured the full participation of the Mississauga community by hiring reserve residents Elva and Maryann Morningstar to serve on the

626 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 15, File 12, Correspondence from Terry Sullivan, Acting Deputy Minister, Premier's Council on Health, Weil-Being and Social Justice to Bertell, August 20, 1991. 627 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 15, File 12, "HEALTH 2000: Community Health Project." 359 study team as Health Representative and Health Assistant, respectively. Likewise, the two nurses who were hired to coordinate and do data collection worked directly with the

Mississauga community to define the priorities of the study and trained reserve residents to work as volunteers in the data collection phase.6 This represented an attempt by

IICPH to help communities formalize the process of organizing popular epidemiological studies, whereby communities empowered themselves to identify and understand the relationship between health problems and environmental contamination.629 IICPH's role in this process was clearly central, but the overall goal, according to the Institute was to

"encourage self-reliance."

In fact, part of the HEALTH 2000 policy stipulated that the health study remained the property of the community who organized it. In the case of the Mississauga First

Nation, this meant that they opted not to have the study published. This policy is

significant because so much of a scientists' credibility was bound up in their research and the publication of that research. For Bertell - a scientist who had a difficult time

completing health studies due to the limitations on IICPH funding and the competing demands on her time - publishing this relatively well-funded study would have been useful for increasing her credibility in the various radiation health disputes she engaged ws LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 16, Health 2000 - Report of the Mississauga First Nations - Oct. 1993, Final Report, "Health 2000: Report to the Mississauga First Nation," 2; and File 18, "HEALTH 2000: A Guide for the Community Seeking to Undertake a Health Survey." 629 For a more complete discussion of popular epidemiology, see chapter five. 630 Rosalie Bertell, "Environmental Influences on the Health of Children," in The Science Shop for Biology, Report 52, Risks, Health, and Environment: NGO Background Document for the Third Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health and parallel Healthy Plant Forum, London 16-18 June 1999, 41. The text for this document was found at the following weblink: http://biologie.wewi.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/publ/1999/RisksHealthandEnviro/rap52.pdf. (accessed June 12, 2008). 360 in. Yet, there was a lack of trust in Aboriginal communities, who were so often the subject of research among social scientists and scientists, alike. At least one Aboriginal scholar describes these researchers as follows:

These poachers come into the aboriginal community for cultural information, or "gems of knowledge," and use the tribe's knowledge for their own financial and professional gain...Often, they exit the community without imparting research benefits, may not offer the results to the community, and/or may relay research findings in language inappropriate to Native worldviews.

After several years spent working with Indigenous communities, Bertell was aware of this trend and sought ways to distinguish her work. IICPH's policy here reinforces how important it was for Bertell to situate herself as an advocate of these communities, one who was not motivated by her own financial or professional gain.

Embedded in the HEALTH 2000 model was Bertell's critique of professional epidemiology. This was part of an ongoing dialogue Bertell had been having (in various forums) since she left her position as an epidemiological researcher with Roswell Park

Memorial Institute in 1978. When describing the need for community health studies,

Bertell called the methodological approach of professional epidemiology limiting for several reasons. First, these studies generally took as their starting point one hazardous material, coming from a single source (for example, carcinogens and cigarettes) and tried to determine the impact of this on a given population. These studies were extremely expensive because, in order to make the findings relevant to the general population, they required large study populations and complex statistical analysis. Likewise, these studies

6 ' Roxanne Struthers, "Conducting Sacred Research: An Indigenous Experience," Wicazo Sa Review: A Journal of Native American Studies 16 (2001), 127. tended to focus only on health effects like cancer, which significantly contributed to increased mortality rates, and ignored "subtle" health effects like asthma, birth defects, diabetes, and other chronic health problems. This approach to understanding health was rapidly becoming irrelevant in what Ulrich Beck calls the "risk society." Bertell was

increasingly aware of the multiplicity of toxins in the environment and their unknown

effects on any given population. She argued, "Community health is under stress from the

interaction of combined pollutants in the environment: in the air, water, soil, food."

Epidemiological surveys lacked the ability to discern the combined effects of these toxics, particularly because many chemical and radioactive toxins had not been studied.

Likewise, the attempt to make epidemiological studies relevant to the general population masked the unique characteristics of different communities, as well as the specific health

problems that resulted from living in close proximity to toxic industries. HEALTH 2000

was designed to effectively address the specific health concerns of these unique

communities. For instance, the HEALTH 2000 community guide declared:

We believe the new approach must be a process which takes a more holistic perspective by assisting the community in assessing and improving health. This new approach is not a research study or experimentation-style scientific inquiry leading to universal knowledge, but an investigation which leads to results and solutions specific to that particular community. This new approach will not eliminate epidemiological studies but utilize the knowledge from these studies to arrive at a local solution.

This particular quote reinforces my argument that Bertell's work should be understood as

a form of feminist science. In this instance, she challenged the notion that scientists

632 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Vol. 16, File 18, "HEALTH 2000: A Guide for the Community Seeking to Undertake a Health Survey." 362 needed to remain detached from their subject of analysis in order to protect their objectivity. On the contrary, her commitment to doing community focused health studies

- which took community concerns and local knowledge as their starting point - was shaped by her belief that only this kind of scientific analysis could positively impact the health of people/communities who were affected by nuclearism and bring scientific understanding to questions about the health effects of low-level radiation exposure.

Putting Berteirs Credibility on Trial

Not all government bodies were as enthusiastic as the Premier's Council on

Health, Well Being, and Social Justice about Bertell's innovative approach to community health. As was the case during Bertell's advocacy on behalf of the Inuit after Chernobyl

(as well as in numerous other instances during her activist career in the U.S. and elsewhere), her interpretation of the public health threats from low level radiation exposure were hotly contested by many mainstream - usually government employed - scientists. This particular critique of Bertell's work was circulated between employees of the AECB and HWC's Bureau of Radiation and Medical Devices. The AECB published a critique of Bertell in its newsletter, the substance of which focused on the preliminary health study performed by IICPH at the Mississauga Reservation. The title of the article described Bertell's health study as "flawed, not valid," where the AECB described the refinery accident as an "abnormal but within limits release of uranium dust." Somehow the AECB got a hold of Bertell's preliminary findings. The critique came directly from the AECB Medical Advisor and some other Ministry of Health Doctor, both of whom

363 sought to discredit her findings because of the small sample size of blood and urine tests performed. HWC sought the opinion of a physician from the Children's Hospital of

Eastern Ontario who concluded, "Statistically, the data is meaningless.. .the data as provided do not provide evidence for any medical condition. If Sister Rosalie Bertell was concerned for the children's health a much more comprehensive approach would have

(Til been required to assess the situation." This, of course, ignores the fact that her initial health and environmental examination of the Mississauga reserve did not have the backing of a large funding organization. Almost all of the studies that she performed for communities were generally small in scale and intended to indicate problems in need of further study. This kind of context was absent from the AECB's critique. These accounts were damaging to Bertell's credibility, especially when they came from those experts who had large research dollars, impressive institutional affiliations, or who were speaking on behalf of large industries or governments. Underlying these various disparagements of Bertell's credentials and her participation in these radiation health debates was the fact that she was a scientist and an activist. Numerous scientists and other authorities in these debates disapproved of her adversarial activist position, especially because she always testified and advocated on behalf of the victims of radiation exposure.

Regardless of the fact that Bertell was often criticized by other scientists and legal professionals, she always reacted in the same assertive way, drawing on the masculinised

633 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, File 18, "Medical Opinion: Sister Bertell's health study "flawed, not valid," Atomic Energy Control Board Newsletter, no date. 364 rhetoric of the confident scientist. She defended her research methodologies and scientific conclusions. In fact, she invested quite a lot of time in policing her credibility.

In the case of the AECB newsletter article on Bertell, she fired back a critique of her own, albeit a private one in the form of a letter. First, she faulted the AECB's Office of

Public Information for not having the author sign the article; second, she charged that the article was full of inaccuracies and that they did not have a copy of the "in process" health study at their disposal to review. She went on to outline the parameters of the health study, indicating that "IICPH undertook arrangements for both environmental sample analysis and medical screening for Mississauga Reserve residents.. .Contrary to the AECB article, medical screening included adults as well as children." She also outlined what was done: first they did medical screening for blood and urine changes, which was repeated 2 times to clarify the meaning of negative findings. 33 people were tested between June 16 and June 27, 1990. 47 people were tested on August 30, 1990.

167 people were tested on January 28, 1991. IICPH also did blood chromosome testing for four adults and five people tested for uranium in urine. Likewise, Bertell arranged environmental testing, which included the air filters of trucks and vehicles, soil samples, food and medicinal herbs harvested in the fall of 1990, river water, and drinking water.

She argued that the AECB assessment of the study was flimsy because none of the documents they reviewed (two pieces of correspondence) contained any explanation of

"methodology". She also pointed out the failure of the AECB to request such information from IICPH, concluding that, "Rather than seeking out dialogue on methodology, findings, attempts to find alternative explanations, proposed follow up and response to the health needs of the Mississauga First Nation, which have been identified over the past 9 months, the AECB has assumed a defensive position. As stated in your article: "there is no need and there never has been a need for a health study following this uranium release." Band concern is for health and for possible side effects of the seven years of Refinery operation on the Reserve and Band members. Science seldom advances by way of none observation. The cooperation of this agency entrusted as the watchdog of human health would have been more appropriate under the circumstances. "634

Rather than being silenced by the AECB's critique, Bertell asserted her authority. She clearly outlined the methodology of the health study and faulted the AECB for not treating her like a scientist by following the conventions of scientific practice. Further, she identified the AECB's defensive position as a sign that it was not doing its job properly; that it was not controlling atomic energy and looking after the best interests of the Mississauga Band. This is only one among several examples where Bertell challenged other scientists for not recognizing her scientific credentials and following the conventions of acceptable scientific critique. It is something that Bertell was particularly vulnerable to because all of her scientific work was performed as part of her role in a not- for-profit activist organization. As a result, few scientists felt the need to observe standard conventions of scientific practice - because so few of them viewed her as a legitimate scientist.

Bertell's frustration with the tendency to privilege some kinds of scientific expertise over others was also at the root of her defensive reaction to critiques of her

W4 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 11, FILE 19 - CANADIAN PACIFIC EXPRESS AND TRANSPORT LTD. (CARBON 14 - BACKGROUND INFORMATION, letter from Bertell to the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada - in the Office of Public Information, March 4, 1991. 366 activist work. Physicists and engineers occupied a position at the top of the scientific hierarchy when it came to questions about nuclear technology, even when those questions were related to health. Bertell's statements about the AECB during a talk she gave to residents of Deep River, Ontario, who were considering whether or not to accept a proposal to locate a "low level waste" disposal facility, make her feelings about this trend

clear. She called the AECB "incompetent" when it came to protecting public health.

"Their mandate is the engineering and safety aspect of radiation and nuclear plants.

Health is out of their expertise and they don't know what they are talking about." This

was in response to an AECB study on leukemia rates surrounding five nuclear generating

stations in Ontario, which determined that the number of cancers detected was "too small

to make any meaningful conclusions." It was also in response to some of the critiques

directed at her by the AECB and the Canadian nuclear bureaucracy during her years

working in Canada. Consider, for example, Bertell's exchange with Ian Wilson, a

physicist with the Canadian Nuclear Association. Wilson claimed that Bertell was in the

minority of scientific opinion on the health effects of radiation exposure. She disagreed,

saying, that the findings of the U.S. National Academy of the Sciences BEIR V

committee confirmed what Bertell had been arguing since the 1970s. The committee

found that "the risk of radiation induced cancer was up to 10 times higher than

previously] admitted by industry." She continued to accuse Wilson of knowing nothing

about low-level radiation, concluding, "It's not the physicist's problem to concern

themsel[fj about health. They shouldn't even be discussing the problem." These

367 statements by Bertell were made in front of an audience of 200 people and were reported on in the Elliot Lake Standard. They are a good illustration of the increasing frustration Bertell felt after years of being told by physicists that her concerns with the health effects of low-level radiation exposure were baseless. It was physicists who were generally empowered to make decisions about health and safety when it came to radiation exposure; yet, they rarely engaged in the ways that this radiation affected bodies in any concrete way. This is what Bertell attempted to do when she ordered blood and urine tests.

Bertell's Work in the Rest of the World

In many ways, these Canadian examples are representative of the work Bertell did elsewhere. Her approach to working on behalf of people who were unwillingly, unwittingly or occupationally exposed to radiation was the same wherever she travelled.

She took as her starting point the individual or community experiences of the people who sought her services and customized her approach to advocating on their behalf based on their particular needs - as outlined by them. This might have involved speaking to local community, church, political, or environmental groups; providing expert testimony; working with communities to define the parameters of community health studies; performing community health studies - in the spirit of IICPH's HEALTH 2000 model; acting as a liaison between communities and mainstream government bodies; or any combination of these activities.

635 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 131, File 10 -Press Clippings, Brent Cooper, AECB is incompetent says Sister Bertell," Elliot Lake Standard, April 7, 1990. 368 The difference in each case was the particular social, political, environmental,

geographical, economic, and cultural contexts that existed in the places where nuclearism proliferated. In the U.S., for example, Bertell continued to be called on as an expert

witness in various radiation injury claims that were brought before the federal courts

during the 1980s. Her work in this area was only one small part of a much larger effort to

use the courts to win damages for veterans and civilians whose health was harmed (or, perceived to be harmed) through various exposures to low-level radiation. There were at

least three cases in the United States that Bertell was still involved in during the latter half of the 1980s: Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane vs.

Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et. al., Daniel Jurka vs. Commonwealth Edison, and James R.

Downing vs. The Dow Chemical Company et. al. In all three of these cases, the plaintiffs

linked the development of cancer to occupational radiation exposures. Franklin Bane,

who spent several years working as a health physicist at a naval ship yard, was diagnosed

with oesophageal and stomach cancer at the age of 48; Daniel Jurka worked at one of

Commonwealth Edison's commercial nuclear reactor facilities and died from colorectal

cancer; and James Downing worked at the Rocky Flats plutonium trigger factory in

Colorado and died from oesophageal cancer. In all of the cases, she concluded that the

636 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, Downing Case Health Analysis, Correspondence (plus Testimony) from Bertell to Bruce H. DeBoskey, January 11, 1989; Volume 18, File 2, "Affidavit re: Daniel Jurka vs. Commonwealth Edison, Court No. 85 L 5331," March 7, 1990; and Volume 10, File 5 - Bane, Franklin part 4, "In the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia: Newport News Division" - in this file is a copy of Rosalie Bertell's sworn testimony- given to Madelyn Creedon, Attorney at Law, U.S. Department of Energy - testimony is concerning the case between Sharolyn E. Bane, Executrix of the Estate of Franklin D. Bane, Deceased, Plaintiff vs. Babcock & Wilcox, Co., et al, Defendants, March 10, 1987. 369 cancers were likely related to the occupational exposures to low level radiation, even in cases where the exposures were determined to be within regulatory guidelines. And, in all of the cases the judge found in favour of the defendants because there was no clear causal link between the cancers and the radiation exposure and in most cases the companies could show that exposures were within federal radiation limits. Barton Hacker explains this trend in Elements of Controversy: "Because a direct cause-and-effect link could never be forged between low-level radiation exposure and cancer or other health effects that might not appear for decades, the Federal Tort Claims Act became almost impossible to apply." This continued to be the case throughout the 1980s, despite the fact that plaintiffs continued to bring these suits before the courts.

Bertell also continued to engage in community health disputes relating to nuclearism in the U.S. This included her work on behalf of the community of

Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, which was located adjacent to a uranium processing plant; the

Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, which was located downwind of the Nevada Test Site; and

Indians from the Prairie Island Reservation, who opposed the location of a Independent

Spent Fuel Storage Installation "literally across the street" from their reserve. All three of these cases are a good illustration of how diverse Bertell's role was in various communities. For example, Bertell's connection to the Utah Paiute Tribe developed

637 Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 261. 638 See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 17, File 8, Correspondence from Richard A. Duncan, Faegre and Benson and William Hardacker, Bluedog Law Office, Attorneys for the Prairie Island Community to the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board, March 21, 1991; and File 4, Rosalie Bertell, "Comments on the Prairie Island Dry Cask Storage Plan for Spent Nuclear Fuel," October 15, 1991. 370 through her friendship with Jamie Stewart, a community activist working with an

organization called the North East Quadrant Survivors (NEQS) located in St. George,

Utah.639 Bertell worked with Stewart (who was also an American Indian) to outline the parameters of a health study that would address Paiute concerns with rising diabetes,

arthritis, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and Down syndrome rates during the

1980s and early 1990s.640 She also travelled to the St. George area on multiple occasions

to meet with public health professionals and local Indians, who were concerned with the

health effects of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program on local residents. She also

attended at least one conference organized by community activist groups in the inter-

desert region - focused on issues such as peace, disarmament, Indigenous peoples, the

environment, public health, and Atomic veterans.641 Likewise, she wrote the funding

proposal for the health study, which was submitted to the National Institutes of Health

(NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), among other places.642 When the

community and IICPH's attempts at gaining funding for the project failed, Bertell

continued to write to scientists far and wide, encouraging them to take interest in the

bi) See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 7, Jamie Stewart, Speech before Congressmen of Utah, April 8, 1988. Stewart discussed the censorship of information on the health effects of radiation exposure. It was based on an article written by Bertell, where she detailed several instances where the credibility of scientists such as John Gofman was undermined in the courts. See also, correspondence form Margery Reid (IICPH) to Stewart, May 26, 1988; correspondence from Stewart to Bertell, June 7, 1988; Correspondence from Carolynne Siller (IICPH) to Stewart, July 8, 1988. 640 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 7, "Agenda for IICPH - NEQS Downwind Health Study," August 16, 1988; "HEALTH 2000 - Draft Proposal;" and correspondence from Jamie Stewart to Judy Cranford, Health Services Project Director, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, September 25, 1988. 641 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 7, Correspondence from Jamie Stewart to Bertell and Carolynne Siller (IICPH), January 4, 1991. The conference was titled, "Uniting Nations: The Unconventional Conference." 642 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 7, "Project Description: HEALTH 2000: Community Health Project, Cedar City, Utah," April 7, 1989. health concerns of the Paiute people. In 1991 , moreover, when Waste-Tech, a

Colorado based company, proposed to build a hazardous waste incinerator on the Kaibab-

Paiute Reservation, Bertell wrote to the Band, encouraging their opposition to the initiative. Additionally, Stewart attended a public meeting on the reserve, speaking as a representative of IICPH and reiterated Paiute concerns with the health and environmental impact such an incinerator would have on their reservation. The unique socio-cultural- economic-geographic-environmental-political context which shaped Bertell's encounters with this community included the legacy of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program in the Nevada Desert, the extensive efforts in Congress and among communities exposed to fallout to win reparations and pass a "radiation victims bill,"645 and the continued dispossession of American Indians, as signified by things such as high unemployment rates and poor health.

BertelFs work in Malaysia between 1987 and the early 1990s was shaped by a very different socio-cultural-economic-geographic-environmental-political context. The community of Bukit Merah, Malaysia consisted mainly of ethnic Chinese people. As revealed in chapter five, this community took legal action against the Japanese owned

Asia Rare Earths (ARE) company in 1985. The plant opened in 1982 to extract the

643 See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 5, Correspondence from Bertell to Dan Mintz, M.D., University of Miami Medical School, April 2, 1991 and May 14, 1991; and correspondence from Bertell to Professor Ronald Laporte, Medical School, Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburg, August 7, 1991 and July 16, 1992. 644 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 14, File 7, Downwinders (Nevada Test Site), Jeanette Rusk, "Groups give opposing views on incinerator, final decision in hands of about 120 Paiutes," Southern Utah News, March 21, 1991; and correspondence from Bertell to The Paiute Earthkeepers. 645 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31 K39, Volume 14, File 7, Mary Manning, "Fallout Victims Testify," Las Vegas Sun, April 9, 1988. 372 "mineral Yttrium from raw ore," which was used in television components. When the community discovered that the company was dumping the radioactive waste that was produced during the separation process adjacent to their neighbourhoods, they took action. Shortly after Bertell's first visit to the area in 1987,10,000 members of the community organized to protest the re-opening of the company, which was proceeding despite the court order that was issued in 1985 to close the plant.646 The timing of the protest coincided with massive national protests across the country by environmental, human rights, and political opponents of the Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri

Mahathir Mohammed, who summarily imprisoned over 100 of these dissenters, "using the country's Internal Security Act, under which suspects [could] be detained indefinitely without trial." Ten of these detainees were among the community activists opposing the re-opening of the ARE plant; included among them was their lawyer, Meena Rajes.647

The detention of these environmental activists took place in a national context where there were increasing racial tensions between indigenous Malaysians, on the one hand, and the Chinese and Indian people, who made up almost half of the country's population, on the other. The hostility between the groups was rooted in the nation's affirmative action policy of favouring the "Malay population in business, employment, education, and development." 648 According to Bertell, the arrests of the 10 anti-ARE activists was

646 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 8, "Bertell backs plant protest," no date. 647 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 1, "Malaysian Crackdown Shatters a Bright Image," Globe and Mail, March 11, 1987 648 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 1, "Malaysian tensions mount over PM's 'ethic' policies," The Sunday Star, November 29, 1987. 373 an attempt to undermine the Chinese community's real fears over the health threats posed by the radioactive waste and depict the protest as an attempt to "stir up racial hatreds."649

Once again, Bertell's role in the community of Bukit Merah's dispute with the

ARE company was diverse and lasted upwards of 10 years, beginning in 1985. Her primary role was to act as an expert witness in the trial, where she testified for four days in front of the High Court of Malaysia, and also to perform a "pilot" health study on the children of Bukit Merah. Bertell went to Malaysia in April of 1987 with a Geiger-mueller counter to determine the levels of radioactive emissions and found that levels exceeded international guidelines in several places. The pilot study was conducted between July and August of 1987 on 60 seemingly healthy children who lived in the plant vicinity, where Bertell arranged for blood testing to check for the presence of lead. Four children were found to have toxic levels of lead in their blood, while four others had near toxic levels and all 60 children exceeded the expected average.650 Additionally, shortly after the arrests in 1987, Bertell wrote letters to foreign dignitaries and social justice organizations around the world, encouraging them to openly condemn the actions of the

Malaysian government.651 She also wrote directly to the Malaysian Prime Minister, stating:

649LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 3 - Malaysia - Correspondence, General 1989-1992, Correspondence from Bertell to Charles Graves, the Executive Director of ICHP (International Commission of Health Professionals) in Geneva Switzerland, November 30,1987. 650 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 3 - Malaysia - Correspondence, General 1989-1992, "Report on Malaysian Hearing 25 to 29 January 1988." 651 See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 3 - Malaysia - Correspondence, General 1989-1992, Correspondence from Bertell to Charles Graves, the Executive Director of ICHP (International Commission of Health Professionals) in Geneva Switzerland, November 30, 1987; and 374 IICPH would like to express its concern about the recent detentions under the Malaysian Internal Security Act and the suppression of several Malaysian newspapers. We have been concerned for several years about the public health problems posed by improper disposal of thorium... We believe that the proper legal handling of this problem would go a long way toward convincing Chinese- Malaysians that the government is concerned about their well being and the well- being of their children... We hope that you will personally see that the legal process is fairly carried out in January and that the people are free to develop their case to the fullest extent...[not helping] may...dim the hope for stability within Malaysia and the respect within the International community for the wise decisions of the Malaysian government on behalf of the people and their future. We strongly encourage you to trust in the open legal processes which you have in the past espoused.

She also liaised with local health professionals, trying to establish a health clinic for the people of Bukit Merah, who were coping with increased health problems like leukemia and Down's syndrome. Likewise, she applied to the Canadian International

Development Agency (CIDA), appealing for funds to do a comprehensive health study of the community.652 Bertell was in continuous contact with the community while they awaited the courts final decision on the case, which was announced in July 1992. In a landmark decision, the court found in favour of the plaintiffs and ordered ARE to pay damages and remove the waste to its "permanent storage facility."653 Two pieces of correspondence reveal how personally connected she became with the people of Bukit

Merah. Supporters of the community established a Trust Fund to support people whose

Volume 19, File 18 - Malaysia - Canada Fund, 1989-1990, correspondence from Bertell to Commissioner Manfred G. von Nostitz, the Canadian High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, January 5, 1989. 652 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 19, File 18 - Malaysia - Canada Fund, 1989-1990, Correspondence from Bertell to Commissioner Manfred G. von Nostitz, the Canadian High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, January 5, 1989; and correspondence from Bertell to Aubrey Morantz, Director General of Institutional Cooperation and Development Services, CIDA, May 22, 1990. 653 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 20, File 13, "In the High Court of Malaya at Ipoh: Civil Suit No. 185 of 1985," July 11, 1992. 375 children were suffering from leukemia. In 1990, Bertell received a letter from Wun Ah

Peng of the Bukit Merah Trust Fund, informing her of the death of a leukemia victim - a young girl, aged 13. He wrote: "Her parents and the trust fund committee will always cherish the concern and time you have spent in our humble village in helping us to fight for her life and those of the other victims." Bertell responded: "I share your grief at the death of Lam Lai Kuan. Her beautiful smile and gentle courage stand out in my memory of Bukit Merah. The length of a life is probably one of its least important qualities. I think Lai Kuan lived fully in her brief 13 years."654

This same kind of personal connection kept Bertell intimately involved in the ongoing process of getting an independent health study underway in the Marshall Islands.

As seen, the contamination of the Marshall Islands during the nuclear weapons testing program in the 1940s and 1950s was the subject of intensive debate during the 1980s.

Bertell's role in the debate was as an advocate of the Marshallese people who - amidst efforts to secure their freedom from the U.S. through the Compact of Free Association - wanted honest answers about whether or not it was safe to continue living on their atoll homes. Despite the fact that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) declared their homes safe in 1982, the Marshallese people of the Rongelap atoll left their island homes and took refuge on a neighbouring island. They did this because intensified health problems among the people there led them to believe, contrary to DOE assurances otherwise, their

654 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 19, File 19 - Malaysia - Clinic Desa, 1989-1990, Correspondence from Wun Ah Peng to Bertell, December 3, 1990; correspondence from Bertell to Wun Ah Peng, no date. 376 habitat was unsafe. As Marshall Islands journalist Giff Johnson asserts, "In one dramatic swoop, the self-evacuation of Rongelap put the U.S. government on the defensive; it now had to prove that Rongelap was, in fact, safe as its officials had been claiming for years."

So, in 1987, a provision was added to "the Compact of Free Association requiring an independent assessment of DOE's data on radiological contamination of the Rongelap

Atoll."655 The Rongelap Reassessment Project essentially confirmed the fears of the

Marshall Islanders and showed the negligence of the AEC, as well as its successor, the

DOE. As a result of these findings, the U.S. Congress also allocated $45 million for cleaning up and resettling Rongelap in the early 1990s.556 The chief investigator on the

Rongelap Reassessment Study was actually Henry I. Kohn, a retired Professor of

Radiation Biology at the Harvard School of Medicine. Kohn was recommended to the

Marshall Islands government by members of Congress, who were familiar with his work in the Marshall Islands on the Bikini Atoll Rehabilitation Committee.657 At the behest of the former inhabitants of Rongelap, Bertell was added as a consultant to the project.

Bernd Franke, a radiation biologist, and Ute Boikat, a soil scientist, respectively, also participated in the project at the behest of the Rongelap people. Both of these German

655 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, Correspondence from Michael S. Clark, President, Environmental Policy Institute to Oscar de Brum, Chief Secretary, Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, July 19, 1988. Giff Johnson, "Exposing the US Nuclear test legacy in the Marshall Islands," Pacific Journalism Review 2 (2006), 191 (188-191 - total page range) This text for this citation was found on the journal's website, http://www.pjreview.info/issues/docs/12 2/PJR12_2_bookJohnsonl88-191.pdf. (accessed June 15, 2008). 657 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, correspondence from Henry I. Kohn to Board of Directors, Environmental Policy Institute, January 5, 1988. 377 scientists had become known to the Marshall Islanders through Bertell, who was familiar with their work in Europe during the early 1980s and after the Chernobyl accident.

The involvement of Bertell in the Rongelap Reassessment Project was unique because it was one of the few times since she left her job at Roswell that she had a direct

(albeit limited) role in influencing the outcome of a U.S. government funded study. It is also a useful illustration of how she continued to view herself as an advocate for people who were dispossessed by nuclearism. It would be an understatement to portray the relationship between Bertell and Kohn as tumultuous. Bertell, as well as Marshall

Islands Senator, Jeton Anjain, Bernd Franke, and E. Cooper Brown, the lawyer for the

Rongelap people, adopted an adversarial stand towards Kohn from the outset because she was wary of his past connections with the AEC and wanted to ensure that he did a fair job of reassessing the 1982 DOE study of the Rongelap people. Shortly after the Marshall

Islands government announced plans to appoint Kohn as head of the study, Robert

Alvarez, the Nuclear Technology critic of the Environmental Policy Institute (EPI) in

Washington, DC, wrote a critique of Kohn, claiming that he had a conflict of interest in the Rongelap project because he had worked for the AEC in the 1950s.659 In a video conference to the people of Rongelap, Kohn denied these claims:

Senator Anjain was told by an advisor in Washington that I was on an important AEC Committee. The committee, he was told, advised repeatedly that it would be

658LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, "Text of Video Report sent by Dr. Henry I. Kohn, To the People of Rongelap," December 28,1987; correspondence form Kohn to Bertell, October 2, 1987; correspondence from Ute Boikat to Kohn, November 6, 1987; correspondence from Kohn to Bernd Franke, November 19, 1987 and November 20, 1987. 659 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, correspondence from Kohn to Board of Directors, Environmental Policy Institute, January 5, 1988. 378 safe to continue testing in the South Pacific and actually in the United States itself. That statement is false. I was never on such a committee that made such statements.660

In fact, Kohn had served as scientific secretary on the AEC's Advisory Committee on

Biology and Medicine (ACBM) from 1956 to 1960. Between 1956 and 1958 alone, there were more than 100 nuclear weapons tests performed in the South Pacific and the Nevada

Desert. In 1988, Bertell brought this to the attention of Marshall Islands President,

Amata Kabua, stating, "The credibility and independence of Dr. Kohn's report will depend very much on the Rongelap people's perception of his honesty and fairness. His two contradictory statements need to be clarified."661

There was quite extensive correspondence between Bertell and Kohn about this discrepancy, which reveals how differently the two scientists viewed scientific objectivity. This time, however, Bertell was not the one on the defensive. In a letter to

Bernd Franke, Kohn asserted, "I hope that in going forward with this business, the adversarial (sic) position which has been adopted by Dr. Bertell and you (and presumably the lawyer) can be changed into one which recognizes the intellectual integrity of "non- political" scientists."662 Kohn's view of what constituted a non-political scientist was clearly at odds with Bertell's perception. He saw nothing political about his role on the

AEC advisory committee. Consider, for instance, his letter to Bertell: "Your letter lists

660 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, "Text of Video Report sent by Dr. Henry I. Kohn, To the People of Rongelap," December 28,1987. 661 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, Correspondence from Bertell to President Amata Kabua, January 8, 1988. 662 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 11, Correspondence from Kohn to Franke, November 19, 1987. 379 the bomb tests carried out in 1956-60. I don't see what they have to do with me or with the Advisory Committee. My memory is that we had nothing to do with the tests in advance of their execution." Indeed, this was a common belief among American scientists in the post-World War II period, where most large scale research was funded by the government and many scientists worked on government advisory committees. This was the norm. It was activists such as Bertell who were portrayed by mainstream scientists as political because of their persistent identification with the values of the environmental, social justice, peace, disarmament, or anti-nuclear movements.

Regardless, however, Bertell turned this stereotype on its head and charged that the dearth of evidence that Kohn had disapproved of the weapons testing program made him suspect. This statement on Bertell's part clearly jarred Kohn, but he persisted:

Suppose I had been an outstanding activist. Does that make me now a reasonable, cool-headed judge of nuclear hazards? Might it not, in fact, indicate equally well that I am a rabid anti-nuclearist, who will distort the facts and juggle the interpretation of legislation in order to make the world safe?

Kohn clearly saw association with an activist organization as a more apparent indication of bias. Consider, for instance, his statement to the Rongelap People:

You selected three consultants: Dr. Bertell, Dr. Boikat, and Mr. Franke. I appointed them because you asked for them: they are your choice. However, I have told them that they must be independent and give their own scientific opinions. They are not to take orders from you or anybody.664

663LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, Correspondence from Bertell to Kohn, March 24, 1988. 664 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, "Text of Video Report sent by Dr. Henry I. Kohn, To the People of Rongelap," December 28, 1987. 380 Kohn also continued to deny claims that he "repeatedly advised the Government that the tests in the Pacific were safe."665 That is, until Robert Alvarez - under a

Freedom of Information Act Inquiry - revealed the nature of the Advisory Committee on

Biology and Medicine's (ACBM) work between 1956 and 1960, when Kohn acted as secretary. According to EPI President, Michael S. Clark, the documents revealed:

When Dr. Kohn served on the ACBM, the Committee took an active role in reviewing plans and promoting nuclear weapons tests. During his tenure on the ACBM, the Committee helped the AEC downplay the risks of radioactive fallout and made statements to the effect that nuclear weapons tests were justified and should proceed.666

When EPI presented Kohn with these documents, he retracted his earlier statement and wrote, "I am sorry that I had forgotten about these matters." He continued to explain that his role on the Committee was minor; that he basically took notes at the meetings for circulation to its members. He did not participate in the meeting discussions, nor was he empowered to vote. He concluded, "I do not consider that my AEC contacts of 30 years ago have biased me one way or the other in writing the two Rongelap Reassessment

Reports. The Reports issued do not cover up for the AEC or DOE, but do state mistakes which were made." What Kohn failed to appreciate, however, was how mistrustful

Marshall Islanders were of the U.S. government. Bertell, who had worked closely with

665 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, Correspondence from Kohn to Bertell, April 10, 1988. 666 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, Correspondence from Michael S. Clark, President, Environmental Policy Institute to Oscar deBrum, Chief Secretary, Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, July 19, 1988. 667 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 24, File 1, Correspondence from Kohn to Michael S. Clark, President, Environmental Policy Institute, August 19, 1988. 381 the islands since the early 1980s, was protective of these people and wanted to ensure that the congressionally funded Reassessment Project did not perpetuate any further abuses on them.

The disagreements between Bertell and Kohn did not end here. Indeed, Bertell

(along with Jeton Anjain, EPI, the Rongelap Lawyer, and Bernd Franke) found several shortcomings in Kohn's final report to Congress. First, Kohn failed to share the final report with his consultants, which violated the contracts signed by Boikat, Franke, and

Bertell. While Kohn did apologize for the "omission" and explained that he had to choose whether or not to meet the Congressional deadline or wait for the feedback from the consultants, Bertell was unmoved. Second, while Kohn's report did indicate several shortcomings in the DOE's 1982 report, he did not recommend a follow-up study to resolve the inconsistencies. This was despite the fact that he expressed his commitment to doing this before the Reassessment Project was underway. Third, Kohn neglected "to mention the failure of the DOE to include blood tests conducted yearly by

Brookhaven for Rongalapese and other Marshallese. These included complete blood counts and differentials, as well as blood chromosome testing for radiation exposure."

Bertell had actually managed to have Brookhaven release some of these records to her and she wrote a report on them, but Kohn did not submit it to Congress.669 The persistent

68 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 23, File 21, Correspondence from Kohn to Bertell, September 14, 1988. 669 LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 23, File 23, Correspondence from Bertell to Congressman Sidney Yates, August 2, 1988; and File 11, correspondence from Bertell to Kohn, August 12, 1988. 382 demands of Bertell, EPI, Jeton Anjain, Bernd Franke pushed Congress to agree to fund the follow-up study, which Kohn's report neglected to recommend.

Conclusion

This chapter has illustrated the continuity in Bertell's activism between the periods of 1980 to 1986 and 1986 to 1992, particularly how consistent her approach was to the various communities on whose behalf she advocated. She always performed her work at the behest of others and, while she clearly had expertise and specific ideas about how a community should address health concerns with low-level radiation exposure, she left it to the community to define the terms of her working relationship with them.

Moreover, her role in each place was rarely limited to the expertise she had to offer. She was an advocate of people who were affected by nuclearism in many other ways, which were linked to her concerns with social justice, peace, and international human rights.

Likewise, her religious vocation played a central role in shaping her activism throughout these years, most notably in her commitment to working directly with communities and individuals at risk from harmful exposures. This is also illustrated through her willingness to advocate for these people for little to no financial or professional reward.

The final chapter of this dissertation will examine the ways that Chernobyl and the end of

67U See, for example, LAC, Bertell Fonds, MG31K39, Volume 22, File 13, "Dissenting Statement to Preliminary Report, Rongelap Reassessment Project," April 15, 1988; Volume 22, File 13, "Statement of Senator Jeton Anjain on Behalf of the Rongelap Atoll Local Government," April 26, 1988; Volume 23, File 21, "Update on Rongelap Reassessment Project, Rosalie Bertell, PhD, Consultant to Henry Kohn," June 1, 1988; and Dr. Rosalie Bertell, "A Report to the U.S. Congress on the Health Problems of Rongelap People," June 1989. 383 the Cold War had a profound effect on the types of activism that were engaged in by PSR and IPPNW, most notably the two groups' shift towards environmental activism.

384 Chapter 9: Medical Expertise Takes Centre Stage: Linking Public Health and the Environment to the Disarmament Activism of the Doctor's

Movement, 1986-1992

While Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) also joined the ranks of the environmental movement after the Cold War ended, their stories are quite different from the Union of

Concerned Scientists (UCS) and International Institute of Concern for Public Health

(IICPH). In some ways, this change in activism seems incongruent with the earlier work of the two physicians groups. PSR and IPPNW were the proverbial new kids on the block in the 1980s. They did not have the same early connections to the environmental movement, nor was much of their work necessarily rooted in environmental concerns about nuclear technology. There was also a significant difference between the activist contributions scientists could make to this new movement versus a group of physicians.

PSR and IPPNW were devoted to peace between the superpowers and raising awareness about the immediate medical consequences of nuclear war throughout the 1980s.

Additionally, the doctors' groups deliberately distanced the organizations from things like the commercial nuclear power opposition, wishing to avoid controversial public health debates about the effects of low-level radiation exposure. This was both because physicians were divided on the issue and because the expertise of medical professionals in this area was limited.

However, it was impossible for these physicians to discuss the medical consequences of nuclear war without acknowledging the relationship between the long 385 and short-term health effects of a nuclear weapons attack and the process of distributing

radioactive particles into the environment. Accordingly, one cannot say that this analysis

was completely divorced from concerns with environmental contamination. The major

difference between PSR and IPPNW's work before and after 1986 was that the

organizations went from talking in hypothetical terms about nuclear war to being

concerned about the very real impact of nuclear technology in the United States and

around the world. To varying degrees, both UCS (particularly with relation to

commercial nuclear power) and Rosalie BertelPs various non-profit organizations had been dealing with these concrete realities all along. The Chernobyl commercial nuclear

reactor meltdown was a reminder of the ways that nuclear technology posed threats to

both public health and the environment, on a global scale. In the U.S., where the

disarmament movement was declining in spirit and numbers, Chernobyl presented PSR

and IPPNW with a fresh new way of framing their opposition to nuclear weapons. In the

immediate aftermath of the accident, this meant different things for each group. While

PSR used the accident to raise awareness about the public health and environmental

impact of the American nuclear weapons production process, IPPNW was content to use

the increased exposure brought to the group through the accident to continue with its

work on the Comprehensive Test Ban (CTB). By the time the Cold War ended in 1989,

however, both groups were immersed in the project of exposing the environmental and

public health impact of the nuclear weapons complex in the U.S. and around the world.

The release of several studies and reports condemning the Department of Energy's (DOE) environmental, health and safety record in the late 1980s, combined with the 1990 release of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation Committee's fifth report (BEIR V)

on the health effects of low level ionizing radiation, significantly revising previously held beliefs about the relative safety of these exposures, further emboldened PSR and IPPNW.

Moreover, the fact that there was a global environmental movement, which linked radioactive toxicity with concerns about national and international security, made it easier

for PSR and IPPNW to navigate this transition. Similar to UCS and IICPH, both PSR

and IPPNW considered further expanding their focus on the environment to include non- nuclear environmental issues like air pollution and global climate change by 1991. This

chapter will trace this new period of PSR and IPPNW's activism, arguing that it was a

combination of internal and external factors pushing the groups on this new course in

environmental and public health activism.

The Birth of Modern Global Environmental Concerns

It was really World War II, the first atomic weapons tests, and the nuclear attacks

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that introduced modern global environmental concerns to the

world. The thing that made these concerns "modern" was the role of toxic, man-made

radiation in contaminating the environment. Radioactive particulates from nuclear

weapons followed the patterns of the wind, indiscriminately finding ways into air, earth,

and water supplies around the world. These new environmental contaminants soon

provoked to action scientists who were concerned not only about the effect of these toxic

elements on the natural environment, but on animal and human life as well. The

387 aggressive above ground nuclear weapons testing program of the U.S. throughout the

1950s was of particular concern to several scientists. For example, biologist, Barry

Commoner formed a group of scientists in 1958 to raise awareness about the environmental effects of radioactive fallout. Even ecologist, Rachel Carson, most popularly remembered for her pioneering work in opposition to the widespread use of the pesticide DDT in her book, Silent Spring, referred to the environmental damage posed by radioactive fallout.672 From these early critiques, a new environmental movement emerged - one that linked concern for the environment with concern over human health.673 While UCS was clearly influenced by this early history of environmental activism, there is not as much scholarship suggesting that the medical profession's views of public health were radically transformed by this new environmentalism.

This is not to say that medical conceptions of public health remained completely unchanged in the postwar period. Indeed, French historian, Soraya Boudia's current work on the development of international radiation regulation standards shows that the

United States Public Health Service (USPHS) was among the first national public health bureaucracies to reform its organization to reflect these new environmental concerns.

Prior to this, the understanding of environmental health at the agency had been limited to

Samuel Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 174. See also Michael Egan, Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The Remaking of American Environmentalism (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007). 672 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 6-7. 7 It is in the postwar period that you see the growth of scientific specialties that explore the link between public health and the environment - for example, in addition to the more established science of toxicology, ecology and epidemiology begin grappling with how radioactivity (and chemical toxicity) impact human health. 388 things like air quality, sanitation, and water quality issues. However, around the same time that scientists like Commoner began to organize, the Bureau of State Services

(which was where Public Health was organized) added a fifth department devoted to

Radiological Health, showing that it was cognizant of the ways that environmental toxicities from radiation were linked to human health concerns. However, since this work is still in its preliminary stages, it remains to be seen how active the USPHS was in this area, how well this new department was funded, and how successful it was in getting these new environmental health concerns integrated into the national public health agenda. Indeed, my examination of disputes over the citing of commercial nuclear power facilities in the 1970s indicates that several state and city run public health departments shared community health concerns about nuclear technology and tried to stop their construction through municipal or state action. Yet, the inordinate amount of power given to regulatory agencies like the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and its successor, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), along with the secrecy surrounding nuclear issues in the U.S., seems to have placed serious constraints on the effectiveness of public health departments in addressing these new environmental/public health concerns. At least one newspaper reporter claimed that this new department of

Radiological Health, which was mainly devoted to "monitoring foodstuffs exposed to

674 Soraya Boudia, "Invisible Particles, Global Effects: Radioactivity in the Development of Health and Environmental Concerns," European Society for the History of Medicine and Health Conference, London 2007. Boudia's reason for highlighting this was to show how radioactivity was a central factor in the development of environmental health sciences and this new definition of environmental health, which linked toxicity to both the environment and human health. On the heels of this reform in the USPHS, Congress authorized funding for a central environmental health research centre in 1964 and in 1965, the National Institutes of Health, established a Division of Environmental Health Sciences. 389 fallout from atmospheric atomic bomb testing," was compelled by the AEC to remain silent about any negative findings. Furthermore, as I have shown, these agencies, heavily staffed by nuclear engineers and physicists, set the tone for the debate about the health and safety of commercial nuclear reactors. Public health departments relied on groups like UCS, who had engineers and physicists capable of engaging in these very specific technological debates. Little room was given to public health professionals wishing to discuss the direct impact of these technologies on bodies.

While PSR's first incarnation actually coincided with Carson's publication of

Silent Spring in 1962, there is not much to suggest that the group saw itself as part of this new environmental movement. Rather, PSR eagerly highlighted how it was organized around its concerns with U.S. military policy, in particular, its expanding capabilities for nuclear destruction. One of the first announcements of PSR's formation, for example, explained that its purpose as a group of "intelligent and scientifically oriented" minds was to prevail over those in the U.S. military who were "obsessed with the technics of destruction."676 These physicians were clearly influenced by the peace movement and

Michelle Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site, Second Edition (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2002), 333-334. The author makes reference to this newspaper article in a footnote. Apparently, the article cited a 1954 agreement between the USPHS and the AEC as proof of this. 676 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Materials 1960s and 1970s, "Physicians for Social Responsibility," New England Journal of Medicine, 266 (February 15, 1962): 361. It is interesting what this first advertisement reveals about the inexperience of this newly formed group of activists. Whereas a well established non-profit organization has as its' mission statement a clearly worded and concise missive, this statement was full of flowery language and convoluted sentences describing the groups opposition to war. Take for example the following which appears in the first paragraph, where they describe their reason for forming: "With powerful nations, inhumanly armed, facing each other with in threatening postures; with hostile eruptions taking place all over the globe, the most rational animal that evolution has yet produced is hard pressed to justify any great faith in his vaunted superiority over less capable organisms." 390 saw a unique role for doctors within that movement. Much of PSR's early work was devoted to exposing the fallacy of U.S. civil defense schemes, arguing that "there [wa]s no rational basis for such plans."677 Its unique contribution to the peace movement was its ability to frame the group's criticisms of nuclear aggression in terms of the terrible health costs of such a war. It was from this argument that the group developed its classic analysis, "The Medical Consequences of Thermonuclear War," first published in 1962 in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The many symposia held on this topic over the years were preoccupied with the death toll from a nuclear attack and the total breakdown of medical infrastructure. When fighting escalated in the Vietnam War, the group redirected its attention to the medical consequences of this particular war, focusing on the U.S. program to develop chemical and biological weapons. 7 Again, the various articles published by PSR on this issue focused on the terrible health effects of chemical and biological warfare, and how ethically and morally wrong this kind of warfare was, particularly because it was generally directed at innocent civilians. In 1970, with the

Vietnam War still going on, PSR reassessed its status as an activist organization and

See, for example, "Study Discounts Survival Plans: Doctors Cite Inadequacy of Facilities in A-War," New York Times, May 31, 1962, 7; and "Doctors Denounce Shelter Program," New York Times, June 25, 1963, 11. In addition to this, PSR published papers on the psychological impact of nuclear war - in the event that a fallout shelter saved ones life. See, for example, Lester Grinspoon, M.D, "Fallout Shelters and Mental Health," Medical Times, June 1963, found in SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Materials 1960s and 1970s. 678 Prepared by Special Study Section, Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Symposium: The Medical Consequences of Thermonuclear War, " New England Journal of Medicine 266 (May 31,1962): 1126- 1155,1174. 679 See, for example, Theodor Rosebury, "Medical Ethics and Biological Warfare," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (Summer 1963): 512-523; and Victor Sidel, M.D., and Robert Goldwyn, M.D., "Special Article: Chemical and Biologic Weapons - A Primer," New England Journal of Medicine 21A (January 6, 1966): 21-27 & 50-51. 391 sought to define its identity and future goals. This was in response to internal struggles over how the organization should proceed in the future - some newer members felt the organization should address more "community related" health issues such as birth control, abortion, the development of a "one class health care system," and the environment. Nevertheless, the group decided to stick with its original focus, concluding that "the need for a group of physicians concerned with peace issues is as great as ever." This earlier identity is also consistent with both PSR and IPPNW's work from

1980 to 1986 -both groups were focused on peace negotiations between the superpowers and their medical assessments of nuclear war were offered up to demonstrate the urgent need for such a peace.

However, the fact that the early PSR did not see itself as part of this new environmental movement does not mean that there was not important overlap between its work to prevent nuclear war - and chemical and biological war - and emerging environmental concerns. It was impossible for PSR to discuss the health impact of nuclear war without acknowledging the relationship between environmental contamination from radioactive particles and health damage and mortality. For example, one of the papers in PSR's first symposium on the "Medical Consequences of

Thermonuclear War," discussed both the human and the ecological impact of a nuclear attack. The paper did not go into great detail about the effects of such an attack on flora and fauna; nor did it discuss with specificity the ways that radioactivity travelled through

680 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 25, PSR Archives: Official Minutes, Executive Committee Meeting Minutes, April 7, 1970. 392 environmental pathways into the body. Nevertheless, it was impossible for the authors to make hypotheses about the effects of such an attack without acknowledging the relationship between environmental and human health.68 The same was true for PSR's early discussions of chemical and biological warfare. These articles only spoke about the environment as it directly related to the public health impact of such warfare. For example, in an article published by PSR members in 1966 in the NEJM, they provided the caveat that "chemicals toxic to plants, such as defoliants and crop-destroying agents.. .will.. .be omitted from this review since they are of only indirect concern to physicians."682 At this time, these physicians were unaware of any health effects from chemicals such as Agent Orange and so the group refrained from commenting on them, focusing instead on those chemicals which were "toxic or noxious to man" and the environment. My purpose in highlighting this early history is to show that there were unavoidable links between PSR and this new environmental movement in the 1960s. The fact that the groups' analysis of the "medical consequences of thermonuclear war" formed the substance of PSR and IPPNW's educational work until 1986 illustrates the continuity of this connection. So, when PSR - and later IPPNW - more explicitly

681 Frank R. Ervin, M.D., John B. Glazier, M.D., Saul Aronow, PhD., David Nathan, M.D., Robert Coleman, M.D., Nicholas Avery, M.D., Stephen Shohet, M.D., and Calvin Leeman, M.D., "Human and Ecologic Effects in Massachusetts of an Assumed Thermonuclear Attack on the United States," in Prepared by Special Study Section, Physicians for Social Responsibility, "Symposium: The Medical Consequences of Thermonuclear War," New England Journal of Medicine 266 (May 31, 1962): 1126-1155, 1174. 682 Victor Sidel, M.D., and Robert Goldwyn, M.D., "Special Article: Chemical and Biologic Weapons - A Primer," New England Journal of Medicine 21A (January 6, 1966): 21 -27 & 50-51. 683 Victor Sidel, M.D., and Robert Goldwyn, M.D., "Special Article: Chemical and Biologic Weapons - A Primer," New England Journal of Medicine 21A (January 6, 1966): 21-27 & 50-51. 393 focused on the relationship between environmental contamination from the nuclear weapons complex and public health after Chernobyl, it was not a complete anomaly.

Chernobyl and the ShiftinR Winds of the Activist Movement

When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown sent gusts of radioactively contaminated air across the globe in 1986, PSR and IPPNW set about their activism with renewed vigor. The issue of disarmament, although continuing as the central focus of

PSR and IPPNW, had been losing popularity since Reagan's 1984 re-election, signified by the end of a nationally mobilized Freeze Movement around the same time. For

IPPNW this meant reinvigorating its campaign for the CTB. While PSR also focused energy on this issue, the group used Chernobyl as a stepping stone in its new campaign to expose the environmental and public health disaster created by the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. This was reminiscent of the 1970s campaign to expose the public health and environmental threats of commercial nuclear reactors and nuclear waste. It was also evocative of the public concern over fallout from nuclear weapons testing prior to 1963, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) was signed. During the early 1980s, however, most activist groups were consumed by the threat of nuclear war and the fear Reagan's bellicose foreign policy inspired in the American public made peace the central goal of groups like PSR and IPPNW up to this point. Indeed, UCS's focus on the public health and safety shortcomings of the U.S. nuclear power program during the 1980s was rare, particularly because it was a group that commanded a national following. Bertell's continued focus on the public health effects of all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle also

394 placed her activism outside of the mainstream anti-nuclear movement during this period.

The period from 1986 to 1992 was the first time since before the LTBT was signed in

1963 that opposition to nuclear war was framed by discussions of public health damage and environmental contamination. The focus on nuclear waste from the production process, moreover, drew a clear link between concerns with public health and environmental threats from nuclear weapons and nuclear power production in the U.S.

It was not only Chernobyl that influenced this change in the U.S. anti-nuclear movement. Two months before the Soviet reactor meltdown, the DOE was ordered to release "approximately nineteen thousand pages of reports pertaining to the early history of [the Hanford Site]" under the Freedom of Information Act.684 The Hanford Engineer

Works was established in 1943 to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons and it occupied a 586 square mile plot of land in south central Washington State. It was the heart and soul of the American nuclear weapons complex. The "newly declassified.. .environmental monitoring surveys, engineering reports, office memoranda and correspondence" revealed a long history of environmental pollution and deception.

According to Michele Stenehjem Gerber, "While going about the business of containing communism, the Hanford site was spreading millions of curies of radioactivity into the

Columbia River and into the air and soil of the Columbia Basin." This was done while

684 Michele Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front, 2. For more on the history of DOE run nuclear facilities and the legacy of environmental contamination in the decades leading up to Chernobyl, see, Roger Anderson, "Environmental, Safety and Health Issues at U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production Facilities, 1946- 1988," Environmental Review 13, 3/4, 1989 Conference Papers, Part One (Autumn - Winter, 1989): 69-92; and Terrence R. Fehner and F. G. Gosling, "Coming in from the Cold: Regulating U.S. Department of Energy Nuclear Facilities, 1942-96," Environmental History 1, 2 (April 1996): 5-33. 395 the plant operators and safety experts assured area residents and employees that "the plant's workings and wastes were well controlled and harmless."685 While newspapers in the Northwest like the Tri-City Herald, Spokane-Review Spokane Chronicle, Seattle

Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Times, and Portland Oregonian were immediately consumed by this story, the New York Times only made one reference to it prior to Chernobyl.686

Nevertheless, it is clear that the revelations at Hanford had a direct impact on public reactions to Chernobyl just two months later, PSR included. The hysteria caused by the immediate devastation of Chernobyl must have made the domestic problem of

environmental contamination at places like Hanford seem that much more pressing.

Meanwhile, not only antinuclear groups and environmental activists responded negatively to the Hanford Historical Documents. The files stimulated further investigation into other nuclear weapons facilities, several inquiries at the Congressional level, and inspired legal action in various contexts. In 1987, the National Academy of

Sciences (NAS) performed a "special review" of the Savannah River Plant nuclear reservation in South Carolina and concluded that the three reactors still running had

several safety problems. The review had been encouraged by the disclosure of a Dupont

Corporation memo in 1985, detailing several health and safety violations at the plants

over the previous thirty years. Dupont, which had operated the plants since 1951, kept these violations not only from the public, but also from the DOE. Further discoveries of

685 Michele Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front, 2-3. 686 Michele Stenehjem Gerber indicates that almost all of this coverage in the Northwest appeared on the front page of the newspapers. See footnote on page 327-328 of On the Home Front. "1949 Test Linked to Radiation in Northwest," New York Times, March 9, 1986, 35. 396 problems continued to unfold until in January 1989 it was discovered that there was a twenty-mile long geologic fault located directly beneath the site.687 The plutonium bomb-trigger manufacturing site in Rocky Flats was similarly plagued with bad press in the late 1980s. After the site was partially shut down when two employees accidentally inhaled "radioactive particles" in October 1988, the General Accounting Office, as an investigative arm of Congress, "released a report that cited a pervasive attitude of carelessness and numerous safety violations at Rocky Flats." Moreover, in 1989, "the

Justice Department initiated unprecedented criminal charges against Rocky Flats operators for environmental violations." Likewise, the DOE-run Fernald Feed Materials

Production Center was featured in many negative news stories after its poor environmental, health and safety records were revealed beginning in 1986.688 Indeed, as

Gerber reveals in her book on the Hanford case, almost all American news media was alert to the controversies at the DOE facilities between 1987 and 1989. News stories appeared regularly in all the major and local dailies across the country.689 With the revelations at Hanford and elsewhere, it was impossible for the DOE to sidestep the many criticisms directed at the agency. In 1989, the new Secretary of Energy, James Watkins, conceded, "I am certainly not proud or pleased with what I have seen over my first few

Michele Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front, 5-6. 688 Michele Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front, 6. This is a very brief outline of a few of the many controversies that were born after the Hanford files were released. . 689 See Stenehjem Gerber's footnotes for Chapter 8. 397 months in office." But he vowed to "chart a new course" and make the DOE an agency that protected the "environment and the health and safety of residents."690

It is within this context of widespread concern about the legacy of environmental contamination from the DOE nuclear weapons complex that PSR's new phase of activism must be considered. With the groups' history of disarmament activism, the accident at

Chernobyl, and the increasingly poor record of the DOE being revealed to the American public, PSR was poised to take on this new project. The fact that the entire nation, including several Congressional and Senate Committees, the Justice Department, the

NAS, and the DOE leadership acknowledged the immense environmental and public health problems caused by the nuclear weapons complex gave the group confidence to embark on this new phase of work. While it was certainly Chernobyl that spurred PSR to action against the American nuclear weapons complex, it was the social and political context within the U.S. that guided its decision to shift from peace activism towards public health and environmental work.

The Medical Response to Chernobyl: PSR and IPPNW

The immediate response of PSR to the Chernobyl accident reveals the group's caution about embarking on this new phase of environmental and public health activism.

As in the case of Three Mile Island (TMI), the meltdown at Chernobyl occurred at a commercial reactor and neither group had a strong history of nuclear power opposition from which to draw. PSR was actually inspired to action in 1979 as a result of the TMI

Michele Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front, 4. 398 meltdown. Helen Caldicott, in particular, was a very ardent opponent of commercial nuclear power and raised awareness about the health effects of low level radiation exposure from this technology. Shortly after PSR's reformation, however, the group abandoned this work because it proved to be a very divisive one for physicians and constrained its ability to secure financial support for its work. Caldicott wrote in her autobiography that at the behest of the "old guard PSR members" - like Bernard Lown, who had initially established the organization in 1961 - the group dropped its focus on the hazards of low level radiation exposure from commercial nuclear reactors because they felt it was not "terribly important or dangerous".692 When the group turned its attention to nuclear war, it attracted the support of a much larger and diverse group of physicians. Likewise, when IPPNW was established by Bernard Lown and Yevgeny

Chazov in 1981, the group focused exclusively on nuclear weapons. It is this earlier history that makes the shift in 1986 significant. There was considerable overlap between the issues the doctors' movement avoided in the early 1980s and the ones being raised by

PSR and IPPNW directly after the Chernobyl accident.

Nevertheless, because of this earlier history, PSR explicitly refrained from critiquing commercial nuclear power after Chernobyl. In an official PSR press release after the accident, the second paragraph underlined that the group took "no organizational

691 LAC,BertellFonds,MG31K39-Volume 11, FILE 13 - BOSTON EDISON CO., PART 3, "United States of America Nuclear Regulatory Commission: In the matter of: Boston Edison Company, et. al. (Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Unit 2), Docket No. 50-471." Tuesday, April 19, 1977. This document includes the testimony of Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Dr. Martha Drake, and Helen Caldicott, all of whom testified about the dangers of low level radiation exposure from commercial nuclear power reactors. 692 Helen Caldicott, A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 213. 399 position on the issue of nuclear power." This is significant because even though the nuclear power opposition from the 1970s declined and there was an almost singular focus on disarmament among anti-nuclear activists during the first half of the 1980s, there was no apparent hesitation by other prominent activist groups after Chernobyl. Indeed, as my examination of UCS reveals, there were several coalitions formed on the basis of the domestic concern about the likelihood of a similar accident happening at an American nuclear power facility. The DOE's increasingly tarnished environmental, public health and safety reputation, however, created a good domestic rationale for PSR's decision to focus its opposition on the American nuclear weapons complex.

This alone was a fairly radical transformation for PSR after the Chernobyl accident. Instead of focusing exclusively on foreign policy negotiations, arms control treaties between the superpowers, and the post-nuclear apocalypse, the group used the accident to build its environmental and public health portfolio. PSR's official position on

Chernobyl reveals the extent to which the organization shifted its focus to immediate public health concerns by 1986. The group called for American-Soviet negotiations to set up an "international protocol for cooperative management of disasters involving nuclear technology." Additionally, it suggested that setting up an international panel of scientists to study the long and short-term effects of the Chernobyl disaster would contribute to expanding scientific understanding of radiation health issues. Included among its concerns were the effects of the clouds of radiation being dispersed across the

693 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Statement from Physicians for Social Responsibility on the Soviet Nuclear Power Plant Accident," May 5, 1986. 400 globe. Finally, the group called for the immediate shut-down of all DOE "operated reactors until they [could] meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) standards."694 It was this final statement that really guided PSR's activism for the next two years. The group devoted itself to raising awareness about the shortcomings of these reactor designs.

DOE reactors were not regulated by the NRC and many of them were without containment structures around the reactor core - which is what contributed to the

Chernobyl meltdown. Ironically, PSR's critiques of the nuclear weapons complex closely resembled the many critiques of commercial nuclear power and the NRC in the

1970s and after the Chernobyl meltdown.

Chernobyl also had a direct impact on IPPNW's work. The fact that the 6th World

Congress, held in Cologne, West Germany, just six weeks after the accident, focused on the relationship between the arms race and public health is the best indication of this.695

However, the highlight of the Congress was definitely the speech from the Russian representatives, Yevgeny Chazov, the Soviet President of IPPNW and Leonid Ilyin, a

Soviet Surgeon and chairman of the U.S.S.R. Committee on Radiation Protection, who reported on the aftermath of the accident. Except for the fact that the two physicians were reporting on the aftermath of the commercial nuclear reactor meltdown, their speech read much like earlier ones discussing the "medical consequences of a nuclear attack."

The central place of these IPPNW physicians after the Chernobyl accident was a

694 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Statement from Physicians for Social Responsibility on the Soviet Nuclear Power Plant Accident," May 5, 1986. 695 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter to Dr. William Foege from Peter A. Zheutlin, Director of Public Affairs, IPPNW, August 12, 1986. 401 powerful example of the important role of physicians in managing nuclear disasters.

They talked about the medical effects of the Chernobyl explosion, the medical response

to the disaster, and also the comparison of Chernobyl to a nuclear bomb explosion. They

gave a statistical breakdown of all the people who died, those who were injured - both

immediately and after the fact - and the groups most at risk for future health damage.

The entire Soviet medical system responded to the accident - there were 230 medical

teams assembled, with a total of 5,000 doctors and nurses who saw to all of the 100,000 people evacuated from the area. The public health impact and the complete devastation

caused by the accident were used to reinforce the core message shared by IPPNW and

PSR during the first half of the 1980s - there could be no effective medical response to

nuclear war. The Russian physicians emphasized how small the Chernobyl accident was

compared to the destruction that would be caused if a nuclear bomb were detonated.

According to the Russian physicians, Chernobyl killed 29 people (far fewer than the

2,000 to 3,000 the United States initially considered reporting); yet, the entire Soviet

medical system was mobilized to deal with the accompanied devastation. Chazov and

Ilyin underlined that the same would not be possible with a larger accident. The New

York Times reported Chazov's words: "medicine will be helpless if even a few nuclear

bombs are detonated." The fact that the Soviet physicians were part of the disaster

Tom Wicker, "The Invisible Shadow," New York Times, June 3, 1986, A27. 402 relief after Chernobyl not only bolstered the groups' claims of medical expertise; it also strengthened its declaration of authority on the need for nuclear disarmament.

Because of their past collaborations with Soviet physicians and their long history of focusing on the apocalyptic potential of nuclear war, the opinions of PSR and IPPNW doctors were regularly solicited after the Chernobyl accident. PSR, alone, was swamped with phone calls from people living near nuclear reactors, weapons testing sites, manufacturing facilities, waste dumps, and uranium mines. The organization was also phoned by people traveling abroad; concerned about fallout; wanting information on the long and short-term effects of radiation exposure; worried about the ecological threats of radiation; the "effects of radiation on the body;" the comparison of a commercial reactor meltdown to the fallout from a nuclear weapon explosion; and "the psychological aspects of nuclear crisis management."698 Some of these topics reflected terrain that was familiar to the organization, but others did not. PSR was not accustomed to speaking about the comparison between nuclear power disasters and nuclear war or the

environmental impacts of radioactive releases. Even their long history of education about the human impacts of radiation exposure from bomb blasts was more superficial than rigorously rooted in scientific analysis. For instance, most of the PSR speeches and

articles outlining the effects of a nuclear bomb blast were based on the collection of

697 Other topics discussed at the conference included IPPNW's efforts to establish a health study of the 100,000 evacuees living within a 30 kilometer radius of the Chernobyl meltdown site, along with the growing concerns about the biological effects of weapons testing in the Pacific region. FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, "Physicians Meet in West Germany," Fiji Sun, June 7, 1986. 698 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Notes and Thoughts for a Letter to the Post on Chernobyl," May 9, 1986. 403 articles published in 1962 in the New England Journal of Medicine and not on any research performed by a PSR physician. Nevertheless, the group welcomed this new­ found national attention and sought as best it could to "provide a public service to the

American public," seeking the groups' advice and expertise on this wide variety of issues.700 In short, Chernobyl breathed new life into both groups.

PSR and IPPNW also received widespread media exposure after the Chernobyl accident. In the "Post Mortem" report on PSR's post-Chernobyl press briefing on May 5,

1986, staff members noted the attendance of "over 20 press outlets" and nine cameras, which was "more than any other [PSR] briefing or press conference.. .in recent memory."

Among the news sources in attendance were CNN, USA Today, MacNeil-Lehrer, LA

Times, UPI, Associated Press, Minneapolis Star and Tribune, and NBC. Likewise, the

New York Times and the Washington Post phoned PSR after the briefing for a summary and a "press packet," in which PSR "included biographies of the speakers, a graph of radiation effects on the body, a map of the Chernobyl area and a fact sheet on the medical aspects of the disaster."701 PSR's opinions on Chernobyl were printed and recorded through several media outlets. In the week after the meltdown, Jack Geiger appeared on the television shows, "CBS Morning and Nightly News," "the Larry King Show," and

"Nightline," talking about the long and short-term effects of the accident and warning that "the worst is yet to come." The New York Times reported PSR's position on the

699 The same is true for IPPNW. 700 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Notes and Thoughts for a Letter to the Post on Chernobyl," May 9, 1986. 701 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Post-Mortem of Monday May 5 Press Briefing: Draft." 404 shutdown of DOE reactors and both the Times and the Washington Post reported PSR and IPPNW's offer of help to Soviet physicians who were struggling to deal with the aftermath of the accident.702 At IPPNW's 6th World Congress, 500 media representatives were in attendance. The international group was an appealing target for the media, particularly because the Soviet physicians of the group were at the centre of the medical response to the accident. The group was also still riding high from its 1985 Nobel Peace

Prize award, which also helped IPPNW leverage more media attention.

A Fork in the Road

In the months following Chernobyl, the paths followed by PSR and IPPNW diverged considerably. Despite the fact that IPPNW devoted its yearly Congress to the environmental and public health issues raised by the Chernobyl accident, the group's central focus remained the CTB. Indeed, Lown's speech at the closing Plenary Session of the 6th World Congress focused exclusively on the need for disarmament, referring only to Chernobyl as a portent of things to come. This particular speech did not even include the typical IPPNW/PSR description of nuclear war as a public health issue in need of a physician's expertise. Rather, he underlined how medical ethics were at odds with current U.S. foreign policy, particularly its policy of deterrence through nuclear

702 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Press Activities Around the Chernobyl Incident," May 7,1986. See also, "Aide Offer Declined by Soviet Leader of Anti-Nuclear Group," New York Times, May 1, 1986; Phillip M. Boffey, "Aides Say Radioactivity Has Arrived in the U.S.," New York Times, May 6, 1986; Tom Wicker, "A New Attitude?" New York Times, May 9, 1986; and Fox Butterfield, "U.S. Foes Debate Nuclear Strategy," New York Times, May 14, 1986. 703 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, August 12, 1986 - Correspondence from Peter A. Zheutlin, Director of Public Affairs, IPPNW to Dr. William Foege. The 6* Con gress was attended by 1000 people, mostly physicians, from 60 different nations around the world. 405 proliferation. His purpose was to position physicians as morally superior to American politicians, best suited for guiding disarmament talks among the super powers. He declared, "we physicians.. .have an ethical categorical imperative to expose the bleak immorality of the policy of deterrence."704 The reason IPPNW remained a single-issue organization focused on disarmament in 1986 is related to its status as an international organization, firmly rooted in the Cold War political climate. The group was founded by

American and Soviet physicians in the thick of 1980s Cold War politics. Likewise, both groups of physicians were old enough to remember the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima

and Nagasaki during World War II. It was this Cold War framework that attracted other

doctors groups around the world and necessarily shaped activist positions taken by

IPPNW and its affiliates. While Chernobyl inspired an initial critique of the

environmental and public health problems of the nuclear weapons complex, the group was still too consumed by this earlier history and the continued presence of Cold War

tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. For these reasons, Chernobyl mainly

served to reinvigorate IPPNW's campaign for a CTB.

The CTB was also a continued focus for PSR, but its work to shut down the DOE

reactors made its approach to anti-nuclear activism after 1986 more varied. While PSR had been an IPPNW affiliate since 1981, the group was actually established two years

before the international group and was the largest and most independent of the IPPNW

704 FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 10, File: Nuclear War - IPPNW Publications - by Lown 1962 (PSR) 1986-1995, Bernard Lown, MD, Co-President - Speech at the Closing Plenary Session of the Sixth World Congress in Cologne, the Federal Republic of Germany, "The Urgency of Moral Outrage," June 1, 1986. 406 affiliates. Accordingly, while PSR was also part of the Cold War political climate, it was free to pursue other types of activism. The major difference was that PSR's activism increasingly resembled that of other public health and environmental activists in the U.S.

For this new work, the group relied far more on relevant medical expertise than it ever had. Previously, this medical expertise was tangential to PSR's goal of preventing nuclear war and achieving a CTB.

Meanwhile, medical expertise continued to play a marginal role in IPPNW's

"special brand of international citizen diplomacy," a phrase coined by one of the

Canadian IPPNW members in 1986.706 The uniqueness of IPPNW's "citizen diplomacy" compared to other peace groups was that it used the professional status of its members to gain a direct audience with high ranking politicians. While Lown was not in direct correspondence with Reagan, he was on a first name basis with Gorbachev, addressing him as "Mikhail" during a meeting between the Soviet Prime Minister and select

In my correspondence with an active IPPNW member of the British Affiliate, he confirmed that many of the international affiliates were doctors' organizations that were established prior to IPPNW. All of these affiliates had autonomy to pursue issues of particular importance in each of their different national and regional contexts. IPPNW served as an organizing body, bringing all of these groups together for yearly Congresses and ensured that the groups' message about the "medical consequences of nuclear war" was communicated throughout the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. The CTB was the one issue that all physicians groups agreed was an important focus. This was established through meetings of the International Council, which had representatives from each national affiliate. Email correspondence between the author and Andrew Haines, MBBS, MD, FRCGP, FFPHM, FRCP, FMedSci, (Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), September and October, 2007. 706 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, August 13, 1986 - A memo sent from Randy to CPPNW (IPPNW Canada) Board Members and Chapters talking about the need to establish 5 priorities for the Canadian Affiliate over the following 6 months. 707 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter to Bernard Lown from the United States Department of State, August 15, 1986. In response to Lown's letter to Reagan, urging him to agree to a Comprehensive Test Ban with the Soviet Union, Robert M. Smalley, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Public Affairs, blamed the Soviet Union's failure to comply with past agreements for the U.S.'s inability to comply with Lown's request. 407 delegates of IPPNW during the 7 World Congress in Moscow. The close relationship of IPPNW to the Soviet leader was partly due to the favoured place of Soviet physicians in the Gorbachev government. Chazov, in particular, was the Soviet Minister of

Health.709 Likewise, IPPNW affiliates across the globe used their positions of professional prestige to influence their political elite, along with the American embassies in their backyards. For instance, the New Zealand affiliate reported back to the U.S. office on its efforts to get the New Zealand government to encourage the U.S. to sign the

CTB.710 In 1986, the Canadian affiliate also urged then Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, to make the CTB a "key item" in his U.S.-Canadian foreign relations plan, while Jan B.

Van Stolk (Canadian President of IPPNW) sent a letter to Gorbachev commending him on his decision to unilaterally extend the Soviet Union's nuclear test ban. Indeed,

IPPNW's approach to diplomacy closely resembled the heads of state who it was lobbying.

™ FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC 899, Box 10, File: Nuclear War - IPPNW Publications - by Lown 1962 (PSR) 1986-1995, "Confidential Draft: A Record of the Meeting Between General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev and a delegation from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Moscow, USSR," June 2, 1987. 709 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175-Acc. 94A-073 - Series 1, Box 4, File 9, Karen Dorn Steele, "U.S., Soviet doctors building bridges," Spokane Review. October 4, 1987. 710 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, Letter from the New Zealand branch of IPPNW to Bernard Lown, August 13, 1986. 711 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter from the Canadian IPPNW Chapter signed by Jan Van Stolk and Don Bates, both Doctors - the latter the president and the former the Canadian representative to the international board, August 6, 1986 and IPPNW Canada telex to General Secretary Gorbachev, August 21, 1986. Indeed, it was the rule, rather than the exception that IPPNW physicians around the world represented the leaders in medicine in each respective nation. For example, the Mexican affiliate mainly consisted of the country's leaders in medicine, while the Russian co-president of IPPNW was personal physician to the Kremlin. 408 Ironically, it was a head of state who criticized IPPNW's style of activism. In

1987, during Gorbachev's meeting with IPPNW delegates, he criticized the World

Congress for being "male-led and totally male-dominated." He declared, "We should have learned by now. We must do better. We must involve the many distinguished

women who speak for peace. Women bear children, and children die in war. Women must be an integral part of the leadership of our movement." Helen Caldicott was a bridge between feminist peace groups and the doctors' movement in the early 1980s, but

since she left PSR, there was no longer a contingent of women bringing more maternal or

feminist values to the core of IPPNW or PSR's peace activism. This was true when

Caldicott left in 1984 and remained the case in 1987. It was the main reason Caldicott

was dismissed from PSR: she was perceived as too emotional and many of the male physicians in the movement sought to disassociate the doctors' movement from lay

groups of feminist peace activists with which Caldicott had formed alliances.713 This is

not to suggest that there were no female physicians among the members of IPPNW or

PSR; there were plenty and Dr. Christine Cassel was President-elect of PSR in 1987.

However, none of these women - either in positions of power or as lower ranking

members - were vocal proponents of feminist peace activism, nor did they vocally

712 FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 10, File: Nuclear War - IPPNW Publications - by Lown 1962 (PSR) 1986-1995, "Confidential Draft: A Record of the Meeting Between General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev and a delegation from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Moscow, USSR," June 2, 1987. 713 In 1982, while acting as PSR President, Caldicott established the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND). 409 criticize the concentration of power in the hands of male physicians like Lown and

Chazov, who were over-represented in these important political meetings.

It was interesting that Gorbachev should make such a criticism of IPPNW in the first place because there is little to indicate that feminist peace groups occupied similar positions of prestige like that accorded to the doctors' movement. While feminist peace groups shared IPPNW s goal of achieving peace between the superpowers, their critique of militarism and the nuclear arms race was linked with an overall critique of patriarchy.

Very few heads of state, including Gorbachev, were interested in interrogating the ways that patriarchal society contributed to the state of affairs in the arms race. IPPNW and

PSR recognized this in the early 1980s when they disassociated the doctors' movement from Caldicott. It is reasonable to conclude that the preferred status of IPPNW among foreign dignitaries was linked not only to the group's physician members, but also to its more traditional and masculine approach to diplomacy. After all, IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize less than five years after it first started its work, while the

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) had been active since

1915 and had never been awarded such an honour.714 Avoiding radical critiques of patriarchy and what could be construed as emotional demands for peace (like those generally associated with women's accounts) ensured that IPPNW was taken seriously by heads of state.

714 In 1931, Jane Adams, one of WILPF's founders, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and in 1946, the same honour was bestowed upon Emily Greene Balch, the first International Secretary of WILPF. However, the organization was never awarded such an honour. This information was taken from the WILPF website, http://www.wilpf.org/timeline. 410 The fact that IPPNW was male-dominated also served the group well in its

"Global Campaign" to expand the movement. One physician described this as a global initiative to create a medical type of United Nations.715 In the view of people like Lown,

Chazov, and Conn Nugent, IPPNW s Executive Director, it was the best strategy for getting the super powers to agree to a CTB. In addition to already having IPPNW affiliates in 49 different countries, the group sought to expand to places like the Middle

East, South East Asia, and Cuba. Conn Nugent sent a letter directly to Prince Tala Bin

Abdul Aziz of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, informing him of IPPNW s plans to meet with Saudi physicians to discuss professional information and concerns. He also noted that the group had already confirmed plans to meet with doctors in Cairo, Amman,

71 ft

Damascus, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Lown and Chazov, meanwhile, arranged to meet with several medical groups in Malaysia, with the goal of establishing a Malaysian affiliate. They also liaised with a Malaysian physician in an attempt to set up a meeting with the Malaysian Prime Minister, who was committed to creating a nuclear free zone in

South East Asia. Indonesia and Cuba were two other important targets for Lown. In

1986, there were plans underway to hold an IPPNW Symposium in Havana and arrangements were made for both Lown and Chazov to solicit the support of Cuban

715 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter to Dr. Marsha Goldberg from Ian Maddocks, MD in North Adelaide, NZ, August 11, 1986. 716 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter to Executive Director, Conn Nugent to Prince Tala Bin Abdul Aziz of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, August 28, 1986. 717 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter from Dr. Khalid Abdul Kadir of the Dept of Medicine at the National University of Malaysia to Bernard Lown and others, August 17, 1986. 411 physicians. In the Middle East, South East Asia, and Latin America, where it was the exception rather than the rule to have high-ranking female political leaders and medical personnel, Lown, Chazov, and Nugent would have certainly had an easier time selling the idea of IPPNW and the CTB.

Regardless, there was not a unanimous consensus between 1986 and 1988 over

IPPNW plans to expand the movement. Clair Baker, who was on the IPPNW staff in

Boston, expressed concerns about IPPNW's plans for future focus in a communication to the affiliates. In particular, she felt that it was a waste of IPPNW time and resources to try and spread the movement to every nation on the map and that it, in fact, detracted from the IPPNW mission of preventing nuclear war. Dr. Ian Maddocks of the New

Zealand affiliate echoed her concern in a letter to Dr. Marsha Goldberg. He expressed his concern over the direction of the Global Campaign, claiming that IPPNW should be more strategic in its approach to expansion. Rather than trying to build a United Nations of physicians, he thought the organization needed to focus on politically important nations which could be put to good use in achieving the CTB. He believed that nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia, in particular, should not be top priority because of the internal turmoil in each.720 Some of the disunity between the IPPNW leadership, the affiliates, and some of the organizational staff can be attributed to inevitable tensions

718 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter from Conn Nugent to Dr. Eugene Chazov, August 27, 1986. 719 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, Letter from Ian Maddocks to Clair Baker, IPPNW, Boston, July 17, 1986. 720 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter to Dr. Marsha Goldberg from Ian Maddocks, MD in North Adelaide, NZ, August 11, 1986. 412 over international power relations. Even though IPPNW was an international organization, most of the power was wielded by the American IPPNW office and its

Soviet counterpart. For example, 90 percent of IPPNW funds still came from private

American donors in 1986. The other 10 percent came mainly from Western European physicians. Only $21,000.00 of the $ 1.4 million annual budget came from Eastern

European physicians. The power gained by controlling IPPNW's purse strings should not be underemphasized. Likewise, the fact that this was a Cold War organization, founded by Lown (the American) and Chazov (the Russian) gave the two greater control over the organizations' future goals and priorities. The tensions also appear rooted in the generation gap between the 'old school' founders of the organization and the newer/younger group being attracted to it as it grew. Maddocks expressed this in his concern that IPPNW's growth was stunted by Lown and Chazov, who were juggling full- time jobs and holding onto the reigns of power. In order to become an entity, which could survive regardless of their presence, he recommended expanding the base of leadership. Expanding the leadership would also give newer members with 'fresh' ideas the opportunity to change the course of the international movement. It was not that

721 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter from Con Nugent to Juliana Geran Pilon, PhD, Senior Policy Analyst of the Heritage Foundation, August 29, 1986. 722 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Fonds, MC408, Box 54, A letter to Dr. Marsha Goldberg from Ian Maddocks, MD in North Adelaide, NZ, August 11, 1986. In some ways, these tensions were similar to the ones that led to the dismissal of Caldicott from PSR in 1984. By this time, PSR had grown larger than Caldicott; the same was true of IPPNW and its relationship to the two founders in 1986. The difference, however, was that the tensions between Caldicott and PSR members were expressed in terms of her unpredictable, irrational, and overly emotional behavior; while IPPNW members and staff expressed this in terms of their concern that Lown and Chazov were out of touch. They were considerably older than the many young physicians who were joining the movement after Chernobyl. 413 there was disagreement over the groups' overall goal - the CTB - but over the means of

achieving this objective.

Meanwhile, when PSR decided to depart from its singular focus on the CTB, the

group refined its activist strategies. The response of PSR to Chernobyl reveals the extent

to which the organization did this immediately. Most of the "experts" serving as

spokespersons for the media, had backgrounds in public health, community health,

international health, or radiology. For example, the most prominent PSR spokesperson

was Geiger, a Professor of Community Medicine, with a specialty in medical

epidemiology. He regularly touted his credentials when commenting on the long and

short-term effects of the Chernobyl accident and the likelihood of a similar accident

happening in the United States. For example, Geiger made a trip to the Ukraine one

month after the accident to study the effects the accident had on the survivors.723 Other

PSR spokespersons included Jennifer Leaning, a public health specialist who focused on

international health issues and Herbert Abrams, who was a radiologist.724 At the May 5th press briefing it was Geiger who made the call to shut down the DOE reactors, declared

the need to set up an international commission to investigate the accident, and also

demanded that the Soviets release all information about the accident to the international

community. Abrams spoke about the related health risks of nuclear weapons testing.

Also present were Leaning and a non-PSR physician from Johns Hopkins, who both

723 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175 Series 1, Box 4, File 10, Soviet Physicians Tour - 1987 Press, "Physicians Compare Chernobyl Aftermath of Nuclear Explosion," Hartford Courant, October 6, 1987. 724 Other prominent spokespersons after Chernobyl included Victor Sidel and Anthony Robbins, both of whom were also public health experts and who served as Presidents of the American Public Health Association. 414 spoke about "the long and short-term health effects of the disaster in Chernobyl." The presence of these physicians at the press briefing gave the group clout and established these particular representatives as potential "experts" for the press to rely on when trying to understand the complicated issues involved in a Chernobyl like accident.

While PSR's work was certainly organized by the physicians concern for human life and the prevention of nuclear war prior to Chernobyl, it could only loosely be defined as public health activism. After 1983, PSR was more focused on using the status of its physician members to leverage a leading role in influencing foreign policy negotiations between the superpowers - a mission that was well-suited for medical professionals, regardless of their specialist backgrounds. When PSR began focusing on decommissioning DOE reactors and probing the health and environmental effects of the

Chernobyl accident on the international community, its strategic decision to showcase particular public health experts made practical sense. It was no longer sufficient to rally a group of random medical specialists - for instance, cardiologists, pediatricians, general practitioners, and the like - under the banner of concern for human life; the stakes were higher and in order to be taken seriously in this new phase of the debate the group needed to align itself with relevant experts who could challenge the opposition.

The national PSR offices also relied heavily on a few key PSR chapters across the country to drive home its call to shut down aging and unsafe DOE reactors. Whereas those physicians at the centre of the disarmament debate were mainly situated in the

725 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Press Activities Around the Chernobyl Incident," May 7, 1986. 415 Northeastern States, PSR chapters in Washington and Colorado State became increasingly important to the overall work of the organization after Chernobyl. For example, PSR Seattle held a press conference and received widespread media coverage after the Chernobyl accident when it called for the shutdown of Hanford. This chapter also had two physicians from the Hanford area travel to Washington D.C. to testify at a

"House Subcommittee hearing on nuclear power plants and the danger that the Hanford power plant presents to surrounding communities." The PSR Chapter in Denver,

Colorado was also "swamped with calls" after news of Chernobyl spread.726 The salience of the Chernobyl meltdown was not lost on the community there, which was located 15 miles southwest of the Rocky Flats weapons production site. PSR used this as an opportunity to expand its support in these areas, while also highlighting the similar concerns Americans should have about nuclear safety at home. The importance of regional chapters eventually spread to those surrounding the other key weapons complex facilities, notably, the Nevada Test Site, the Savannah River plant, and the Fernald, Ohio plant.727

By late 1987, PSR joined a coalition with eight other scientific and environmental groups to launch the Plutonium Challenge. Together, the Environmental Policy Institute, the Energy Research Foundation, the Federation of American Scientists, Friends of the

Earth, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, UCS, and PSR called on

726 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Press Activities Around the Chernobyl Incident," May 7, 1986. 727 See also, SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, October 1988 PSR DOE Press Release, "Cost of the Arms Race Includes the Cost to Public Health From Nuclear Arms Production," October 30, 1987. 416 President Reagan and Congress to "declare an immediate two-year moratorium on the further production of plutonium for nuclear weapons." They also challenged "the Soviet

Union to negotiate a bilateral, verifiable cut-off of the production of plutonium—as well

as highly enriched uranium—for nuclear weapons."728 The overall goal of the group was arms control and limitation; however, the concerns this time were with the damage

already done to the environment and the health of Americans as a result of weapons production. In PSR President Christine Cassel's statement on the Plutonium Challenge,

she claimed the arms race presented Americans with "unacceptable risks" to their health

and called the health threats posed by weapons production the real "national security"

79 Q threats, not fear of Soviet aggression. The fact that Chernobyl brought disarmament

and environmental groups together in its immediate aftermath shaped this new way of

speaking about the threats of the arms race. Together, the Plutonium Challenge groups possessed the professional credibility and scientific/medical expertise from a variety of backgrounds, which better equipped them to confront the nuclear establishment. For a

group like PSR, this coalition was crucial for increasing its credibility in this new debate

over the environmental and public health threats of the nuclear weapons complex.

One of the key concerns of the Plutonium Challenge was the DOE's plans to build new plutonium production reactors to replace their already aged ones, particularly the proposed Special Isotope Separation (SIS) Plant at the Idaho National Engineering

728 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 10, PU Challenge 87, "The Plutonium Challenge: An Open Letter to the President of the United States," November 5, 1987, page 2. 729 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, PSR Statement on Chernobyl, "Statement of Christine Cassel, M.D. Regarding The Plutonium Challenge," November 5, 1987. 417 Laboratory (INEL). What the DOE was not committed to was dealing with the

"expensive task of cleaning up and disposing of the vast amounts of radioactive and chemical wastes it ha[d] already produced over the last four decades."731 The public hearings on whether or not to build the SIS facility revealed a "surprising opposition [in

Idaho] based on environmental, safety, and health considerations." The DOE announced these plans in 1988 at a very inopportune time. Communities were already shocked by the recent revelations of environmental contamination at the many DOE facilities across the country.733 This, combined with the hysteria created by Chernobyl, prompted communities like the one in Idaho, which had previously been supportive of the

American nuclear weapons program, to refuse to continue storing nuclear waste.73 At the same time that the DOE announced its plans for the SIS facility, Idaho Governor

Cecil Andrus declared that the state would no longer store "nuclear waste from U.S.

730 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 10, Plutonium Challenge 88, Correspondence from Dan Reicher and Jason Slazman at Natural Resources Defence Council to Todd Perry of PSR, May 21, 1988. 731 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 10, PU Challenge 87, "The Plutonium Challenge: An Open Letter to the President of the United States," November 5, 1987, page 2. 732 Michele Stenehjen Gerber, On the Home Front, 7. 733 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 10, '90 INEL Petition, Environmental Defence Institute Press Release, "Idaho Residents Request Health Studies at INEL," July 17, 1990. This reports the recent decision of Idaho residents to petition the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to do a community health survey of people living near and working in INEL. They report, "The request follows a report that residents living downwind from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington were exposed to radioactive iodine emissions greater than those in communities near the Chernobyl nuclear plant." The residents of Idaho made the petition with the expert help of the Environmental Defence Institute (EDI), PSR, and other expert activist groups. EDI wrote up the petition on its letterhead and submitted it to HHS. 734 David W. Murphree, Stuart A. Wright, and Helen Rose Ebaugh, "Toxic Waste Siting and Community Resistance: How Cooptation of Local Citizen Opposition Failed," Sociological Perspectives 39, 4 (Winter, 1996), 447-463; and Hugh Gusterson, "How Not To Construct a Radioactive Waste Incinerator," Science, Technology, and Human Values 25, 3 (Summer, 2000), 332-351. These articles tell the stories of community opposition to radioactive waste disposal in Texas and California, respectively. The opposition in each case was also formed in the late 1980s when the DOE was struggling to find a community willing to act as a short term waste repository until they completed more long term facility planning and construction. 418 defense plants." Along with the rest of the Plutonium Challenge groups, PSR was part of the team of experts giving scientific and medical credibility to the growing community opposition to the SIS facility. The group also echoed community concerns over waste disposal.

Within this new coalition of both environmental and disarmament groups, PSR became quite the politically savvy lobbyist organization. Its professional lobbying portfolio had been refined when Jane Wales joined its staff in 1982 and by 1987 PSR had several staff members in the national office devoted to lobbying.736 PSR staff members regularly liaised with other members of the Plutonium Challenge to set priorities for the group. Much of this work focused on campaigning for specific Bills put before Congress.

For example, along with the Plutonium Challenge members and several other peace and environmental groups, PSR placed its support behind the Bustamante amendment to the

Department of Defense Authorization Bill. These groups sent letters to members of

Congress urging them to support the amendment, which would postpone plans to start the

SIS project for a year. The groups sought to convince representatives that "it makes no sense to commit the country to another several decades of plutonium production at a time when serious arms control negotiations indicate that substantial reductions in nuclear weapons may occur." This particular letter was written in April of 1988, when it was

735 Michele Stenehjen Gerber, On the Home Front, 205. 736 Among these PSR lobbying activists were Todd Perry and Daryl Kimball. 737 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 10, Plutonium Challenge 88, "Dear Representative," April 20, 1988. In the end, a compromise to the Bustamante amendment was passed - called the Aspin Amendment, for Representative Les Aspin. This achieved the goal of prohibiting "construction of the SIS facility in Idaho prior to March 1, 1989 and directed] the Department of Energy to prepare a series of 419 becoming increasingly clear that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. These groups also tried to make the Plutonium Challenge an election year issue, writing letters to Governor Michael Dukakis, who went head to head with George Bush Sr. in the 1988

Presidential race. They asked Dukakis to make it his priority to stop the SIS construction in Idaho and also to halt all other plans to renew the nuclear weapons complex in the U.S.

Part of the package sent to Dukakis was a list of questions for the Governor to answer with regard to his position on the future of the nuclear weapons complex; an update of the

Plutonium Challenge's successes in the House and Senate; and evidence from several high ranking officials in the U.S. military, the DOE, and elsewhere confirming the feasibility of a plutonium cut-off. By 1990, plans for the SIS facility were shelved and the 1991 defense budget refrained from allocating any money towards its future construction. Likewise, the DOE had allocated $456 million to clean up the nuclear waste "at the 890-square-mile atomic site" in Idaho in December 1989.739

PSR also went out on its own, sending a letter to Reagan at the end of 1988, encouraging him to adopt its fifteen-point plan to overhaul public health and safety measures at the DOE-run reactors. In this letter, PSR articulated its view that the poor health and safety record at DOE reactors constituted a "national public health emergency." The number one priority, according to PSR, should be the creation of a

reports [justifying the need for] SIS technology." SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 10, Plutonium Challenge 88, Correspondence from Dan Reicher and Jason Slazman at Natural Resources Defence Council to Todd Perry of PSR, May 21, 1988. 738 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 10, Plutonium Challenge 88, A letter signed by the members of the Plutonium Challenge on the groups' letterhead to Governor Michael Dukakis, September 26, 1988. 739 Michele Stenehjen Gerber, On the Home Front, 7. 420 "National Review Commission on Nuclear Weapons Production and Public Health" with the mandate "to assess the medical, public health, occupational and environmental health

consequences of the Department of Energy's operation of the entire U.S. nuclear

weapons production, testing, and research industry." This massive undertaking was to be

done without interference or input from the DOE. Instead, PSR recommended that

appropriate scientific authorities from agencies like the NAS, the NAS/Institute of

Medicine, and the USPHS take charge of analyzing the health data. PSR argued that

there was a "profound conflict of interest" at the DOE, which was slated with the dual

tasks of satisfying national demands for nuclear weapons production and protecting the

health and safety of its employees and the public.740

The White House referred the letter to the DOE, which started a lengthy debate between PSR and the DOE about the health and safety standards in the American nuclear

weapons complex.7 This correspondence reveals how much PSR's activism had

changed since the early 1980s. Despite the DOE's detailed letter defending the health

and safety record of the DOE run reactors, PSR confidently maintained its position that

there needed to be an independent study of worker health and safety data, while also

refuting many of the DOE's claims with regard to its past and improving environmental,

740 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, File 8, Christine Cassel and Victor Sidel of PSR to President Ronald Reagan, October 26, 1988. Just as an aside, it is interesting to note that PSR's initial demands were that the DOE run facilities be brought up to the standards of the NRC, which was also criticized for its health and safety violations. The reason for this was the same: the agency which was slated with the regulation of nuclear power was also tasked with the promotion of the technology. 741 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, File 8, Correspondence from Ernest C. Baynard, III, Assistant Secretary, Environment, Safety, and Health, at the DOE to Christine Cassel, January 25, 1989; and Cassel and Jack Geiger's response to Bayard, February 7, 1989. 421 health, and safety record. Ernest Baynard, Assistant Secretary of the DOE's

Environment, Safety, and Health Department, wrote that the DOE had more than fulfilled the goals of an independent national review because it had commissioned "independent expert reviews of the safety of the Department's production, research and test reactors by the National Academy of the Sciences," one of the organizations that PSR had initially endorsed as an appropriate review body. Moreover, using the example of the newly formed Advisory Committee on Nuclear Facility Safety (ACNFS), Baynard argued that the DOE was proactive about implementing improvements that were recommended by the NAS. The remainder of Baynard's letter outlined the progressive plans that the DOE had for improving and studying worker health and safety and devising long-term waste

742

storage plans.

Regardless of Baynard's confidence in the DOE nuclear weapons complex, PSR responded with the self-assurance of an expert activist organization. Among its rebuttals was PSR's concern that the NAS and the ACNFS were only advisory boards, with no power to enforce the implementation of their recommendations. Additionally, the

findings of these bodies were not widely publicized outside of DOE circles. PSR also

continued to press the DOE for the release of worker health and safety data because, despite its assurance that it was undergoing studies of its own, PSR claimed, "we have no way of knowing whether this program is sufficient and its findings useful." The doctors were careful not to overstep their role in the process and recommended the Department of 742 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, File 8, Correspondence from Ernest C. Baynard, III, Assistant Secretary, Environment, Safety, and Health, at the DOE to Christine Cassel, January 25, 1989. 422 Health and Human Services (HHS) as the appropriate body to undertake the analysis of the DOE's worker health and safety records. Likewise, PSR refuted the DOE's claim that radioactive releases at its nuclear facilities had "not resulted in detectable health effects in surrounding populations." The group argued that this was not a position which could be supported "from a medical point of view." The skepticism of PSR was rooted in its knowledge that the DOE actively sought to prevent disclosure of its "occupational

HA"! health and radiation exposure records." Through these kinds of engagements with the

DOE, as well as its increasing visibility among important members of Congress, PSR established itself as an important player in the debate over how to manage the legacy of environmental contamination and disregard for public health within the American nuclear weapons complex. Indeed, following on the heels of this exchange, Cassel was invited by Argonne National Laboratory to become part of the working group "involving the creation of a Comprehensive Epidemiologic Data Resource (CEDR)," containing information about all DOE worker health and safety data.744 This illustrates how important PSR had become in the post-Cold War anti-nuclear movement. Inviting PSR's president to become part of such a group gave the appearance that the DOE, which ran all the national laboratories, took PSR's public health and safety concerns seriously.

Indeed, by 1991, the DOE finally conceded to public appeals and signed a

'"Memorandum of Understanding,' agreeing to transfer research and administrative

743 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, File 8, Correspondence from Christine Cassel and Jack Geiger to Ernest Baynard, III, February 7, 1989. 744 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, CEDR/NAS 89, Correspondence from S. Jay Olshansky, PhD. at Argonne National Laboratory to Christine Cassel, July 18, 1989. 423 control of epidemiological studies, including dose reconstructions and exposure assessment studies, to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)."745 While

PSR was certainly not the only group actively campaigning for the release of this data to

HHS, it played an integral role in seeing the issue through to the end and keeping it on the agendas of both HHS and Congress. PSR's involvement began when Geiger made a statement before the Secretarial Panel for the Evaluation of Epidemiological Research

Activities (SPEERA), which had been created by DOE Secretary James Watkins. As co- chair of PSR's Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Production and Public Health, Geiger urged the SPEERA panel to reaffirm PSR's call to release the DOE health and safety data. He also outlined, not only the data's importance to scientists, but also to "academic physicians and medical scientists of substantial distinction and experience—some of them PSR members.. .who have their own statutory and scientific responsibilities for the health of populations, including nuclear workers, their families, and residents in the areas around the DOE facilities." As evidence of this, several PSR members across the country also participated in local inquiries into the health implications of the nuclear weapons complex. Among them was Thomas Hamilton, who was an MD and had both a

PhD and a Masters in Public Health. In 1989, Hamilton was a "co-investigator of the

Hanford Thyroid Disease Study," a CDC sponsored study examining the health impact

Michele Stenehjen Gerber, On the Home Front, 212. 746 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, File 19, "Statement of H. Jack Geiger, M.D. Before the Secretarial Panel for the Evaluation of Epidemiological Research Activities," Chicago, Illinois, October 26, 1989. 424 on the thyroid gland of radioiodine released from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation."

Likewise, PSR maintained correspondence with the head of the SPEERA panel, Kristine

Gebbie, once its recommendations were publicized. The group continued to press the panel to liberate the data from DOE control and ensure that the "outside research effort have full authority over what environmental, industrial hygiene, and epidemiologic data is collected, and how these data are collected and stored."748 PSR also worked tirelessly to keep important members of Congress informed about the proceedings of the panel and

DOE plans to transfer the health data.749 Once the decision was made to transfer the data to HHS, moreover, PSR maintained close contact with their chief negotiator, Jim

Friedman, trying to guide his hand. In particular, PSR impressed upon Friedman why it was important for HHS to perform both the worker and community health studies surrounding the DOE facilities around the country. When trying to determine DOE versus HHS jurisdiction over the data, Friedman considered leaving the worker studies in

DOE hands. PSR staffer, Todd Perry, replied with a list of reasons "why and how the

747 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, re: Marshall Islands, Thomas Hamilton, MD, PhD, MPH, "Testimony on Health Research Studies of the Marshall Islanders, Presented Before the SPEERA, December 29, 1989. 748 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, File 24, Correspondence from Thomas Hamilton, M.D. PhD, and Kenneth Lichtenstein, M.D. to Kristine Gebbie, the SPEERA chairperson, March 9, 1990. In this letter the two PSR physicians laud the decision of the panel to recommend the transfer of "long-term health research from DOE to an independent agency." 749 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, Wirth/Wyden '90 Update, Confidential Memo to Ken Rosenbaum, Office of Congressman Wyden from Todd Perry, "Update on DOE Health Research Program," May 7, 1990. This document, which was also sent to Senator Timothy Wirth, gave the Congressman a detailed update on the state of the SPEERA panel, the plans for the future, and negotiations between the HHS and DOE. Wyden and Wirth led the House and Senate efforts to transfer the DOE research and data to HHS, called the Radiation Research Reorganization Act. PSR was also very active in trying to push for this bill and it is clear from a letter sent by Senator Wirth to Senator J. Bennett Johnston shortly after PSR's update, that the Senator relied on these communications to keep up to date on the relevant issues and to convince his colleagues to support the legislation. SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series l,Boxll,Filel5,Junel8, 1990. 425 worker health studies [we]re central to the controversy surrounding DOE health research."750 PSR also kept a close eye on creation of the CEDR database, which Cassel had been invited to participate on. In an "Update on [the] DOE Health Research

Program," Perry reported,

I have been advised by various Congressional and HHS staff professionals that it would be useful for ... [PSR] to send a letter to appropriate DOE and HHS staffs.. .to let them know who we are and that we are following the [Memorandum of Understanding] and CEDR processes. It is clear that if PSR and a few other concerned individuals were not monitoring these issues, DOE and HHS would have no incentive to do this work in the first place.

It was exactly these public responses to the DOE's mismanagement of worker health and safety research that put the issues on the agenda in the first place. It is clear that PSR's continued work in this regard helped keep these issues on the Congressional register and influenced Secretary Watkins' decision to issue the 1991 DOE Memorandum.

IPPNW Joins the Environmental Opposition

In December 1988 IPPNW finally diversified its activist portfolio and made a commitment to raising awareness about the environmental and public health consequences of the nuclear weapons complex. Several factors explained this change of heart, but the primary reason was that it was clear the Cold War was ending in 1988 and international foreign policy was no longer dominated by the Eastern/Western divide.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, people were generally happy to ignore nuclear

750 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, Wirth/Wyden '90 Update, Confidential Memo to Ken Rosenbaum, Office of Congressman Wyden from Todd Perry, "Update on DOE Health Research Program," May 7, 1990. 751 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, Wirth/Wyden '90 Update, "Confidential Memo," From Todd Perry to Jack Geiger, Wes Wallace, Tony Robbins, and Christine Cassel, May 8, 1990. 426 disarmament. In order to remain a key player in the anti-nuclear movement, IPPNW was forced to rethink its approach to activism. Global environmental concerns had received increasing attention by international NGOs and governments around the world since the early 1970s.752 During this early period, groups of environmental activists, academics, and policy makers sought to expand the "traditional definition of security" to include environmental concerns and not only protection from threats of military aggression, which was the preoccupation of Cold Warriors in the U.S. and the Soviet Union.753

Likewise, accidents like the Bhopal chemical disaster at the Union Carbide Plant in 1984 and the meltdown at the Chernobyl commercial nuclear power plant in 1986 reminded governments and international activists that risks from chemical and radioactive contamination could not be contained within national borders. However, it was not until the Cold War ended that "advocates of extended security were able to garner increasing attention as they made their case for environmental security concerns."754 IPPNW had always been concerned about national and international security, taking particular issue with U.S. deterrence policy. Once the Cold War ended, the group followed the lead of these actors and expanded its definition of security to include an analysis of the ways that

Michele Zebich-Knos, Michele Zebich-Knos, "Global Environmental Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era: Linkage to an Extended Security Paradigm," Peace and Conflict Studies 5, 1 (June 1998), found on the following weblink for George Mason University, www.gmu.edu/academic/pcs/zebich.htm, 1-2. 753 Zebich-Knos points to three important reports, which outlined the need to redefine national security to include a focus on the ways that environmental degradation, natural resource management, and chemical or radioactive contamination impact security "locally, nationally, regionally, and globally." See, for example, the Club of Rome report, Limits to Growth (1972), Lester R. Brown of World Watch Institute's article, "Redefining National Security" (1977), and the 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future. The articles and reports were cited in Michelle Zebich-Knos, "Global Environmental Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era," 2. 754 Michelle Zebich-Knos, "Global Environmental Conflict in the Post-Cold War Era," 3. 427 environmental degradation from the arms race posed an additional and more pressing international security threat. The fact that PSR had joined American environmentalists to raise awareness about the environmental degradation caused by the nuclear weapons complex after Chernobyl put IPPNW in an even better position to redefine its approach to activism.

IPPNW unveiled its plans to join this growing environmental, public health movement in December 1988, when the group formed the International Commission to

Investigate the Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Production. Its mission was to "describe" to the general public in "scientific" yet "accessible" terms the health and environmental price of the nuclear arms race, with the goal of inspiring a widespread group of people to further action.755 The commission concluded with three publications: Radioactive Heaven and Earth (1991), which focused on the health and environmental impact of nuclear weapons testing; Plutonium (1992), which focused on the many hazards of plutonium production and high level radioactive waste disposal; and

Nuclear Wastelands (1995), which was a global guide to the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons production. This signified a major turning point in IPPNW's activism. Like PSR, it was not until IPPNW declared its intentions to study the health and environmental effects of the nuclear arms race that medical expertise became really

755 A report of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Radioactive Heaven and Earth: The Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Testing In, On, and Above the Earth (New York: The Apex Press, 1991), ix; and A report of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the Nuclear Age (Cambridge: International Physicians Press, 1992), xii. 428 central to its work. It was also the beginning of the group's contribution to the anti- nuclear movement as a group of public health activists.

While IPPNW was not as quick to capitalize fully on Chernobyl, once it did begin seriously pursuing ways to expose the environmental and public health legacy of the nuclear weapons complex, the group built on PSR's earlier work and applied it to the international arena. There were initial tensions between PSR and IPPNW over IPPNW's decision to change tactics. PSR's President Christine Cassell sent an angry letter to

Lown after IPPNW's press conference announcing the International Commission, accusing him of trying to usurp PSR's power and authority. Her major grievance was that IPPNW had not informed PSR of its plans to establish an international commission prior to the press conference. Additionally, she claimed IPPNW had not given PSR the credit it deserved for its work in the U.S. She also expressed the desire that IPPNW focus its study of the health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons production in the Soviet Union, England, France, Israel, China, and India, places where physicians were not already organized around these issues. The responses by Bill Monning

(IPPNW's Executive Director) and Lown were equally scathing. Lown described

Cassel's letter as "factually inaccurate, emotionally intemperate[,]... [an] insulting missive." Similarly, Monning suggested IPPNW was not the problem, but rather that

FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 8, File: Commission - Correspondence, Letter from Christine Cassel to Bernard Lown, December 8, 1988. 757FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Collection, Box 8, Commission Correspondence, Letter from Bernard Lown to Christine Cassel, December 20, 1988. 429 there was a pervasive "mistrust and paranoia" within the PSR power structure. Both men positioned themselves as the rational participants in the exchange, venturing to

"correct the record" and provide Cassel with "an accurate account."759 The choice of words of these two IPPNW leaders is reminiscent of PSR's dismissal of Caldicott as too emotional. It is also another example to further underline the gendered power play that often surfaced between male and female physicians, who were part of a professional and organizational culture that favoured the masculine characteristics of detachment, rationality, and objectivity. The problem was that IPPNW had not informed PSR of the press conference until 24 hours prior, which was not enough notice for any collaboration between the two organizations for the event. Likewise, even though IPPNW had highlighted PSR's path-breaking work during the press conference, it was not reported on in any of the news stories covering the event. As Lown quite rightly pointed out - even if he was a little overly dramatic - what was at the root of the debate was the issue of

"money... [and] turf"760 Even though PSR was an affiliate of IPPNW, it had been established earlier, had a much broader base of financial support, and felt it should have been accorded more of a leadership role in an initiative that the group had really helped define from its inception. Nevertheless, the two groups worked out their differences and the International Commission continued with its work. Its publications, moreover,

758 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Collection, Box 8, Commission Correspondence, Letter from Bill Monning to Christine Cassel, December 8, 1988. 759 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Collection, Box 8, Commission Correspondence, Letter from Bernard Lown to Christine Cassel, December 20, 1988 and Letter from Bill Monning to Christine Cassel, December 8, 1988. 760 FCLMRBSC, IPPNW Collection, Box 8, Commission Correspondence, Letter from Bernard Lown to Christine Cassel, December 20, 1988. 430 assigned credit to PSR for blazing the trail for IPPNW and also for generously sharing resources from its own studies in the U.S.

Something else happened in 1989 to further embolden IPPNW in its public health and environmental activism. In 1990, the U.S. National Research Council's Fifth

Commission on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR V) made it fashionable to talk about previously controversial topics like the risk of cancer and genetic defects from low-level radiation exposures. Initial findings from BEIR V were first announced in late 1989. As I have shown, scientists like Bertell who talked about these risks in the 1970s and 1980s were dismissed as alarmists. BEIR V, which was initially announced in the American news media in late 1989, significantly revised the findings of BEIR III (1980), claiming that the risks of "getting cancer after being exposed to a low dose of radiation [wa]s three to four times higher" than the 1980 estimate.

The overall message of the report was that, while ordinary citizens need not be alarmed, there was no known safe level of radiation exposure. Experts who made this argument in court prior to 1990 were dismissed because it was accepted that extremely low levels of radiation posed little to no health risk. For these reasons, IPPNW opted out of the commercial nuclear power opposition when the group was established in 1981. The same is true of PSR. Yet, once the BEIR V report made this one-time "extreme view" become

761 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, BEIR V/Radiation 89-90. Eliot Marshall, "Academy Panel Raises Radiation Risk Estimate," Science. January 5, 1990, Vol. 247, 22-23. 762 See also, SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG175, Series 1, Box 11, Glenn/Alvarez Report. R. Jeffrey Smith, "Low- Level Radiation Causes More Deaths Than Assumed, Study Finds," The Washington Post, December 20, 1989, A3; and Philip J. Hilts, "Higher Cancer Risk Found in Radiation," New York Times, December 20, 1989. 431 "mainstream," it had an immediate impact on the work of the IPPNW Commission and shaped its study of nuclear weapons testing.763 In Radioactive Heaven and Earth, the

1991 Commission report, the authors boast that their most significant contribution to the study of weapons testing is their use of the 1990 BEIR report to recalculate "the number of cancer cases and deaths expected from global scattering of fallout."764 Similarly, PSR freely discussed the relationship between low and high level radiation exposures and cancer and genetic defects in its work to release the DOE worker health and safety data after 1989. Indeed, it is fair to say that PSR was comfortably immersed in these issues between 1989 and 1991, when the DOE released its "Memorandum of Understanding."

While these external and internal factors prepared IPPNW to embark on this next phase of activism, there was still an important element missing. Cassel identified it in her letter to Lown. In its initial press release, announcing the International Commission,

IPPNW declared its intentions to "STUDY the health effects of nuclear weapons production facilities." Cassel called this statement both "unbelievable and irresponsible."

She asked,

763 SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 11, BEIR V/Radiation 89-90. Eliot Marshall, "Academy Panel Raises Radiation Risk Estimate," Science, January 5, 1990, Vol. 247, 22-23. 764 A report of the IPPNW International Commission to Investigate the Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Production and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Radioactive Heaven and Earth, x. 765 See, for example, the fact sheets distributed by PSR in the early 1990s. SCPC, PSR Fonds, DG 175, Series 1, Box 16, PSR Fact Sheets, "A Fact Sheet on Radiation and Health," and "A Fact Sheet on Ionizing Radiation." In the first document, they incontrovertibly state, "Low levels of radiation exposure may also produce serious health effects, but these may not appear for years. Radiation exposure has been linked to higher incidence of leukemia, breast cancer, bone cancer, cancer of the thyroid and lung cancer, and to the possibility of genetic defects." There are no dates on these facts sheets, but based on the dates on the references used, they were published shortly after 1990. 432 Who are the people with IPPNW who are going to be able to conduct an epidemiologic study of that magnitude, and how will it be funded? This seems to me to be an outrageous claim which discredits the work of all of us. When PSR had its press conference in Washington a few weeks ago, we were very cautious to call for the appropriate medical organization in the United States (the CDC, IOM, AMA, APHA, NIOSH, etc.) to do this work and not to make flighty and unsubstantiated claims that we would do it ourselves.766

Cassel's criticisms reinforce my argument that relevant medical expertise was not

IPPNW's strength. This was the case when the group was working on the CTB and it remained so when it announced these new plans. Members of IPPNW to this point had come from a variety of medical backgrounds and even those with specialty in radiation health issues were not equipped to perform a scientific study of such magnitude. Rather, as physicians most IPPNW members were most comfortable treating health problems and had more general knowledge of radiation health issues.

The group did three things to remedy this shortcoming. First, it formed a partnership with scientists at the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

(IEER). Arjun Makhijani, who was IEER's president, had a PhD in engineering, with a specialty in nuclear fusion. The first publication of the Commission, Radioactive Heaven and Earth, was written almost exclusively by Makhijani767 and IEER acted as the chief

scientific consultant for the entire body of work produced by the Commission. Unlike

IPPNW, this small non-profit organization had extensive experience "assessing the environmental problems arising from nuclear weapons production" and actually

FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 8, File: Commission - Correspondence, Letter from Christine Cassel to Bernard Lown, December 8, 1988. 7 7 A report of the IPPNW International Commission to Investigate the Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Production and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Radioactive Heaven and Earth, xi. 433 performed "many analyses of plants in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex" prior to its work with IPPNW.768 This partnership gave IPPNW the critical edge it lacked, enabling the group to make a meaningful contribution to this new phase of anti-nuclear activism.

In addition, IPPNW replaced Dr. Anthony Robbins as Director of the Commission and hired Dr. Howard Hu in 1991. While both Robbins and Hu were physicians with masters degrees in public health, Hu had the additional qualification of a PhD in Epidemiology, with a focus on environmental epidemiology. This then, better equipped IPPNW to embark on an epidemiological assessment of the environmental and public health impact of nuclear weapons production. Likewise, the Commission's collaboration with a wide variety of experts, with specialties in epidemiology, biometrics, ecology, occupational and environmental medicine, and nuclear engineering for Nuclear Wastelands ensured that IPPNW put out a solid piece of work that achieved its mission to "describe" to the general public in "scientific" yet "accessible" terms the health and environmental price of the nuclear arms race.

The Unchartered Terrain of Non-Nuclear Environmental and Public Health Issues

By 1991, both PSR and IPPNW's work in the area of the environmental and public health consequences of the nuclear weapons complex had so firmly rooted the two in the environmental movement that they both considered branching out further to raise awareness about non-nuclear environmental and public health issues. This is

768Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu, and Katherine Yih, (eds.), Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and its Health and Environmental Consequences (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), xvii. 769 Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu, and Katherine Yih, (eds.), Nuclear Wastelands, 641-642. 434 symptomatic of how much more interested activists and policymakers were in wide- ranging global environmental security concerns after the Cold War ended. In 1992, the

UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held in Rio. The topics focused on by those in attendance were much broader than those related to nuclear weapons complexes worldwide. Indeed, on the agenda were topics such as global climate change, air pollution, ozone depletion, population control policies, sustainable development, development and environmental contamination in the Third World, resource concerns, water quality, and biodiversity. In order to remain relevant in the changing activist culture of the post-Cold War world, both PSR and IPPNW considered redefining themselves once again. This time, the groups were faced with the challenge of finding a place for themselves in a context where concerns about nuclear technology were quickly becoming an afterthought.

Ultimately, PSR was the organization to make the most strides in this area. In

1992, the group expanded its mission to include environmental health concerns, including both "global climate change and toxic pollution." Soon after this declaration, the organization further expanded its focus on environmental health. The group played an instrumental role in the passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act, producing reports on the relationship between poor drinking water and disease, the presence of arsenic in drinking water, and it wrote an expose called, Drinking Water Blues, which revealed that 14 million Americans relied on tap water that was contaminated with pesticides. The group also organized the campaign, Death By Degrees, aimed at exposing the health effects of

435 climate change in local communities around the U.S. and endorsing local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. PSR also participated in various efforts to ratify the

Kyoto Protocol. Other initiatives after 1992 included a national mercury campaign,

which resulted in the "FDA strengthening its fish consumption advisory for methylmercury and providing guidance for women and children," as well as writing reports about the relationship between "environmental pollutants and disease, including both Parkinson's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma."770 This new interest in

environment and health was not a passing fad for the organization: now, fifteen years

later, PSR has a comprehensive program in "Environment and Health," focused on a

wide range of non-nuclear environmental issues.771

Even though IPPNW was more cautious about diving head first into this area of uncharted terrain, it formed a "Working Group on the Environment" to consider

expanding its focus to these emergent environmental concerns. Indeed, in the

"Recommendations to the Executive Committee," drafted by Howard Hu and Katherine

Yih, both of whom played leadership roles in IPPNW s 1988 Commission, the authors

attempt to re-write IPPNWs history to justify this shift. The document begins: "It has been argued that physicians were the world's first environmentalists." They go on to

acknowledge that twentieth-century medicine's emphasis on diagnosis and cure has

"eclipsed the role of physician as environmentalist." IPPNW, however, is presented as an

770 Information taken from the PSR website, http://www.psr.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_accomplishments. 771 Information taken from the PSR website, http://www.psr.org/site/PageServer?pagename=enviro about. 436 exception to this rule. The authors state: "IPPNW itself grew from the realization that the largest and most immediate environmental hazard in the world was nuclear war and the preparations for it."772 IPPNW s 1988 Commission is not depicted as a significant turning point in the groups' activism, but rather as a logical extension of this earlier work.

There are two fallacies in the above quotation. First, as I have shown in my discussion of

PSR's first incarnation in 1961, the group was organized, not by its concern with environmental contamination, but by its desire for peace between the superpowers.

Second, it was not until 1988 that IPPNW began to consider the environmental implications of the nuclear weapons production process and began discussing its activism as environmental in its focus. Regardless, IPPNW seriously considered expanding its environmental interests to include virtually all of those represented in the Rio

Conference. These included global climate change, pesticides, the "health and environmental effects of non-nuclear military activities," the "health and environmental effects of international monetary and trade policies," safe energy, and the role of environmental degradation in causing war. In reality, IPPNW was not radically transformed by the growing environmental movement in the early 1990s. There are several reasons for this, but the most obvious is that the groups' name - International

Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - limited its ability to completely reinvent

772 FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 8, Commission on Health and Enviro, "IPPNW Working Group on the Environment: Recommendations to the Executive Committee," Drafted by Howard Hu and Katherine Yih, with the participation of the members of the WGE, September 26, 1992, 1-2. 773 FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 8, Commission on Health and Enviro, "IPPNW Working Group on the Environment: Recommendations to the Executive Committee," Drafted by Howard Hu and Katherine Yih, with the participation of the members of the WGE, September 26, 1992, 5-14. 437 itself. The name Physicians for Social Responsibility was not as binding. Additionally,

IPPNW was an international movement with the added challenge of finding common interests and concerns among a diverse group of physicians around the world. The solution, then, was to give individual affiliates - like PSR - freedom to pursue issues that were relevant to them, while limiting IPPNW s focus to its original mission of

"preventing] war and challenging] militarism."774 In 2007, it was clear that this earlier focus continued to guide the campaigns undertaken by the group: its main campaign was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, followed by an initiative to prevent small arms violence, and their Peace Through Health project, which, through a partnership with McMaster University, explored the ways that improved health in war- torn countries contributed to improving peaceful relations.775 While these latter two initiatives were not related to nuclear war, they at least fit within the framework of

IPPNW's longstanding concern with militarism and war.

774 FCLMRBSC, Bernard Lown Fonds, MC899, Box 8, Commission on Health and Enviro, "IPPNW Working Group on the Environment: Recommendations to the Executive Committee," Drafted by Howard Hu and Katherine Yih, with the participation of the members of the WGE, September 26, 1992, 2. 775Information taken from the website for IPPNW, http://www.ippnw.org/Programs/index.html. (accessed November 25, 2008). 438 439 Chapter 10: Conclusion

On December 11, 1989, Time Magazine reporter, Hugh Sidey, noted with irony the militarized presence of the United States and the Soviet Union at the Malta Peace

Summit. Both George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev were housed for the duration of the conference aboard guided missile cruisers, outfitted with high-tech radar systems and missile launchers. Sidey's description of Bush's journey to the Maltese coast nicely illustrates the extent of militarization on the U.S. side.

When Bush climbed aboard his jet for the odyssey, he was in the hands of the U.S. Air Force. The President's three Marine helicopters had been ferried in the belly of an Air Force transport and were waiting for him on the Malta ramps. From there the machines whirled him 50 miles to the aircraft carrier Forrestal, then settled him back feather-like on the fantail of the [U.S.S.] Belknap. Rubber-suited Marine divers bounced in dinghies along the tops of the rising waves, patrolling for any suspicious movement in the adjacent waters. A shabby little barge, old tires festooning its scuffed sides, turned out to be in the employ of the Navy, the keeper of the communication cable to the Belknap. That allowed Bush to monitor events in the Philippines, where U.S. force once again had to be committed to help stabilize a friend.

The purpose of the Malta Summit, which was held just a few short weeks after the Berlin

Wall was taken down in November 1989, was to discuss establishing a New World

Order, where peace reigned between the superpowers and the large nuclear arsenals of both nations were significantly reduced. Indeed, when people talk about a definitive end to the Cold War, they generally make reference to this meeting. By highlighting the hyper-military presence at these peace talks, Sidey underlined how embedded the Cold War mentality of military preparedness was in each national context and how difficult it would be for either nation to meaningfully embrace a de-militarized peace.

Sidey's article is instructive of why the end of the Cold War did not also signal an end to the nuclear age. While it is true that the U.S. nuclear stockpile has been considerably reduced since the Cold War ended, the U.S. government's commitment to nuclear preparedness remains strong. In 1987, there were approximately 24,000 nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile and by January 2008, it was reduced to 5,400. President

George W. Bush expressed his commitment to further reducing the stockpile 15% by the year 2012, which would leave 4,500 weapons in the nuclear arsenal. While this reduction is admirable, it is important to acknowledge the rationale behind maintaining the stockpile at these proposed levels. According to Donald Rumsfeld in 2004, "U.S. nuclear forces must be capable of, and be seen to be capable of, destroying those critical war- making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world." 77 This rhetoric closely resembles that of the Cold War, when deterrence policy dominated U.S. national security debates and dictated the accelerated production of nuclear weapons. Indeed, for the first time since 1992, when production was stopped amidst revelations about the Department of Energy's (DOE) shoddy environmental and

Hugh Sidey, "The Presidency," Time Magazine, December 11, 1989, found on the Time Magazine online archives, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,959337,00.html. (Accessed September 15,2008). 777 Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, "Nuclear Notebook: U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2008," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 64, 1 (March/April 2008), 50 (50-53, 58). 441 public health record, plans to begin producing new nuclear weapons at Los Alamos

National Laboratory (LANL) were announced in 2007.778

The difference between the Cold War nuclear age and the present rests in the fact that international relations are no longer dominated by the bipolar rivalry between the

U.S. and the Soviet Union. Rather, a much more diffuse group of nuclear nations are vying for power in the international arena, thus, making U.S. officials wary of reducing the stockpile too much. This list of countries includes the five nuclear nations who signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) in 1970 - the U.S. (1945), the

Soviet Union (1949), China (1964), the United Kingdom (1952), and France (I960).779 It also consists of North Korea, which first admitted to possessing nuclear weapons in 2003 and performed its first underground test in 2006. Likewise, Iraq, Iran, and Libya, all three of which have not confirmed the presence of nuclear weapons, but which have nuclear weapons development programs in various stages, also occupy a place on the list.

The same is true of India, Pakistan, and Israel, none of which signed the NNPT, but all of which have nuclear arsenals and are resistant to attempts at curbing their programs. The continued development of nuclear weapons arsenals in countries like North Korea, India,

Pakistan, Israel and others reveals the lasting significance of nuclear weaponry for nation-states that are seeking to increase their political and military influence globally.780

While the U.S.'s plans to resume nuclear weapons production are aimed at controlling the

778 Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, "Nuclear Notebook: U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2008," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 64, 1 (March/April 2008), 53 (50-53, 58). The year in brackets beside each country refers to the year when they first tested nuclear weapons. 780 Natural Resources Defence Council, "Nuclear Notebook: Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945-2006," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 62, 4 (July/August 2006): 64-67. 442 further nuclearization of these nations, it is responsible for instilling these values in the first place. Likewise, the resistance of many of these new nuclear nations to U.S. (and

United Nations) efforts to curb their nuclear programs is rooted in frustrations about the dominant role that the West has had in the international political context. The U.S.'s plan to produce new nuclear weapons has the potential to further exacerbate these tensions.

Nuclear weapons proliferation is not the only aspect of nuclear technology that continues to be relevant in the present context. Due to cost overruns, design flaws, and the continued opposition to commercial nuclear power expansion in the U.S., many

Americans declared the issue of commercial nuclear power dead (or dying) by the time of the Three Mile Island Unit II meltdown in 1979. Indeed, no new nuclear power plants have been ordered since 1978 and all of those that were ordered after 1973 were

•7Q 1 subsequently cancelled. Yet, almost immediately after the Cold War ended and discussions about climate change began dominating the international environmental, scientific, and foreign policy arenas, the viability of nuclear power became a central part of the debate over how carbon emissions could be reduced worldwide. Today, this debate continues to be hashed and rehashed and nations like Canada and the U.S. are investing heavily in the development of safer forms of nuclear power generation. Indeed, while President Barack Obama expressed his commitment to overhauling the Nuclear

Regulatory Commission's (NRC) poor record on public health and safety during his

781 Mark Holt and Carl E. Behrens, Congressional Research Service, "Nuclear Energy in the United States," taken from the website, Almanac of Policy Issues, Updated July 23, 2003, http://www.policyalmanac.org/environment/archive/nuclear_energy.shtml. (accessed September 15, 2008). 443 presidential campaign, he also clearly embraced the possibility of expanding American reliance on nuclear power as part of his national energy strategy.782 At the same time, nuclear power generating technology has been exported to nations around the world, in both developed and developing nations, where poor environmental, health and safety infrastructures predominate.

In an online roundtable discussion organized through the Bulletin of Atomic

Scientists in 2007, Peter A. Bradford aptly observed, "Climate change has replaced oil dependence as the bogeyman from which nuclear power can save us." Among those supporting the expansion of nuclear power technology in the early twenty-first century is

Patrick Moore, one of the early founders of Greenpeace. In a Washington Post article,

Moore reflects on his opposition to nuclear power during the 1970s, but declares, "Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change."

Environmentalists like Moore are concerned about the U.S.'s continued reliance on coal- fired electrical plants, which are responsible for a significant portion of the carbon dioxide releases in the environment that are one of the primary causes of global climate change. Bradford, on the other hand, asserts that people like Moore "are inviting us into a dangerous la-la land in which nuclear power will be oversubsidized and

782 See, for example, the following YouTube video clip, "Sen. Barack Obama on Nuclear Power from SentinelSource.com," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRxl2cVFTLw. (Accessed April 30, 2009). 783 Patrick Moore, "Going Nuclear: A Green Makes the Case," Washington Post, April 16, 2006, B01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html (accessed September 14, 2008). 444 underscrutinized while more promising and quicker responses to climate change are neglected."784 In this contemporary context, however, the lure of nuclear power is even greater than it was during the 1970s, when opponents of the technology advocated renewable/alternative energy production methods like solar, wind, and geothermal power generation. The massive investment in nuclear technology since World War II as well as the experience garnered from operating nuclear power plants over the last thirty years - as compared to the under-funded research and development of these renewable/alternative sources of power - makes nuclear power more appealing and practically viable than it ever was during the oil crisis in the 1970s.

Yet, those proponents of this current line of reasoning fail to acknowledge the very significant environmental problems caused by nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons production since World War II. While the hazards of radioactive waste have been well-known since the first nuclear weapons were produced in the 1940s, there is still slow progress in the way of safe long-term disposal of the nuclear waste that has been generated through the U.S. nuclear weapons program or the commercial nuclear power industry. According to the DOE website, as of April 2008, 56,000 metric tons of spent fuel from nuclear reactors had accumulated in the U.S. The agency projects that this number will increase to 119,000 metric tons by the year 2035. If plans to store spent fuel and high level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain go forward, there will only be room to

784 "Roundtables: Nuclear Energy and Climate Change," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, web edition, September 5, 2007, http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/roundtables/nuclear-power-and-climate-change. (Accessed September 15, 2008). 445 store 70,000 metric tons of this waste, which is not nearly enough space to deal with the waste that will be generated in the future. Furthermore, the DOE Environmental Impact

Statement for the Yucca Mountain project only bases its projections for future waste generation on nuclear reactors that are currently operating in the U.S. This does not account for those reactors that were closed for safety reasons or the construction of those newer/safer reactors that are intended to reduce the country's reliance on carbon emitting coal-fired power plants.785 Despite the fact that Congress finally approved plans to build the nuclear waste repository in Yucca Mountain in 2002 (after 15 years of debate), as of

September 30, 2008 the NRC licensing hearing had not yet begun and the controversy over the proposed site continues to rage on across the country, indicating that there will be intense public opposition to the project throughout the duration of the hearings.786

Likewise, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), which finally opened in 1999 after twenty years of study and debate over the location of a nuclear waste repository in the bedded salt formation located beneath Carlsbad, New Mexico, barely attends to the thousands of metric tons of waste that have accumulated since nuclear weapons production began during World War II. The site is only permitted to store transuranic wastes, which are low level wastes affixed to things such as clothing, tools, equipment, or

This information was found on the website for the U.S. Department of Energy, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/waste_explained/howmuch.shtml. (Accessed September 18, 2008). This also comes from the DOE website, http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/about_project/index.shtml. (Accessed September 18, 2008). 446 soils, and not any of thousands of metric tons of the high level plutonium waste that continues to await plans for long term storage at places like the Hanford Reservation.7 7

As the above examples reveal, we are still living in a nuclear age. The end of the

Cold War, while significant for altering the international political climate and slowing the arms race between the superpowers, was not successful in stemming this tide. Likewise, despite the ardent efforts of the public interest science organizations discussed throughout this dissertation, none of these groups, either individually, collectively, or as part of the much larger anti-nuclear movement, possessed the power to control, prevent, or limit the proliferation of nuclear technology. Yet, the work of Union of Concerned Scientists

(UCS), Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), International Physicians for the

Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and Rosalie Bertell - through the Ministry of

Concern for Public Health (MCPH), the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Research

(JCSFR), and the International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH) - was extremely important both within the context of the larger anti-nuclear movement and the history of the American nuclear age between 1969 and 1992. These experts were very often responsible for inspiring these massive groups of ordinary Americans to action to begin with. For instance, it was the scientists who were concerned about the public health and safety issues of commercial nuclear power during the late 1960s and early

1970s who spread awareness about these issues through the national news media and

"New Mexico Bars High-Level Waste from Carlsbad Salt Caverns," Environment News Service. November 4, 2004. The article was found on the following website for the Environment News Service, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2004/2004-l 1-04-03.asp; see also the WIPP website: http://www.wipp.energy.gov/index.htm (accessed September 18, 2008). 447 sparked a massive following of lay activists by 1973. The same is true of PSR, whose education campaign about the "Medical Consequences of Nuclear War" between 1980 and 1982 successfully inspired thousands and thousands of physicians and ordinary citizens to join the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Movement. Moreover, the broader movement of lay people who made up the anti-nuclear movement in the U.S. and around the world needed these expert activist groups. I have shown throughout this dissertation how all of these groups invoked science as a way to buttress the concerns and claims of the larger activist movement. Indeed, the possession of relevant expertise was a pre­ requisite if the anti-nuclear movement as a whole wanted its concerns to be heard by important members of government, particularly individuals working within the nuclear bureaucracies and within the court rooms where many of these anti-nuclear battles were waged around the world. Despite the fact that few battles were won by these expert activists, the persistence of these public interest science organizations in raising awareness about the public health, environmental, and national security threats of nuclear technology forced regulators to - at the very least - continue to grapple with these issues as they set out and refined nuclear policy between 1969 and 1992. Indeed, all of these groups continue to act in this capacity today.

Collectively, my analysis of these various expert-driven activist organizations offers a valuable illustration of the possibilities and limitations of scientific and biomedical expertise for addressing the myriad risks of nuclear technology between 1969 and 1992. These successes and failures were shaped not only by the unequal balance of power between these activist organizations, on the one hand, and the powerful agencies such as the Atomic Energy Commission, the NRC, the Department of Energy, and the

Office of the U.S. President, on the other. Rather, depending on the relationship of each group's expertise to the dominant discourse about nuclear science and technology within the federal government (and the public utilities, foreign policy community, legal system, and nation at large), the receptivity of the aforementioned actors to each group's message differed. My dissertation has argued that this was directly linked to a pre-existing hierarchy within the sciences, one that was reinforced using gender stereotypes to either valorize or dismiss the different scientific critiques of nuclear technology. The nuclear bureaucracy, the legal system, and the scientific community at large continued to value a more 'masculine' approach to science, characterized by the 'traditional' characteristics of rationality, detachment, and objectivity. But the definition of masculine science, particularly within the nuclear bureaucracy, was most closely aligned with physics and engineering because each of these specialties were central to the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology. UCS, a group of physicists and engineers who spoke the same technological language as members of the nuclear bureaucracy - both in terms of nuclear power and nuclear weapons technology, were most widely accepted by the proponents of nuclear technology. The fact that these experts were culled from prestigious educational institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and often spent significant portions of their careers either working in the nuclear bureaucracy or in an advisory capacity to the American government also served UCS well.

449 Neither Rosalie Bertell's nor PSR or IPPNW members' expertise shared as close a relationship to the intricate workings of nuclear technology or the kinds of expertise that were favoured by members of the nuclear bureaucracy. For example, all scientific concerns with low-level radiation exposure within the nuclear bureaucracy and the federal courts were feminized. This was partially due to the difficulty of proving a causal link between radiation exposure and diseases like cancer. It was also because epidemiology - and the various branches of scientific specialty that fell within the discipline, including biostatistics - was still fighting for recognition and the funding needed to turn the specialty into a big science. Likewise, regardless of whether or not there were health effects from low-level exposures (many of which were acknowledged - at least statistically - by various regulators), the American government was committed to expanding nuclear technology. This dissertation argues that concerns with low-level radiation exposure were also feminized because they forced the proponents of nuclear technology to stop discussing nuclear war or nuclear power plant melt-downs as an abstraction. Instead, experts like Bertell insisted these individuals and government departments confront the very real impact that nuclear technology had (and was having) on human health and the environment. The unwillingness to engage in this discussion on the part of the nuclear bureaucracy was expressed in terms that valorized expertise in physics and engineering, while dismissing expertise in epidemiology (and other related environmental health sciences). As a result, Bertell's scientific expertise was frequently challenged and her testimony was generally dismissed as overly-emotional, unscientific,

450 politically motivated, and too invested in the communities exposed to radiation. The fact that she performed her activism within very small non-profit organizations, where she was often the only scientific expert, and because she ceased to have any direct connection with the mainstream scientific research community, either through employment or serving on government advisory committees, was also used to dismiss her expertise in biostatistics. Likewise, her membership in a women's religious order throughout her activist career was frequently used to reinforce the portrayal of her as an irrational critic of nuclear technology.

With the exception of Helen Caldicott's early engagement in raising awareness about the negative health effects of low-level radiation exposure from commercial nuclear power at the end of the 1970s, the doctors' movement was not dismissed in the same ways as Bertell. The doctor's insulated themselves from these criticisms by abandoning the above issue by 1980 and focusing their activism exclusively on raising awareness about the medical consequences of nuclear war. This dissertation argues that the dismissal of Caldicott from her position of President within PSR was a further effort to insulate the group from these gendered criticisms of physician activists. Many high- ranking PSR physician members were self-conscious about Caldicott's firm alliance with the feminist peace movement during her tenure with PSR and wanted to disassociate the doctor's movement from this. Yet, despite the movement's efforts to firmly situate itself within the expert wing of the anti-nuclear movement, it never quite worked. Between

1980 and 1983, both PSR and IPPNW's educational campaigns were highly successful in

451 raising public awareness about the public health and medical consequences of nuclear war. But this work rarely brought the group in direct confrontation with the scientific and technological professionals working within the nuclear bureaucracy, who were uninterested in participating in a dialogue about the human devastation caused by nuclear war. Likewise, few of PSR and IPPNW's findings were hotly disputed by the nuclear bureaucracy, which was well-aware of the immediate medical consequences of the nuclear attack on Japan during World War II. In other words, the biomedical expertise of these professionals was effective for mobilizing the public, but not as effective at challenging the proponents of nuclear technology in the U.S. and the Soviet Union. As a result, the doctors were faced with the challenge of more effectively engaging these governments in a productive dialogue about the need to end the arms race. The role they carved for themselves in the anti-nuclear movement after 1983 relied much less on biomedical expertise and more on the professional prestige of physicians, which was used as capital by both PSR and IPPNW in their quest to directly engage with these world leaders. Even after the groups became focused on the immediate public health and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons production in the aftermath of

Chernobyl and the Cold War, the groups relied heavily on coalition building with public interest science organizations that had directly relevant scientific expertise. Likewise, both groups eventually hired professionals with PhDs in epidemiology and nuclear

engineering, who were better equipped to productively engage in a dialogue with members of the nuclear bureaucracy about these issues.

452 From her position as a scientific outsider, Bertell eventually developed her own unique understanding of nuclear risks, as compared to UCS, PSR, and IPPNW, and it

directly shaped her approach to activism. This dissertation has found that Ulrich Beck's

observations on the risk society are extremely useful for describing the understanding of

nuclear risks that informed the early work of each of the groups under study here. Rather

than focusing on the unique risks to various racial or class groups, UCS, PSR, IPPNW,

and Bertell focused broadly on the risks of nuclear technology to the whole population,

thus, invoking a populist definition of risk. Yet, the understanding of risk within UCS,

PSR, and IPPNW, on the one hand, and within Bertell's organizations, on the other,

diverged over time. The first three groups continued to invoke a populist definition of

risk throughout the period studied in this dissertation, while Bertell became increasingly

concerned about the very undemocratic ways that nuclear risks were distributed among

racial minorities and Indigenous populations around the world.78 There are several

factors that explain the development of this variance. UCS, PSR, and IPPNW started out

There is a diverse and growing literature that explores how risks are unequally concentrated in communities that are populated by racial minorities and the poor. See, David Naguib Pellow, Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004), David Naguib Pellows, Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), Barbara L. Allen, Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003), Steve Lerner, Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), Jason Corburn, Street Science: Community Knowledge and Environmental Health Justice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), David Naguib Pellow and Robert J. Brulle, eds., Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), Ronald Sandler and Phaedra C. Pezzullo, eds., Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), Julie Sze, Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006), Robert D. Bullard, ed., Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), and Valerie L. Kuletz, The Tainted Desert: Environmental and Social Ruin in the American West (Routledge: New York, 1998). 453 relatively small, but quickly achieved their goals of establishing large-scale national and, in the case of IPPNW, international non-profit activist organizations with a large support base and high profile national and international media and activist portfolios. In order to achieve this widespread appeal, it was necessary for each of these groups to maintain support from within their wider professional communities. To some degree, it was also necessary for these groups to court the American government, media, and public, particularly when they became focused on political lobbying. As a result, UCS, PSR, and

IPPNW stuck with activism that had the most potential to appeal to a national or international audience, never developing a sustained connection with the individuals and communities for whom nuclear technology posed the most immediate threat. In contrast,

Bertell's organizations never aspired to or achieved such wide exposure or influence and, with only a very small staff, she spearheaded virtually every initiative tackled by her various non-profit activist organizations. Likewise, her membership in a women's religious order offered an alternative network of support and empowered her when she disavowed all formal connections with the scientific research community in 1978. As a result, she was free to define her activism as she pleased and she made a point of always working directly with communities at risk. Indeed, Bertell's engagement in anti-nuclear activism was informed by the specific health concerns of the people and communities who solicited her expert assistance. It was this grassroots approach to anti-nuclear activism that made her aware of how social, political, economic, and racial inequality directly shaped the way nuclear risks were distributed both within and outside the U.S.

454 Through the examples of Caldicott and Bertell, this dissertation also reveals that feminism had a place in this wing of the anti-nuclear movement, but that it was extremely difficult to carve out a permanent foothold for it. I have already alluded to this in my reference to PSR's dismissal of Helen Caldicott from the doctor's movement. Caldicott successfully balanced her work with Woman's Action for Nuclear Disarmament

(WAND) and PSR between 1979 and 1983, but as PSR grew, the organization was less willing to accommodate this balance, which many PSR and IPPNW members felt conflicted with the image the doctor's movement should be projecting. The interlacing of feminist and maternal rhetoric, on the one hand, and professional expertise, on the other, in the speeches of Caldicott and Bertell shared several similarities. But only within

Bertell's very small non-profit organizations was it possible to carve out a sustainable space for a feminist approach to expert activism. Indeed, this is one of the main factors that set Bertell's activism apart from the work performed from within UCS, PSR, and

IPPNW. By the 1980s she developed a feminist critique of science, militarism, and the exploitation of nuclear technology in general. Likewise, from within these small non­ profit organizations she created her own kind of feminist anti-colonial approach to studying the health effects of low-level radiation exposure. Central to her radical critique of science was her insistence that scientific understandings of the health effects of the nuclearism needed to be located in the specific concerns of the individuals and communities who were most directly affected by it. To this end, Bertell used her scientific expertise and research to directly empower communities and individuals to

455 wage these public health battles in the political and legal sphere, whereas PSR, IPPNW, and UCS relied on both their scientific/biomedical expertise and professional prestige to nurture a direct relationship with important political leaders and high ranking members within the nuclear bureaucracy. This dissertation reveals how the desire to protect the credibility of members of UCS, PSR, and IPPNW both assured the groups a place at the top of the hierarchy in the anti-nuclear movement and insulated them from negative portrayals of their activism. The by-product of this adherence to conventions of professional practice and identity was that little room was allowed for a radical or feminist critique of nuclear technology to emerge.

Finally, this dissertation reinforces how important historical context is for understanding the work of UCS, PSR, IPPNW, and all of Rosalie Bertell's organizational affiliations in the anti-nuclear movement. Indeed, this was something I illustrated throughout the dissertation by breaking it up into three distinct sections and mapping historical shifts and continuity between each of the periods examined therein. In order to remain relevant in the constantly shifting American and international political context during and after the Cold War, each of these groups was responsive to these shifts and reframed the focus of their activism accordingly. While the particularities of scientific and biomedical expertise necessarily determined and sometimes constrained the kinds of issues each group engaged in, it would have been impossible for any of them to remain relevant had they ignored important things like the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979,

456 the election of Ronald Reagan and the escalation of the arms race during the 1980s, the

Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986, or the end of Cold War in 1989.

457 BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES

UNPUBLISHED ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS

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Physicians for Social Responsibility Fonds. Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC), Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

Rosalie Bertell Fonds. Library and Archives of Canada (LAC), Ottawa, Ontario.

Union of Concerned Scientists Fonds. MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections (MITIASC), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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