C.C. reader
For years I have simply explained to people that the Penn. State
capus where I teach was located just outside of Harrisburg - not even
bothering to mention Middletown. From now on Middletown will
suffice. And for the sake of all of us, I wish this quiet and friendly
town could have retained its anonymity.
The events at Three Mile island have affected people in this
community in ways that will take months, if not years, to
comprehend. The crisis has left an invisible wound. No one can say
with any certainty precisely what happened; why the accident
occurred; or the actual seriousness of it. How was the hydrogen
bubble created? Why did it disappear? How close were we to
meltdown? What would a meltdown have involved? Who was
harmed? How serious was the “radiological insult,” as some papers
described it, that the area received?
But the real mysteries are emotional and psychological. As the
debate rages and consumer advocates, the people of the surrounding
area who were, in fact, the real victims of this accident remain in a
state of psychological limbo. Such a state cannot be sustained for
too long without taking a considerable toll. People are no
accustomed to receiving a shock to their system and not knowing
what the effects, if any, will be for 20 to 30 years.
In the absence of any tangible evidence that damage was done,
numerous human reactions stand out. Perhaps the strongest
impulse of people is to deny the worst, to insist that life go on as
before, and to hope that soon all will be forgotten. A church ad that
appeared in the Harrisburg papers soon after the accident
proclaimed, “Nuclear power is part of the creation of the universe. It
was meant to be discovered.” A poll taken by a local sociology
professor immediately after the event showed that an overwhelming
number of residents near Three Mile Island supported re-opening the
plant.
A second impulse is to lash out immediately at those who are
viewed as responsible for this intrusion into their lives - namely
Metropolitan Edison and the nuclear industry in general. This may
represent a minority viewpoint but it is spoken by a determined and
vocal number of people. These are the people who go to community
meetings and staff campaigns. For them the nuclear power question
has assumed an importance almost equal to that once held by the
Vietnam War. They may well require that all candidates for public
office insist that TMI remain closed and that Pennsylvania place a
moratorium on additional nuclear power plants.
A third reaction is to turn what may have been an incomprehen
sible tragedy into an opportunity, as groups of social science
researchers crawl all over the countryside bombarding the populace
with questionnaires - sensing a field day for survey research. While
indeed there is some legitimate research to be done here by social
scientists, one wonders about those who are more anxious to be the
coroners of this community rather than its conscience.
And then there is the usual gallows humor. A flyer circulating in
Middletown advertises, “a recreational property - unique pricate
island on the Susquehanna complete with radiant hear (free of
charge) and total electric living (includes own electrical generators
one operable, the other needs work).” The song “You Light Up My
Life” has become a hit all over again.
But most of the talk here is serious. There is the inevitable
conversation as to “what precisely did you do” during the crisis -
meaning did you leave or stay. Those who stayed take a sort of
macho satisfaction in their capacity to look adversity in the eye and
not flinch. These people are slightly contemptuous toward those
who left for safe ground - wherever that uncertain place could be
found. In some cases their contempt is justified. This is particularly
true in the case of those doctors whose services could have been
needed and who were nowhere to be seen for many days after the
nervous hours of Friday,March3oth. But with the exception of those
who could have been of assistance in the event of an emergency
evacuation (civil defense people, doctors, national guardsmen), one
must wonder just how does one make an heroic and defiant stand
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against that unseen enemy - radiation. In fact for those with young
children in their care, staying around while radioactive gases were
being vented carelessly and without notice from the reactor seemed
belligerent and irresponsible. One cannot fight a war With children at
one’s side.
The people of South Central Pennsylvania are among the most
layal, hard-working and law abiding people in the country. This is
middle America on the East Coast. Any government or any industry
that loses their trust is in deep trouble. They are not comfortable
being dissenters or, for that matter, being at the center of attention.
The effects of Three Mile Island will not register on these people in
any immediate or dramatic way. But register on them it will. They
want to believe the best about those who hold positions of
responsibility. Their trust is not forfeited lightly. But once forfeited,
it is not likely to be won back easily, if at all. Harrisburg has not, as
Mary McGory put it soon after the accident, gone into “a cold shut
down of the spirit.” It simply takes a while for such people that live
here to comprehend that anyone could be so careless with their land,
their lives and their children, as the people responsible for Three Mile
Island apparently were. When the full dimensions of this affair
become unraveled (an the Nuclear Regulatory Commission tran
scripts already speak volumes), the depth of the people’s anger and
resentment will become clear.
In spite of Hiroshima and continual stockpiling of nuclear
weapons around the world, the “nuclear age” was to symbolize the
promise of modern science, la the hopeful Eisenhower years there
was much tlk about “the peaceful atom.” It was difficult to imagine
such an imposing technology not bringing immense benefit to
mankind. Yet during the ThreeMilesland crisis, Bernard F. Erlanger,
professor of Microbiology at Columbia University could write in a
letter to the New York Times, “Now I am afraid that aside from the
use of isotopes in science and medicine, the development of atomic
energy must be regarded as an event totally without socially
redeeming value.” Such a view of a technology without “socially
redeeming value,” particularly of one so loudly proclaimed, does not
fall comfortably on American ears. We, of the post World War II
generation, may be suspicious of how certain technologies are
developed but find it hard to fathom that any technology can
inherently dangerous. But, it may well be that in nuclear power man
has uncovered a technology the dangers of which far outstrip his
capacity for restraint.
Politically and economically nuclear power has brought together
powerful elements of industry and government to shroud this
science with an unparalleled secrecy, bordering on mysticism.
Nuclear power is indeed an issue from the marriage of big
government and big business - a creature of state capitalism. Like
the political and economic system that produced it, it is both
awesome and alienating. Once nuclear power was symbolic of our
potency and was practically synonymous with American supremacy.
To oppose it may require a painful re-examination of a myth which
has in the past decade already been painfully re-examined. Nuclear
power is perhaps more deeply ingrained in our national psyche than
we realize. The debate on its future will not be easy.
In places like Middletown and Harrisburg the debate already is
underway. As the people of South Central Pennsylvania rushed out
from under the specter of Three Mile Island onMarch3oth and 31st,
surely many must have thought how peculiar and alienating it is to be
a refugee in your own land. For 30 years Americans thought that if
they were ever forced to seek refuge from the atom, it would be
because of the Russians. But here we were running from ourselves
and Walt Kelley’s admonition that, “W,e have met the enemy and it is
us,” never seemed closer to the truth.
Robert J. Bresler is an Associate Professor of Political Science at
Pennsylvania State University, Capitol Campus, Middletown, PA.
E flpßi carrot oripus."
-by robert j. bresler
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