I’ve mentioned that a person who was a senior DOE official provided comments about the book after reading it on line at this web site. I’ll first mention for people who don’t like to read on a computer screen that the book is now available in paperback and can be ordered from both Amazon.com and CreateSpace.com. The book continues to be free at the book link on this web site.

The comments began with the sentence, “The mid to late 1980’s were a perfect storm of national and international events that affected the future of Rocky Flats.” The events mentioned included funding of the international anti-nuclear movement by the Soviet Union, major international accidents, DOE’s loss of a lawsuit on regulation of wastes, and a Congressional act that had a major impact on operation of DOE facilities. I’ll discuss the first three here.

The book, “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats” discusses the declining reputation of Rocky Flats over time. There are several reviews about Soviet Espionage against the United States (Venona, Witness, Perjury, and Out of Bondage) in that link on this web site. However, I hadn’t considered the possibility of Soviet involvement in anti-nuclearprotests. A Wikipedia article, “Soviet influence on the peace movement,” discusses how the Soviets supported organizations such as the World Peace Council. That group received millions in funding from the Soviets, organized peace conferences, and refrained from criticizing the Soviets. There was a Congressional report in 1980 that listed six peace groups that received Soviet funding and were “closely connected” with the World Peace Council. I don’t doubt the anti-nuclear protests had a negative impact on the public’s perception of places such as Rocky Flats, because that was the intent of the protestors. I do doubt that most of the people participating in those protests knew or thought what they were doing was encouraged or was even funded by the Soviets. (I intend to do addtional research on this subject, and have requested references listed in the Wikipedia article.)

The commenter also provided an insightful analysis of how nuclear and industrial accidents affected the public’s acceptance of risk. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl strengthened the anti- nuclear movement. The Challenger explosion startled the nation, and the leak of a toxic gas in Bhopal, India that killed thousands was an international scandal. “When it became clear that the causes of these accidents had similar causes to the allegations that had been made about Rocky Flats, the public’s view toward Rocky Flats further hardened.”

I don’t intend to spend much time on the issue of DOE losing lawsuits in which they contended they weren’t required to comply with hazardous waste laws, since I gave that quite a bit of attention in the book. I’m working on writing a posting about how Congressional action created immense “unintended consequences” for DOE facilities.