CANDID was formed by nuclear scientists and engineers frustrated by the flood of anti-Rocky Flats Plant rhetoric being spread by the ill-informed mainstream media and anti-nuclear groups following the highly publicized FBI raid in June 1989. The federal search warrant that authorized the raid quickly made it into news reports and articles that popularized allegations of midnight burning of plutonium contaminated wastes and illegal discharges of toxic wastes. Of course none of the allegations were found to be true, and none of them were mentioned in the guilty plea “bargain” the government forced on Rockwell to save the reputations of those who organized the raid. (A full discussion is available in my book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats, Urban Myths Debunked.) CANDID tried to balance the inaccuracies with fact-based articles and analysis.

The raid and allegations did succeed at poisoning the reputation of the plant and the people who worked there producing nuclear weapons components, including plutonium triggers. The people who protested the mission of the plant were encouraged to increase their rhetoric, and the news media fed it all to the readers and watchers. CANDID was established in the early 1990s in this atmosphere, and began publishing newsletters to present technical responses to refute some of the disinformation. This posting will discuss the purpose of CANDID from an article titled “Whether/Whiter CANDID?” published as Volume 2/Issue 10 in July 1992. There will be future postings based on many other articles that continue to have relevance today. There is consideration to making a link to the body of work by CANDID. The following are quotes from the CANDID article.

“Let’s revisit the original purpose of CANDID. As Citizens Against Nuclear Disinformation in Denver, we have attempted to correct some of the disinformation about Rocky Flats and its mission, as well as to bring scientific fact to bear on a lot of unscientific fiction. Our purpose has been to try to get the public, the politicians, and anti-nuclear/defense groups to approach technical issues with as little emotion as possible and to apply the scientific method to these technical problems. This has been extremely difficult, given the highly emotional issues of the morality of nuclear deterrence, the diversion of federal funds from other needs to the military/industrial complex, etc. Some folks have simplistically assumed that if they are ‘for’ peace, then anyone who disagrees with them is ‘for’ war, or at least greedy enough to take the chance of having a war for money…”

“But presumably these arguments are behind us. Now that the mission of Rocky Flats has changed from production of plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons to cleaning up the plant, the weapons issue has been eliminated…The planning process and actual cleanup in some areas has begun.”

“So what need is there for CANDID? This is easily answered. The technical issues still remain. The residue and backlog and waste backlog still remains. These materials must be processed at Rocky Flats or shipped elsewhere for processing. Every option is encumbered with seemingly insurmountable problems. People don’t want the material stored or processed at Rocky Flats, but don’t want it shipped on the highways or by railroad to any other site either…”

“All of which brings me to my main concern. The weapons issue is gone, but the environmental issues remain. The same mind-set exists with some environmental activists as with peace activists; if you’re not for their environmental package, you are against the environment…Making it impossible for RFP to operate has been the intent in the past during the Cold War years…with some of the ‘green movement’ devotees. As Petra Kelly of the German green movement put it, ‘Our objective is to make the Western democracies ungovernable.’ Hopefully, that is no longer the desire of any of the greens…we should be working towards the same end…But we are far apart on the means to accomplish this goal.”

“The bottom line is that we have a formidable task ahead of us…We all presumably have the same goal now, that of environmental remediation and economic conversion of the plant site. We are not going to have infinite resources to accomplish our goal. Let’s hope we can work together. Otherwise, we are going to spend all our resources on litigation and paper work, and the benefit to the environment–and mission transition at Rocky Flats–will only receive pocket change.”

“The greatest obstacle to progress is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.” (Historian Daniel Boorstein)