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Continued from page 1
viet oad arising from a supposed
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7
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4 News

Analysis ||
|, ——$—

Fred Weir

U.S., UK reactors
highest in 30-year
record of accidents

Official announcement that there had been
an accident was not made for two days
following the accident and the full details of
the disaster were kept secret for 25 years.

@ Oct. 5, 1966 — Loss of coolant in the
Enrico Fermi experimental breeder reactor
near Detroit, Michigan, caused a partial
melt-down and some venting of radioactive
materials. The crisis lasted a full four weeks,
during which the fate of half the state of
Michigan hung in the balance. And it was
kept secret from the public throughout that
time. All of this has been fully documented
in John G. Fuller’s aptly-titled book, We
Almost Lost Detroit (New York, 1975).

@ March 22, 1975 — At the world’s
largest nuclear plant, Brown’s Ferry in Ala-
bama, a repairman testing for air leaks with ,
a candle started a serious fire during which
several different independent safety systems
malfunctioned simultaneously. Although
the incident ended without injury, the cool-
ant of one of the reactors was on the point
of boiling off, which would have led to a
core meltdown and massive release of
radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

@ March 28, 1979 — Achain of human
errors and equipment failure led to substan-
tial meltdown and venting of radioactive
materials from the Three Mile Island
nuclear plant outside Harrisburg, Pennsyl-
vania. For the first two days of the disaster,
the authorities publicly insisted that only
“controlled” radioactive emissions had
taken place. Only on the third day did they

admit that partial meltdown and “uncon-
trolled” contamination had taken place.

The purpose of reviewing this history is
not to trade scandal for scandal, nor to
detract from the importance of last week’s
accident at Chernobyl.

However, if we allow ourselves to make
the mistake of viewing this latest nuclear
tragedy through a veil of smug anti-

_ Sovietism and technological arrogance,

then the folly will be all ours.

This accident could as easily have struck
at Pickering, on the shores of Lake Ontario,
where eight large heavy-water reactors burn
just ten minutes upwind of Toronto’s city
centre. It could have occurred at any of the
100 nuclear reactors that dot the U.S. lands-
cape. Approximately half the population of
North America lives within 150 kilometres
of one.

As the Soviets bring Chernobyl under
control, and launch an inquiry into the
accident, it behooves us to demand that our
government also place the nuclear power
industry in this country under new scrutiny.
In particular, the Canadian government
should re-examine its policy of peddling
CANDU reactors in the Third World, and
also its plans for building new nuclear
power plants primarily for producing
exportable power.

We should also redouble our efforts to
prevent the ultimate nuclear disaster —
World War Three.

CP hits media reports
on Chernobyl incident

In an interview April 29, William
Kashtan, leader of the Communist Party
of Canada, expressed sympathy to the
Soviet Union over the nuclear accident at
Chernobyl,.in the Ukrainian Republic.

But at the same time, he was critical of
the Canadian media for the way it has
“used” the incident to slander the USSR.

“We have no knowledge yet of the
actual events which took place in Cher-
nobyl regarding a fire in a nuclear power
plant and its consequences,” he said, the
day after the news appeared in headlines
across Canada.

“In the coverage of that event the pro-
U.S. media has acted in an irresponsible
manner,” he charged. “Rather than bas-
ing itself on fact, it has based itself on
fancy, creating false rumors and then
developing them. They act like ghouls,
not civilized people.

“What is the aim of this exercise?” he
questioned.

“One would have thought that in the
tragic and difficult circumstances arising
from the incident, the media would have
expressed concern and sympathy with
the Soviet Union and its people. They did
this in the case of the Challenger tragedy.
They did this when other incidents of a
like kind occurred. Why the difference in
attitude, why the uncivilized behavior of
some of the media and the interests they
reflect? One cannot but get the impres-
sion that they gloat over the event, try to
prove Western superiority in technology
while closing their eyes to many of the
incidents that have occurred in the West-
ern world over many, many years.

“We are sure the Soviet Union is
doing everything possible to overcome
the situation which has developed,”
Kashtan said, and added:

“We are sure we express the views of
countless numbers of Canadians, in
expressing sympathy to the Soviet Union
and to its people arising from the acci-
dent in Chernobyl. We are equally sure
they will draw all the lessons which can
be drawn to prevent similar occurren-
ces.”

At the same time he made a strong
connection between the danger of

nuclear accidents in general, and the even
more dangerous possibility of accidents
with nuclear weapons.

“Why did the pro-U.S. media not add
its voice to.that of the peace movement
with the demand that the U.S. adminis-
tration end nuclear testing, a proposal
advanced by the Soviet Union and uni-
laterally acted on by it for almost a year.
An end to nuclear testing would put a
stop to nuclear armament and its danger.

“Why,” he questioned, “did the pro-
U.S. media not add its voice...in the
demand on the U.S. administration not
to go ahead with Star Wars?. Here too,
accident or design could trigger the end
of the world.,”

Kashtan noted that the claim is being
made “that the events in Chernobyl arise
from inadequate safeguards, that heavy
water gives more assurances that gra-
phite. But now it is reported that a heavy
water processing plant in India, has had
a serious accident.”

It is admitted, he said, “there are no

sure-fire guarantees of complete safety in

the use of nuclear power plants. But
there is even less safety in a continuing
nuclear arms race which reaches the
heavens.

“Nuclear testing by the U.S. must

end,” Kashtan said. ‘“‘Nuclear weapons
and chemical weapons must be elimi-
nated as has been proposed by the Soviet
Union. Star Wars must be replaced by
the peaceful use of space.”

Measures must be taken as well, he
said, “to ensure maximum guarantees in
the use of nuclear power for peaceful
purposes.”

Directing his words to those media
who are ever ready to defend the Reagan
line against the Soviet Union, Kashtan
said that if such measures “are not taken
it means that the noise being made by the
media raises not from concern for
humanity but is rather directed to serve
Cold War purposes.

“The peace movements,” Kashtan
concluded, “should give consideration to
the above as should environmentalists,
indeed all Canadians. Nuclear power sta-
tions could be closed down but the threat
of nuclear war would remain.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 7, 1986 ¢ 7