Editorials
Contents Volume CXIII, Number 10 commonweal Correspondence 290 Editorials ...
...The conclusion must be faced: the daily reports on radiation levels at Chernobyl, and to go to final cost of nuclear power may be seemingly endless invest- Vienna "as soon as possible" for a "post-accident analysis...
...How can anyone possibly trust the they will be forced to make concessions in other vital areas to Soviets...
...and that they favor political checks and balances NRC to become an agency geared to the safety of the citizenry...
...But little noted but potentially very important aspect of the con- one would have expected a little more hesitancy about hewing troversy surrounding the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act...
...And yet Canada is in fact the United States' What gives us more pause is why conservatives didn't mull biggest trading partner, and as such is taken so much for this one over a bit more, rather than reacting to the federal granted that a recent U.S...
...Yearly subscriptions, Thank our atoms, most nuclear reactors will probably not explode...
...effects of a closed totalitarian regime...
...They didn't warn anyone about the fallout, not their recoup their devastating loss of face...
...that they look with suggested a number of worthwhile improvements in this re- sympathy on institutions which have grown up piecemeal over gard for the U.S., many of which are intended to motivate the a long time...
...To con- The second necessary effect of Chernobyl must be for struct, maintain, and finally dismantle such plants is neither greater candor in these matters from the Soviet government, cheap nor without danger...
...before, however, is that we indeed inhabit a global village...
...Reagan administration eagerly anticipated what Christopher Why then should the question of free trade be raised now...
...So do we really want to turn these FREE TRADE has long been a controversial topic in Canapowers lock, stock, and barrel over to the presidency...
...Meditations on the Tarot: The anguish that has descended on the Ukraine, and Chernobyl in particular, Theophane Boyd 309 since the midnight explosion at the nuclear power station on April 26 is likely to Religious Booknotes: Mary Gerhart 310 remain for years...
...The Union of Concerned Scientists has' who fear the centralization of state power...
...Although these cannot It was a Ukrainian official, assisting in the relocation of the be minimized, they alone do not account for the human condi- 84,000, who voiced it, one Ivan Plyushch of Kopelovo: "If tion's unwillingness to expose its mistakes gracefully...
...reactors - such as Sweden's process-inherent ultimately-safe There is an equally persistent but, alas, much cruder rumor reactor, which uses a boron-in-water solution to immerse a that conservatives have no principled position about power at Commonweal: 292 all, but simply like it concentrated or dispersed depending on tive...
...What are the bonds of human community in the atomic David Toolan 316 age...
...10016...
...removed by Congress...
...If the modem world's soil and the water for tens of thousands of years...
...But, given that the school lunch promeans the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Ex- gram is in jeopardy and illiteracy grows alarmingly among change Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and a some groups more than others, isn't the real issue: how to dozen others...
...school districts should call Pizza Hut on behalf of students who Now these agencies are hardly new: the Interstate Com- complete their reading homework and ask pointedly: "Do you merce Commission was established in 1887...
...The court's argument was that the law re- Funny, how in a pinch Edmund Burke always seems to give quired the comptroller general to perform an executive func- way to Adam Smith - or even to Napoleon Bonaparte...
...The USSR has belatedly agreed to Mile Island and Chernobyl, the possibility of operational error supply the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency with or design failure is real...
...They have grown deliver...
...But following month...
...And this did not even not disclosed until radioactivity was detected six weeks later in include mention of the cancer complications his people and a nearby bay...
...The Soviet Union and forty-two other countries met The release of scientific information from Chernobyl has in Geneva to establish guidelines on liability for nuclearbeen infuriatingly slow and incomplete...
...Outside the human tragedy that has enveloped the victims of Chernobyl, that Staff makes sleep uneasy in Kiev, Poland, and the Northern Hemisphere, two questions Editor: Peter Steinfels are likely to have the most intense half-lives for Americans...
...Like us, they move intrepidly toward retirement...
...They could appeal, of course, to pure democratic prinwhatever most serves business interests...
...There is something of the Waldheim syn- perhaps we have a presentment in Rabbi Nahum, and in a drome at work in all of us...
...Who controls the "power," and do they really "control" it...
...This is even less encouraging when one is reminded that the Ukrainian Power Patricia Mazzola Minister, Vitali Sklyarov, boasted in Soviet Life last February that "the odds of a Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin meltdown [at Chernobyl] are one in ten thousand years...
...New York, N.Y...
...public health from radiation that accumulates during nuclear plant operations, 23 May 1986: 291 retired reactors must be cleaned up, dismantled, and buried, all nuclear reactor and shut it off automatically if there is a in such a way as to keep their wastes from contaminating the malfunction - are now available...
...Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) estimates Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr...
...ment and eternal vigilance...
...That signments in 1985-86...
...in the next twenty Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, years...
...Rabbi Nahum replied that what Rachel effects with A Perfect Spy: Barbara A Bannon 308 her joy, Leah effects with her tears...
...president referred to Japan in that court decision with glee...
...and the installation of seismic devices for verification of a What the Chernobyl disaster has made clearer than ever testing agreement (New York Times, May 9...
...reactors are of differing and supposedly safer designs than Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, the Chernobyl plant, the U.S...
...It has produced a political sians cannot stonewall a united world opinion...
...Special wear out...
...But, since nuclear reactors only came on line thirty years Send address changes to Commonweal, 232 Madi- ago, no country has adequately prepared for this decommissioning...
...Either these agencies would have to give up most motivate those children who need both the pizza and the of their current functions and power, or the president would incentive to read...
...THE MISSING BURKE First, nuclear safety would be enhanced across the board and There is a persistent rumor that conservatives are people around the world...
...And, will we ever be able to trust the Soviets...
...And when a fourth NASA rocket failed over countless others may learn of in ten to forty years...
...The world must know exactly what happened at Chernobyl...
...a Japanese stereo...
...And teachers in low-income officials at his pleasure...
...Anne Robertson country in the world (98 of a total of 375), and twice as many as the Soviet Union's Poetry: Rosemary Deen Movies: Tom O'Brien 50...
...Perhaps next year, Pizza Hut could hold the have to be given the right to appoint or dismiss their top buttons and add pepperoni...
...Don't wastes in the U.S...
...even when (or especially when) these might inhibit the imThe Economist recently noted that simpler and safer nuclear pulses of more direct democracy...
...As we have learned from Three and from all governments...
...Critics in and out of government have accused the agencies of serving their own bureaucratic interests or, in many cases, the interests of the industries FORGOTTEN PARTNER they were meant to regulate...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must, be paid in U.S...
...Yet even with Canada's British connection, Federal Reserve Board, for instance, run concurrently with trade with the United States has been more important than that of the president, so that a new administration could pursue trade with the mother country...
...tell them that in Hershey, Pennsylvania...
...The Soviet handling of the Chernobyl meltdown forms the There is some reason to believe eventually it will...
...And the hope is windfall for the West...
...the day after inauguration and promptly firing Mexico and lettuce from California, wears shoes from the heads of the SEC, the FRB, the FCC, the NLRB, the FTC, Rumania, a shirt from Indonesia, and relaxes with music from the FEC, etc., etc...
...tion when that official was not part of the executive branch, i.e., cannot be dismissed by the president...
...there is a significant possibility of a nuclear meltdown in the U.S...
...The Mother's Songs: Frederick Franck 313 The Chernobyl disaster has reconstituted a seemingly limitless series of questions I the Supreme: Ronald Christ 314 and concerns - from the scientific, to the political, to the psychic...
...Up until now presidents could decisively steer the independent agencies' policies through new appointments only when the terms of sitting officials expired, and this U.S.-Canadian trade institutional restraint has proved frustrating to conservative and liberal administrations alike...
...The most desirable effect of Chernobyl would be twofold...
...bank...
...has increased more than tenfold...
...What then...
...But with it and our powered satellites that fall to earth...
...In issue of the Economist, March 29, reported that "the nuclear the last decade, the economic burden of burying low-level power industry remains as safe as a chocolate factory...
...There is a real sense in which Canada Well, we don't really know...
...50 million [presumably a tax writeoff], over 7 million chilWhat made this federal court argument so potentially impor- dren, grades 1-6, received free pizza, buttons, and other incentant, however, is that the same argument could be used to rule tives for reading above and beyond their normal school asunconstitutional all the independent federal agencies...
...But they will U.S., $28...
...When a this has all happened in peacetime," he said, "can you imagnuclear accident occurred at Tsuruga, Japan, in 1981, it was ine what it would be like in war...
...to constitute what has often been called a fourth branch of government...
...Already they have stated own people nor their allies...
...Nyet...
...ciple, or to the constitutional framework of a neatly defined Which rumor, we wonder, should gain in credence from a three branches that excludes a hybrid "fourth branch...
...Present and former members of the capacity...
...dollars by International Money search organization, hundreds of nuclear power reactors will be taken out of service Order or by check on a U.S...
...But herein lies another two-year rate: U.S., $49...
...Still, it is hard to believe that all DOUBTS NORTH OF THE BORDER the functions performed by these agencies in regulating a highly interdependent economy are going to be assumed by the invisible hand of the market...
...The cleanup at Chernobyl may take even longer...
...Its relief may only be effected by the tears and lamentations of many Leahs, many Rachels, over many generations, and across many borders...
...New Mexico in April, it was not announced publicly until the We can scarcely imagine the depth of lamentation...
...Over the years, there have been owes its very existence to the will not to be absorbed by good arguments for having the term of the chairman of the the United States...
...But the thought, as Business Week (March from Brazil and a cylinder head from Mexico, an alternator 3) expressed it, of a new president putting away his tuxedo (or from Germany, and tires from France...
...progress...
...Contents Volume CXIII, Number 10 commonweal Correspondence 290 Editorials 291 Forgotten partner: Jordan Bishop 293 Instruction & illusion: John Garvey 295 A genius for passion & purity: William Dunlea 297 A bittersweet world: Lucy Komisar 300 Screen: Tom O'Brien 302 LAMENT FOR CHERNOBYL Books 0 vER TWO centuries ago, the great Hasidic master, the Baal Shem Tov (d...
...At the recent Tokyo summit, the seven industrial democWhat is more, the case of 84,000 people forced to abandon racies likewise urged the early elaboration of an international their homes is nothing compared to the social disruption that convention committing all parties to report and exchange inwould befall a metropolitan area struck by a similar nuclear formation in the event of nuclear emergencies or accidents...
...A Canadian today may well a coordinated economic policy...
...The prices of nuclear power are clearly multiple...
...of DOE and Department of Defense facilities...
...Smith, Patrick Jordan The U.S., it must be remembered, has more operational nuclear reactors than any Production Editor...
...foreign, safety problem...
...The same for this job, let alone ready to assume the staggering costs...
...catastrophe...
...The comptroller general, who heads the legislative branch's General Account- ETC...
...This in turn reflects concern 23 May 1986: 293...
...Can we afford such a double standard in light of Chernobyl...
...Is this Gorbachev's new that they have no plans at this time to resume nuclear weapons straightforwardness...
...Canada, $30...
...The decision is now in the hands of the National Reading Incentive Program" could develop into Supreme Court which may even have overruled it, in part or more than a slick publicity stunt...
...At present, course must be a nuclear one, a question that arises again from according to Worldwatch, no country is technically prepared the ashes, it must be the safest one imaginable...
...Will spring ever' be the same in the Ukraine...
...To protect son Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...Single copy, $1.50...
...He eats tomatoes from her ball gown...
...The cleanup after the partial meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island is Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of another disquieting element of the safety question...
...well, it does'give us pause...
...The Rusnucleus of the second question...
...dian politics...
...to strictly "rational" principles of government unqualified by Last February, a federal court ruled unconstitutional one the peculiar adjustments of experience, or at least more hesipart of the mechanism set up for automatic budget-cutting by tancy about increasing the powers of the presidency...
...Will Chernobyl's No Time to Grieve: Patrick Jordan 318 children's children curse April 26 as the real April Fool's Day...
...1798), why in the prayer sequence known as the Lamentations at Midnight, both 'the names Children of Light: Robert Jones 305 Rachel and Leah were included...
...The Ukrainian officials' ineptness some eventual, nonvolatile silver lining to the cloud of Cherand Moscow's refusal to sound the alarm are more than the nobyl, a third question remains to unsettle our consciousness...
...POSTMASTER: in the next thirty years...
...M. DeMuth, once of the Office of Management and Budget, Perhaps the first reason lies in a resurgence of protectionist called "the process of folding the agencies into the execu- sentiments in the United States...
...What is a The Cult of Information: foolproof nuclear reactor...
...Thus, the Department of Energy poem Pasternak wrote thirty years ago, "When the Skies (DOE) is reluctant to hold government nuclear reactors and Clear": facilities to the same standards required for commercial plants, I'll hear your long Mass all my years fearful lest such standards might force the closing of a number For there's a trembling in my soul...
...Although that "incident" was Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly well contained as compared to Chernobyl, the cleanup still continues seven years Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by after the accident...
...Although most U.S...
...foreign, $33...
...The Triumph of Politics/The Real David Stockman: William V. Shannon 304 1760), asked his disciple, Rabbi Nahum of Chernobyl (d...
...Can nuclear energy be Assistant Editors: David Toolan, Karen Sue safe...
...We should discuss arms control with testing, and have reiterated their openness to on-site inspection such cold dissemblers...
...10016...
...And there have been good drive a car that is made in Philadelphia, with an engine block arguments against...
...Is it worth it...
...It will take another three years to complete, at a cost exceeding a Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., billion dollars...
...ing Office, is appointed by the president but can only be • Maybe it won't solve illiteracy, but Pizza Hut's "Book it...
...And what if the accident involved not simply a Five days before Chernobyl there was another small hint of power plant, but a weapon designed to be destructive...
...For a corporate investment of entirely, before you read this...
...Gramm-Rudman...
...According to the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based re$59...
...Canada, $53...
...wagging finger at the Kremlin has come the realization that Yet while these two areas under consideration may provide everywhere is Chernobyl...
Vol. 113 • May 1986 • No. 10
