Books briefly
Books briefly Behind a disaster Three Mile Island: An Hour By Hour Account of What Really Happened, by Mark Stephens (Randojn House. 245 pp. $11.95). Three Mile Island demonstrated much more than...
...From the operators trained only to push buttons rather than conceptualize problems, to the reflexive lying by Metropolitan Edison and various government officials, we witness a systematic mistrust of people, and an excessive faith in equipment and top management, all of which drove the crisis to the very edge of disaster...
...The story Stephens tells raises many questions about nuclear power, questions we still need answered today...
...Three Mile Island demonstrated much more than the failure of nuclear technology...
...Through these we see, at every turn, a kind of technocratic arrogance operating at the heart of the accident...
...Mark Stephens describes this process in his hour-by-hour account, and, for the most part, he succeeds in telling the story adequately...
...As a staff member of the Presidential Commission appointed to investigate the accident, he had access to many private conversations and behind-the-scenes decisions...
...In the face of the accident at TMI the entire apparatus of government-industry supervision of nuclear power disintegrated in confusion, political in-fighting, and systematic deception...
Vol. 45 • June 1991 • No. 7
