[NukeNet] March/April 1981 - THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW JOHN GOFMAN

[theroyprocess at cox.net]

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1981-03-01/Interview-With-A-Nuclear-Power-Critic.aspx

 March/April 1981  
 
THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW JOHN GOFMAN
By the Mother Earth News editors

Nuclear and Antinuclear Scientist

John W. Gofman, Ph.D., M.D., is one of America's most prominent critics of nuclear power. He's performed extensive research on the hazards of radiation . . . given testimony in any number of trials related to atomic power . . . lectured and participated in debates all across the country. . . and written several books on the relationship between nuclear energy and public health.

So it only made sense that, when the folks here at MOTHER were looking for a person who could clearly and authoritatively rebut a series of common pronuclear statements, for a proposed article in this magazine, we'd ask Dr. Gofman to do the answering. (His excellent replies can be seen in MOTHER NO. 67's "The Top 10 Pronuclear Arguments . . . Answered". See page 148 for information on ordering back issues.)

There are, of course, many eloquent spokespersons in the antinuclear movement. . . but John Gofman is unique among them. The San Francisco-based physician/chemist is both a highly respected scientist (the American College of Cardiology selected him as one of the 25 leading heart disease researchers of the past quarter-century) and a person who speaks about the nuclear power industry with firsthand knowledge of its workings . . . since he was, from 1962 to 1972, an Atomic Energy Commission employee whose very job was to study the effect of radiation on human health. What's more, long before Dr. Gofman became known for his research projects on heart disease and radiation, he was actually a member of the Manhattan Project group that produced the world's first atomic weapon!

In other words, this experienced scientist is not a Johnny-come-lately to the antinuclear movement. Instead, he's a man who originally supported atomic energy. . . but who found his views, and his entire life, changed because he held a firm belief in scientific honesty.

We think that you'll find the story behind that change in John Gofman's life — as related in this edited transcript of his interview with MOTHER staffer Pat Stone — to be both significant and moving.

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(excerpt)
PLOWBOY: What have you been doing since you had to leave the Livermore Laboratory in 1972?

GOFMAN: Up through 1975, I was teaching at the university. I've also written a number of papers bringing the work that Tamplin and I did in 1989 and 1970 up to date. I studied data on the workers at the Hanford nuclear facility for a year, and spent another year reexamining my heart attack work in preparation for a major symposium on lipoproteins and heart disease in San Francisco.

And I've just completed the 1,250-page manuscript for my book Radiation and Human Health. My whole purpose in writing that volume is to enable any member of the public to analyze the evidence — the most complicated equation in the text uses nothing more than simple algebra — and understand the radiation issue for him- or herself. I feel strongly that our country needs to "demystify" science . . . and I've tried to take some of the mystery out of the health/ radiation issue with my book.

PLOWBOY: Do you put most of your energy now into fighting nuclear power?

GOFMAN: I give a considerable amount of my time — say, half to three-quarters — to that effort. But I've also come to realize that atomic energy is representative of some much broader issues. Because of nuclear power, everyone in the entire U.S. population is functioning as a guinea pig in a dangerous experiment . . . and worse yet, we're being lied to about the fact that we are being made guinea pigs. So my efforts against nuclear power are now primarily efforts for education on the issues of basic individual human rights.

In fact, one of the reasons that the people in the antinuclear movement have not been able to shut down our country's power plants is that they've focused on the wrong issues. They've concentrated on the economic aspects, the shortage of uranium, or the technical shortcomings in specific plants' safety systems. That's fighting the atomic industry in its own ballpark.

PLOWBOY: So you think that, in a lot of ways, the current antinuclear movement is going in the wrong direction?

GOFMAN: Yes, I do. But let me say that I've made a lot of similar false starts myself between 1970 and now. I've learned, the hard way, that you can't win by pleading with the government for relief . . . the government created the problem! What could be more ridiculous than asking the people who are committing a crime to protect you from it?

PLOWBOY: If we can't expect any help through governmental processes, how can we successfully deal with the dangers of nuclear power and threats to human rights?

GOFMAN: We have to get back to a simple understanding of the concepts of liberty, justice, and truth.

You know, Frederick Douglass — then an ex-slave — made an important statement about power. He said, "Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them .... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

People have to see the truth in Douglass's words . . . they have to realize that a lot of freedom is being taken away from them, and they have to learn how to take it back.

PLOWBOY: So the first step is education. We Americans have to become aware of how we're being used.

GOFMAN: Yes, but it's not just Americans who need to wake up. We may not have perfect freedom here, but comparing our liberties to those of people in the world's totalitarian countries is like comparing night and day. The journey to full liberty for much of the rest of the world will be a very tough one.

So we need to preserve and extend our own freedoms and help men and women in totalitarian countries resist coercion, as well. All of the world's peoples need to work toward liberty.

PLOWBOY: That sounds like such a difficult goal to accomplish that I feel I have to ask you again, "How do we do it?"

GOFMAN: One way is to help people learn to think that rulers are — by nature — dangerous. Can you think of anything more absurd than the fact that 200 million people in the Soviet Union and 200 million people in the U.S. will tolerate a situation where a group of individuals — called "leaders" — can, in effect, hold them hostage with super-lethal weapons?

And how can the citizens of Russia and the U.S. — to stay with the same example — turn the situation around? They've got to stop looking up to those who seek authority . . . to be repelled by — instead of attracted to-people who crave positions of coercive power. We all need to educate ourselves to the point where we can say, "What, leaders with weapons? That's crazy. We won't tolerate leaders with weapons."

Eliminating the threat of the atom bomb — one of the world's major forms of coercion — is just that simple and that difficult. I'm not saying, however, that the United States alone should rid its leaders of atomic weapons. Anyone who thinks we should disarm unilaterally to set an example for the Russian state doesn't understand what Frederick Douglass said about how power expands to the extent that people let it. If we disarm, the Soviet leaders may well try to make our country a slave state. I don't want that, so — even though I adamantly oppose nuclear power plants — I'm on record as supporting the American atomic weapons program. There will surely never be a solution to human problems by any coercion or force . . . but there will also never be a solution through unarmed freedom as long as powerful bullies exist who will use force.

PLOWBOY: Do you really think that we'll see a much freer world in the future?

GOFMAN: I've been very pessimistic many times, in the last ten years, about the way the world is going . . . but I'm encouraged by recent signs, such as the Polish workers' strike. The things I see tell me that people do have a strong yearning to get back control of their own lives.

So yes, I do think there is a good chance that men and women are going to realize that we need to cope with our lack of freedom and that we can see a much better world in 20 or 30 years . . . even though there may be some real destruction in the interim.

PLOWBOY: I don't know . . . remedying the entire world situation sure sounds like a mighty tall order.

GOFMAN: You keep repeating that solving the problem of human coercion will be difficult. Of course, it will be! But, to my way of thinking, it's the most important issue in the world. Just stop for a minute, you and MOTHER's readers, and ask yourselves: Can you, I, or anyone justify directing all our efforts toward solving trivial problems . . . just because the one we all really need to face is difficult?


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EDITOR'S NOTE: The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility (Dept. TMEN, P.O. Box 11207, San Francisco, California 94101) carries many of Dr. Gofman's writings on radiation, health, and human rights . . . including Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants Before and After Three Mile Island (353 pages, $9.95 postpaid) and Irrevy: An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power (248 pages, $3.95 postpaid). Dr. Gofman's new book, Radiation and Human Health , will be published in 1981 by Sierra Club Books.


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