Fallout:

Nuclear Fears and Hopes between Hiroshima and Chernobyl

Post Hiroshima Post Chernobyl

Basak Candemir & Patrick Becker

OUTLINE•Introduction -- “Hiroshima”and “Chernobyl” as emblems of the atomic age

•Research question: What changes in the meaning and perception of nuclear power took place between those events?

•Central Argument -- The mythical cure against nuclear fear became a pain in itself

Part 1: The Reactor Wars or the fight against nuclear power in the 70ies and 80ies

Part 2: The Prequels (Episode I-III) or the construction of the “peaceful atom” after Hiroshima

•Conclusion

The Reactor Wars:

The Fight against Nuclear Power before

Chernobyl

Chernobyl - The Sum of All Fears

“Chernobyl is a grim reminder that nuclear power is a technology that simply cannot be controlled.” Newsweek, May 1986

Chernobyl 1986: The Sum of all Fears

Image:

Nuclear power as a bargain with the devil and a technology that can’t be controlled

Critical Incident:

Chernobyl-desaster

Context:

Antinuclear/environmental movements and green parties regarded as more credible sources and opinion leaders than governmental expertsEffects:

De facto or de jure moratorium of nuclear power plants in Europe and the USA

The Fight Against the Atom State

“Atoms for peace are, in principle, not different from atoms for war. Nuclear energy demands that man be made safe from himself - his mistakes, his weaknesses, and his lust for power. Protect nuclear energy from these foibles and you run the risk of a regimented society, and a state in a continuous emergency.”

Robert Jungk, The Atom State (1977)

1975-1985: The Fight Against the Atom State

Critical Events:Antinuclear protests in Wyhl (FRG), La Hague (F), Diablo Canyon (USA) Near-Maximum Credible Accident at Three Miles IslandMovie “The China Syndrome”

Image:

General fear for the environmental and societal effects of the nuclear power complex

Effects:

Growth of a strong national anti nuclear movement

Establishment of green/ alternative parties

Context:

Broad shift to post-materialistic values

The Rude Awakening from the Big Sleep in the Early 1970ies

Critical Events:

Reports of raised radioactivity levels around nuclear power plants

First local protests at individual construction sites

Image:

Radioactive hazards as the Achilles’ Heel of the civilian use of atomic energy

Effects:

Law actions against reactor constructions and insufficient safety regulations

Alternative experts create a loss of authority of government experts

Separation of the regulatory and promotional duties of the AEC

Why did the atomic fear materialize so late, and why was it focused

around the civilian use of nuclear energy?

Every saga has its history, and so has the myth of the “peaceful

atom”…

The Prequels:

The Construction of

Images and Meanings

of Nuclear Power after Hiroshima

Episode I: The Dark Menace

“Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for present, it is a menace.”

Albert Einstein

Image:

Public perception of international fear for nuclear holocaustCritical Events:

Hiroshima

Activities of the Scientists’ Movement

Effects:

Defeat of the May-Johnson Bill

Acheson – Lilienthal Plan (Boruch VS Gromyko)

Episode I: The Dark Menace

Episode II: A Hollow Victory“Die Geister, die ich rief werd’ ich nun nicht los”

J.W. von Goethe

Critical Events:

McMahon Act

Spies in the Manhattan Project (Fuchs, etc)

Image:

Fears about the proper domestic control over atomic power

Effects:

AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) created as a semi-civilian authority

stingent security provisions

Context:

Less atomic fear, less civilian interference

Episode III:

The Sunny Side of the

Atom

Critical Events:

AEC PR campaigns, exhibitions, and books, “Our Friend the Atom”

Construction of the first nuclear power plants (1957)

Image:

Atomic fears soothed by new medical, electrical and other uses

Transition from “atomic” bomb to “nuclear” power

Effects:

AEC projects a peaceful and civilian image to mask the bomb production

Creation of a nuclear energy industry

Episode III: The Sunny Side of the Atom“The military and civilian use of the atom has to be seen as a

package deal” David Lilienthal, AEC Chairman (1947-53)

CONCLUSION

The Scientists’ struggle over the May-Johnson Bill and their “victory” with the McMahon Act (I.e., the creation of the AEC) created a shift of meaning of atomic energy - from military use to military and civilian use.

This construction of a civilian use was the major strategy for legitimating the AEC as a institution under civilian control

Commercial use of nuclear power was the direct product of expert agenda setting, not of public/economic demand.

CONCLUSION

The image of “The Peaceful Atom” was successfully constructed in the late 40s and 50s as a way for soothing the “nuclear fears”, and from the 60ies onwards, nuclear reactors became its premier incarnation.

“From their birth, they had been seen as a part of a grand mythical structure - and that was one reason, as strong as economics, why they were built.” (Weart, S.R, Nuclear Fear,1988)

CONCLUSIONIn the 1970s, the cure became the pain: The image of “The Peaceful Atom” was destroyed by its own existence, and the fear that it wanted to sooth became replaced by another fear - namely of the peaceful use of nuclear energy and its environmental and societal effects.

Perception of nuclear power

Late 1940ies Late 1970ies

Negative Fear of nuclear holocaust Fear of widespread civilian use of nuclear energy

Positive Peaceful uses of nuclear energy

(Nuclear deterrence prevents nuclear holocaust)

-> The perception of nuclear power depended on the different interpretative contexts & clues available in the 40ies and 70ies