BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON NUCLEAR SAFETY

"As long as we have to live with the threat of radioactive disaster, nuclear power must be made safe, whatever the cost." NATALIE HILDT New London, Connecticut

YOUR ARTICLE ON NUCLEAR SAFETY WAS an eye-opener, and your effort to address a very serious problem is commendable [BUSINESS, March 4]. My heart goes out to George Betancourt, George Galatis and the gutsy engineers who fought the management of Northeast Utilities. Kudos to them for their selfless devotion. The role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be investigated. Where can people go if the regulatory agency and utilities companies collude? How can we protect ourselves? It is time for a shake-up of the NRC. SUDIP GUHAROY Rancho Mirage, California

THE COURAGE OF WHISTLE-BLOWERS Galatis and Betancourt in fighting for quality and safety in the nuclear-power industry is inspiring. To the Georges, I say please don't give up--you belong with the true heroes of this country. ALLAN BAZZOLI Mount Vernon, Ohio

PLACING THE MILLSTONE NUCLEAR PLANT on the NRC'S watch list is a significant and serious matter, hardly a "wrist slap," as Galatis characterized it. Northeast Utilities has already undertaken aggressive steps to correct the situation, including a total reorganization of its nuclear group and the creation of a first-ever office of nuclear safety and oversight. We have pledged to go beyond the requirements of regulatory compliance to earn back the public trust and demonstrate our passion for safety. In the end, our business objectives can be met only after we first satisfy our safety goals and our employees' concerns. TED C. FEIGENBAUM, Executive Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer Northeast Utilities Service Co. Hartford, Connecticut

YOUR ARTICLE INCLUDED ANALYSES FROM a Holtec consultant who reportedly predicted that a loss of primary cooling in a Millstone 1 fuel pool could result in a "slow boil." These analyses were made for a wholly artificial and improbable scenario of events. Pool temperatures in the real world seldom exceed lukewarm levels. The engineers, technicians and managers at Millstone have dedicated their careers to coaxing energy from the atom because they believe in the inherent safety and environmental benefits of nuclear power. They deserve your acclaim, not your scorn. KRIS P. SINGH, President and CEO Holtec International Cherry Hill, New Jersey

IT IS OBVIOUS THAT THE NUCLEAR INDUStry has failed and that the time has come for a complete energy transition in this country. We have the technology and the ability to use renewable energy. The risks are too great not to change. KATHRYN HERZOG Minneapolis, Minnesota

YOU TOUCHED ON THE ROOT CAUSE OF the problem of storing spent fuel rods: "The Federal Government has never created a storage site for high-level radioactive waste." Why not? Who are the villains? It is we the people, along with our elected representatives. Several sites have been identified as candidates for nuclear-waste storage, but the widespread "not in my backyard" attitude has stopped development of the waste-storage sites for more than 20 years. STEPHEN A. HODGSON, Engineer Galveston, Texas

CUBAN SHOOT-DOWN

IF UNARMED CUBAN CESSNAS FLEW OVER the White House dropping anti-American literature [NATION, March 4] and continued to violate U.S. airspace despite repeated warnings, I would support President Clinton's decision to shoot them down in the same way Fidel Castro okayed firing on the planes of Brothers to the Rescue. Am I the only American who opposes communism and Castro but believes the embargo only hurts the Cuban people? Why not an embargo against civil-rights-violating communist China? KARIN ANDERSON Beverly Hills, California

WE CUBANS KNOW THE PROBLEM OF the Cuban people is Castro himself. He is the imperialist one. ALINA BROUWER and PEDRO RIVERO Kingston, Jamaica

CUBA IS A NATION AS SOVEREIGN AS THIS one, even if the politics differ. If Brothers to the Rescue wants to be part of Castro's demise, it should take action within Cuba, instead of trying to manipulate the foreign policy of the U.S. MARIE TAGENIUS Los Angeles

BUCHANAN'S PLANS

PAT BUCHANAN'S VIEWS ON ISOLATIONISM and economic protectionism [NATION, March 4] are out of synch with today's global economy. His policies, such as scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement, would hurt the constituency he claims to represent: the working class. Americans are much smarter than Buchanan gives them credit for, and they will expose this man for what he really is, a pandering opportunist. MAURICE BASTARCHE Moncton, New Brunswick BUCHANAN'S PLAN IS TWOFOLD. FIRST, trade with other countries would be dependent on their allowing us the same access to their markets that we give them to ours. Second, Buchanan sends a message to those corporate entities that would take their manufacturing activities south into the world of $2-an-hour labor. His message: if you go south, find a new market for your goods. Neither of those ideas conjures up visions of a wall around the U.S., except to those who are taking advantage of the lack of protection our businesses have or those who would desert their employees to maintain the key to the executive washroom. JOHN L. BROWN Hollister, Missouri

THOUGH I FIND BUCHANAN MONSTROUS, what is even more frightening is the element that has given him these primary victories. Deliver us from this evil! SAMUEL B. SUTTON New York City

THIS MAN EFFECTIVELY ARTICULATES THE case against a corporate agenda that treats employees like unwanted chattel. Buchanan has struck a chord. May it soon become a chorus! DAVID GREENE Hamilton, Ontario

THE VALUES CANDIDATE

AS THE TWO LEADING REPUBLICAN PRESidential contenders [NATION, March 4] battled in our state, citizens tuned out the talk and watched the walk. On the same day that Bob Dole met homeless families at a church-run program, Buchanan traveled to Mount Rushmore to declare that he was checking to see if there was space for his likeness on the mountain. Who is the values candidate? LARRY BRENDTRO Lennox, South Dakota

STEPHANOPOULOS ON WHITEWATER COVERAGE

FOR YEARS I WANTED TO MAKE THE COVER OF TIME IN THE worst way. And I did. On April 4, 1994, there I was, in mug-shot gray, looking worried over President Clinton's shoulder in the Oval Office, underneath an accusing headline: DEEP WATER: HOW THE PRESIDENT'S MEN TRIED TO HINDER THE WHITEWATER investigation. The story wasn't much prettier than the picture. The report, stocked with blind quotes, suggested I was steps away from the slammer because of the temper tantrum I threw when the law firm of Jay Stephens, a Republican former U.S. Attorney and an outspoken political opponent of the President, was hired by the Resolution Trust Corporation to investigate Whitewater. Two years later, nothing remains of the criminal charges leveled against me by anonymous sources in TIME except, of course, my yet-to-be paid legal bills. But Stephens stayed on the job. Two weeks ago his firm issued its final report to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Here is what it found after reviewing all the available evidence, including the billing records discovered early in January: Not only is there "no reasonable basis" to pursue a claim against the Rose Law Firm, but neither Hillary Clinton nor the Rose firm "knowingly aided and abetted a fraud." The report concluded that Mrs. Clinton's share of the Rose firm's income from Madison Guaranty Trust was "trivial...less than $20 a month," and that the 1988 decision by the Rose firm to discard certain records "occurred in a seemingly innocent context, as part of a general effort to discard unneeded files." And the conspiracy charges involving Madison Guaranty owner James McDougal and the Rose Law Firm? Nothing to them, says the report: "It simply would not be persuasive to argue that, for $21,000, McDougal corrupted the Rose Law Firm and convinced half a dozen lawyers, most of whom he did not know, to join him in a scheme to violate the law...the conspiracy theory is hopelessly flawed."

Good news. But when I read TIME [March 11], I couldn't find anything on Whitewater. I didn't really expect a cover story, but no story at all? TIME carried eight pages on the royal divorce, but not one word about an independent, nonpartisan investigation that corroborated what President and Mrs. Clinton had said all along about the most serious Whitewater-related charges. TIME's attempt at balanced coverage came last week. One sentence on the Stephens report appeared in a cover story [BOOK EXCERPT, March 18] consisting largely of recycled gossip critical of the President and Mrs. Clinton. TIME's competitors didn't do much better. U.S. News & World Report managed a sentence, and Newsweek buried the findings in a broader story about Hillary's troubles. Of the major television networks, only ABC assigned a reporter to the story, but in the 20 shows Nightline has devoted to Whitewater over the past two years, the Stephens report has barely been mentioned.

Is it too much to ask that a serious report effectively exonerating the Clintons and their associates get more than a passing mention in the nation's press? If an allegation of wrongdoing is front-page news, should not an apparent vindication merit equivalent time and space? Am I cynical to believe that a damning report would have received more attention in America's newsrooms? I don't think so. My instinctive reaction to Stephens' appointment by the RTC was dead wrong. His final report was thorough, fair and unbiased. That's more than can be said for the way it was covered by the national media. When it comes to Whitewater, good news is no news at all. GEORGE R. STEPHANOPOULOS, Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy, Washington