Q: How do you find Thursday morning?
WS: By Thursday morning, we'd gotten over the worst of it. We'd been up very
late. It'd been a very obviously intense day emotionally and intellectually
and in every other way. We had some good people there from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, and you get hopeful that the worst is over. But it
clearly wasn't the case. It's very evident that what is happening on the
island isn't clearly what everybody thought was happening, even though we're
still getting very good information. This "China Syndrome" melt-down thing is
not occurring, but you have a leak of radioactive water. You clearly have
radioactive air. The situation is still not under control because there's
still radioactivity coming out into the atmosphere. And beyond that, on the
second day, you're beginning to get the clamor of voices, you know, from
outside. Washington, of course, the National Press Corps is very interested in
this, and the National Press Corps is talking to people in Washington. They're
calling their Washington sources at the NRC or in Congress and they're not
hesitating to give their opinion, but their opinion, frankly, in those early
days was not very well informed. So we're trying to combat a lot of the
misinformation, at the same time, handle an incident. What is going on on the
island is encouraging a cacophony of opinion, freely donated by whoever has a
microphone in front of their mouth.
back to Interview Transcripts | next
|
PBS Terms of Use Privacy Policy
Pledge Your Support
Stories to Go