Last pre-Super-Tuesday call for Mike Gravel

I'll defer to a later posting discussion of the problems that could be mitigated or solved by allowing the long competitive clean solar sources of energy to proliferate freely, making the burning of oil and other dirty sources, including so-called clean coal and notably nuclear fission, obsolete. You can probably come up with some easily yourself. Instead, this will be about what I learned in the process of writing this.

John Gofman died last year. I am not especially surprised that this was so un(der)reported that I was unaware of that until now. He was an outstanding example of what made young people decide to prefer a life in science to more lucrative and easier professions; when young people still were eager for that without requiring inducement by pro-nuclear commentators like Thomas Friedman. Like nobody else I can think of, he was concerned with the way nuclear power was rammed down Californian's throat. I had been for solar power without being concerned about dangers from nuclear, until the ugly, dangerous reaction to Proposition 15 and especially to Prof. Gofman; described in my 1977 memo to President Carter, under the heading of “The Spirit of Lysenko” (Note 3).

Eventually it was shown to me more clearly by the censorship of my congressional testimony

http://members.shaw.ca/ElSol/One_Life/Document__3.html

on PG&E's Diablo Canyon plant from the Congressional Record. To me the dangers to what is left of democracy still loom largest. For the dangers from radioactivity, I have relied mainly on what Gofman had to say, e.g. on the large number of fatal cancers from the Chernobyl accident; of which most people can still be kept unaware, while that energy source is being hailed as clean. Not by Senator Mike Gravel. So unlike B&B (Barack and Billary) he didn't get a lot of nuclear money; or mention from their media. For details from the Washington Post, see

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/01/18/for_both_clinton_and_obama_nuc.html .

There is some detail on John Gofman in the CNR (Committee for Nuclear Responsibility) website: JOHN GOFMAN: The chairman of CNR (including XaHP) is John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley. His doctorate is in nuclear/physical chemistry. His work as a graduate student was part of the Manhattan (atomic-bomb) Project. He shares patents on the fissionability of uranium-233 and on early processes for separating plutonium from fission products. After the war, he finished his medical degree at the University of California, San Francisco.

Starting in 1948, at the Donner Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley, Dr. Gofman led the team which discovered and characterized the diverse lipoproteins in the bloodstream and showed that many of these molecules are very important in the causation of coronary heart disease. His pioneering research in atherogenesis has stood the test of time, and is widely honored

n 1963, at the request of the Atomic Energy Commission, Dr. Gofman established and directed the Biomedical Research Division for the Livermore National Laboratory. There, he began his laboratory research into the connection between chromosomal abnormalities and cancer

In 1969, epidemiologic analyses by Dr. Gofman and Dr. Arthur R. Tamplin revealed that ionizing radiation is far more carcinogenic than acknowledged by the Atomic Energy Commission. Gofman and Tamplin decided to tell the public about their findings, and to advocate a 5-year pause in licensing additional nuclear power plants. As a consequence, they lost their research grants and left the Livermore Lab by 1974. By 1990, government-funded reports agreed with most of the biological findings which Gofman and Tamplin had announced in 1970.

After leaving the Livermore Lab, Dr. Gofman independently continued his research into the health effects of ionizing radiation. He has produced major new findings, published in his six scholarly books and monographs (1981, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1995/96, 1999). In 1992, he shared the Right Livelihood Award ("the alternate Nobel Prize") for "his pioneeing work in exposing the health effects of low-level radiation." Dr. Gofman has donated his services to CNR since its inception, in 1971. Note also:

EGAN O'CONNOR: The executive director of CNR (including XaHP) is Egan O'Connor. She previously (1969-1974) worked as a consultant on nuclear and solar energy for U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska. Before that (1963-1968), she did research for documentary films on a wide variety of subjects.

It is hardly a coincidence that two of the people with whom Gravel had close connection got the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. The other one, Daniel Ellsberg, whose Pentagon Papers Senator Gravel made public by reading them into the Congressional Record, is also noted for real courage (for which I managed to shake his hand before he got that award). I should also hail their moral integrity as Noam Chomsky did for Senator Gravel himself (as cited on the campaign website http://www.gravel2008.us/content/noam-chomsky-applauds-senator-gravels-past-and-present-accomplishments

):

Noam Chomsky applauds Senator Gravel's past and present accomplishments

January 7th, 2008 by April

Alone among members of Congress, Senator Mike Gravel had the courage to take a stand that not only helped bring the atrocious Indochina wars to an end, but also made a great contribution to breaking the wall of secrecy that governments erect to protect themselves from their own citizens. I am of course referring to his release of the Pentagon Papers, properly called "the Gravel edition," which provided the public with a unique opportunity to become educated about affairs of state.

In the years since, Gravel has continued to show the same moral integrity and courage, particularly with regard to war and aggression, the severe threat of nuclear war, the destructive impact of the military-industrial complex on American democracy, and the programs of aggressive militarism that have led even Europeans to rank the US as the greatest threat to world peace, far above Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or other states assigned this role in the US doctrinal system. It may be that these consistent and honorable commitments are responsible for his being largely excluded from the media, even from presidential debates. And the same integrity and courage should be an inspiration for people who care about their country, the fate of its people, and its role in the world.

Noam Chomsky