Correspondence between Author J. Starling & Russell D. Hoffman

September 29th, 2000

Sir,

Thank you for your recent email (shown below). However, a "sincere apology" for being hot-headed is NOT a sincere apology of much -- hot-headedness is no big deal. Being WRONG is a BIG DEAL. Where is your apology for that?

Stop making us sick. Stop killing our brothers and sisters, our children, our families and our friends. Clean up the Thresher, the Scorpion, and the Sea Wolf. You apologize for what? For hot-headedness? Pshaw! Apologize for the deaths caused by the release into the environment of untold millions of Curies of radioactive waste of all varieties, at all stages of use! Apologize for attempting to destroy the will of a free American to speak out against that crime! Apologize for a possible hand in killing my own brother, Randall Melvin Hoffman, dead at age 39 from complications following Leukemia -- a disease caused mainly by man-made pollutants including most importantly, radioactive waste! Just another downwinder, I guess. Collateral damage.

Your professional honor IS at stake and you SHOULD defend it. I have accused the Nuclear Navy of MURDER and of destroying DEMOCRACY. You have aided and abetted in those crimes, both in your previous email to me, and in your failure to comprehend the destruction our NUCLEAR NAVY has been causing to this planet.

Instead you claim you were well trained. Brain-washed sounds more like it. Apologize for failing to grasp that YOU WERE BEING LIED TO. Apologize for misunderstanding the goal of the United States Navy. It's not simply to be the most powerful, or to rule the seas. They are those things and do those things in order to ensure the good health of United States Citizens with the least possible harm to themselves and to others. For what freedom is there if people cannot live a long and healthy life? In this task the nuclear navy has failed miserably. Navy pollution (and not just nuclear) is not under the jurisdiction of regular state or even national environmental laws. Navy pollution does not need to be reported the same way non-military polluters are required to report their activities. Navy pollution is not overseen by independent environmental observers. Navy pollution -- especially nuclear pollution -- is deniable under unreasonably broad and self-serving "national security" claims.

Where is your apology for any of this? If your Naval training is somehow responsible for your unfair insults, rude accusations, and libelous claims, then you should be able to tell me what exactly your training was in the following areas, because your behavior has been distinctly unsociable in discussing these issues, and I want to know why. What did you learn about:

1) Medical aspects of radiation poisoning, especially at extremely low levels (i.e., dispersed to the environment).
2) The Public's right to know -- what were you told we, the public, are allowed to know about nuclear problems? All of you always paint such rosy pictures -- pictures any careful observer knows are utterly inaccurate. Where do you get the training to do that?
3) The effects of nuclear weapons.
4) The politics of nuclear war.
5) Alternative sources of energy which are far, far cleaner than nuclear power will ever be.

and for a bonus discussion:

6) Comparisons of an investment in the next generation's education versus investment in unused and unusable nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems.

You mentioned just two -- solar and hydroelectric -- and claimed they could not solve our energy needs, stating that nuclear can (it can't). In fact, solar alone COULD supply all our energy, and there are many resources available to replace coal, oil and nuclear; namely solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, biomass, wave, tide, Ocean Thermal Gradient, Space Based Solar, and others. (See www.geni.org for more information on alternative, clean energy solutions.)

You ask what people will do 1000 years from now when you say the oil will run out (I give it a lot less time than that). I say whatever people will be around your nuclear wasteland in years to come will curse us for our lack of foresight. They will curse us for squandering their coal and oil. And they are the ones who will suffer the consequences if we do not proceed, starting immediately, to clean up our messes, and shut down those processes by which we risk yet another spill, and another and another and another. You risked their future for what? To be able to threaten to kill hundreds of millions of people with the push of a button, a war which is still possible today or tomorrow, which sane people have tried their utmost to prevent for more than half a century now (succeeding, but how close have we come?)?

Each nuclear submarine carries enough weapons to kill hundreds of millions of people. There are dozens of nuclear subs -- 30 or 40, maybe more. Each can probably go at speeds of 70 miles per hour or more (a number I found in Critical Path, a book written by R. Buckminster Fuller, published in 1981. Some suggest higher or lower numbers. I won't ask you, I know what you'll say -- "it's classified". But I'm sure the Russians know what Bucky Fuller was saying in 1981.) Each sub can stay submerged for months at a time, so they can be anywhere in the oceans at any given time. So what? So American and Russian subs get in the last licks of a nuclear exchange, that's all.

Most civilians on the surface will have been long-dead, and the rest will be suffering an even worse fate -- this is a well-documented, inevitable conclusion of nuclear war. That's probably why we haven't used these awful weapons again since World War Two. Because the payback is virtually sure to be at least one nuke launched against us (and possibly a whole lot more) and NMD (National Missile Defense) won't be able to stop it. It can come in by car, boat, rocket -- even by suitcase. An high-altitude air burst would create an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) which would devastate this entire country for months or years -- send us back at least to the 1950's (no more email, but at least there would be Elvis). So what good are these subs? What role do they fulfill that a non-nuclear option could not fulfill just as well, or at least nearly as well, without the added risk of nuclear contamination? There is nothing.

What good is a nuclear aircraft carrier as compared to a non-nuclear one? Can you tell me? Sure, it accelerates a little faster, and its boilers come up to operate at "full steam" a bit faster. But it is far more expensive, it risks becoming a huge irradiated hulk in the middle of our own or some other harbor, it is an enormous target which must be defended against very sophisticated and fast-moving missiles, but no defense can be that perfect, and even if these ships live out their 25 year life until the mid-life fuel exchange, where do we store the irradiated fuel for eternity? Where will it be stored cheaply, safely, properly guarded, removable if necessary, recoverable, and utterly isolated from human life? And after 50 years, large portions of the nuclear aircraft carrier are also irradiated and must be isolated from human life for millions of years. Instead your Nuclear Navy has dumped your old reactors in the ocean to rust (Sea Wolf).

And let's not forget that nuclear aircraft carriers (CVNs) don't even fight the wars -- they just launch the planes that fight the wars, somewhere well over the horizon.

Our Constitution, in the very first paragraph, ordains us all -- and this goes way, way above any Naval service goals you might think you have -- to provide for "our posterity". I cannot understand how you can be willing to leave them nothing more than a nuclear wasteland, be it because enough of our ships have sunk, and enough nuclear waste has been created and released, that life can no longer function on the planet because it is too polluted, or because we started a nuclear exchange -- an Armageddon -- over some political squabble that most of us would rather not end life as we know it over (even though we might be quite willing to die, personally, for the cause, we should not be eager to, along with our own death, destroy the planet's environment for "our posterity").

I'm glad you worked hard when you were in the Nuclear Navy. But where is your hard work now, now that you are out of the Nuclear Navy and can see the whole truth? What have you learned about radiation's effects on a global environment with 6 billion souls on board "spaceship Earth"? Why can't you see the damage to the nation's citizens' right of free speech that accusations such as you've made about me do to free American citizens such as myself, when there are thousands like you who jump on every citizen who speaks out against the nuclear "demon hot atom" at every chance they get?

You would have to work at least twice as hard for at least twice as long if you wish to undo the damage your "service" to our country caused. But the nuclear navy's goals have been short-sighted. Furthermore, your apology to me should be thrown in the wastebasket. Write one AFTER you have read about the problems you have created. AFTER you have carefully considered the consequences of your inappropriate attacks on my personality when carried out to every citizen who tries to affect a change for the better in a supposedly free society, and AFTER you have considered the consequences of blaming your own personal transgressions on a blind faith in the United States Nuclear Navy, which is in need of far more than just a scrubbing and a new paint job.

I again assure you that America will some day have a completely non-nuclear United States Navy, and that all reasonable United States Citizens will long rue the days when we mistakenly followed the nuclear path towards Armageddon, Nuclear Winter, and towards a thousand new Superfund sites for this generation's citizens to add to the thousands that have resulted from past transgressions.

I thank all of you for your service -- you included. But it's time for a sea change, and it will happen whether it happens because millions of citizens like me are willing to fight the Nuclear Navy for all we are worth until we part this world, despite the inappropriate attacks on our moral character by people like you, or because too many accidents simply make our message plain to see to everyone, and corporate ownership and government infiltration and manipulation of the media cannot hide it from the voting public. (NBC and many other media outlets are owned by nuclear transnational corporations, and Al Gore and George Bush are both sons of strongly pro-nuclear statesmen whose traditions they will carry on if elected. And I think it could be called "common knowledge" that CNN is thoroughly infiltrated with CIA operatives.).

On the bottom of a shallow sea lies the Kursk, along with the Thresher, the Scorpion, the Sea Wolf reactor, and at least half a dozen other reactors, and many more nuclear blunders -- thousands large and small. At our throats you hold a nuclear Armageddon that is actually 100 times worse than what is commonly admitted -- studies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki consistently minimized the death rates and the deformity rates for infants after the blasts, yet, those same studies STILL guide our allowable dosage limits.

I don't know when you and others from the nuclear Navy (and other nuclear industries) will finally stop harassing your own citizens who speak out about these horrors -- it started long before you came along, long before even I came along (I was born in the mid-1950s).

Long before the Nuclear Navy, the United States Navy made another nearly disastrous decision -- they were dead-set against aircraft carriers at all, until Billy Mitchell blew up enough ships to prove the need for airplanes at sea! Now, the Navy is dead set against giving up their Nuclear Nightmare. They've been wrong before.

But the free-thinking public, who can see far more than your self-centered Nuclear Navy schools will ever teach -- those who have found the full truth amidst 1000 new lies each day, and 1000 little needles in our sides from people like you -- we are demanding an accounting, and a complete cessation of all nuclear operations by the military. I know your heart was in the right place. Of that I never had any doubt. But there has to be a reckoning some time. There has to be a stop. An about-face. A sea change. A correction.

No more Los Alamos or Oak Ridge nuclear research into bigger (or smaller) nuclear bombs. No more civilian plutonium RTG power sources in space as covers for similarly-equipped military satellites. No more using "Depleted" Uranium as weaponry or armament. No more threatening our neighbors with nuclear bombs! No more failure to make public the many Russian military and government nuclear mistakes, just to make sure our own public will be willing to ignore the real dangers, and thus letting the nuclear games continue. Those Russian subs that rust in Murmansk Harbor -- they are OUR nuclear navy's problem too!

Why? Well, because it's been tit-for-tat all along. They build, we build. We build, they build. You could have stopped it but you didn't.

These rusting nuclear hulks are the world's problem, too, because no harbor, no lake, no river or stream is isolated. No ocean is deep enough to hold all the nuclear waste we are dumping into the few small oceans we've got, the source of virtually all our food and water. Dilution and dispersal of nuclear waste into the environment is absolutely NO solution to the problem of what to do with the nuclear residue of a misbegotten industry. The biosphere is small and crowded with 6,000,000,000 people on it, a third of whom have NO electricity right now. 20 years ago a third had no electricity, but in the intervening years, the Nuclear Navy has wasted billions of dollars on weapons they've never used and never should use, and on ships they never should have built, building up a debt society will have to pay for many generations, while society -- not the nuclear navy -- takes care of the nuclear waste. There is not one solution which works, after 50 years of trying, but we have learned that the dangers from low level radiation are far worse than original estimates would have us believe.

No more failing to educate our children about ALL the nuclear dangers BEFORE they are offered a chance to join our Navy, so they understand why they will be instructed not to bomb our enemy's reactors no matter how necessary it might seem to their tactical situation.

No more reactors on board Navy ships. None! That's the dumbest place on the planet to put a reactor, and we're sick of the folks we need to be the smartest letting us down, and then hiding it as if nothing had happened. You've got us into this mess, and you should feel obliged even beyond your obligations to the Navy, by your obligations "to posterity", to help get us out.

Calling yourself "hot-headed" and walking away is a classic example of "one step forward, two steps back". You poison our land as well as the high seas, destroy our citizen's health, destroy democracy by attacking people like me, and then when asked to justify your actions and accusations, you apologize simply for calling me names? There's something missing. The white elephant known as Navy Reactor Program needs to be shut down, and your duty as a free citizen is to understand why what you did while in the nuclear navy was a mistake. I don't need your apology near so much as I need your assistance.

Sincerely

Russell D. Hoffman
Concerned Citizen, Activist
Carlsbad, California

P.S. I've taken the liberty (as is my right and, when someone calls me a liar or for matters of "national security" as in this case, I believe, my duty as a citizen) of "ccing" this email to about 100 newspapers, 100 elected officials, and about 200 friends and subscribers to my newsletters. Maybe together we CAN change the world. Citizens of all countries MUST demand that all warriors everywhere fight with non-nuclear weapons and never target nuclear power plants! (I have previously published lists of media and government who get these sorts of things; such information is available at my web site.)

Attachments (3):

*** 1) Suggested links
*** 2) Jack Shannon's most recent email to you.
*** 3) List of contaminated sites in California
*** 4) Your most recent email to me with your "apology", with comments by me. This also includes all our previous correspondence (including numerous links you should start to read -- you have a lot of catching up to do).

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*** 1) Suggested links:
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These URLs are for issues of my Stop Cassini newsletter where the nuclear navy was discussed:

CVN-74 storms into San Diego Bay (STOP CASSINI #71, August 27th, 1998):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0071.htm

GAO report comparing CVs to CVNs (STOP CASSINI #73, September 8th, 1998):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0073.htm

We don't need no stinkin' nuclear aircraft carriers! (STOP CASSINI #124, May 10th, 1999):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0124.htm

RESPONSE FROM U. S. NAVY TO RUSSELL D. HOFFMAN (one measly paragraph) (STOP CASSINI #151, July 12th, 1999):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0151.htm

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*** 2) Jack Shannon's most recent email to you:
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>>>>> LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR J. STARLING III: >>>>>

From: Jacksha1@aol.com
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 10:39:47 EDT
Subject: Re: Additional answers and related material To: arthur_jay@yahoo.com, rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Mr. Starling please to not attempt to apologize to Mr. Hoffman by insulting me and or the USMC.

First of all I know more about Nuclear Reactors and Submarines than you and the entire Navy combined. I was the senior Engineer/Physicist assigned to design the D1G plant [which I did successfully], and also to certify it's application in the HSNAS at a different temperature. I have a B.S., M.S., in Nuclear Physics plus 16 more hours toward a Ph.D., which I would have by now if R. P. I. had not changed the rules for part time students. So don't give me your nonsense about hard work.

After boot camp at Parris Island I was an infantryman assigned as a BAR trainee [BAR is Browning Automatic Rifleman -- weighs about twenty pounds fully loaded]. The BAR was used in W.W.I, W.W.II, Korea, and early Vietnam. We worked 20 hours a day for weeks on end with virtually no sleep. We marched for so long we just went into trances. I get sick and tired of you Navy twits complaining about tough duty. The Nuclear Navy is not exactly the Navy Seals

You haven't seen tough duty until you have served in the infantry. Fortunately for me I had scored very high on the GCT test and was sent to Air Traffic Control school after my Infantry training. I was 19 years old landing airplanes in all kinds of God awful weather without all of the electronic gear today. We were not allowed to drink for twenty-four hours before duty, so I had little time for "bar hoping," as you say. Next I was sent to Ground Control Approach [GCA] School, and if you want a hair-raising job, try this day after day with hundreds of peoples lives in your hands.

At 20 I was in charge of all of the Air Traffic Controllers, and GCA personnel at Roosevelt Roads, PR. We didn't get any extra pay either. I received the pay of a Corporeal [about $100/month]. I won't even tell you what I had to go through to become a Marine Corps Infantry Officer.

Furthermore, the Nuclear Navy has never been tried in combat. You might want to look at the training of a Navy/Marine Pilot compared to a Nuke Officer if you want a comparison of difficulty of training and duty, and a combat record. If you would like a comparison of casualty rates this is what they were for W. W. II
1 USMC
2 Merchant Marine
3 Air Force Pilots and Crew
4 Army
5 Navy
6 Coast Guard

The only people who think the Nukes are terrific are the Nukes. Self adulation is no adulation.

I will put up my training against yours any day in the week. The only reason that NUKE training appears difficult is that it was set up by Rickover who didn't know a thing about training anyone. He couldn't distinguish training from punishment, how could he? He graduated from the Naval Academy in 1922. The present Nuke Officers still live in his nightmare mind, and they won't or can't change.

Please don't get too impressed by your knowledge, I taught in the Power School for a while and you guys don't know much. Don't forget that most of the Reactor Operators at Three Mile Islands were Navy trained. You know what the instructors think you must know to run a reactor, Einstein's you're not

So take your Nuclear Navy and shove it.
Jack Shannon

<<<<< END OF LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR STARLING III <<<<<

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*** 3) List of contaminated sites in California:
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>>>>> FROM: PRC >>>>>

Subject: Calif. sites polluted because of nuclear weapons links..

September 23, 2000

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS (compiled by RADBULL)

WASHINGTON--The Energy Department posted a list on its Web site this week of more than 500 government and commercial sites across the country that may have been used to help build NUCLEAR weapons.

The department created the list in 1995, when the agency was trying to determine sites for an environmental cleanup program. The list, which includes 20 California sites, is identified by department officials as a working document subject to revision.

It is referred to as the FUSRAP list, which is an acronym that refers to sites reviewed for possible past involvement in NUCLEAR weapons- related activities.

Though that specific cleanup program has since been moved to the Army Corps of Engineers, the Energy Department is reviewing the list to see which sites need to be cleaned up.

The list documents weapons activity that took place as early as the 1940s, when the government was building the first atomic bomb. Some small, private businesses secretly participated in the effort known as the Manhattan Project.

File and field reviews of the sites on the list began in the early 1970s, when government officials realized the sites should be evaluated to determine the risks posed to workers and the environment.

The following is a list of California sites on the list and the agencies with jurisdiction at those sites:

Chemistry Building and Radiation Laboratory at UC Berkeley--Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Gilman Hall at University of California, Berkeley.

Mare Island Navy Yard, Defense Department (DOD).

Stauffer-Tenescal Co. in Richmond--NRC.

General Electric Co. in San Jose--NRC.

U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco--DOD.

Laboratory for Energy Related Health Reseaerch at University of California, Davis--Energy Department (DOE).

Northrup Aircraft Co. Inc. in Hawthorne--NRC.

Shannon Luminous Metals Co. in Hollywood--NRC.

California Institute of Technology in Pasadena--DOE.

Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake--DOD.

Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Canoga Park--DOE.

Hunter Douglas Aluminum Plant in Riverside--NRC.

Gulf General Atomic in San Diego--NRC.

The department still is trying to sort out which sites need to be cleaned up, according to Carolyn Huntoon, who oversees cleanup issues for the department.

"We are reconstructing the history of these former and present sites to see if questions remain about contamination," Huntoon said. " ... In the near future, we expect to have a more thorough and comprehensive list and a plan for addressing health and environmental concerns."

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said earlier this month he wanted to publicize the list. Huntoon said the agency did not want to delay posting it any longer "in an effort to be candid with workers."

http://www2.em.doe.gov/sitelist.

<<<<< END OF INCOMING EMAIL FROM PRC/SAN DIEGO <<<<<

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*** 4) Your most recent email to me with your "apology", with comments by me. This also includes all our previous correspondence (including numerous links you should start to read -- you have a lot of catching up to do):
*********************************************************

>>>>> ARTHUR J. STARLING III'S LETTER TO RDH, WITH COMMENTARY BY RDH ADDED IN TRIPLE-BRACKETS [[[ Like this. -- rdh ]]] >>>>>

At 10:33 PM 9/27/00 -0400, "Arthur J. Starling III" wrote:

All right, I'm not so full of foolish pride that I can't make a sincere apology for being hot-headed. But when I feel like someone has insulted my commitment and dedication to this service, as well as my integrity and the honorable conditions of that service, I must inform you that I take extreme offense. I do apologize if my mailing was a personal insult, I meant only to defend my professional honor, as well as that of the many people that I encountered as a Second Class Petty Officer in the Naval Nuclear Power Program. A commitment which took six of the best years of my life and nearly destroyed me, but made me stronger.

[[[ What was insulted was not commitment and dedication but blind faith and the Nuclear Navy's ridiculous claims of perfection. -- rdh ]]]

That is the answer to one of your questions. The answer to one of the implied questions by your colleague (Mr. Shannon) is as follows. The reason that sailors in the nuclear navy fear what their supervisors may do to them is readily justified by the intense effort we all put forth just to get to that ship and assigned to the Reactor or Engineering Department of a ship or a submarine. As men who have earned degrees, you understand what it means to put in long hours of classes and homework. But for the nuclear enlisted (or officer) it is even more intense. I routinely put in 18 hour days while completing Electronics Technician Nuclear Field A School and Naval Nuclear Power School, including regular weekend efforts. This was in addition to whatever whims our section advisors might have us doing, such as random uniform inspection and extended marching in the Orlando heat and humidity or spending our Sunday mornings cleaning the outsides of the barracks. I could go on. The work requires even more dedicati on when a student is transferred to one of the two prototype training units, where the work not only requires intensive classroom study and testing, but practical applications on an operational power plant under the close and scrutinous eye of a highly qualified team of senior operators.

Then the student is transferred to his first ship, where the pain begins anew. You see, graduating Prototype doesn't give a sailor a license to operate. He/she must first complete another strict set of qualifications after reporting aboard. The sailor will typically see lower-ranked shipmates, with cushy jobs and equivalent salaries who can leave the ship just as soon as the work is done. Most everyone leaves no later than 2:00 while the ship is in port, except for the wonderful hard-working and dedicated people in Reactor and Engineering, who must stay and study for their quals, or for the next continual training exam, because the training never ends.

And even though everyone is human, everyone is easily punishable for their mistakes. Often, sailors will lose their Nuclear Classifications in one swift blow, even for the first offense. And when you typically work 18-hour days and 20-hour days underway, it can become easy to make a mistake, or even fear that you might make one. I made a few. And I had the horrible fear that I was going to lose my job for it on more than one occasion. And then what? "Lose your nuclear classification and go topside to scrape paint with the boatswains" was the typical threat. Sometimes it even happened. Or perhaps you'll be stuck in the galley for the rest of your enlistment. Then there was the ever popular "other than honorable discharge." And if all else failed, the chain could simply give you work, work, and even more work until you just didn't have time to sleep, eat, or even shower. And make it last until they got tired.

[[[ The Nuclear Navy is NOT easily punished for their mistakes, let alone for their arrogance and abrogation of responsibilities to truth and to the health of United States citizens and others, and of the ecology of the planet. Uncloaking the awful truths hidden behind thin claims of "national security" has been nearly impossible. The Nuclear Navy has run roughshod over democracy and so far has done this utterly immune from punishment -- so immune that you think you can claim I am a liar and a fear-monger with impunity. I am a United States Citizen. You are so far out of line I don't know where to begin. Oh and by the way, the extremely long hours you say you were subjected to invariably lead to humans making stupid mistakes. Out in the real world this has been studied and proven time and again. Is that any way to run the most dangerous business on the planet? -- rdh ]]]

So maybe you can understand why sailors sometimes fear the chain of command. In the Nuclear Navy it works a little different. As well it should. You, better than anyone else must understand the necessity of doing it right the first time, every time when charged with operating and maintaining a nuclear reactor, for it is a powerful force indeed. And the protection of the environment and the population, as well as its own workforce, is of top priority to the navy.

[[[ Maybe environmental protection and protection of the population is, in theory, a priority. But in actuality that protection is utterly failing, as I have described in great detail, detail which, I might add, you have not responded to AT ALL. Instead you have merely waved your patriotic banner, clearly hoping your friends and shipmates will rally around it, merely because you are one of them. -- rdh ]]]

In regards to the home that Mr. Shannon sat in and listened to sailors "horror stories" in Saratoga Springs, I can make no comment. I can promise you that they were not shipmates, and that they never served with me. If he truly had tape recordings of instructors talking about students cheating on qualification exams, you can rest assured that this is an exceptionally rare and isolated even. The punishment for such actions is ,without variation, dismissal from the nuclear power program, and typically includes the immediate discharge of the offenders after some forfeiture of money and possible time in the brig.

[[[ To a nuclear navy seaman, as to a NASA scientist, every incident, every accident, every mistake, every leak, every lie, every missing report, every anything the least little bit ugly is an "exceptionally rare and isolated event". But to anyone who has watched what is really going on for any length of time, these "exceptionally rare and isolated events" are not so rare and isolated at all. Humans make mistakes and the nuclear navy promises -- and consistently fails to deliver -- perfection. -- rdh ]]]

And I promise you, based on first hand experience, that the reactor operator (that's what I was) training program includes an intensive class on reactor kinetics. And as is the case with all classes in the Naval Nuclear Power Program, omitting the class is not an option, nor is failure.

[[[ Reactor Kinetics are rather irrelevant to the debate, insofar as, naval reactors can be destroyed for many reasons besides just an incomplete understanding of reactor kinetics. Naval ships are in the wrong place, always at the wrong time. They are objects of attack by sophisticated weaponry (sometimes our own latest models, sold to the now-enemy by our own country, or by a once-friendly country, or they obtained it in some other way). Jet fuel, High-Explosive weaponry, being a target of sophisticated attack, and Nuclear Reactors -- even ones where the operators fully understand Reactor Kinetics and are well rested-up for their duties -- just don't mix in a sane society. The gains (over non-nuclear power supplies) are small and the potential for loss is enormous. The costs are prohibitive as well. -- rdh ]]]

The other comments Mr. Shannon made I cannot comment on, though most were quite vague. Except one. The officers. The nuclear officers that I served with were all among the finest men I have ever encountered, or had the privilege to work for. The most obvious explanation for why you never encountered them is similar to the one I already gave you. While you and your friends were bar-hopping and entertaining yourselves, the officers and enlisted of the nuclear navy were standing watch over their reactors, doing maintenance, catching up on some of the mountains of required paperwork, or otherwise doing their jobs, which take up much more time than anyone else's that I encountered in my six years of service. Of everyone on my ship, we always had the least free time by far.

[[[ (See Jack Shannon's own response, above.) -- rdh ]]]

Another question you posed asked had I visited the Thresher or the Scorpion lately. Let me be frank and say that just as important as the uranium down there are the bodies of many men who gave their life in service of this country and from now on I would hope that you can at least acknowledge both that fact and their service. If you had a detailed knowledge of what goes into making the reactor vessel and compartment of a US Navy Nuclear submarine (which I am bound by oath not to give) your fears would dissolve. I know that before those reactor vessels become breached by seawater we will have found a way to recover those downed ships and give the fuel and the sailors' remains a proper burial.

[[[ Your "bound by oath" excuse is worthless. We are a supposedly free society trying to establish issues of great national importance, and the minutia of detail you folks consider necessary to "classify" is absurd. I'm sure much if not most of this resistance to talk is simply covering up spills, instances of improper procedures being followed, leaks, near-catastrophes, near-misses, etc. etc. etc. Not to protect important national secrets but to cover up shoddy workmanship and the crime of committing an environmental holocaust.

The U.S. Navy does not have any magical stainless steel that does not ever rust. It does not have solutions to the problems of recovering the Thresher or the Scorpion or any of hundreds of other nuclear waste sites under the sea. You can't even figure out how to recover your mistakes, yet you claim secrecy abides that you not tell me how exactly it is that everything is alright. Everything is NOT alright and any oaths you took which you use to hide the facts you claim might resolve my fears are meaningless. We are a nation which is in dreaded fear of our own military's inability to admit to their own imperfections. Millions of us know what the dangers are and know the price is too high. There are other ways to protect our freedom -- even with force if necessary, but the threat of assault against the environment -- against all future generations -- has got to stop. I am well aware of what nuclear reactors and submarines are made of in the general sense -- pipes, pumps, valves and vessels. They use the heat of radioactive decay to boil water and spin turbines, generating electricity for lights and for spinning propellers to go places. What's so secret? Your assurances are hollow and don't ring true. I don't trust you and have no reason to, since you've accused me of high crimes with no basis for such accusations. No one should trust you, least of all when you lean on "national security" to cover your mistakes.

And while it might seem morally nice to recover the bodies (bones may be all that is there now) of the hundreds of men who went down with the submarines Scorpion and Thresher for more proper burial, there are thousands more bodies down there, men who went down with other military ships over the years --many in combat -- who won't ever be recovered. You're just trying to appeal to people's emotions by saying such things. No effort to recover all of those bodies will ever be made -- what makes those on the Scorpion and Thresher more important than those on some sunken landing craft off some beach in the Pacific?

Yet while you cry out about those sailor's bodies, you don't mention worrying about the vastly greater numbers of people who will be hurt by the same nuclear poison their subs contained, an evil nuclear waste which spreads throughout the environment for generations and generations -- you don't say a word about what will happen to "our posterity". You don't worry about them, only about the bodies of your Nuclear buddies. And how many years EXACTLY are you saying we have until the Thresher and the Scorpion's nuclear reactor cores rust away and release their poisons into the biosphere? Oh yeah, that's classified, right? There you go, hiding behind a cloak of secrecy just in order to hide shoddy workmanship and illegal activities! The truth is that there is NO time to waste at all! YOU certainly wouldn't know if we had a day or a decade or a century. No one knows. We don't even know why they are down there -- it could be due to a misunderstanding of reactor kinetics! -- rdh ]]]

As for the sailors aboard the sunken Soviet submarine Kursk, you're God Damned Right I supported them. Not because they were "A great and honorable foe" as you put it, but because they were human beings subjected to a horrible death of either suffocation or drowning doing the same thing I did, serving their country with faith and loyalty regardless of its shortcomings. They didn't fall in battle, with a chest wound, or with a gun in their hands. They died helpless at the bottom of a merciless ocean, while their countrymen drifted above them, helpless to do anything for them but make apologies to their families.

[[[ You scream out your support of the Russian sailors, misguided humans just like yourself. Every one of them was a volunteer who supposedly understood the risks. Yet where is your screaming out for the multitudes who will die around the world from the poisons Russian and American nuclear military policies have been putting out -- from Kursk's poisons? Hundreds, perhaps thousands or more will die for each one that died on board the sub. Scattered deaths around the world as the radioactive waste spreads throughout the biosphere. Where is your condemnation of the children's deaths from Russian's many nuclear catastrophes, including Chernobyl, and the Kursk and half a dozen other sunken subs? All you defend is your foe, but not your or your foe's many innocent victims scattered around the world -- neither you nor your nuclear navy ever mention them.

The world -- humanity -- is in a war of survival with people who are drunk with a nuclear madness, a desire to poison us all until each and every one of us dies an early death from cancer, leukemia or birth defects. When that happens, who will you defend yourself against, Arthur J. Starling III? -- rdh ]]]

I cannot comment on your claim that the Russians "are fools who don't know how to handle something that's more dangerous than they care to admit." My knowledge of the Russian Nuclear Navy is quite limited, as I did not serve in their navy. It is quite a task for a person to properly comment in an area where he/she has little or no first-hand knowledge. I can tell you that it takes and exceptionally gifted "fool" to harness the power of the atom.

[[[ You claim you will not comment on the Russian "fools", yet you defended them as exceptionally gifted! That is to say, you defend America's enemy (the Russians) and the enemy of the environment (the Russians), and of democracy and humanity (the Russians!!!)! ANY FOOL can see that the Russians are way out of line with their disrespect for the environment and especially, the hundreds of unused, unburied Russian nuclear reactors on Earth and in space! Do you even know about the one's in space? If not, here's a report you can read:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/zips/rh9810fp.zip

-- rdh ]]]

I commented on the article regarding the US Navy because I have something you do not, a first-hand point of view. Believe me, Sir, if I had sincerely believed that our Navy was not working at the most reasonable efforts to minimize the environmental impacts of our operations, I would have blown the whistle myself long ago, oath or no oath. You do not have the benefit of spending six years in direct service and operation of this Nuclear Navy.

[[[ Well, you say you won't tell me what I need to know to feel safe because you are bound by oath, the same oath you claim you would blow the whistle on if you thought there was a problem.

In that case I again implore you to actually spend the time it takes to read the many charges I and others have made against the United States Government and your Nuclear Navy, and against NASA and other military and quasi-military departments of the US Government, because YOU OBVIOUSLY DO NOT HAVE THE BENEFIT OF THE KNOWLEDGE GAINED FROM DECADES OF BEING A FREE U.S. CITIZEN TRYING TO AFFECT ENVIRONMENT IMPROVEMENTS. Instead while you were in the Navy, and the rest of your life, you've let things go to (nuclear) waste. You, with your service past you now, can read about how the environmental movements themselves have been infiltrated time and again by agent-provocateurs, destroying our democratic right to organize properly. (A good book to read on the subject is called The War Against the Greens by David Helvarg.) You, with your service, could make a statement to your shipmates that they too should not be so rude and hot-headed as you were in your previous email, a problem I've run into time and again and for what? To defend a mistake. I've been called a lot of names for my stand, but only by biased people like you. That's one reason I recognize your efforts as being that of a NUCLEAR MAFIA. Your support for your Nuclear Navy is blind. How do you propose to defend against a nuclear attack on San Diego Bay? How do you propose to defend that harbor, with its dozens of nuclear reactors in it (all of them military) against even something like an asteroid from space? It's a valid, reasonable concern because your nuclear waste would destroy the environment for millennia if it got out. I don't mean some future protection scheme, but one that would work TODAY. How do you propose to make your industry truly safe -- the whole nuclear fuel cycle spreads waste into the environment. The answer is you can't. Spreading all the radioactive poisons from those 30 or 40 reactors in San Diego bay -- and countless nuclear warheads -- around Earth would be devastating. How do you propose to defend against even a lone terrorist with a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb (we've all heard such things exist) driven over the Coronado Bridge and set off amidst your precious nuclear carriers and subs in San Diego bay?

The answer is you have no defense. Your attitude, your ships, and your claims of invincibility are all indefensible.

You accuse me of not speaking the truth. But you have not proven your accusation, only apologized for "hot-headedness". Maybe they trained you well how to push the proper buttons and turn the proper valves to prevent most standard meltdown situations, but they must have completely forgot to go ever the most fundamental principal this nation was founded on: TRUTH. -- rdh ]]]

Since you feel compelled to forward my mail to various people, I will try to save you a little effort. It's the least I can do after sending you a hot-headed email.

Sincerely,

Arthur J. Starling III

[[[ No effort saved but your sarcastic tone is noted. Our correspondence will travel around the world and be posted at a number of web sites, because I feel compelled to defend my honor and the honor of all free American Citizens against your attacks. It is truly a shame that one of the United States Navy's #1 targets for the past 50 years has been the freedom of American citizens. -- rdh ]]]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" To: "Arthur J. Starling III" Cc: ; "Dianne Feinstein, Senator (CA, D)" ; "Barbara Boxer, Senator (CA, D)"
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 7:38 PM Subject: Additional answers and related material

From: Russell D. Hoffman
To: Arthur J. Starling III
cc: President Clinton, others
Date: September 25th, 2000
Re: Our previous correspondence

Dear Mr. Starling,

The attached emails were received today in response to my distributing my email to you of yesterday, which followed your unsolicited (and insulting) comments to me (shown below).

We are ready to debate these issues openly, and welcome your best and most earnest efforts. But truly, these issues need not be debated any more. There is nothing to be said about nuclear power's failures which has not already been said. We are in a clean-up phase all around the world; nuclear power is not paying for that cleanup: The taxpayer, and the sick who suffer from the pollution, are paying for it. The Navy is not paying for it. Humanity is paying for it.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman
U.S. Citizen
Carlsbad, California
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Attachments (3):
*** (1) Email from Jack Shannon to Arthur Starling
*** (2) A recent article by Karl Grossman about nuclear subs
*** (3) Our previous correspondence to date, with contact information

***************************************************
*** (1) Email from Jack Shannon to Arthur Starling:
***************************************************

**** EMAIL FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR STARLING: ****

From: Jacksha1@aol.com
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 11:08:58 EDT
Subject: KAPL
To: (Arthur J. Starling III),
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Mr. Starling:

Mr. Hoffman sent me your comments to him as well as his response to you.

He has given you several pages of my web site for you to review.

I have hundreds of more pages to add when I decide to upgrade my site again.

Just for the sake of discussion let me throw out a few more issues:

a) Misuse of the United States Security System

b) Violation of the privacy act

c) Violation of the civil rights act of 1964

d) burying thousands of drums of radioactive material/hazardous material in the unmarked KAPL landfill. I have the documents

e) Lying to federal investigators [violation of 10 USC 1001]

f) Lack of a bioassay program for all sailors and other trainees at KSO.

g) Lack of a bioassay program for all uranium workers at KAPL

h) Cover-up of the use of beryllium at KAPL [maybe KSO] and lying to the employees about such use [the damn stuff is still in the duct work]

i) Lying to the public at a Town Board meeting concerning a Water Brake explosion on the S8G plant at the KSO, which did in fact release radiation to the environment.

j) Sailors cheating on qualification exams [I have Instructors on tape -- with their knowledge -- concerning this issue]

k) Refusing to modify the reactor operator training program to include the correct use and understanding of reactor kinetics.

I could keep going on and on, but I think you get the picture.

You should understand that when Mr. [Hoffman] and I tell the truth about the Nuclear Navy we are not, in any way, undermining your dedication to serving your Country or your personal courage. We are merely exposing those things that the Navy has refused to do, and is required to do by virtue of an Officers oath, and what the Civilian members at NR have been covering up for fifty years or more.

I sat in a Sailors home in Saratoga Springs four years ago and heard horror stories from Enlisted Sailors, concerning the conduct of Senior Enlisted Members and Officers, that astounded even me.

I enlisted in the Marines during the Korean War and I was terrified of my Drill Instructors, but never an Officer.

All of us are intended to serve in the Military with honor and hopefully courage if and when the need arises. We should never be ashamed of or afraid of what a Senior enlisted member [E-8 and above] or Officer will do to us in the conduct of our duties. The Nuclear Navy seems to be an exception to this rule, I don't think it carry's over to the rest of the Navy. I served as a Naval Academy recruiter for many years and therefore have many friends who are high ranking Naval Officers and they all appear to be gentlemen. I don't remember meeting a Nuclear Navy Officer in all of the years I served in the recruiting capacity.

I decided to stay in the Reserves after getting my BS, on the Korean War GI bill, and was eventually commissioned. I retired as a Major.

I decided to stay in the reserves because I believed that I owed my Country more than I could ever pay back for giving me a successful life [both of my parents were dirt poor immigrants from Ireland] unheard of in any other Country. Such success, however does not give me license to throw away my honor. Something I refused to do at KAPL. As a result of holding onto my honor I gave up my career, and I would do it again.

Apparently many Naval Reactors Officers are more interested in becoming Captains and Admirals than they are in maintaining their honor. Honor stands above all else, especially for a professional military person. It has been my experience that bravery and honor usually supplement each other, but of the two honor is way ahead of bravery. One need only give up his/her life to be brave, honor requires one to stand up against all kinds of self centered individuals who have no honor --- a difficult task indeed.

John P. Shannon

Nuclear Physicist/Nuclear Engineer
and former Manager at KAPL

**** END OF EMAIL FROM JACK SHANNON TO ARTHUR STARLING ****

***************************************************
*** (2) A recent article by Karl Grossman about nuclear subs:
***************************************************

**** ARTICLE BY KARL GROSSMAN: ****

By Karl Grossman

The tragedy involving the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk, following other instances of nuclear-powered U.S. and Russian ships sinking, their leaking reactors now causing significant pollution, raises the question of whether nuclear power is right for ships.

The conventional wisdom since Admiral Hyman Rickover promoted a nuclear-powered U.S. navy in the early 1950s and other nations followed in kind has been that nuclear-powered ships make sense.

But is this long-held analysis correct? The General Accounting Office (GAO), an independent arm of the U.S. Congress, in 1998 did an exhaustive analysis of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

The conclusions were surprising. As to cost, the GAO found that nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were significantly more expensive to operate than conventional carriers. "Nuclear-powered carriers cost more than conventionally powered carriers to acquire, operate and support, and inactivate," noted the GAO. It estimated "that over a 50-year life, the costs of a nuclear-powered carrier is about $8.1 billion, or about 58 percent more than a conventionally powered carrier."

Still, if the additional money came with an advantage, that might balance the high cost out. But, as for "overseas presence" and "crisis response," the GAO noted that "conventionally powered carriers spend less time in extended maintenance, and as a result they can provide more forward presence coverage."

"Conventionally powered carriers can be available sooner for large scale crises because it is easier to accelerate or compress their maintenance," it found.

And, as for "war-fighting," the GAO determined: "there was little difference in the operational effectiveness of nuclear and conventional carriers in the Persian Gulf War."

There is another issue, however, with nuclear-powered submarines. Working on nuclear power means they have the freedom to not have to regularly come to the surface to obtain air for diesel engines a problem for conventional submarines. They can stay below the surface for extensive periods of time.

But here, the potential costs to public health and that of the natural environment -- caused by the loss of nuclear submarines should be factored in.

According to Greenpeace, 10 nuclear reactors from Russia and U.S. nuclear submarines now lie at the bottom of oceans. Some are in highly sensitive marine environments. The Kursk, for example, "is positioned," according to Thomas Nilsen, a researcher with the Bellona Foundation, a Norwegian-Russian watchdog agency, in "the most productive part" for fish of the Barents Sea.

If the two reactors aboard the Kursk end up left on the sea bottom like the other 10 nuclear power plants and eventually leaking, the radioactive material in them will end up in the oceanic food chain.

In the end, Admiral Rickover regretted what he wrought and the world emulated. In a farewell speech given before a Congressional committee when he retired from the Navy in 1982, Rickover said of nuclear power: "I'll be philosophical. Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn't have any life, fish or anything. Gradually, about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet.reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin."

"Now," he went on, "when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible.every time you produce radiation" a "horrible force" is unleashed "and I think there the human race is going to wreck itself." Rickover asked the congresspeople that "we first outlaw nuclear weapons to start with and then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too."

"You might ask me why do I have nuclear-powered ships?" he also said. They might be considered "a necessary evil" but "I would sink them all. I'm not proud of the part I've played," stated Admiral Rickover.

It is not too late to rectify an increasingly costly mistake.

-30-

Karl Grossman is professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury. Books he has authored on nuclear technology include Cover Up: What You ARE NOT Supposed To Know About Nuclear Power.

**** END OF ARTICLE BY KARL GROSSMAN ****

I suppose Admiral Rickover didn't understand the dangers of simply sinking these nuclear monstrosities. For more information about the GAO report Grossman refers to, please see my own Stop Cassini newsletter #73, September 8th, 1998:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0073.htm

-- rdh

***********************************************************************
*** (3) Our previous correspondence to date, with contact information:
***********************************************************************

**** PRIOR OUTGOING EMAIL TO ARTHUR J. STARLING III (INCLUDES HIS ORIGINAL EMAIL) ****

To: Arthur J. Starling III
From: Russell D. Hoffman
cc: President Clinton, others
re: Your email to me (shown below) regarding the US Nuclear Navy Date: September 24th, 2000

Sir,

Regarding your hot-headed and rude email (shown below), it sounds like you've read about one article of mine, and it's giving you fits to learn that the American public knows the truth about the mess the United States Nuclear Navy has gotten us into as a nation.

Well, the truth is that those of us who have studied the matter are pretty upset about what you've done. And the fact is, you (that is, the navy) have tried to hide the truth from the American public for decades. Now you accuse me of high crimes for exposing that truth! Shame on you!

You paint a mighty clean picture of a very dirty business. Next you'll be telling me you've cleaned Bikini, too, and Hanford as well, and Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, and not to mention KAPL.

You forgot to mention the Sea Wolf, dumped unceremoniously into the ocean by you -- our nuclear navy. And you've forgotten who you worked for -- and the ideals you worked for, too. Calling me "fear-mongering" -- ha! On what grounds? Alerting the public to the facts is not fear-mongering.

Have you visited the Scorpion or the Thresher lately? What's your definition of "no release" anyway? What about all those millions of gallons of waste you (the navy) let contractors haul out to sea and dump in thin steel 55-gallon barrels, or dumped yourselves, or that you sent to Beatty, Nevada or some other nuclear waste dump to wash your hands of the matter, where it is being slowly (or not so slowly, as the case may be) leaked, leached, and let into the environment a drip or a drop or a carcinogenic bucketful at a time?

If the Scorpion and the Thresher haven't yet leaked their primary coolant, when do you expect them to do so? When are you going to retrieve them in order to bury them properly (as if there's even a way to do that!)?

I am curious as to just which items of mine you claim to have read. Not many, I presume.

And are you one of those retired seamen who also support (to our inquiring newspapers, for instance, last month) the Russian Nuclear Navy, and their Kursk crewmen, saying they are a great and honorable foe, doing all the right things, or do you admit they are fools who don't know how to handle something that's more dangerous than they care to admit? The Thresher was the pride of our fleet when she went down, just like the Kursk was the pride of theirs. The Russians are human (it's been proven time and again).

You deny culpability for your actions, and claim you are spreading truth. In fact what you have spread is called nuclear waste, and it's as close to pure evil as anything humans have ever come up with.

I am a free American, and your harassment is uncalled for and unAmerican. I have a right to say what I want without witless automatons (such as you appear to be) accusing me of doing something as horrible as lying to the people -- unless you can back it up, which you can't do.

Some suggested items are linked to below where you can learn more if you want to come out and debate these issues like a citizen, arguing your case fairly, on the merits of the matter only, and not accusing others of lying or fear-mongering without having clear and obvious proof of your position, which you most certainly DO NOT HAVE.

I warn of clear and present dangers to the American way. I have not only a perfect right to do it, but indeed, I have a citizen's duty to do so, and in the loudest way possible.

You Sir, need to step aside, apologize, and come clean about what exactly you know, about what your rank was, your training, and what experience led you to make the accusations against a good and honest American citizen which you've made. And tell me also, just exactly where your "knowledge" about the available alternative energy sources really comes from -- it sounds like it came from a standard DoE brochure on the subject, or some other biased source.

I'm pretty tired of people like you, frankly. Are you one of those "hit and run" letter-writers, who can't follow up an initial broadside with carefully crafted rebuttal? We'll see. Surely you can lie without blinking. That's navy tradition. But you can't lie without people knowing it -- that's impossible if the truth is known -- and it is known. The dangers from your nuclear games is now quite well known, and people are sick of it. I'm sick of it. My family is sick of it. My friends are sick of it. The whole world is sick of it.

I am determined to save the United States Navy from itself, and to save us ("us" as in, U.S. and world citizens) from the Navy at the same time.

America will have a non-nuclear Navy again some day, and Americans will rue the time it took to achieve that goal.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, California
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

Attachments (5):
* Note to "cc'd" readers
* Letter from Arthur J. Starling III
* Statement regarding Adm. Rickover
* URL's from Jack Shannon's KAPL-related web site * Hoffman's contact info and additional links

Note to those being "cc'd" this email: Please send all comments to the President of the United States: president@whitehouse.gov . Please also send copies to the author of the above letter (Russell D. Hoffman): rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com . Thank you in advance.

**** ORIGINAL LETTER FROM ARTHUR J. STARLING III ****

At 05:20 PM 9/24/00 -0400, "Arthur J. Starling III" wrote:

You're nothing but a fear-monger and you need to get a grip on reality. I was in the nuclear navy. I am a proponent of nuclear power. I know that everything we do to generate electricity, with the exception of solar and hydro-electric (and even these, though to a much smaller extent), creates waste and pollution. You're comment about the navy and the assault of the San Diego bay obviously displays you're lack of unbiased research into the matter. To this day, the US navy has never caused a single uncontrolled release of fission products, and all disposal regulations are strictly adhered to. The designs are as close to flawless as is humanly possible. The operators are all top-notch and rigorously trained and tested and requalified on a continual basis.

And though I've not done thorough enough research to conclude that Admiral Rickover didn't say the things you say he did (which can never be proven due to absence of proof not being proof of absence), I have read enough about the man to infer that he would never say the navy had no use for nuclear power.

What are you going to do when the coal and other fossil fuel reserves start to dry up? Nuclear power is the cleanest, and least harmful to the environment, way of generating the lifeblood of our nation - electricity. And it is a virtually limitless supply, at least until a better alternative can be developed.

Take off the 1960's Anti-Nuke "blinders" and take a real close look. In all the decades of peaceful nuclear power applications, how many "accidents" (meaning meltdowns) have there been? The answer is two. Just two. And only one of those resulted in significant discharge of fission products to the population. In the fifty years of the nuclear navy's existence, the navy has lost control of only two of its nuclear reactors, namely the Scorpion and the Thresher, neither of which has resulted in the release of any contaminants. And the navy has never had any major incidents which even might have led to harmful release.

I don't know why you seem so hell bent on spreading fear. I think it is much more pleasant to spread the truth.

Arthur J. Starling III

**** END OF LETTER FROM ARTHUR J. STARLING III ****

**** STATEMENT ABOUT ADMIRAL RICKOVER BY JANE RICKOVER ****

Admiral Rickover's Statement

The following statement was signed by Jane Rickover, daughter-in-law of Admiral Hyman Rickover, "father" of the nuclear navy. It was notorized by William Lamson July 18, 1986. Jane Rickover has verified the authenticity of the document and the events described in it.

"In May, 1983, my father-in-law, Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, told me that at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor accident, a full report was commissioned by by President Jimmy Carter. He [my father-in-law] said that the report, if published in its entirety, would have destroyed the civilian nuclear power industry because the accident at Three Mile Island was infinitely more dangerous than was ever made public. he told me that he had used his enormous personal influence with President Carter to persuade him to publish the report only in a highly "diluted" form. The President himself had originally wished the full report to be made public. In November, 1985, my father-in-law told me that he had come to deeply regret his action in persuading President Carter to suppress the most alarming aspects of that report.

[Signed] Jane Rickover

Jane Rickover appeared before me and swore as to the truth of the above statement.

Dated at Toronto this 18th day of July A.D. 1986 [Signed] William F. Lamson
William F. Lamson Q.C.
Notary Public for the Province of
Ontario

*** END OF STATEMENT BY JANE RICKOVER ****

**** URLs FOR JACK SHANNON'S WEB SITE: ****

The following statement describing Jack Shannon is from his web site:

"Nuclear Reactor Physicist responsible for the design of the D2G Nuclear Reactor. This Nuclear Reactor is the most widely used Nuclear Reactor in the Naval Fleet. It is used on all High Speed Nuclear Attack Submarines and on all Nuclear Cruisers... Shannon was fired after 30 years employment at KAPL for reporting deplorable and blatant safety problems at the Kesselring Site Operations, a subsidiary site of KAPL."

Unsafe reactors at Kesselring Site Operation (KSO), located about 5 miles from Ballston Spa, NY, and 8 miles from the resort area of Saratoga Springs, NY:
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/reactors.html

The outrageous track record of the Navy Reactor Program: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/record.html

Presidential Executive Order #12344 gives exemption from oversight: http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/pxo.html

KAPL Misuse of National Security:
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/security.html

The above page links to an incredibly undemocratic "gag order":
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/gag.html

Freedom of Information Act is NOT ENOUGH! (sample of deletions):
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/hundred.html

Want to join the U. S. Navy? This will make you think twice:
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/hillsweba.html

GE workers have been poisoned by radiation and asbestos at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (discussion of an award-winning documentary):
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/deadlydeception.html

Jack Shannon's General Electric Exam:
http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/geexam1.html

**** END OF URLs FOR JACK SHANNON'S WEB SITE ****

*************************************************************
Russell D. Hoffman,
Carlsbad, California

Petition against nuclear energy, for sustainable energy:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/petition/sustain.htm

Peace Activist, Environmentalist, High Tech Guru:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/whoisrdh.htm

Founder and Editor of the Stop Cassini newsletter:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/index.htm

Learn the madness of NASA's ongoing nuclear policies! Visit the Stop Cassini web site:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm

Learn about The Effects of Nuclear War here:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm

What is a half-life? (Compares Plutonium 238 to Plutonium 239)
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0146.htm

What is the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)? Is nuclear war winnable?
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0128.htm

Hug a tree! Read why it should matter to you what happens to the great Redwoods in California:

http://www.animatedsoftware.com/misc/stories/redwoods/redwoods.htm

Why you need encryption: An interview with Phil Zimmerman:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hightech/philspgp.htm
(also available in Spanish)

************************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** Carlsbad CA
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
************************************************************

The Animated Software Company

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com