Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West

Rating:
Summary: A case study of Cold War America
Review: As a journalist, I'm proud of "Making a Real Killing." Its compelling attention to detail underscores its credibility. Without the detail, the book succumbs to a dull existence as an uninformed environmental screed.

As a reporter, I'm proud of the book's clear, concise explanations of highly complex nuclear technology. The workings of a nuclear bomb and the sources and effects of ionizing radiation are set forth in a clear and compelling manner.

As a storyteller, I'm proud of the fundamental organizing tools the book uses. Telling the history of Rocky Flats from the point of view of the participants in the story makes the book readable and adds a dramatic element that is effective without being cloying or sensationalistic. Also, telling the story of the land itself is a wonderful device.

As a professor of journalism, I'm reinvigorated by the book. It reflects an author in full command of his reporting and writing skills. Each semester I show one particular overhead transparency repeatedly in class: "Use more detail. Reveal more truth." I have read passages from the book to my students to demonstrate the power of carefully used detail.

As a copy editor, I'm particularly proud of the masterful editing. Believe me, I looked very, very hard for errors and even harder for ways to tighten wording or clarify organization. I found only two commas I might quibble with. The University of New Mexico Press did a superb job in designing, editing, and publishing this book.

As a person who practiced "duck and cover" in elementary school, I'm struck by the compelling arguments the book makes about the insane politics and economics of national weapons and defense policies. For this reason alone, the book should earn a Pulitzer prize.

Len Ackland produced a rich, valuable, compelling piece of book-length journalism. As a work of history, it should provide sound lessons for those who create public policy.

(Disclosure: Len Ackland served on my dissertation committee while I was a doctoral student at the University of Colorado-Boulder.)

Rating:
Summary: My Review From Southwest BookViews Fall 2002
Review: The specter of America's nuclear legacy hangs like a pall over the Western landscape. Nearly 15 years after the end of the Cold War, we are confronting the consequences of 50-year-old political decisions. From Fat Man and Little Boy of the Los Alamos National Laboratories to Nevada's Yucca Mountain which will someday become the repository of this nation's nuclear waste, the West has seen its share of America's atomic heritage. The perceived isolation and wide-open spaces of the post-war West were ideal sites for top-secret government nuclear installations. But it's the 21st century now and Westerners aren't nearly as captivated by the atomic age as they once were. The facilities we welcomed with open arms for economic growth are now damned for their environmental, ethical and health threats.

In this updated paperback edition of his 1999 hardcover, Ackland, Director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder, documents the complete history of Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver. Starting from the very beginning of nuclear weapons production, he takes us through the formation of the Atomic Energy Commission, the building of the Rocky Flats plant and its administration by Dow Chemical and the Department of Energy, to present day and the efforts to clean up the plant site. This is not just a story about an infamous nuclear weapons assembly plant. This is also a story about assembly workers and middle managers who were more concerned with keeping their good jobs than what it was they were producing, as well as adjacent land owners, environmental activists, anti-nuclear protesters and, of course, the politicians.

The amount of research presented in this remarkable work is mind-boggling, and it is relayed in a clear, concise journalistic style. But one wouldn't call this an unbiased book. Ackland is sympathetic to the production workers of Rocky Flats, environmentalists, peace activists and neighboring land owners and extremely critical of the management by Dow Chemical and the Department of Energy.

The continuing threat of an atomic catastrophe haunts the Denver area as the DOE attempts to clean up the mess it let grow out of hand while it turned its back on safety for the sake of production. Certainly the most shocking aspect of this exposé is discovering what those in power are capable of doing to keep the gravy train of nuclear production continuing even in the face of endangering their own workers, neighbors, and citizenry. Plant managers were involved in cover-ups, lies, and illegal dumping of toxic waste-all in the name of continuing production. It is appalling to realize what the DOE concealed behind a veil of secrecy they called National Security. The FBI finally raided Rocky Flats in 1989, temporarily shutting down operations.

As luck would have it, due to the end of the Cold War and various arms reduction treaties, 1989 was the last year of production for Rocky Flats; its only function now is as an EPA clean-up site. The irony of it all is that more Americans will probably die from the consequences of nuclear weapons production and testing than any real or imagined threat from the "Evil Empire" or any of its successors. And the threat of Rocky Flats, even without the production of nuclear bomb components, will probably never go away.