Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963–1971 by J. Samuel Walker

Abstract

444 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE attitudes. Whereas Szilard churned out theoretical possibilities for technological development, Rickover dedicated his life to realizing the dream of a nuclear navy. Where Szilard’s interest in nuclear physics ended, Rickover’s work began with a sense of discipline and singleminded commitment that Szilard could never have tolerated. Yet there were similarities. Both men lived outside the institutional bureaucracies of which they were a part—Szilard almost completely, Rickover to the extent that he could subvert the system to his own advantage. Both were men of high integrity, outspoken in their opinions, and often brutally intolerant of sloppy thinking or pompous posturing. Both were unusu­ ally well read in the arts and literature and were insatiably curious about the world around them. Neither of these books is the work of a historian, but both authors were well qualified for what they wanted to achieve. Lanouette, a distinguishedjournalist and careful researcher, managed to capture the private, and even the inner, life of his subject. Theodore Rockwell, an engineer with broad interests beyond his profession, spent fifteen years on Rickover’s senior staff. Not presuming to write history, Rockwell has neatly used existing histories as a framework for his personal recollec­ tions of what it was like to work for Rickover. Revealing in his book the same sort of optimism and almost naive enthusiasm that I sensed in meeting him years ago, Rockwell presents a lively but serious account of scores of incidents that illustrate Rickover’s extraordinary skills and personality. This is the stuff that many historians would like to include in a book but cannot afford to use. The book is vintage Rickover and thus a welcome addition to our understanding of this remarkable man. Richard G. Hewlett Dr, Hewlett, senior vice-president of History Associates Inc., is the senior coauthor of Nuclear Navy, 1939-1961 and a three-volume history of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971. By J. Samuel Walker. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer­ sity of California Press, 1992. Pp. xiii+533; illustrations, notes, appen­ dixes, bibliography, index. $50.00. J. Samuel Walker’s Containing the Atom continues the official prehis­ tory of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)—that is, the evolu­ tion of nuclear regulation under the NRC’s predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The first volume, Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings ofNuclear Regulation, 1946-1962, by George T. Mazuzan and Walker (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985), was reviewed in a previous issue (Technology and Culture 28 [1987]: 391-92). Mazuzan has since moved to the National Science Foundation, Walker succeeding him as NRC historian. The second volume is fully worthy of its predecessor in TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 445 every respect. Its central theme is the ultimately irreconcilable contra­ diction in the AEC’s constitution: the commission’s simultaneous re­ sponsibility for promoting nuclear power and regulating the resultant hazards. Containing the Atom picks up the story with Glenn T. Seaborg’s 1963 appointment as Atomic Energy Commission chairman. It offers a partial history of Seaborg’s AEC focused on the third, and least, of its three major statutory functions: regulating the nuclear industry to insure the safe operation of nuclear power facilities. Developing nuclear weapons and promoting nuclear power, the AEC’s other two major functions, always absorbed the bulk of its resources. During Seaborg’s exception­ ally long term of office (the inclusive dates of the subtitle), an unexpected and unprecedented boom in the nuclear industry coin­ cided with the rise of environmentalism as a major public issue. Industrial demands clashing with environmental concerns greatly exac­ erbated the AEC’s basic dilemma: how to devise policies intended to advance commercial uses of nuclear power and at the same time to insure public safety against the uncertain hazards that commerce entailed. Walker centers his account on the making and implementation of policy at the highest levels of the AEC and its regulatory staff. Although his tone is by no means polemic, he never hesitates to indict the AEC when the evidence calls for it. Walker documents in endless detail the AEC’s persistent inability to...