Fwd: Nuclear Scientist Resigns

[Jay Fenello]

FYI:

More below . . .

>Institute for Public Accuracy
>915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
>(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * i...@accuracy.org
>___________________________________________________
>
>For Release: Not Before 1 PM Eastern Time -- Wednesday, February 23, 2000
>
>SCIENTIST'S RESIGNATION RAISES
>QUESTIONS ABOUT NUCLEAR POLICY
>
>A month ago, Andreas Toupadakis held a classified position at the Lawrence
>Livermore National Laboratory. But he resigned his post, voicing criticisms
>of U.S. nuclear policy. Interviews are available with Dr. Toupadakis and
>other nuclear policy analysts:
>
>ANDREAS TOUPADAKIS,
>Prior to joining the staff at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's
>"Stockpile Stewardship" program on nuclear weapons, Toupadakis worked at Los
>Alamos National Laboratory. Shortly after resigning, he issued an open
>letter which reads in part: "I have seen how easy it is for nuclear
>contamination to occur, and how hard it is to clean it up.... Do nations
>possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons because of fear of attack
>from some other nation, or is it mainly because without them the stronger
>cannot otherwise exploit the weaker?" He cited a manifesto issued by Albert
>Einstein and Bertrand Russell: "People can scarcely bring themselves to
>grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent
>danger of perishing agonizingly." (See:
>http://www.pgs.ca/pages/mem/russeinm.html)
>
>Today, Toupadakis, a native of Greece and a U.S. citizen who received his
>Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, said: "Our nuclear policy is based on
>irrational fears driven by a tiny group of elites who shape public opinion.

Same can be said for Internet policy.

>We scientists have to use our skills for humanity, not for a machine we have
>no control over.

Same can be said for computer scientists.

>Scientists are enticed into comfortable positions, grow
>dependent on the security and then they are tormented, playing tricks on
>their own minds to justify continuing to work

I hope our Internet "fathers" are listening!

Jay.

>on the weapons. Labs must
>institute an informed consent upon hiring -- and they should stop luring
>students to visit the labs."
>
>JACQUELINE CABASSO,
>Executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation, Cabasso said: "A
>scientist in the prime of his career has never before left a high-paying
>permanent position in the nuclear weapons program to wholeheartedly join the
>peace movement." Toupadakis has begun to teach part-time and is making a
>small fraction of his former salary, and is without health insurance.
>
>TED TAYLOR,
>An architect for decades of the U.S. nuclear program, including at Los
>Alamos, and now a critic of U.S. nuclear policy, Taylor said: "I applaud
>Toupadakis. He was hired to work on environmental problems associated with
>getting rid of nuclear weapons. But our government's policy is not to get
>rid of nuclear weapons -- it is to perpetuate them through the
>euphemistically-called 'stockpile stewardship' program."
>
>For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
>Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Respectfully,

Jay Fenello,
New Media Relations
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