a massive plant just outside Chicago. The scientists on the [AEC's] Advisory Committee onReactor Safeguards were worried that a core melt so close to large citiescould cause a disaster.They drafted a letter to thechairman of the AEC, Glenn Seaborg, which would, by law, have to be published.It said they would only agree to the plants if the manufacturers redesigned allfuture reactors to stop a molten core escaping if an accident, howeverunlikely, occurred. Seaborg was an ardent proponent of large reactors.Glenn Seaborg, interviewed 1966 "We think that it will be possible to build hugenuclear power reactors that will produce electricity at the rateof millions of kilowatts and [use?] salt seawater at the rate of hundreds of millions of gallons aday..."Seaborg asked for the letternot to be published. "The impact on the industry might be serious",he said, "and the public might misunderstand it." He and his fellow commissioners would dealwith the problem in private.Dr. Glenn Seaborg, Chairman, AEC 19611971 All I can say is that we... tried to take such stepsas we could to follow their advice [and] make the changes that would make them safe. [Adam Curtis, interviewing,off-camera:] So what did you say to the manufacturers? [Seaborg:] We... had meetings with the manufacturers anddiscussed the issue with them. I think they were doing the best they could and I don't knowif we ever made a tremendous push to try to get them to change their whole manufacturingsystem. [Curtis:] Why not? [Seaborg:] Oh, I think it was at that time not regarded asa feasible approach.Dr. David Okrent, Chairman, Advisory Committee on ReactorSafeguards 1966 We asked General Electric to come in and discuss howthey might cope with this; and, in effect, they came in and showed problems that would arisewith their containment and indicatedthat they didn't think they wanted to continue sellingpower reactors if they were going to have to deal with the core-melt problem. Westinghouse showed something called the "corecatcher", but no proof of how it would work. Neither company was anxious to deal with the problem,obviously. [Adam Curtis, interviewing, off-camera:] Weren't General Electric,in effect, threatening you? They're saying "If you insist on this, then we'll justpull out of " [Okrent:] It was a kind of threat, I think, yes.[Back to Glenn Seaborg] [Curtis:] What would've happened if you had said "Ithink these plants that are being built these enormous plants by General Electric andWestinghouse are potentially dangerous."? What would have happened if you'd said that? [Seaborg:] Well, that's a hypotheticalquestion... I [Curtis:] You had the power to do it.What would've happened? [Seaborg:] I don't think we had the power to stop them...well, we could've refused to license them, of course, but, again, I think that in the context ofthe times, it's... not a question that makes much sense.Indian Point and the otherreactors were built without the redesign the Committee had asked for. Instead,the AEC ordered a massive upgrading of the capacity of the emergency coolingsystems, to prevent a core from ever melting. In effect, themanufacturers had got their way. But they had set a terrible trap for themselves.In contrast, in the SovietUnion, the