Plutonium Exposure

* I, too, was saddened and appalled, along with Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, by the revelation of injection of plutonium into human beings by agents of the U.S. government (Dec. 8). However, I do not share her shock or surprise. The incident is but one of many sometimes even more reprehensible acts by those who collect our taxes and spend our money.

The Opinion pages (Dec. 12) adapt a book describing the incredible downwind radiation exposure at Hanford (Bookmark, Michael D’Antonio). A letters column on Aug. 4, 1985, included a letter by a onetime Los Alamos scientist, Theodore Forrester, stating that the A-bombs dropped on Japan were not a requirement of war but a test conducted against live targets. Is it unthinkable that the same Gen. Leslie Grove could have ordered injection of plutonium into 14 people?

It seems the differences between the happenings in Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia and those recorded here are those of quantity, not principle. There is yet another difference: Our taxes pay for these atrocities. In a very real sense we are responsible for them.

If we are to find answers, we must look at the premises underlying our society. Contrary to the visions of our Founding Fathers we have adopted the notion that society’s needs supersede those of the individual. Since the needs of our society have become those defined by the political government, the individual can be sacrificed at will. This is the operational result of Jeremy Bentham’s dictum, “the greatest good for the greatest number.” Until this changes, we should not find any happening surprising no matter how reprehensible.

C. R. ESTES

Camarillo