Overview

This book examines the sobering realities associated with the participation of ordinary Americans in the development of the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. A former Chicago Tribune reporter and one-time editor of 'The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists', Len Ackland explores the fascinating story of Rocky Flats, Colorado for the first time. He skilfully weaves together the experiences of individuals with clear explanations of nuclear weapons technology , the dangers posed by plutonium and radiation, and the bitter fight between government agencies over environmental degradation.

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9780826318770

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Reviews

A hard-edged history of a center of Cold War death-dealing technology. . . . More than offering a history of the plant alone, Ackland also serves up a useful summary of American nuclear policy in the Cold War era . . . . The scary workings of Rocky Flats were far from ordinary. So, too, is this fine book of reportage and history. �Ackland� skillfully weaves together individual experience with nuclear technology and politics. It's a model of investigation that should be read by all with concerns over the problems that accompany nuclear weapons and power. A hard-edged history of a center of Cold War death-dealing technology. . . . Ackland also serves up a useful summary of American nuclear policy in the Cold War era . . . . The scary workings of Rocky Flats were far from ordinary. So, too, is this fine book of reportage and history. Making a Real Killing is a model for making sense of the Cold War Atomic West. . . . It combines personal stories, excellent Cold War historical context, simplified technical explanations of complicated nuclear science, labor history, and corporate history into a compelling narrative. . . . Making a Real Killing should find its place not only alongside other recent atomic histories, but also next to the best books on understanding the American West of the last half-century. [Ackland] skillfully weaves together individual experience with nuclear technology and politics. It's a model of investigation that should be read by all with concerns over the problems that accompany nuclear weapons and power.

A hard-edged history of a center of Cold War death-dealing technology. Ackland, a former editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and now a professor of journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder, offers a history of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility just a few miles south of Boulder. The plant was carved from a vast cattle ranch thanks to the efforts of hawkish Senator Edwin Johnson, who, Ackland writes, embodied the peculiar relationship Westerners had developed with the federal government, a relationship that mixed a kind of state socialism with myths of rugged individualism. The Rocky Flats facility went on to process staggering quantities of strontium, uranium, and plutonium, materials that periodically posed a threat to public health in the Denver area - especially after catastrophic 1957 and 1969 fires, the second of which foreshadowed the disastrous Chernobyl meltdown 17 years later. Both fires were controlled. Local newspapers generally ignored the first, muted, Ackland says, by the aura of national security surrounding the plant. But the second came under more critical scrutiny, and the facility thereafter became a centerpiece of antinuclear activism in the West. More than offering a history of the plant alone, Ackland also serves up a useful summary of American nuclear policy in the Cold War era, noting that in 1948 the military petitioned President Truman for custody of the nation's nuclear-weapons program, including Rocky Flats. Truman refused, saying of the atomic bomb, You have to understand that this isn't a military weapon. It is used to wipe out women and children and unarmed people, and not for military uses. So we have got to treat this differently from rifles and cannon and ordinary things like that. The scary workings of Rocky Flats were far from ordinary. So, too, is this fine book of reportage and history. (Kirkus Reviews)

[Ackland] skillfully weaves together individual experience with nuclear technology and politics. It's a model of investigation that should be read by all with concerns over the problems that accompany nuclear weapons and power.

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Len Ackland

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