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The Economist
June 9th 2018
Books and arts 73
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There is a female assassinwho goes by the
codename Bach.
For much of the ride, it is not clear quite
what Mr Clinton has contributed. But, just
as more than 500 pages tick towards zero,
the presidential co-author finally gets his
hands on the plot. Having seen offthe bad-
dies and saved America and theworld, the
hero tries a spot of bipartisan rallying.
In an address to a joint session of Con-
gress, he reveals why he had to abscond
from the White House—while also calling
for immigration reform, gun controls, a
meaningful climate-change debate and a
return to the FoundingFathers’ ambition to
form a more perfect union. “After the
speech, my approval ratings rose from less
than 30% to more than 80%. I knew it
wouldn’t last, but it felt good to be out of
the dungeon.” In his dreams.
7
T
HE Hanford nuclear complex in Wash-
ington state contained radioactive alli-
gator carcasses. Nuns used their blood to
daub crosses on a missile silo in Colorado.
In Cumbria, northern England, 1,500 con-
taminated birds were killed and buried
with some radioactive garden gnomes.
These lurid tales from the nuclear
worldare all real. But the industryalso gen-
erates myths that are widely accepted as
true. For example, Chernobyl is not a dead
zone: its wildlife thrives (see picture), and
many returnees have lived into ruddy old
age, eating produce from the radioactive
soil. The evidence suggests those who die
early are the evacuees who, Fred Pearce
writes, “languish unhappily in distant
towns—free of radiation but often con-
sumed by angst, junk food and fear.” Like-
wise, no one seems to have died as a direct
result of the meltdown at Fukushima. The
deaths related to the accident were mainly
suicides prompted by the chaotic evacua-
tion and loss of home, jobs and family.
“Psychological fallout” can be lethal.
When the truth seems ludicrous, and
falsehoods are widely believed, facts can
be elusive. In “Fallout”Mr Pearce, a veteran
science journalist, travels the world to pin
down what he calls “the radioactive lega-
cies of the nuclear age”. He moves be-
tween weaponry and energy, cataloguing
mistakes, dishonesty and irrational fears.
The result is a panorama of atomic grotes-
querie that is at once troubling, surprising
and ruthlessly entertaining.
His nuclear odyssey yields some hid-
eous examples of the industry’s secrecy,
particularly a visit to the Russian village of
Metlino, on the Techa river in the Urals. In
the 1950s this was the world’s most radio-
active river; Mr Pearce reckons it may have
been responsible for more sickness than
all of the other nuclear incidents in history
combined. Upstream sat the Mayakpower
plant, which “poured into it an average of
one Olympic swimming pool’s worth of
highly radioactive liquids every two
hours.” Villagers received “staggering”
doses of radiation; scientists quietly moni-
tored the rates of illness and death.
Such callous episodes, and better-
known calamities such as Chernobyl and
Fukushima, dominate the nuclear debate.
As Mr Pearce observes, similar attention is
rarely given to various studies demonstrat-
ing that no link exists between nuclear
plants and local cancer rates, nor the pains-
taking schemes, such as those in Germany,
to safely dispose of nuclear waste. His
deepest worry is about Britain’s Sellafield
plant, home to a massive stockpile of plu-
tonium. In 1995 its fence was easily scaled
by Greenpeace activists, who sprayed
“bollocks” on the walls. A bomb sent
across the fence could result in “a terrorist
Chernobyl”, yet Mr Pearce saw little being
done to reinforce the site.
He asks how long the beleaguered nuc-
lear-power industry can survive—hobbled
as it is by the association with nuclear
weapons (“the Achilles’ heel of civil nuc-
lear power”), a litany of disasters and the
doomsdayhyperboleofanti-nuclearactiv-
ists. Mr Pearce recognises that “most civil-
ian nuclear activities are safe”, but notes
that in democracies, at least, the public has
the power of veto, however sensibly they
wield it.
7
The nuclear industry
The writing on the
wall
Fallout: Disasters, Lies and the Legacy of
the Nuclear Age.
By Fred Pearce.
Beacon
Press; 264 pages; $27.95. Portobello Books;
£14.99
Life inside the zone
T
HE tale of the “Lost Colony” is a 400-
year chronicle of madness and delu-
sion. As Andrew Lawler recounts in “The
Secret Token”, it begins in 1587 with the ill-
conceived, ill-executed attempt to found
the New World’s first English settlement
on Roanoke Island, and continues to this
day in the obsessive quest to discover how
and why the colony disappeared. Both the
original settlers and those who, over the
subsequent centuries, have quixotically
tried to trace them seem equally deluded.
They are all mirage-chasers, confident (de-
spite ample evidence to the contrary) that
the ultimate prize iswithin their grasp.
In the case of the colonists, that prize
was mountains of diamonds or gold, or a
quick passage to Asia. For historians, ar-
chaeologists and amateur sleuths, it is the
equally elusive object or text that will re-
veal the Lost Colony’s fate. Yet in truth
there is nothing verymysterious about the
failure of the Roanoke settlement.
Thisbid to establisha Europeanoutpost
offwhat is nowthe coast ofNorthCarolina
was doomed by ignorance of the basic
facts of geography, geology and geopoli-
tics. Conceived by Sir Walter Raleigh, a fa-
voured courtier of Elizabeth I, as a means
to “wrest the keys of the world from
Spain”, the site was chosen “because on
the mainland there is much gold”—and be-
cause Raleigh assumed it was strategically
placed near an easy passage between the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
None of these assumptions was
grounded in reality. And reality quickly
struck back, in the form of disease, starva-
tion, hostile natives and even more hostile
Spaniards. Hoping to obtain desperately
needed supplies, John White, the gover-
The Lost Colony
Myth and
madness
The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession and the
Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke.
By
Andrew Lawler.
Doubleday; 426 pages; $29.95