William Scranton
William Scranton
William Warren "Bill" Scrantonwas an American Republican Party politician. Scranton served as the 38th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1963 to 1967. From 1976 to 1977, he served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth19 July 1917
CountryUnited States of America
breach core information knew likelihood nuclear people time
All of the information that we were getting up to that time from the NRC people, from our people who knew something about nuclear power, was that the breach of the core was not a likelihood to happen.
lieutenant people responsibility
You're feeling the responsibility for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people on your shoulder in a way that I couldn't feel as lieutenant governor.
coming people power
I mean, obviously, people don't like to know that somebody's venting that, but you have sulfur dioxide coming out of power plants.
claimed hard people reward
(Lawmakers) claimed it was for their hard work. Well, you don't reward people for working hard. You reward people for getting results,
ideas people would-be
Nobody could tell us or really had a very good idea, if there were a massive release of radiation, what kind of medical treatment people were going to need and this or that, or, indeed, whether there would be medical personnel around.
people want panic
And if you're not going to have a clear health threat, you don't want to panic people.
school people radiation
There were schools and hospitals who were ready to take people with undescribed injuries, but not necessarily ready to take people with severe radiation poisoning.
relationship government people
The value of government to the people it serves is in direct relationship to the interest citizens themselves display in the affairs of state.
amount enormous generates plans talking unknown
We were talking about radiation, which generates an enormous amount of fear. This was unknown and so there were no plans for that.
considered core source
Obviously, I'm not looking in the core of the reactor, but I am looking at what, at that time, was considered the source of the trouble, which was the water and where it was.
edison information needed rely
And it was at that point that I realized, in fact, our whole administration realized, that we could not rely on Metropolitan Edison for the kind of information we needed to make decisions.
releases worked
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and EPA, et cetera, had worked out what allowable releases are.
calling early sources washington
They're calling their Washington sources at the NRC or in Congress and they're not hesitating to give their opinion, but their opinion, frankly, in those early days was not very well informed.
radiation
There are allowable limits for radiation going - I mean there's radiation all around us. There's radiation from your television set. There's radiation from your computer. There's radiation actually occurring in the ground.