Interview with Kristen Iversen English Professor and Author

February 20th, 2014 At Rocky Mountain PBS

Interviewed by Julie Speer

Kristen Iverson—Author of Full Body Burden: Growing Up in The Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats and

English Professor

Julie: Let’s talk about growing up. Tell me where you grew up and tell me something about the climate,

specifically as it relates to the Cold War.

Kristen: I grew up in Arvada, Colorado. Our first house was in what’s now called “Old Arvada.” It was a

cute little brick house. We had horses and dogs. I was about three months old when we moved to that

house and then when I was around 11, after my two sisters and brother were born, my family moved

out to a house in Bridle Dale, which was one of the new neighborhoods around the Rocky Flats site,

about three miles from Rocky Flats. It was a brand new house in one of the brand new subdivisions out

there. My parents were very excited about that house. It was kind of their lives’ dream to have a house

out there and we were right next to Stanley Lake. We were outdoors all the time with our horses and

our dogs. We rode our horses in the field; we swam in Stanley Lake… All the while we had no idea what

was going on at Rocky Flats. We could see the water tower form our back porch and I could see the

lights of Rocky Flats form the horizon from my bedroom window. But we never had any idea what was

actually going on at Rocky Flats at the time.

Julie: How old were you when you moved into the house?

Kristen: I was about 11 years old, and much later I discovered that we moved out to our new house right

before the Mother’s Day fire of May 11, 1969. Over the course of 38 years of operation, there were over

200 fires at Rocky Flats. There was never any public warning, evacuation or anything like that. One of

the worse fires was that 1969 fire, so we had just moved into our new house when that fire happened.

We didn’t know of course, but there was already a significant amount of contamination in the soil, in the

air, in the water before we even moved out there. Of course we didn’t know.

Julie: Wow. And no one talked to your parents about that… That wasn’t part of the consciousness back

then, was it?

Kristen: Right, well, we knew that Dow Chemical operated the plant. The rumor in our neighborhood

was that they were making household cleaning supplies. My mother thought for years that they were

making “Scrubbing Bubbles.” Of course they weren’t making scrubbing bubbles. Rocky Flats produced

more than 70,000 plutonium pits or triggers for nuclear weapons. Each trigger contains enough

breathable particles of plutonium to kill every person on earth. It’s a very, very lethal thing. Plutonium is

very lethal.

Julie: Let’s talk a little bit about being a little girl and the Cold War. When did you consciously realize,

“Oh, we’re in the Cold War with Russia,” and talk about the climate a little bit. My dad was in the

military too so we had to do Duck and Cover drills growing up. I don’t remember not having the Cold

War. When did you realize, and just talk a little bit about that during the Cold War with the Soviet Union

Kristen: Certainly when I was in elementary school we had Duck and Cover drills, I remember that. We

were aware of it. But I think when I was a kid and a teenager, like other kids and teenagers at the time,

we didn’t really think about it a lot. Certainly we never talked about Rocky Flats, what might be going on

out there or the fact that Rocky Flats was part of the Cold War because we were not that aware of it. It

wasn’t until the 70s in fact, the late 70s, that people began to be aware of what was actually going on.

So we were pretty unaware of things. The Cold War seemed to me like something…that was distant and

far away. Something that we certainly didn’t have to worry about in our own backyard. Certainly not in

our own vat of Colorado. So it was kind of an abstraction at the time.

Julie: Well, do you remember when and where you were and when you found out what was going on at

Rocky Flats?

Kristen: My process of learning about Rocky Flats was a long process for a variety of reasons. For one

thing, in my neighborhood, and in my community, and in the state of Colorado, Rocky Flats was a

forbidden topic. Workers were not allowed to talk about the kind of work they did at Rocky Flats.

Workers in one part of the plant did not necessarily know what workers in another part of the plant

were doing. In my neighborhood, a lot of the parents of the kids I knew worked at Rocky Flats and they

weren’t allowed to talk about the kind of work that they did, so there were lots of rumors in the

neighborhood about what was actually done at Rocky Flats. People talked about making doorknobs and

dog food, all sorts of string—nylon string—all sorts of things, and I think where that came from was the

workers when they came home from work and their families asked them what they did at work that day.

They couldn’t talk about the actual work that they did, so they would making something up. There were

many reasons why we weren’t aware. Another reason was that during the Cold War, nuclear weapons

plants were allowed to operate in complete secrecy because of the Atomic Energy Act. They were under

no obligation to tell people what was going on, in terms of what was being produced and also what was

going on with respect to radioactive and toxic containments onsite and offsite. They were under no

obligation to tell the public at that time what was going on, so we really didn’t know. And so for years,

Dow Chemical and Rockwell and the Department of Energy told the press and told local residents,

“We’re not doing anything out there that is dangerous to the public, in any way.” So we didn’t know.

Years later, when I was a PhD candidate at the University of Denver and a single parent at the time with

two little boys, I went to work at the plant myself. Even then I was largely unaware of what was going

on. A lot of the kids I grew up with in my neighborhood went to work at the plant. I knew a lot of people

who worked at the facility and it seemed like a great job. Great pay, great benefits and a flexible

schedule so I could still go to school. And it wasn’t until—

Julie: Before you move on, what did you do when you worked there?

Kristen: I worked in the administration building. What I did was compile technical reports. I met with

engineers and project managers from around the plant site and I would work with them to write reports

that went to Washington DC and Albuquerque.

Kristen: Did you know what was happening when you worked there or were you still completely in the

dark?

Kristen: I was somewhat aware of what was going on, but like most people and even most workers, I

was unaware of how bad things really were out there and what was going on. I was writing reports with

a lot of acronyms in them that I didn’t really fully understand at the time. For example one of those

acronyms is MUF, M-U-F. And what does MUF stand for? It’s a very strange acronym. It stands for

Material Unaccounted For plutonium. It’s a term of inventory at Rocky Flats. The plutonium for the pits

or triggers came from Hanford. It was shaped into form buttons to the pits so then those pits were sent

on to the Pantex facility in Texas where they were encased with conventional explosives and actually

became the bomb. So MUF referred to the amount of plutonium coming into the plant and the amount

of plutonium going out of the plant. And there was a great disparity there; there were a lot of problems

with just keeping track of plutonium and exactly where it was. Over the course of 30-plus years, Rocky

Flats had more than 3,050 lbs. of material unaccounted for plutonium and that’s a Department of

Energy figure. So that’s a pretty significant figure. Where did it go? There’s a lot of speculation, and

some information from the Department of Energy about where that plutonium went. But that was one

of the more interesting acronyms that I worked with in some of the reports that I was compiling. The

day that I really began to understand what was going on at Rocky Flats was a day that I picked my kids

up from day-care. I brought them home, gave them their suppers, their baths and put them to bed. I

came downstairs and fixed myself a cup of tea, turned on the television and there was a Nightline

exposé on Rocky Flats. They were interviewing people that I worked with. People like Mark Silverman,

the Department of Energy manager at Rocky Flats at the time, and others. Mark Silverman, to his credit,

was one of the first managers who was fairly forthcoming about what was going on at Rocky Flats. The

fact that there was more than 14.2 metric tons of plutonium stored on site and there were lots of

problems with contamination and storage and that it was in fact the most contaminated site in the

country. That was the first time that I had really heard and understood it. I was stunned. I thought, “How

can I grow up next to this plant, work at this plant myself, and not know this?” Other workers and other

residents were all in the same boat. So that night as I was sitting in my living room, I knew I would quit

my job and the day I quit my job was the day I knew I would eventually write a book. I didn’t know it was

going to take 10 years of research and everything that went into the writing of the book. It was a very

long and intense process of writing and research. But that’s when I knew, and that’s really when I began

to fully understand what happened at Rocky Flats. I think Rocky Flats is a story that we worked really

hard to forget in the state of Colorado.

Julie: But we can’t forget it, can we?

Kristen: Right, it’s—

Julie: It’s just the facts and ramifications we’re still living with.

Kristen: That’s the thing: Rocky Flats is such an important story. Historically it was a key part of our Cold

War effort. Rocky Flats was one of 13 nuclear facilities around the country, but it was the only facility

that produced plutonium triggers. The entire system was dependent upon Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats

produced the heart of every nuclear weapon in America. It’s a very important story historically. It’ a very

important story in environmental terms. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years, which means it’s

almost lethal for 5,000,000 years. Never mind all of the other contaminants that were released offsite:

Tritium, americium, VOCs, things like carbon tetrachloride; a great deal of carbon tetrachloride; all of

that went into the environment. Some of that does not remain, but plutonium stays in the environment

for a very long time. It’s almost unimaginable how long it stays in the environment. We pay a price for

that in environmental terms and with respect to the health of local citizens in Arvada, Golden,

Broomfield, the entire metro Denver area, and studies have shown that. So it’s something that we really

have to be aware of and be aware of for future generations.

Julie: So when you found out… When was that, when you watched the Nightline? The 80s?

Kristen: Oh no. More recent than that, sadly.

Julie: But you were still working there?

Kristen: Yes. Let’s see… I worked there 1994-1995.

[sections unrelated to Rocky Flats omitted]

Kristen: …When I went back to graduate school I was looking for a job. I had a lot of friends that worked

at Rocky Flats. I was thinking about it, but I opened the newspaper one day and saw a big ad, that they

were hiring, and that they had changed the name of Rocky Flats; that it was now called the Rocky Flats

Environmental Technology Site; which really is a bit of a euphemism, in my opinion. I was aware that

there had been an FBI raid but I didn’t know any details. I was aware that there had been some

protestors out there over the years. I drove past them on my way up to Boulder, so I knew that there

was some problems but I didn’t know any details, I think, you know, like most people. Much of the

information was, and is, withheld from the public. So I saw that Rocky Flats Environmental Technology

Site, and I thought, “Well whatever’s going on out there, they must have fixed it, it’s environmental.” It

sounds very naïve, but I think I speak for my family and neighbors and friends and coworkers too. We

thought that things were being fixed and they weren’t. It’s a very interesting title and it’s no longer

called that out there.

Julie: Good. So tell me about the raid.

Kristen: On June 6, 1989, the FBI and the EPA raided Rocky Flats, which was owned by the Department

of Energy. I believe it’s the only time in the history of our country that two government agencies have

raided another. The raid was the result of months and months of preparation. Throughout the 1970s

and 1980s—late 70s and well into the 80s—there was increasing concern about the environment and

what was happening at Rocky Flats. Just based on the small amount of information that we did get, with

respect to what was happening, workers within the plant started to become very concerned about what

was going on, and the fact that there was contamination into local neighborhoods and nobody knew. So

there were a couple of whistleblowers: Jackie Brever, Jim Stone and others who started, and others who

we don’t know whose names, began to release some information and talk a little bit about what was

going on at the plant. That led to a flyover. FBI agent Jon Lipsky and William Stone, who worked for the

EPA, flew a plan three times over the Rocky Flats site in December of 1988. They took infrared

photography that showed thermal activity coming off of the plant. I’ve seen those films. It was very

eerie for me to see them because I could see the white lines coming off of the plant directly into my

neighborhood. It was pretty shocking. The FBI and the EPA were concerned about three things in

particular: there was an incinerator out at Rocky Flats that was attached to building 771, one of the

primary plutonium production buildings, and that incinerator burned plutonium-contaminated waste for

decades. That went up into the air and into the metro Denver area. They were also very concerned

about the evaporation ponds and the solar ponds. They were concerned about what was called

pondcrete, an effort by Rocky Flats to stabilize plutonium. Again, it’s very difficult to make plutonium

stay put. They mix plutonium with concrete and created more than 20,000 blocks of concrete the size of

small refrigerators. The problem with the pondcrete was that it never set— it was like plutonium jelly.

You could actually stick your thumb in it. When I worked at Rocky Flats people referred to that as the

“jelly factory.” That was a huge problem: what to do with it, how to keep the plutonium stable and make

it stay put. And then there was a lot of ground water contamination in the soil, in the ground water and

then in the incinerator. So these were the concerns that the EPA and the FBI had. They did a flyover

three times, and this was in the wintertime. There was snow and ice on the ground. Another thing they

found in the flyover was that there were large fields called spray-fields where they had equipment just

like irrigation equipment and they were spraying water, contaminated water, over these fields. In a way

to disperse it into the environment, and you could see those in operation in the films as well. So these

were the kind of things they were concerned about. Those flyovers led to a raid on June 6, 1989. When

FBI agents showed up unannounced at the plant, the raid led to a two-year grand jury investigation. The

grand jury wanted to indict 5 Rockwell officials, 3 Department of Energy officials. They wanted Rockwell

and DOW, first of all, to admit that they had misrepresented the facts to the public for a long time, and

also admit that there had been contamination and there was ongoing contamination. What happened

with that grand jury investigation was that there were no indictments and Rockwell had to pay a fine. It

was a large fine, but it happened to be almost equal to the amount they received in bonuses for that

particular year, so it was a little bit of a wash all the way around. The jurors were so incensed that they

decided to write their own grand jury report. That report was sealed by the judge and remains sealed to

the present day. Parts of it have been released to the public, but most of it remains sealed. The main

thing that the jurors wanted people to know was not just that there had been contamination in the past,

but that contamination was ongoing and that people in the surrounding areas in the metro Denver area

need to know that.

Julie: Wow. So what is the work now?

Kristen: Well, I think there are a number of things that we need to think about as we move forward. The

one thing that I’m most concerned about as a writer, I think, is that it’s very important that we not

forget the story about Rocky Flats. It’s been interesting to me as I’ve traveled around the country and to

other countries and talk about Rocky Flats. People in other states and people in other countries tend to

know more about Rocky Flats than people right here in the state of CO. We’ve worked really hard to

forget it for a number of reasons, so I think it’s important that we remember the story. And the other

thing is that we have some very real and very hard decisions in front of us. Rocky Flats has been cleaned

up, although it’s a controversial cleanup. Some workers referred to it as cover-up—or, workers,

physicists, engineers, others, refer to it more as a cover-up than a clean-up. Out at the site there—it’s a

4,000 acre site; 1,300 acres are so profoundly contaminated that they can never be opened to the

public. The other acreage contains very controversial levels of contamination and some of it is moving

offsite. So we have to think about, do we want to open this refuge to the public, for hiking or biking or

camping or school trips, you know kids, whatever? We have to think about whether we should be

building new houses and all the development that’s slated to go on out there. And we have to keep in

mind, I think the story of Dr. Carl Johnson, the health director of Jefferson County who opposed

development near Rocky Flats and was fired for that…

Julie: Tell me that story.

Kristen: …Dr. Carl Johnson was the health director of Jefferson County for several years in the late 70s

and early 80s. When he first came into office some home builders came to him and requested building

permits to build houses out by Rocky Flats. As anyone in Colorado knows, it’s beautiful land. Its gorgeous

land out there with the mountains, the open fields; it’s within close driving distance of Denver and

Boulder. It’s really a terrific, beautiful location. And he said, “Well,”—he was somewhat aware of what

was going on at Rocky Flats—“before we do any building out here we should do some studies.” So he

worked with a number of other organizations. Many studies were conducted in terms of soil studies and

also on the health of local citizens. These studies found higher incidents of leukemia, lymphoma, brain

tumors, and birth defects. Other things as well, but those were the 4 primary things; and a particularly

big jump after the 1957 fire, and the 1969 fire. Based on that information, Dr. Carl Johnson opposed any

housing development within ten miles of the Rocky Flats site. There was some discussion as to whether

it should be extended even further than that. Extensive lobbying on the part of local businesses and land

owners pressured the board to fire Dr. Johnson. They were eventually successful. He was fired and he

eventually won a whistleblower lawsuit against Jefferson County.

Julie: At what point did health impact start to become apparent. Was there a time where it switched

from an anomaly to a more general awareness?

Kristen: That’s a really great question. When I was a kid, there was a lot of cancer in our neighborhood.

My sisters and I have talked about this and when you grow up with illness and cancer, a lot of people did

suspect, but given the fact that we weren’t supposed to talk about Rocky Flats, it was something you

didn’t talk about. And also, I need to emphasize, there were many people that were proud of the work

that they did at Rocky Flats. I certainly knew and know many people who feel that way. That it was an

important part of the Cold War effort, and that whatever health risk there was, that was just part of the

territory. Now I think it’s important to say that if you know that there’s a health risk, and you chose to

take that risk, then that’s your decision. There were workers that called themselves “Cold War

Warriors,” and they were very proud of the fact that they were Cold War Warriors. Those of us who

were residents in the area and lived around the plant, we were Cold War Warriors too. It’s just that no

one told us. So, there was a lot of cancer. One of the people that I talk about in my book is my childhood

friend, Tamara…The Smith family.

…A lot of the kids in my neighborhood were sick. There was a lot of testicular cancer, for example, in

some of the boys that I knew. One of our neighbors, the Smith family, they lived just down the road

from us, just on the edge of the road on Stanley Lake, directly downwind from the plant. This was a

Mormon family. They raised their own chickens, cows and they had an organic garden. They lived

completely off the land. One of the differences between their family and my family was that my dad

tried to dig a well. We wanted well water and for some reason couldn’t get water. That family had a well

and like us, all those kids swam in Stanley Lake. We swam in Stanley Lake together, rode our horses in

the fields, and all that kind of stuff. There’s been illness in my family. There’s been a great deal of illness

in Tamara’s family, and Tamara herself. She had her first brain tumor when she was around 19. I think

she’s just had surgery for her 7th, or 8th brain tumor. After the first one they gave her six months to live,

but she is an incredibly strong person and has carried on. She is still with us today. She’s—this is a sad

story—she’s had so much of her brain removed that it’s difficult for her to set the table. Her brain can’t

remember where the knife and the fork go, that sort of thing. But her language skills are intact and she’s

very articulate. Her doctors in Colorado and New York think it’s very likely that her health issues, and the

health issues of her siblings, is due to growing up near Rocky Flats. So there are a lot of stories like that,

but when did we know? Even today we don’t really know for sure, partly because it can take years for a

health defect to manifest. Some people get cancer and some people don’t. Children are particularly

vulnerable so, it’s hard to prove a link. But it’s not impossible. It’s not impossible, and I think we need

public health monitoring for people who live around Rocky Flats. There never has been any public health

monitoring. We need more studies. There are so many stories of people who are sick, or their animals

who are sick. There’s a higher rate of cancer in dogs, for example. I kind of think it’s like the tobacco

industry a few years ago, where say, well, people are sick, there’s this over here, is there a connection,

who knows? And there’s a lot of resistance to really look at it in the early part of the process for

economic reasons too. But indeed that’s beginning to change and just as things are starting to change

for Rocky Flats workers, I hope that things will begin to change for people who live around Rocky Flats.

And this is a problem that’s not going to go away. It’s not just my generation, or my kids, or my parents.

This is something that’s going to continue and people should be aware of it.

Julie: Has your friend Tamara gotten any financial compensation for her health problems?

Kristen: Tamara has never gotten any compensation for health problems, neither has anyone else in the

area who’s had cancers, thyroid issues, all of the things that we see and that we kind of grew up with.

No one in my family, no one in Tamara’s family. It’s not available. It’s not possible.

Julie: Because the workers are now getting some, without having to prove anything…I mean from what I

understand. So it’s different for the actual workers vs. the community members?

Kristen: Right. It is very different for the workers vs. the community. Although, I want to emphasize that

it’s been very difficult for the workers. It’s taken years for them to get any compensation at all and it’s

been very difficult for them to prove because you had to prove when and where you were exposed to

something and what you were exposed to. So that’s problematic because often you didn’t know what

you were exposed to. Records were sometimes lost or misplaced. Sometimes dosimeter records, those

are the badges that workers wore to measure exposure to radiation, sometimes those badges were

inaccurate for various reasons. Some people in fact, who zeroed out their own badges because if you

reached a certain level and you were working in a hot area and making good money—if you reached a

certain level they would pull you out of that area and put you into a different area where you made less

money. And they were kind of willing to take that risk—now there weren’t very many people like that,

but there were some. So, over the years, it’s been really difficult for workers to prove these exposure

dates and what they were exposed to…

Over the years, thousands of Rocky Flats workers became ill. Many died. Studies have shown that there

was a higher rate of brain tumors, cancers and other kinds of things. Berylliosis was very common. In

some cases, with workers, with berylliosis in particular, it’s been easier for them to get compensated

because it’s such a direct link. Where else are you going to get exposed to beryllium? But the other

cancers have been difficult. And it’s been extremely difficult for workers to get any compensation. That

is now starting to change, and just on January 11, 2014, the Department of Energy allowed 22 cancers to

be admitted to this particular special cohort, so people who have these cancers do not have to prove

that they were exposed at a certain time to a certain type of thing and they will receive some

compensation from the government. But, you know, it’s late in the process. It’s pretty late in the

process. A lot of those people are gone already. One of the people that I knew well, when I worked at

Rocky Flats, and became close friends with him after I worked at Rocky Flats, was a manager of the

Department of Energy, a manager by the name of Charlie Wolf. And he’s about my age, he worked for

Rocky Flats for a few years, and then during the cleanup. He was one of the few managers that really

went down into the hot areas with his employees. He would work with his team. He was exposed to

plutonium, he developed brain tumors and passed away in 2009. There was a piece of legislation

initiated in 2009 called the Charlie Wolf Act that was intended to make it easier for workers to get some

kind of compensation from the government, or the families of workers. And that was introduced several

times and nothing ever happened with that. Now other things are happening, so that’s really great. But I

think Charlie Wolf is a good kind of example of what happened to a lot of people out at Rocky Flats.

There has never been any compensation or any compensation available for residents in the area and

there has never been even any kind of public health monitoring or hotline or anything like that. If people

are sick, if they have some of these illnesses, or even something like thyroid issues that sort of thing, and

they suspect that it comes from Rocky Flats or from living in that particular area, there’s no place for

them to go for help or information.

Julie: So what would you say is the legacy of Rocky Flats? And what is the impact that it’s had on our

city, and the country, and the world?

Kristen: The legacy of Rocky Flats is certainly something that we can never forget. Rocky Flats has

divided our community in so many ways for a very long time. It’s divided the workers. There are people

who worked out at Rocky Flats for years and never got sick. There are lots of people who worked at

Rocky Flats who got very sick. There are workers who believed in the mission of the plant; they were

willing to go along with the secrecy, for whatever reason. It paid their mortgage and it put their kids

through college and that was enough. Or, they felt that Rocky Flats helped us win the Cold War and they

felt that was worthwhile. There are many other workers who were scared. They didn’t know what they

were being exposed to and they didn’t know what was really going on. There were workers who

understood the mission of the plant to a certain extent. Certainly those who worked in the plutonium

buildings knew and some of those workers were very uncomfortable with what was going on. In terms

of what was being produced and just making nuclear weapons, how many nuclear weapons do we

need? Rocky flats produced 70,000 plutonium triggers. They felt conflicted about that and there was a

lot of tension between the workers. I think that some of that continues, certainly, to the present day.

Rocky Flats has divided our community. There are people who are concerned about their home values

and land values, frankly, and talking about the plant makes people worry about that and wonder if they

should live out there. There are people who feel that whatever happened at Rocky Flats, again it was

worth it. There are others who feel that, hey, you can’t see plutonium, you can’t taste it, you can’t see it,

maybe someone down the road is sick but who knows where that really comes from; that there’s not

enough solid information to make it a risk and so we should just cover it up and pretend it never

happened and move on. And then there are lots of other people who live in the area who are deeply

concerned about the environment, about he fact that Rocky Flats was allowed to operate even after the

Clean Water Act in 1972 and RCRA in 1976—Rocky Flats and other nuclear facilities around the country

were allowed to operate without environmental regulation, and then even when they were forced to

comply with environmental regulation, they fought it for a long, long time; because you cannot produce

nuclear weapons and keep the environment entirely safe and the people entirely safe. And Rockwell

took out an ad in the Denver Post basically saying this; “We can’t meet our production quotas and meet

environmental regulation.” And that’s a problem that continues to the present day. Governor Roy

Romer, who was governor during the raid: even he did not fully know what was going on at Rocky Flats.

The raid was a surprise to him. Can you imagine being governor of a state and all of a sudden receive a

phone call that the FBI has just raided this facility and you’re not even sure actually what’s going on at

the facility? It’s crazy! So yeah, there are a lot of reasons why we need to remember the story of Rocky

Flats. Governor Roy Romer said at the time, and I think it’s still true today, he said, “If we can’t safely

store radioactive waste, the first thing we should do is stop making it.” And that’s what he felt then, and

I think it’s just as true today if not more so than it was at that point in time. So Rocky Flats has left this

community at the state of Colorado with a very heavy legacy, in terms of environmental concerns,

health and local community, and just the story—Colorado was the heart of the Cold War effort in this

country, and very few people know that, or realize that. Some people will be proud of that and others

won’t, but I think we need to tell the story. We need to remember it and we need to tell it.

Julie: And also because of NORAD, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal… We really were at the heart of the

Cold War effort, weren’t we?

Kristen: Yeah. And there’s a reason for that. There were some politicians in the 50s and 60s who went to

Washington and said, “We want all of that stuff here in Colorado because we need the business and we

want population growth.” So they were willing. They weren’t thinking about environmental risk, they

weren’t thinking about how close these facilities were to the metro area, because they put it in the

wrong place. It wasn’t supposed to be where it is.

When the Atomic Energy Commission first started thinking about building a plant that would produce

triggers for the entire system of nuclear facilities around the country, one of the things that they stated

in the initial report was that this facility should not be located anywhere near a metropolitan area or an

area of high population. Now there are a couple of reasons for that. One is the risk of environmental

contamination, radioactive and toxic contamination of the environment. A second reason is a risk of a

criticality or a nuclear chain reaction, which would be devastating and in fact in the 1969 fire, we came

very close to a Chernobyl-like event in Denver with that fire. Within seconds of a Chernobyl-like event,

and that’s Department of Energy language, that’s not my terminology. It was a very scary thing. There is

some evidence in the environment that a criticality may have occurred during that 1957 fire. So that is a

big risk. The third point is that we were a target during the Cold War. Arvada, Colorado was a Cold War

target for the Soviets. There was a plant in Russia called Mayak, and that was essentially a sister plant to

Rocky Flats. They were doing the same thing over there that we did at Rocky Flats. It’s interesting to look

at the history of the Mayak plant. They experienced many of the same problems that we did here. The

fires, the contamination. It’s very similar kind of thing. But we were a target for them, just as Mayak was

a target for us.

Julie: Why so close to Denver?

Kristen: In the original engineering report, there was a mistake. They based that report on wind patterns

from Stapleton airport instead of the site where it is located now near Boulder, just upwind of Denver.

That mistake was discovered by Jim Stone, a Rocky Flats employee, who later became a whistleblower

and what happened with Jim Stone is kind of an incredible story. Construction had already begun and

they were well into the process so they built the plant on the site where it is today. And this is a very

important thing to keep in mind, because as anyone who lives out in that area knows, the chinook

winds, the mountains rise directly very high and the chinook winds come down from those mountains

and come across that land. The wind is so strong. When I was a kid the windows of our house would

rattle and shake, and sometimes break. When I worked at Rocky Flats it was very common for people to

have their windshields blown out; it happened all the time. Very strong winds out there. So these

chinook winds come down off the mountain and sweep across that land and pick up whatever is in that

soil and carry it over to the metro Denver area. That’s also why we see a very distinct plume from the

1957 fire and the 1969 fire. And that plume goes right over Arvada, Broomfield, all of those areas over

the metro Denver area and then of course it doesn’t stop. Plutonium doesn’t know to stop at a state line

or a fence post. It goes beyond Colorado into Kansas and beyond. At one of the protests at Rocky Flats in

the late 1970s, they took helium balloons and they put little notices inside each one. They released all of

these balloons and they wanted to see how far these balloons would go to get a sense of how far

contamination could be carried off site. These notices came back from all sorts of places and went as far

as Canada. So once it’s in the environment it moves.

Julie: So what about your parents? How long did they keep their home there?

Kristen: My parents lived in that house for more than 20 years. My father still lives in the Broomfield

area actually. My mother has passed away.

…Following the 1989 raid, there was a lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 13,000 people who lived

around Rocky Flats. Those people felt that their health and property values had been impacted by what

was going on at the plant. That lawsuit was very controversial. It started in 1990 and it took more than

20 years to wind its way through the courts. On February 14, 2006 the jury decided in favor of the class

and there was an award of 556 million dollars on behalf of those 13,000 residents. I remember that day.

I called my sister Karma and we cried. It was validation, it was, “At last, someone has recognized what

had happened here.” But we didn’t stand to profit in any way from that lawsuit because our parents had

sold our house just outside of the parameters, so even though we lived and grew up out there for

almost 20 years, we would not have financially benefited from that, and that’s fine. That was not

important to us. We were just really happy that at last someone had recognized this. However, three

years later, three federal judges in the 10th circuit court of appeals in Denver overturned that decision

based on a procedural issue with the judge. Based on a legal technicality. Not based on the actual facts

of the case and the contamination that had occurred. So I think people don’t necessarily know that. But

it was overturned and then just in late fall 2013, it went before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court

declined to review it. We’re not exactly sure why they did not tell us why they declined to review it. And

that’s where it stands now.

Julie: So was Tamara’s family involved in the lawsuit…?

Kristen: Yes, the Smith family, Tamara’s family was part of that lawsuit. Anyone who lived within a

particular radius of Rocky Flats (and there are very specific maps that show that particular area), the

class area, and also the different layers or areas of contamination… we actually lived in the second zone

of contamination. But anyone living within that area would have been eligible for financial

compensation. But you know, I think for most people it’s not about the money. It’s about health issues

and having information and help available for people who are ill. And, there is of course discussion

about property values—it turns out that it’s easier to sue for loss of property value than health concerns

and for various legal reasons that’s kind of the direction that that case ended up taking.

Julie: So… Going back, if the Supreme Court declined to review the case, does that means it’s done? Or

is it in legal purgatory?

Kristen: It’s in purgatory. I mean, my cynical inclination is to say it’s dead in the water, but it’s not. It’s in

legal purgatory right now, and we have to start over. Some of the most important people who worked

on that case, particularly attorney Peter Nordberg, passed away, so we kind of have to start from

scratch. The issue is not going to go away and the people aren’t going away. There are more than 13,000

people who live around Rocky Flats. They were awarded—that class of people were awarded more than

500 million dollars in 2006…That was a legal award in court. It was immediately appealed by the

Department of Energy, Rockwell and DOW chemical, which was also a part of that case. It went into

appeal, took another three years, and at that time it went up before the 10th circuit court of appeals in

Denver and three federal judges. At that point, everything that had happened with the case, the amount

of money that would have been awarded was over 900 million dollars. However, it was denied and was

thrown out based on a technicality and a procedural issue with the judge—not based on the facts of the

case, or what happened at Rocky Flats: the contamination and everything else that happened. That was

in 2009. Just this last year, in 2013, it went before the Supreme Court. They declined to review it, so

right now we are in a holding pattern. It will be very interesting to see what will happen with this case.

We basically have to start over from scratch. We have lots and lots of people who are sick, who have

suffered loss of property value. These things are ongoing to the next generation. The problem is not

going away.

…And the thing with Peter Nordberg, he is such a hero. He devoted his whole life to that case. He was

there in the courtroom when we won, and then he died. He had a massive heart attack. Carl Johnson

had a heart attack a year after he won his lawsuit. It’s sad because I think if Carl Johnson and Peter

Nordberg had lived the story might be more obvious. But it’s still largely secret.

Julie: But do you think that’s changing though now?

Kristen: I think it’s changing slowly. I think that there is a new wave of activism out at Rocky Flats.

People are protesting. There are people dressing up in hazmat suits and standing out along the highway

protesting the Jefferson Parkway which is a highway slated to go along one side of the plant on

contaminated land. That’s a controversial issue. It’s not just the fact that building a highway that close is

dangerous and construction stirs up the dirt and everything, but it also makes it easier for us long-term

to forget that Rocky Flats ever happened. The highway will spur more development, strip malls etc., and

pretty soon we will forget that the land was poisoned so deeply and forget what happened there.

Julie: Because the plutonium is still there, is it not?

Kristen: Yes, the plutonium is still there. Colorado is the only state in the country that has a state

standard for plutonium radioactivity in the soil: 2 disintegrations per minute, per gram of soil. We are

allowed to build on land as long as it’s in that standard. It’s a very controversial standard, as high as part

of the Nevada test site actually. Here’s the thing that I think is important to keep in mind: plutonium

tends to collect in hot spots and it’s very difficult. There’s never been any offsite cleanup, and how could

there be? It’s such a huge area and what would we do? It’s an impossible kind of situation. If a

developer finds a hot spot, they are allowed to plow that under and mix it in with other soil to bring the

soil surface level down to an acceptable level. This is a problem when people have gardens, sandboxes

or anything out where you are kicking up dirt. There are a lot of groundhogs out there. Lots of rain and

snow and wind. Things are constantly moving around in that environment. It’s out there, it’s still there.

Julie: Talk to me about Jim Stone. Who was he, what’s his story?

Kristen: Jim Stone was one of the early workers out at the plant. He worked at the plant for years as a

full employee and also as a contractor. He was the first one to notice the problem in the engineering

report, with respect to the plant being located in the wrong place. He was also one of the first people to

talk to the EPA and the FBI about issues like pondcrete, where they mixed plutonium with cement and

tried to make a plutonium jelly that didn’t quite work out. And many of the other contamination issues

out at the plant. He eventually lost his job. He filed a lawsuit.

Jim Stone did not receive the compensation that he was due for that particular court case, because, like

the class action lawsuit, it was overturned on a technicality. And what the judge said was that because

Jim Stone was not the first person to be aware of some of the contamination issues, and things like

pondcrete, that it wouldn’t be fair for him to receive compensation. This is a very controversial case. It’s

a case that’s talked about in law schools all around the country, the Jim Stone case. He never received

any compensation. He lost his job. He passed away recently in an assisted living home in Colorado. He

and his family never received a dime to the best of my knowledge. He was very brave. He was willing to

stand up and say, “This is what’s happening; we need to do something about it. This is not right.”

Julie: Did your mom… How did she die?

Kristen: You know, it’s interesting, because it’s kind of a combination of things—and she wasn’t very old.

There’s a lot of longevity in my family, and she was 72; healthy. My mother had a small stroke,

Alzheimer’s, a number of health issues that kind of just all came together. Was it due to Rocky Flats? We

don’t know. It was absolutely heartbreaking to lose her. She was very vibrant. It was heartbreaking to

lose her. There have been health issues in my family. I’ve had health issues. I have what a lot of people

call a “downwinder” scar from the thyroid issues and problems that I’ve had, and lots of people in my

neighborhood, and in the area around Rocky Flats have what they call downwinder scars, and that’s an

actual term. The term comes from the Nevada test site and the people in St. George, Utah who

experienced radiation. And it’s something that’s very, very common in Colorado as well, sadly.

Julie: Good. One little thing… Can you tell me what they called Rocky Flats when you were little?

Kristen: Well, when I was a kid we called it Rocky Flats. That’s what it was called. We all understood that

it was called that because the land is so high and dry with rocks. There are rocks everywhere; it’s a really

rocky soil. It’s really hard to get things to grow out there. Our garden was always pathetic because the

soil is so rocky. When I was a kid we called it Rocky Flats and over the years it was referred to as Rocky

Flats. We never knew that they were making nuclear weapons out there.

Michael: Can you talk more about the 1957 fire?

Kristen: Yes. So, over the course of about 38 years there were more than 200 fires at Rocky Flats.

Plutonium is highly flammable; it catches fire very easily. It’s difficult to fight a plutonium fire, because if

you use water on the fire, you risk a critical or a nuclear chain reaction, which is not only dangerous to

people most immediately in the area, but it can create an explosion that could lead to greater

contamination throughout the Denver metro area. The 1957 fire started in a glove box. The glove boxes

are where the workers handled plutonium. They put their hands and arms into lead-lined gloves and

worked in these boxes where plutonium was moved down a conveyor belt—literally a production line.

These glove boxes were linked in two buildings in particular, buildings 771 and 776. In the 1957 fire

there was a spark in a glove box that started a fire. That fire raced through the glove box line and it was

so extreme that it burned out not only the building itself and the glove boxes, but all of the filters. 620

filters that had not been changed in four years; so there was a lot of plutonium and other materials in

those filters. (Because in a plutonium processing building you filter the air before it goes out into the

atmosphere to try and get as much plutonium out of that as possible. Kind of like the same way air

filters work in cars.) There was a lot of plutonium in those filters. It burned out 620 filters and it burned

out all of the measuring equipment. So we will never know exactly how much radioactive and toxic

contamination was spread over the metro Denver area from that 1957 fire.

Julie: And did they say… I mean, obviously people knew there was a fire right? They could see all the

smoke?

Kristen: For the 1957 fire, just as with every other fire at Rocky Flats, there was no warning. There was

no evacuation. The Department of Energy said later that there should have been evacuation. There was

no information available to the public. A very small notice in the paper that—there was something along

the lines of, “There was little problem out at Rocky Flats, but don’t worry it’s taken care of.” There was

very little information available. Some people have reported seeing smoke but it’s not the kind of fire

where you see a lot of black smoke. Even with the 1969 fire, people on the Boulder-Denver turnpike saw

some smoke from the plant but not a lot. Again most of these contaminants are invisible and there was

no information or anything available to the public so there was no reason for anyone to be concerned.

The 1969 fire started in a very similar fashion. There was a spark in the glove box and it raced through

the line. That fire was a problem for a number of reasons. For one thing it was a holiday and we had a

short staff on that day. The two workers who responded most immediately to that fire, Stan Skinger and

Bill Dennison, were not even professional trained Rocky Flats firefighters. They were just guards, and

they showed up for their shift on that particular day and the guard at the gate said, “You need to go

down to 771, we have a fire.” So these two guys were thrust into this emergency situation and it’s

thanks to the efforts of those two men and some of the other workers who helped them that’s why we

did not have a criticality. We came within seconds of a criticality in that 1969 fire. And keep in mind, my

family and I were out having Mother’s Day brunch at our favorite Italian restaurant in Broomfield. We

were sitting outside, it was a beautiful Mother’s Day. No one knew what was going on. That 1969 fire

was so hot, it was so extreme that the roof of the plutonium processing building melted. And it began to

rise like a marshmallow bubble. We came within seconds of that roof breaching. If that had happened

we would have had a Chernobyl-like accident over the Denver metro area. The reason why that didn’t

happen was, as I mentioned, Bill Dennison and Stan Skinger working below in the building. There were

some workers up on the roof, using water to very gently try to keep the roof cool. Then there was a

firefighter, I think a rather nervous and perhaps frightened firefighter, who accidentally put the fire

truck in reverse instead of forward. He hit a power pole. It knocked out the power to the building and

the fans that had been pushing that fire through the glove box line stopped. So the combination of a few

workers who became deeply contaminated up on the roof putting water on the roof, the guys down

below trying to contain the fire—and that is quite a dramatic story what they went through—and then

this thing that happened with the fire truck, and that’s why... Although some scientists believe that

there was a criticality at Rocky Flats in 1957 or 1969 based on environmental evidence and things that

are in the environment. But in terms of that roof breaking and having a completely catastrophic event

over the metro Denver area that didn’t’ happen.

Julie: And so what happened down below? You said that was a terrible story.

Kristen: Yes. Bill Dennison and Stan Skinger are again a couple of heroes in the Rocky Flats story. I can

say truthfully, if it weren’t for them I wouldn’t likely be here today talking about this story. They were

instructed not to use water on the fire. It was so extreme, they couldn’t stop it. They were scared and

yet they knew what was at stake and they made the decision to go ahead and use water on that fire and

risk their own lives. Neither one of them thought they would get out of there alive. So they were in

there waiting, waste high in some of the pools beneath the glove boxes and plutonium can very easily

create a criticality in water. They were worried about actual triggers floating in the water. It’s just

incredible what they went through. The fire was so hot that when they came up out of that water and

went to move down around the glove box line their coveralls dried immediately from the heat coming

off of all of these materials burning. It’s just an incredible story. Even the plastic, the Benelex, which is

supposed to be nonflammable, even that melted and burned. It was a very dangerous situation and

those two guys, they risked their lives. They never thought they would get out of there alive. They were

deeply contaminated and they helped contain that fire.

Julie: …Did they die of horrible health issues?

Kristen: Bill Dennison is an interesting story. He had worked out at Rocky Flats for years and he was also

contaminated in the 1957 fire. So he had a lot of health issues related to that. But he lived a fairly long

life. Stan Skinger, after that 1969 fire knew he had been contaminated. Rocky Flats told him that he had

nothing to worry about. He didn’t believe them. He quit his job and he actually opened a tropical fish

store. He’d had enough of plutonium and he wanted to start doing something completely different. And

he also was a youth counselor. Just a wonderful, wonderful man. He died of mesothelioma related to

the expose. His mask actually came off during the fire. Which was a terrifying for him. He had about 30

seconds where he could not get the mask back on and he knew if he were to take a breath, it would not

just be the plutonium, but all the other stuff; chemicals and everything else. He had to take a breath so

he breathed that in. Quite a story. I knew him personally. …I interviewed so many people. I was very

lucky to be able to have access to interviews with Bill Dennison, who had passed away by the time I was

writing the book. I had many personal interviews with Stan Skinger who has since passed away. Amazing

guy.

Julie: Can you talk about some of the protests, and the encirclement?

Kristen: Beginning in the early 1970s there were protests out at Rocky Flats. Some of those early

protests were anti-war protestors and people interested in peace. They weren’t fully aware of what was

going on at the plant. But they knew it had something to do with the Cold War effort. Those—and some

of those early protestors were Catholic nuns. Catholic nuns have been a core part of the protest process

over the years which I think is just remarkable. Some of those people have been going out there for

years and years. As time went on people became more aware of the environmental contamination.

There were a number of big protests in the 1970s and early 1980s. There was one protest in 1978 where

15,000 people came. People like Daniel Ellsberg, who has been very interested in Rocky Flats. He was

arrested at Rocky Flats actually several times. In the early 1980s there was an encirclement of the plant.

More than 10,000 people came and joined hands around the plant. They wanted to link around the

entire facility. That was again to draw attention to the fact of what was being done at Rocky Flats. The

fact that no one could access the plant or have information. Those of us who lived nearby, we had no

idea what was going on. Some of it was anti-war protests, and a lot of it was environmental. (And those

protests have continued in fact…

[sections unrelated to Rocky Flats omitted]

In 1983 there was an encirclement of the plant. Again, it’s a bit site almost 17 miles all the way around

and 10,000 people came to link hands around the plant to draw attention to what was happening at the

Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. At that point in time, people knew or had an idea that it was

involved in nuclear weapons production and they were very concerned about the environment and local

health.

Julie: Did you protest at all?

Kristen: I was never involved in any of the protests. One of my sisters was; my sister Karma. She would

go out there sometimes, and sometimes my other sister as well. For me, the story of Rocky Flats and my

involvement with Rocky Flats, it’s kind of a story of awakening. Like many of the people in my

neighborhood, my parents, I really believed that if something really was wrong at the plant, surely they

would tell us—the government or the private corporations that operated Rocky Flats. I thought they

would tell us if they were putting our lives or properties or health at risk in any way. I believed that for a

long time. I would drive past the protestors and think of my father’s words; my father has since changed

his mind, but at the time he would say, “They’re hippies, housewives, students, those people…What are

they doing out there? They don’t really know what’s going on.” I believed that too. Of course the great

irony of all that is that the protestors were right, in terms of what was going on at the plant, with

nuclear weapons production and what was going on in the environment. In fact, it’s much worse that

anyone ever realized at the time.

Julie: Can you talk about the reaction people had to the plant being opened in the Denver Post?

Kristen: When it was announced in the Denver papers that the Atomic Energy Commission was going to

be building a plant in Denver, Colorado was very excited. There was a lot of growth going on; Colorado

has always been a pro-growth oriented state. There was a lot of Cold War fear at the time and even

though people did not suspect that it had anything to do with the war effort in particular. The fact that

the AEC was bringing a plant here and it was going to employ a lot of people, it was going to provide

jobs and benefits. It kicked off a housing boom that was just incredible and continues to the present day,

actually. So Colorado at the time welcomed the plant. You know lots of people welcomed it with open

arms even though they didn’t’ know anything, they didn’t know what was going to go on. They heard

“jobs” and thought, “This is going to be good for Colorado.”

Julie: Do you think it was worth it to build all of these weapons?

Kristen: I would like to live in a world where nuclear weapons are not the coin of the realm. What

happened during the Cold War is what was called Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD. It truly was mad.

It was a race to see who could produce the most nuclear weapons and keep them on hand so that they

could be released at a moment’s notice. We saw this during the Cuban Missile Crisis which was

terrifying. I think we have to ask (and it’s a question we have to ask ourselves to the present day): How

many nuclear weapons do we need? Do we need any? When one nuclear weapon is enough to pretty

much destroy everything? Rocky Flats produced 70,000 plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons. Each pit

contains enough breathable plutonium to kill every person on earth. Those pits, of course, were sent

onto the Pantex facility in Texas where they were encased in conventional explosives and actually

became the bomb. What happened with all those pits? Some of them have been stored in different

areas around the country. Many of the pits are currently at the Pantex facility in Texas, on hold, in case

we ever need them. We continue to create plutonium pits or triggers. People tend to think following the

1989 raid, and then when Rocky Flats eventually halted production completely in the early 1990s, that

we stopped making plutonium triggers. We haven’t stopped. Los Alamos makes—and this is classified

information so we don’t know for sure—but somewhere between one and four pits per year. They’re

very expensive. We were cheap and fast at Rocky Flats. We produced what was called a diamond-caliber

plutonium pit for about four million dollars and as I said we produced more than 70,000 over the course

of 30 some years. At Los Alamos, they’re currently producing somewhere between one and four per

year at a cost that’s much, much greater than that. It’s very, very expensive.

How many nuclear weapons do we really need? Do we need any? I would like to live in a world where

we don’t need any nuclear weapons. One of the problems with nuclear weapons production—it’s not

just the bombs themselves and having them ready at a moment’s notice, it’s everything that goes along

with it. There is no way to produce nuclear weapons without harming the environment and, again,

plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years. We have no place to store the waste. We have no safe storage

for nuclear waste in this country and there’s no way to produce nuclear weapons without putting

workers and local population at risk. These are things that we have to take into consideration. When I

worked at Rocky Flats, many of the workers out there called themselves Cold War Warriors and they

were proud of that fact. Those of us who lived around the plant and didn’t know about what was going

on, we were Cold War Warriors too and that’s still true up to the present day because that

contamination is still there. But nobody told us and people don’t know.

Julie: Why is it still so secret?

Kristen: You know it’s very interesting to think about the secrecy and silencing that has gone on around

Rocky Flats, about Rocky Flats. And it’s not just the sealed grand jury report and information from the

litigation and all that, it’s also the kind of secrecy and silencing that we do to ourselves. For example, in

my neighborhood, if you were sick or you had a sick child, one of the boys that I had a crush on in sixth

grade for example, developed testicular cancer. The family was very embarrassed about this and there

was a kind of a feeling like, “you don’t talk about it.” When we got sick, you don’t talk about it and you

don’t talk about the Rocky Flats plant. There’s a kind of level of shame at the level of neighborhood and

community that continues to the present day. I’m not sure why. I think part of the reason why some of

the information has been hard to get is that there’s a lot of money at stake. There are a lot of economic

interests in this area with respect to business development and home development. That’s part of it.

Certainly, there’s no doubt about that. But I think another part of it is that this is a huge and

overwhelming problem. How do we fix it? One of the most heartbreaking aspects of this story to me is

that I grew up on that land. I love that land. It’s beautiful land. We rode our horses through the field, we

swam in the lake, the mountains are right there, and it’s absolutely gorgeous land. We poisoned it. It’s

going to be poisoned for a long, long time. I think when people look at the story and they look at the

scope of what happened, it’s almost an impossible problem: What do we do about it? What can we do

about it now? I think there are a lot of people who think it’s just easier to look the other way. You can’t

see plutonium, you can’t smell it, and you can’t taste it. It’s a very painful story, let’s just kind of pretend

it never happened and hope it goes away. But it’s not going to go away. So I think, “What do we do

now?” At the very minimum we have to tell the story and let people know what happened and why it’s

important to remember.

Julie: And probably part of it too is that the people responsible for it are still alive… They probably feel

like they want to defend themselves…

Kristen: And a lot of workers feel that way. I understand that kind of defensiveness. It’s like, “I spent 30,

35 years out at Rocky Flats, I put my life on the line and I supported my family. Let’s just let it be.” But

that’s changing and it’s changing quickly just in the last year. It’s changing very fast. Younger generations

come in and they learn what happened and they think, “What? Why don’t I know this story?”

Unknown: Do you think patriotism played a part in that? They felt ashamed of questioning… Maybe if

you question, you’re not a patriot?

Kristen: I think patriotism and nationalism played a part in all of that. Certainly in the past, and to a

certain extent up to the present day. There are some people who feel that even to question what

happened at Rocky Flats or anything about Rocky Flats, that you’re being unpatriotic. “It was what we

needed to do to win the Cold War”; there are people who believe that. There are historians and others

who would not agree with that interpretation, but there certainly are some people who believe that

Rocky Flats helped saved America, and so to question anything that happened at Rocky Flats, or

Oakridge, or Hanford or the Savannah Riverside—to question any of that, to look too closely, is to be un-

American…that you are to trust the government, and to trust these private corporations and not

question.

END