The governors gave him a standing ovation and the thick air was relieved when he sat down. It was a painfully convincing act. Kennedy had shown that the cost of doing nothing at all about health insurance would be disastrous in human and economic terms. But despite the governors' rapt attention to the speech, they still couldn't swallow it. About 24 of the 35 governors present voiced opinions against Kennedy's proposal following the speech.

By this time, the Clamshell Alliance had brought a dozen demonstrators to picket the pro-nuclear stance of the governors' association Nuclear Power Subcommittee. State troopers and Boston police kept a watchful eye on the small but noisy stream of protestors shouting, "Meldrim Thomson, Dixie Lee Ray, we don't believe a word you say." They distributed reprints of an article in Rolling Stone by Edward Kohn headlined, "The Government's Quiet War on Scientists Who Know Too Much." They chanted for about three hours, but provoked no confrontations or bad blood, just a lot of disgusted looks from Sheraton windows.

Beer thought the Clamshell protests were merely counterproductive. "They're not making good sense," he said, "People just look at them and say they're a bunch of crazy longhairs. They're bigots," he said, "just like racial bigots."

There was no one to challenge Thomson or Ray inside the convention. Various governors lunched at the Nuclear Power Subcommittee's conference as Dr. Thomas A. Vanderslice, senior vice-president of General Electric, spoke on the "absolute necessity" of nuclear power. He created economic disaster "scenarios" replete with blackouts and massive underemployment that would occur if all new 211 power units (47 nuclear and 164 coal) are not built. "If these sites are not approved," he said, "we will have about 17 per cent less capacity in 1990 than we believe necessary to avoid serious curtailment of service and widespread economic dislocations."

There was no one there to question him about safety hazards; most members of the fourth estate at the convention were uninterested in the issue and dismissed nuclear power as a foregone necessity of the future. Vanderslice emphasized that nuclear power is a necessity for continued economic growth. There was no one who questioned him on the merits of a society whose survival is committed to continual economic growth and consumption in a world of dwindling resources and growing ecological disturbance. In the company of these polyester moguls, such a questioner would have appeared insane.

"A nuclear meltdown is about as likely as being hit by a meteor on the Senate floor," he told me, "but if something like that happened, there is the possibility that we could remove the radiation from the atmosphere."

"Remove radiation from the atmosphere?" I asked incredulously.

'Yes. I think we could probably do that." And so with a complacent speech from an energy executive and a pleasing roast beef luncheon, and no coverage from the media, the subcommittee smiled at its report and adjourned for the day.

Time Running Out

It is not necessary to look to the future for nuclear and environmental disasters, as Milliken said earlier. Lives have already been scratched at the Love Canal near Niagra Falls in New York, because of negligent disposal of chemicals 16 years ago; Canadian environmental protection officials are currently investigating the construction industry's use of contaminated landfill from an abandoned uranium mine in Quebec, and have unveiled radioactive highways and beaches and backyard gardens. Scientists have discovered that long-term exposure to federally-rated "safe" low-level radiation has killed people living and working near nuclear power plants. These researchers have seen their money withdrawn and their findings have gone unpublished.

"What a Hobson's choice," one of the hotel hosts complained, "economic disaster or radiation poisoning."

And as I left the nuclear power hearings, a mob of reporters surrounded Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown of California like ants bearing food, questioning him on Proposition 13 and federal spending.

But despite all the brazen cries for tax reform, when the final score was in, not one of the association's tax reform proposals was passed. Thomson's resolution demanding constitutional limits on state and federal spending garnered only ten votes (not surprisingly), and a proposal by Gov. James Hunt of North Carolina calling for major reductions in the federal budget did not even make it past the opening round of discussion.

When I made it back to the press room, one of the press secretaries asked me if I wanted to pay the $50 social activities fee and go to Anthony's Pier 4 to hear Joan Mondale speak on art.

"But they're bringing on the Spartan approach," I said, "frills are passe." I really had no desire to hear another lecture on art, let alone watch Meldrim Thomson feast on clams.