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                                                     San Francisco, California 
                                                                March 17, 1977 

Dr. James Schlesinger 
National Energy Policy Recommendations 
P.O. Box 2892 
Washington, D.C. 20013 

Dear Dr. Schlesinger: 

It comes as something of a surprise to receive a letter from you asking for 
input concerning energy. For some seven years, three of which were while I 
was at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, I have been trying very hard to 
give you and others in government advice concerning energy---all of which, 
though totally rebuffed, has stood the test of time and events exceedingly 
well. Indeed, I know of no case where work on this subject has not stood the 
test of time and events. 

My prediction is that your energy policy has a vastly greater chance of 
success if you will add one ingredient to your programs, namely, give 
yourself a chance to receive some decent input on energy from the sources 
which have generally proved correct, but which, like myself, have been 
routinely rebuffed. 

In the ERDA, you have a carryover of hacks, public relations flaks, 
sycophants, and incompetents, all of which are largely from the AEC and they 
dominate the ERDA staff. 

They have routinely downplayed all the problems of nuclear power, particularly
the hazards of ionizing radiation. Two years ago I provided two papers giving 
a new perspective on plutonium toxicity, work which I did on my own, not 
receiving one cent in support from any source whatever for the work. ERDA 
became so fearful that five National Laboratories set groups of scientists to 
work attempting to discredit my work. Their resultant effort is a disgrace, in 
terms of the scientific quality of their critiques. I reject with ease each 
and every one of their points, and have submitted my answer to the GESMO 
Hearings of the NRC. If my work is so poor, why [are] five labs required to 
try, pathetically, to refute it? To the credit of one of the labs, the Los 
Alamos Lab, they ended their report by simply admitting my work was 
"speculative and imaginative" and that it could not be refuted within 
existing evidence. 

It required a year of hearings for your then-existing AEC to try to refute the 
work of the Union of Concerned Scientists on reactor safety, and what an 
unsuccessful job AEC did. During those hearings, you had to remind people 
within the National Labs that it was permissible to tell the truth. 

In 1970,1971, several of us seriously concerned about energy supplies, 
advocated strongly that solar power be rapidly developed. The response at AEC 
and in other government circles was ridicule. Yet today ERDA is forced to rank 
solar energy as one of three top priority future energy sources of the 
unlimited type. 



-2- Dr. James Schlesinger 


I could quote for you numerous other examples to show that all the innovative 
thinking has come from outside government. There is every reason to doubt that 
the situation will be different in the future. 

Therefore, I suggest that you give yourself a chance in the future to get some 
worthwhile input. Instead of fighting the critics, and thereby sinking into 
the grave of hopelessly lost credibility, you should set up a program of 
financial support for 100 "outsiders" to serve as critical consultants to the 
energy program. Even at $25000 per year per critical consultant, the cost 
would be the miniscule amount of $2,500,000 per year. It would [be] the best 
investment in energy you could make for the country, provided you expect 
critical evaluation, not compliance from those who serve as critical 
consultants. You need an on-going serious look at "the other side of the 
question" on energy issues, not sycophants. 

I take seriously your position that you truly hope to help solve our energy 
problems. I can give you no better help or advice than my proposal above. And 
I shall be able to gauge the prospects by the response to proposals such as 
mine and other really constructive suggestions. 

Sincerely yours

John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D. 
Professor Emeritus, Medical Physics 
University of California, Berkeley 

xc: President Jimmy Carter 
Enc: The Plutonium Controversy from the Journal of the American Medical 
Association