Volume 28, Number 21 & 22 · January 21, 1982
How Not to Crack the Silkwood Case
By John M. Crewdson
Who Killed Karen Silkwood?
by Howard Kohn
Summit Books, 462 pp., $14.95; $8.95 (paper)
In many ways it seemed the definitive question for the Seventies, coming after A. Ernest Fitzgerald, the Huston Plan, and Watergate, after the Arab oil embargo and the reports that oil companies were lying about the shortage of gasoline, after the revelations of corporate bribery overseas, the CIA assassination scandals, and the FBI's COINTELPRO. Now we were being asked to decide whether an energy conglomerate had murdered an employee about to blow the whistle on its slipshod nuclear operations and whether the government had somehow helped to cover up the crime. It was not surprising that the question 'Who killed Karen Silkwood?' should soon be asked not only by those recently convinced of the pervasiveness of government and corporate lying and the duplicity of the intelligence agencies and the oil companies, but also by environmentalists just beginning to worry about nuclear safety. The question was asked as well by many in the women's movement who soon came to see Silkwood as a symbol of feminist concern about health and safety in the workplace and 'violence against women.'
Review, 4072 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |