Chapter 33

APRIL 1979

The Silkwood attorneys were confident. They had owned the courtroom for a month, and they sensed there was little love for Kerr-McGee in the jury box. But they knew Kerr-McGee could still win easily, if its attorneys could only convince the jury that:

Karen Silkwood was not injured, or that

she had contaminated herself, or that

the plutonium that contaminated her did not belong to Kerr-McGee, or that

she was contaminated while doing the “business” of the company, in which case Oklahoma workers’ compensation laws protected Kerr-McGee against personal injury suits.

Kerr-McGee attorneys chose to argue that Karen Silkwood was not injured and that, even if she were, the contamination was her own fault because she had deliberately spiked her urine samples.

Kerr-McGee’s basic defense against negligence—which would influence the size of the award if the jury decided Karen was deliberately injured by someone outside the plant—was to argue that Kerr-McGee had carefully followed the regulations of the Atomic Energy Commission. Thus, to attack Kerr-McGee was to attack the AEC.

Bill Paul headed the Kerr-McGee legal team, supported by Elliott Fenton, L. E. Stringer, John Griffin, Jr., Larry D. Ottoway, and Bill J. Zimmerman. Paul was a bright lawyer, respected and successful by Oklahoma City standards, and the president of the Oklahoma Bar Association. But from the minute he nervously began to shuffle papers in the pit, it was clear he was no match for Jerry Spence.

In his gray suit and dull tie, with short hair neatly parted, Paul looked like a law professor. Hugging the lectern in the pit, he played with his glasses, rarely looked at the jury, and only tentatively ventured out to approach a witness or write on the blackboard in flawless penmanship. He was a perfect Oklahoma gentleman who rarely displayed emotions, almost as if he were intentionally trying to make Spence look crass. The Wyoming lawyer ate him alive.

Bill Paul outlined Kerr-McGee’s case in a clear, colorless opening argument, characterizing the Wyoming cowboy-attorney as a reckless man who attacked everyone and everything—Kerr-McGee, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Kerr-McGee attorneys, the majority of nuclear scientists, and the standards they set to protect workers and the public.

Paul told the jury that the highly respected International Commission on Radiation Protection set 40 nanocuries as the permissible dose for plutonium workers, and that Karen Silkwood had less than 10 nanocuries when she died. “This case is about the exposure of Karen Silkwood to plutonium,” he argued. “It is about the injury, medical effects, if any, for the nine-day period of November 5 to 13.”

Bill Paul stressed that Kerr-McGee was not negligent in safeguarding its plutonium, for only .00003 grams had escaped from the Cimarron plant and contaminated Karen’s apartment. Once Karen was contaminated, Paul continued, Kerr-McGee did everything it could to help her, but she refused to cooperate. As soon as Kerr-McGee discovered that her apartment was contaminated, it made arrangements for her to take DPTA treatment in Guthrie, but Wayne Norwood could not find Karen. Then Dr. Charles Sternhagen arranged for DPTA at Baptist Hospital, but Karen refused the treatment. Hours after Kerr-McGee learned that her apartment was contaminated, it called the AEC, which sent experts immediately, but Steve Wodka wouldn’t allow the AEC to talk to Karen until he got there. Finally, Kerr-McGee called in Dr. Neil Wald all the way from Pittsburgh, and Dr. Sternhagen all the way from Albuquerque.

“We think the question in this lawsuit is: How did the plutonium get into her apartment? You are going to decide that,” Bill Paul emphasized. “Let me make this clear. I’m not here to discredit Karen Silkwood. We are here to bring you the facts. We are here to bring you evidence that bears on this question. If the facts discredit Karen Silkwood, then it just has to be.”

Paul told the jury that there were no eyewitnesses to the contamination, but there was evidence that Karen had contaminated herself. “Here are some of the things that our proof will show,” he said. “First: access. Who could get into that apartment? Who was there? Well, Karen, Sherri, who lived there, and Drew Stephens, who spent the night there Wednesday, November 6. So let’s start with access: obviously, Karen could get into her apartment. I know of no proof that anybody at Kerr-McGee could …

“The proof will be that in the lab—of all places the lab where Karen worked—that it was a relatively simple matter (if you intended to do it) to remove a very small quantity of plutonium. Our proof will show that Karen had that opportunity. She worked odd shifts. She was working during this time a lot of the times from four o’clock until midnight. And there were very few people there …

“You will learn that it would be very simple to intentionally remove a small quantity … a few drops in the bottle, dust a little bit on Kleenex, clean wipes, put it in an envelope—and no problem.

“Could she have unintentionally removed it? Answer: it would be very hard, if she were doing what she was supposed to be doing, monitoring herself at every station.”

Then Paul told the jury that some of Karen’s samples had been spiked with plutonium. “You’re going to see evidence that every [sample] that tested high was collected—where? At her apartment … Isn’t it a little funny that those collected at home are the only high ones, and those that were collected at Los Alamos under supervision, or at the plant, were all normal? So look for that urine sample proof. It speaks, and speaks, and speaks, and speaks.”

What motive might Karen have had to remove plutonium intentionally from the laboratory to her apartment for the purpose of spiking her urine samples?

Karen was furious with Kerr-McGee about the November 5 reprimand for taking medication without reporting it.

Karen was spying on Kerr-McGee for the union, trying to collect documents to embarrass the company. When she couldn’t get the evidence, she had to do something.

The union had become an obsession for Karen. Under pressure and distressed, she was driven to contaminate herself.

But before Bill Paul could open his defense, Judge Frank Theis jerked the rug. Paul had intended to call witnesses to testify that Karen Silkwood had abandoned her three children, whom Jerry Spence had paraded in front of the jury, and that she popped Quaaludes, smoked grass, and attempted suicide. The Kerr-McGee attorney argued in the judge’s chambers that he wanted to prove that Karen’s emotional pain was not caused by her contamination; it had begun months before November 5, 1974.

But Judge Theis knew that Bill Paul also desperately wanted to portray Karen Silkwood as the kind of person who would contaminate herself—an unfeeling mother and a mentally unstable junkie. Theis ordered Paul to scratch those character witnesses.

Paul objected. Hadn’t Judge Theis permitted the Silkwoods to bring a family album to the stand and to talk about Karen? And hadn’t he allowed Spence to show the book to the jury? But Theis couldn’t be swayed. Quoting the law to Paul about permissible evidence, Theis called the album “innocuous” and Paul’s strategy “character assassination.”

If Theis left a big hole in Kerr-McGee’s defense, the corporation’s attorneys themselves created another. They called three kinds of witnesses: experts to prove that Karen was not injured, Kerr-McGee officials to prove the company ran a tight ship, and AEC officials to state that Kerr-McGee’s Cimarron operations were good. But they failed to call one single worker to testify that the plutonium plant was safe and healthful.

WAYNE NORWOOD: The Kerr-McGee health physics director had a good bedside manner. A kind-looking man, Norwood spoke to the jury in a soft, firm voice. He explained that, although he didn’t have a Ph.D. in health physics, he had worked with radioactive materials for more than twenty years and had great experience in dealing with contamination problems. He described Kerr-McGee’s five-day health physics training course and defended it as better than adequate. He explained how filters, monitors, and alpha counters protected the health of the workers.

“Mr. Norwood,” Bill Paul asked, “from the time the plant started until today has there ever been one day to your knowledge that you permitted anybody to work in an unsafe area?”

“No, sir,” Norwood said.

“Or under unsafe conditions?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Was there ever a time, to your knowledge, when health and safety was sacrificed at the expense of production?”

“No, sir,” Norwood said.

The Kerr-McGee health physics director defended painting walls and floors to cover contamination as an approved health measure. He told the jury he was never given advance notice about unannounced AEC inspections, and that the hour the AEC allowed Kerr-McGee to collect all the plutonium into the vault during tornado watches was more than adequate. “It can be done in half that,” he testified.

Norwood suggested to the jury, as he had to the FBI, that Karen contaminated herself, emphasizing three facts, under Bill Paul’s direct examination. Once Karen suspected her apartment was hot, she warned Sherri Ellis about going into the bathroom and kitchen, the hottest rooms in the two-bedroom apartment. How would she know that, if she hadn’t contaminated the place herself? Then Karen suggested that the cheese and bologna might have been contaminated because she had spilled urine in the bathroom. How could she draw that conclusion unless she had spiked her own urine sample? Finally, Karen asked Norwood about the hot specimens that she had donated earlier, even though the lab had not yet reported on them. How would she know they were hot if she hadn’t spiked them?

Jerry Spence began his cross-examination by trying to impugn Wayne Norwood’s credibility. First, he established that Norwood’s University of Oklahoma degree was in poultry science, not in radiation sciences. Next, he got Norwood to admit that, although he was health physics director, he had no degree in health physics, was not specifically trained in health physics, and was not a certified health physicist. Then Spence pointed out how long Wayne Norwood had worked for Kerr-McGee and how good Kerr-McGee had been to him, suggesting that the elderly man was protecting the mighty corporation out of gratitude.

Spence got Norwood to admit that once Karen gave her urine samples to Kerr-McGee, she never saw them again, suggesting that it was just as easy for the company to spike the samples as it was for Karen. He also got Norwood to admit that everyone in the plant had access to her kits, labeled and sitting in the main hallway.

Finally, Spence got Norwood to concede that workers were not supposed to be in respirators for long periods of time during production, that it was against AEC regulations for workers with beards to wear the masks, and that Kerr-McGee did not buy a full-body counter like Los Alamos’ to protect workers because it “cost too much.”

WILLIAM UTNAGE: The former Kerr-McGee engineer said he had designed the Cimarron plutonium plant with a hand-picked team of experts, stressing that he took special care in planning the plant’s contamination control system—monitors, filters, buzzers. Utnage described the vault as tornado-proof with an explosion-proof door similar to those in munitions factories. If a tornado ever hit the vault, Utnage explained, the most the twister would do would be to make a hairline crack in the steel.

Utnage emphasized how he had designed the glove boxes with great care and tested them for leaks before the plant opened; how he hired only experienced people to construct the plant; how he selected a certified health physicist, Allen Valentine, to design the plant’s health physics equipment and to prepare health guidelines.

Jerry Spence picked William Utnage apart during a tough cross-examination. First, Spence established that the Kerr-McGee engineer had never worked in or designed a plutonium plant before he came to Crescent, and had hired a team of design experts with no experience in manufacturing plutonium fuel rods.

Next, Spence got Utnage to admit that he not only didn’t have a degree in radiation sciences, but had never taken courses in the subject. Then, after establishing that Kerr-McGee had commended Utnage for keeping the plutonium plant’s expenses 25 percent under the projected cost the first year, Spence read contamination report after report, blaming the accidents on design faults. Utnage finally admitted that fifty workers were contaminated while he was facility manager, before Morgan Moore; but he denied Jim Smith’s allegations of faulty design, insisting he had planned a “safe plant.”

Like other Kerr-McGee managers, Utnage stressed that no scientist could point to even one case of lung cancer caused by plutonium, and that the maximum permissible radiation dosage approved by the AEC was “safe.”

“We would expect there would be no adverse effects whatsoever,” Utnage told the jury.

ALLEN VALENTINE: The certified health physicist from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory had written Kerr-McGee’s health physics program, had designed the air sampling, decontamination, and criticality alarm systems, and had selected the contamination survey instruments, full-face respirators, and protective clothing.

“I tried to buy the best I could,” he told the jury.

Valentine recruited the health physics staff, including Wayne Norwood, whom he had known at Hanford, Washington. “We had a competent staff,” he told the jury. “I think that in the area of procedures and training, that the practices … either met or exceeded practices at other plutonium facilities.”

Valentine also wrote Kerr-McGee’s health physics training manual. “I am a firm believer that you should keep radiation exposure to a minimum,” he explained. “And I’m also a firm believer that with the standards that exist today, that there is an insignificant effect.”

Jerry Spence was waiting for Allen Valentine. First, Spence established that Valentine, Kerr-McGee’s only certified health physicist, worked out of the K-M headquarters in Oklahoma City, not at the plant in Crescent. Then, Spence established that Valentine was certified after he had designed the Cimarron health physics program, not before, as Bill Paul had led the jury to believe.

Valentine admitted that most of the health physics staff at the Cimarron plant had no specific training in treating radiation exposure, and that some were machine operators turned into health physics technicians, even though the University of Oklahoma, and other schools, were graduating health physicists every semester.

Next, Spence questioned Valentine about full-face respirators. Valentine admitted that, as a trained health physicist, he would never allow workers to wear them for as long as ten hours during production.

In Kerr-McGee’s license application to the AEC, Valentine had promised that the health physics program would follow the guidelines of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Spence read Valentine one of those standards: “‘Workers must be evaluated by competent medical personnel to insure that they are physically and mentally able to wear respirators under simulated and actual working conditions.’”

Valentine admitted that the standard was sound and that Kerr-McGee should have followed it but didn’t. Respirators create stress and fatigue, he said. They are dangerous if workers can’t see out of them. And they should not be worn by anyone with a beard, because the hair prevents a tight fit.

The ANSI also called the yearly medical exams for workers who use respirators “indispensable.” But Valentine admitted that Kerr-McGee had not followed that guideline either. He told the jury that the K-M license application failed to warn the AEC that Kerr-McGee would make workers use respirators during routine production. To the contrary, Kerr-McGee promised to have the workers wear respirators only for “minor emergencies and control actions.”

Valentine had also designed Kerr-McGee’s system to collect and analyze bio-assay samples of contaminated workers. He admitted to Spence that it normally took thirty days for test results (with special handling, two weeks) before workers could learn how badly they had been radiated.

Spence went on to explore Valentine’s attitude about radiation. “A permissible dose doesn’t mean the same thing as a safe dose … does it?” Spence asked.

“In my perspective, it does,” Valentine said. “It doesn’t mean absolutely safe.”

“You mean like part pregnant?”

Art Angel and Jim Ikard had studied the health and safety booklet Allen Valentine wrote for Kerr-McGee workers in 1970. When they found out that Valentine had relied almost exclusively on one 1959 scientific source article, they laid a trap.

Spence read Valentine a sentence from the K-M booklet he had written. “‘Experiments on animals show also that some of the inhaled material may accumulate in the pulmonary lymph nodes from which the elimination rate is slow, resulting several days later in a higher concentration in the nodes than in the lungs proper.’”

“Now that all sounds pretty,” Spence told Valentine. “That particular paragraph deals with the most dangerous part of plutonium in the lungs, and that is the only information you gave these people, isn’t that true?”

“Yes.”

“You think you were being fair with those workers out there?”

“Yes, sir, I was,” Valentine said. “In the light of the fact that I was not aware of a cancer case as a result of plutonium in the lungs—even today.”

“Yes, we know that game, too,” Spence thundered. “That is because when somebody gets cancer ten to twenty years later, they can’t prove where it came from, can they?”

Bill Paul jumped up. “Your Honor, I object to the characterization of ‘game’ and to the questioning as argumentative.”

“Sustained,” Judge Theis ruled.

“Isn’t it true that you simply plagiarized some of the statements?” Spence pointed to Valentine’s booklet.

“That is correct,” Valentine said.

“Word for word?”

“I believe they are.”

Spence read from the 1959 source article: “‘The high incidence of lung cancer among the workers in mining operations in the Schneeberg and Joachimsthal Districts of Southeastern Europe was noted over four hundred years ago.’”

“Did you put that in your article so that your workers would know that?” Spence asked.

“No, because I believe it is referring to uranium.”

“Well, you know that cancer is caused from alpha particles, don’t you?” Spence demanded. “And that the alpha particles in uranium and the alpha particles in plutonium are the same—you knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but the—”

“And, so did you call attention to your workers that it was known over four hundred years ago that the alpha particles from these sources caused cancer?”

“It is not in the manual,” Valentine said. “No, sir.”

“You know, you can’t pick and choose from an article … only those things which don’t make sense and which are confusing, and leave out those things that people could readily understand.”

Spence read another passage from the 1959 article that Valentine had left out of his workers’ booklet. Large amounts of plutonium in the bone and liver can produce acute and immediate effects, the article said. Smaller amounts may result many years later in bone cancer, chronic anemia, and other diseases.

“If you had really told the workers what you actually knew and what was actually in this article, from which you quoted, you couldn’t have gotten anybody to work in that plant, could you?” Spence asked.

“The answer to that question would be subjective on my part,” Valentine said.

GERALD PHILLIP: The AEC investigator told the jury that at 4:30 on November 7, the day Kerr-McGee found Karen’s apartment to be contaminated, he and three others were called into the AEC conference room in Chicago for a briefing. They left for Oklahoma City that same night. One of the team was a public relations specialist sent to deal with the media.

Phillip explained that he had called Drew Stephens early the next morning, November 8, but that Drew would not allow him to talk to Karen until Steve Wodka arrived. Later that day, Phillip told the jury, he debriefed Karen for four hours, and that—by way of exception—he allowed Wodka to be with her.

“Karen appeared to be upset, pale, and I think she was wearing little or no makeup,” Phillip said, referring to the meticulous interview notes he had made in 1974. “She wept, cried, three or four times during the interview … was sincerely upset. She indicated that she felt she had breathed plutonium into her system as a result of the July occurrence and, combined with the current situation, current problem, that she was going to die.

“She indicated she was in a hurry that morning [November 7]—didn’t want to be late for work—and in the process of getting a sample, she had spilled a portion of the contents of the container on the commode. [Then] she had removed a package of bologna from the refrigerator and had taken it out into the bathroom and placed it on the lid of the commode, and that after doing so she had recalled that she still had part of a lunch from Tuesday in her locker at work, and so she decided not to take a lunch that day and returned the package of bologna to the refrigerator.”

Phillip said that on November 13 he interviewed Karen again. She seemed calmer, wore makeup, looked better, and cried only a few times. Phillip said she ended the interview at 5:30 because she had a union meeting at the Hub Cafe, but promised to continue the discussion the next morning. She was killed that night.

Phillip told the jury that Karen admitted being “miffed” at the reprimand her supervisor had given her on November 5. And under Bill Paul’s direction, Phillip testified that Kerr-McGee had been very cooperative with the AEC investigation team, suggesting that the company had nothing to hide; that Karen had told him about a urine sample still in her locker; and that when K-M tested it, it was not hot, suggesting that she hadn’t had time to spike it with plutonium. Throughout the questions and answers, Bill Paul tried to insinuate that Karen was so upset because she had spiked her samples and was afraid of getting caught.

“Now in October and November of 1974, did Karen Silkwood possess the means to remove plutonium from the lab?” Paul asked.

“Yes, sir,” Phillip said. “A small quantity of that kind would not be detected by the monitor.”

Since the AEC was on trial as much as Kerr-McGee, it was important for Jerry Spence to either destroy or cripple Phillip’s credibility. First, the Silkwood attorney tried to suggest that Karen was upset because she was scared of what might happen to her health.

“If you had received such contamination or evidence of it—like 45,000 d/m in your nose—would that upset you?” he asked Phillip.

“Yes, sir.”

Next, Spence got Phillip to admit that the plutonium used to spike Karen’s urine samples was insoluble and that, therefore, it was biologically impossible for it to be eliminated in urine. Did Phillip ask Karen, in his more than six hours of interview, whether she knew the difference between soluble and insoluble plutonium? Spence asked. The AEC official said he did not.

Then Spence began to chip away at Phillip’s credibility as an AEC investigator. Phillip admitted that many people had access to the plutonium in the lab, including John Carver, Karen’s lab supervisor. “Did you write their names down?” Spence asked.

“I didn’t try to determine specifically who had access.”

Phillip went on to admit that Karen told him she frequently left her apartment door open and that he omitted the fact from his AEC contamination report; also, that he didn’t check the inventory of “contaminated” things Kerr-McGee had taken from Karen’s apartment. Under Spence’s questioning, Phillip testified that he didn’t know that the plutonium in Karen’s apartment came from pellet lot 29, or that the lot had been sent to Hanford three months before her death, or that there were forty pounds of MUF at the plant.

“Wouldn’t those three facts be something that you would want to know about or investigate further in determining how Karen Silkwood got contaminated?” Spence asked.

“I did not try to pull those pieces of information together and make something out of them,” Phillip said, adding that the first time he had even heard about them was during his cross-examination.

Phillip had told Bill Paul earlier that he had had a long interview with John Carver, the lab supervisor who reprimanded Karen on November 5. But when Jerry Spence asked the AEC investigator to review those interview notes with the jury, Phillip said that he hadn’t taken any. He admitted that he knew Carver was a leader in the move to get the union decertified.

Phillip also told the jury that Karen volunteered the fact that there was an unlabeled urine sample in her locker, that she gave him the key, asked him to get it, and told him which woman she trusted enough to go into the women’s locker room for it. Phillip then admitted that Karen did not want him to give the specimen to Kerr-McGee.

Finally, Phillip said Karen was intelligent, open, cooperative, and that he had no reason to doubt her account of the contamination. Spence asked him if he had found it unusual for Karen to take bologna from the refrigerator to the bathroom.

“I have done the same kind of things myself in running late,” the AEC investigator said.

CHARLES SCOTT: The handwriting expert Kerr-McGee hired to analyze Randy Snodgrass’ signature brought blow-ups of the “forgeries,” as well as several signatures on checks.

“Did you form an opinion?” Bill Paul asked the expert.

“I did.”

“What was your opinion, Mr. Scott?”

“The signature ‘Randy Snodgrass’ on what we call a completion certificate dated 5–8–75 is the same handwriting and was written by the same person as the signature ‘Randy Snodgrass’ on all the documents submitted to me as standards of comparison.”

Jerry Spence had egg all over his face. In his cross-examination, he established that Kerr-McGee did not ask Charles Scott to analyze Ron Hammock’s signatures. The former K-M worker had told the jury that his name had been misspelled once and that two other signatures were not his.

Next, Spence tried to repair Randy Snodgrass’ credibility. “Do you think an honest person can look at his own signature and say it isn’t his and be wrong, but honestly believe it isn’t his?” Spence asked.

“Yes,” Scott said. “I don’t think the average person is capable of analyzing his own signature, frankly.”

MARY CAVENER: Randy Snodgrass and Mary Cavener had joined Kerr-McGee at the same time. “During September 1974,” Elliott Fenton asked her, “did you attend a health and training session or sessions, held for three days at the uranium plant?”

“Yes,” Cavener said.

“Did you know Randy Snodgrass at that time?”

“Yes.”

“Did Randy Snodgrass attend those sessions at the uranium plant?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You may cross-examine,” Fenton told Spence.

“Why don’t you just step down,” Spence said. “I don’t have any questions.”

JAMES KEPPLER: As Jerry Phillip’s AEC boss, James Keppler had been responsible for the inspection and regulation of the Cimarron plants since 1973. Keppler told the jury that the purpose of AEC inspections was to protect workers and the public from plutonium, and that the AEC’s four annual inspections of the Cimarron plant were thorough. He explained to the jury that the AEC had three categories of noncompliance with regulations:

One: Infractions that have a direct impact on health and safety, such as overexposure to radiation.

Two: Infractions that could lead to such a direct impact, like failure to conduct a radiation survey when one is warranted.

Three: Infractions that have little impact on health and safety.

Keppler testified that since 1973, when he took over the AEC regional office, his inspectors had not found a single Category One infraction at the Cimarron plants. “It was our view that the Kerr-McGee plant was being safely operated,” Keppler told the jury. “If that were not the view of my office, I would have shut the facility down.”

“Do you have any evidence to indicate that the workers out there were receiving exposures that would cause them to have cancer in twenty years?” Bill Paul asked.

“No,” the AEC official said.

Under Jerry Spence’s cross-examination, Keppler estimated that Kerr-McGee had seventy-five violations of AEC regulations in its file, but insisted that none was serious enough to warrant a $500 to $5000 fine. Keppler told the jury that most of the inspections of the Kerr-McGee plant were unannounced and that he had learned Kerr-McGee had been tipped off only after Karen’s death. Spence asked Keppler if he had tried to find the leak. “No,” Keppler said.

Spence pulled out a memo Keppler had written, summarizing a meeting with Dean McGee and other top Kerr-McGee officers. In the memo, Keppler said that K-M was not committed to ALAP (exposures as low as possible), the Cimarron equipment was archaic and worker training inadequate, there was a high personnel turnover and a lack of worker supervision, and Kerr-McGee was careless with the plutonium held up in its pipes and ducts. But Keppler defended himself by claiming he didn’t actually write the memo—a staff member had composed it from his conference notes.

After pointing out to the jury that Keppler had warned Kerr-McGee in 1973 that the management of the Cimarron plutonium plant was suffering from the loss of experienced personnel, and that an AEC consultant had warned Kerr-McGee in 1973 that its bio-assay program was poor, Spence asked Keppler to define “safe.”

“Safe is a condition or situation in which a person is not subjected to substantial levels of radiation,” Keppler said.

“Define ‘substantial,’” Spence asked.

Keppler gave Spence the equivalent of 40 nanocuries of plutonium for a lifetime full-body burden.

“Now you are saying to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury that under [40 nanocuries] is safe, is that right?”

“I’m saying a person’s life is not in danger.”

“You mean immediately.”

“That is correct.”

“I finally realize that you’re saying that ‘safe’ is what the regulations say is ‘safe,’” Spence said.

“That is correct.”

“What you saw was that the people at the plant were regulatorily safe … as distinguished from a medical opinion, isn’t that true?”

“That is correct,” the AEC official said.

DWIGHT GARY LONGAKER: The former Kerr-McGee lab analyst had worked with Karen off and on from 1973 to her death. He described her to the jury: “Karen appeared to be a vindictive person. She would get angry at you if you disagreed with her … mad at you for two or three days … She just didn’t accept criticism.”

Longaker told the jury about the Tylenol No. 3 incident for which Karen was later reprimanded. “To me it appeared that Karen was drunk or high,” he testified. “She was at a [glove] box sitting there, and Don [Gummow] was sitting beside her. And they were talking and laughing like they had been drinking … She got up from the box at one time to go to another box, and she staggered a little bit.”

He was concerned, Longaker said, so he went into the office, closed the door, called his wife, and told her to phone John Carver and say people were high on drugs in the lab. Longaker warned his wife not to give Carver her name. Carver was at home, Longaker explained, and when he got to the lab, Karen was gone.

Longaker went on to characterize Karen as “sloppy” and not concerned about the dangers of plutonium. She wore her hair long and wouldn’t tuck it under her cap, as she was supposed to. “She wasn’t very careful and didn’t monitor herself very carefully,” he said.

Finally, Longaker told the jury that Karen’s emotional state had slowly deteriorated. “When I first came to work, Karen’s attitude wasn’t very different from anybody else’s,” he testified. “Toward the last six months, or something, Karen’s attitude changed about Kerr-McGee. She became antagonistic … Karen lost weight, became almost gaunt in her face—I especially remember that in … the summer of 1974. She became more nervous.”

Jerry Spence went after Gary Longaker like a chain saw. “Did you ever walk up to Karen Silkwood when you observed her in this condition and confront her as I am confronting you—face to face, eyeball to eyeball—and say to her, ‘What’s wrong with you, Karen?’”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The next thing is, of course, you had the courage to go call the supervisor yourself, didn’t you?”

“No, sir, I didn’t,” Longaker said.

“And what you did was to call your wife and tell her to call the supervisor anonymously, and then hang up, didn’t you?” Spence demanded.

“Yes,” Longaker said.

“And the truth of the matter is that during all of this period of time, Mr. Longaker, you were against the union, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“As a matter of fact, you fought with Karen about the union, didn’t you?”

“Argued with her.” Longaker explained that only two of the twenty-two lab analysts supported the union.

“And to the day of her death that was still the attitude of you and the other people in that lab, isn’t that true?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, I think you have characterized your own sense of your own activity here as being a rat and a squealer, isn’t that true?”

“Yes, sir,” Longaker said. “It would have been better for me to have gotten the supervisor of the plant. I’ve thought about that since, and I wish that would have been what I had done.”

DR. RICHARD BOTTOMLEY: Kerr-McGee ended its defense as the Silkwood estate had begun—with expert witnesses to testify about radiation injury. Elliott Fenton examined Dr. Richard Bottomley, professor of medicine at the University of Oklahoma Medical School and a cancer researcher.

“Do you have an opinion as to whether or not [Karen] had cancer on November 13, 1974?” Fenton asked.

“There was no evidence of cancer.”

“Do you have an opinion as to whether she had any acute injury of any kind from contamination?”

“There was no evidence of this,” Dr. Bottomley said.

“Would you define the term ‘acute,’ please?”

“Of short duration, as opposed to something which is chronic.”

“Now do you have an opinion, based on reasonable medical certainty, as to whether Karen Silkwood had sustained any radiation sickness of any kind?”

“There is no evidence of this,” Dr. Bottomley said.

“Do you have an opinion as to whether or not, as a result of the contamination, she sustained any pain, or any sensation generally associated with physical injury or damage?”

“Based on the dose that she would have received by the time of her death,” Dr. Bottomley told the jury, “there couldn’t have been any systemic damages from the radiation.”

Art Angel cross-examined Dr. Bottomley. First, the young attorney established that, although the physician was an expert in cancer research, most of his research had been in the use of radioactivity to cure cancer, and that he had little expertise on how much radiation causes cancer.

“Isn’t it true that the insult, or the injury to a cell, that follows a radiation exposure is an immediate one?” Angel asked.

“That is true.”

Dr. Bottomley then went on to define cancer as a disease characterized by cells replicating themselves without the normal control. He told the jury that the process begins before the physician sees the cells under a microscope, but that until the doctor does see them, he can’t diagnose cancer.

“So, it is what you can see, rather than what is actually there?” Angel asked.

Dr. Bottomley agreed.

“Isn’t it true that in every single case, when you spot and diagnose a cancer, that the process of cancer was taking place, and had already taken hold before you saw it?”

“That is true.” Dr. Bottomley admitted there can be damage even if the doctor can’t see it.

“Do you know how much plutonium it takes to assure that the process of cancer will take hold? Do you?” Angel asked.

“No,” Dr. Bottomley said.

DR. GEORGE VOELZ: The physician was Kerr-McGee’s star witness. Like Dr. Gofman, he was kindly, professorial, and spoke with authority and conviction. Bill Paul built him into an international radiation expert who had written articles on plutonium for the best scientific journals, who sat on the most important scientific committees, and who was health director at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, one of the most prestigious nuclear research centers in the world.

Dr. Voelz explained to the jury that the full-body counts on Karen Silkwood indicated she had only between .33 and .35 nanocuries of americium, a plutonium daughter. He said that, although scientists didn’t know the exact plutonium-to-americium ratio, he was certain that Karen had less than one quarter of the full-body burden permissible under AEC standards.

Then Dr. Voelz told the jury that his opinion was confirmed by thorough analyses of some of Karen’s bone, lung, liver, and lymph nodes, which he had brought back to Los Alamos after the autopsy in Guthrie. The AEC permitted 40 nanocuries, he said; the analysis showed Karen had 8.8 nanocuries. Dr. Voelz also told the jury that an analysis of some of Karen’s cells showed “zero” chromosomal aberration and that, therefore, she had suffered no genetic damage.

Dr. Voelz defended the 40 nanocurie standard for the body and 16 for the lungs. “I believe they are appropriate,” he said.

“Are you aware of any reliable data which indicate the invalidity of those standards?” Bill Paul asked.

“No.”

To prove his point, Dr. Voelz testified that he had studied twenty-six Los Alamos workers who had received between 7 and 230 nanocuries of plutonium in the 1940s. Some of the workers had a long history of smoking. But he found no cases of lung cancer, none of cancer of other internal organs, and only two of skin cancer, which were unrelated to radiation.

Dr. Voelz explained he conducted an even larger study of 224 men who had more than 10 nanocuries of plutonium in their bodies. Mortality tables projected eleven cancer deaths; only seven had died of cancer. And the tables projected 3.4 deaths from lung cancer; only one had died of it.

Dr. Voelz went on to explain to the jury the careful model scientists use to arrive at their standards. He said the long-term probability that Karen Silkwood would have got cancer from the plutonium in her body was between zero and five out of 10,000.

“Now, would you have an opinion, Dr. Voelz, based on reasonable medical certainty, as to the acute or short-term health effects resulting from the exposure that Karen Silkwood had?” Bill Paul asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Would you state your opinion to the jury, please?”

“I would feel there would be no health effects,” Dr. Voelz said.

Jerry Spence had to destroy Dr. George Voelz or he would lose the case, all the evidence about K-M negligence notwithstanding. He kept the Los Alamos physician in the witness chair for two days, pounded him with questions, confused him, and wore him almost to a frazzle.

First, Spence began to pick at the AEC. He reviewed Dr. Voelz’s employment history, emphasizing that the physician had always worked for the AEC, implying that the AEC had him in its pocket, and suggesting that the AEC was using Voelz to protect itself. Next, Spence established that the full-body count and postmortem analyses on Karen Silkwood were done at an AEC laboratory, paid for by the AEC, and conducted by scientists on the AEC’s payroll. Then he got Dr. Voelz to admit that Karen Silkwood went to the AEC for help because she had no choice.

Spence had a copy of Dr. Voelz’s study of the twenty-six Los Alamos plutonium workers with more nanocuries in them than Karen. Dr. Voelz admitted that, although none of the twenty-six had died of lung cancer, they had illnesses that radiation is known to cause: blindness, high blood pressure, thyroid nodules, mouth tumors, enlarged hearts, early-age heart attacks, tooth loss, and respiratory problems.

Then Spence attacked the model used to set the 40 nanocurie standard for the body and 16 for the lungs by showing that Karen Silkwood did not fit the model. He got Dr. Voelz to admit that plutonium in the lungs is more dangerous for smokers like Karen, females, young people, the poor, and people with asthma like Karen.

“Now, could you tell me, Doctor, what exact factor was placed in the model that you used for smokers?” Spence asked.

“The actual data that were incorporated in that model did not just include data from nonsmokers—it included smokers’ data as an average—not as a specific factor.”

“That is all a numbers game, isn’t it? That has no specific reference to Karen Silkwood as she exactly was, isn’t that true?”

“In these kinds of numbers, using averages of population is the best you can do,” Dr. Voelz said.

“I didn’t ask you that,” Spence shouted. “Read the question to the witness.”

The court reporter read: “‘That is all a numbers game, isn’t it?’”

“Yes,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Thank you. Now, what was the average age of the model?” Spence asked.

“I don’t remember that detail.”

“Well, what was Karen Silkwood’s age?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“What was the average sex of the model?” Spence asked.

“It was a mixture of males and females.”

“Well, what relative to the model was the average race?”

“That gets into a detail,” Dr. Voelz said. “Unless I—”

“Do you know?” Spence shouted.

“No, I do not know.”

“There is a difference in the longevity tables for race, isn’t there?” Spence asked.

“Yes.”

“And the model assumed an average kind of race, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Poor people don’t get as good care as wealthy people?” Spence asked.

“True.”

“What was the average economic level of the model, if you know?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Voelz said. “It was the average.”

“Yes,” Spence said to the jury. Turning again to Voelz: “What was the average taken for education? That has something also to do with medical care and longevity, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What was the average education in the model, do you know?”

“No, I do not,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Do you know what the average weight was?”

“No, I do not remember all the—”

“Do you know what Karen Silkwood’s weight was?”

“It was 100 pounds.”

“You don’t know what you compared her to in the model, do you—do you think the model weighed more or less than she did?”

“I didn’t have that detail,” Dr. Voelz said.

“When was the last time you read anything about that model that you plugged in against Karen Silkwood?”

“When I read the model? Oh, it’s been some years ago,” Dr. Voelz said.

Spence asked Dr. Voelz how many alpha particles bombarded Karen Silkwood between November 5 and November 13, based on his estimate of the less than 10 nanocuries in her body. Dr. Voelz got confused. Spence told him to relax, take his time. He even helped the scientist with the calculation.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-six million,” Dr. Voelz said finally.

“How many of those alpha particles are necessary to cause cancer?” Spence asked.

“Well, I’m not really sure what that answer is, but—”

“Do you know?”

“No, I don’t really think I know,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Do you know anybody who does know?”

“No.”

“Do you recognize that one alpha particle hitting one cell … can do damage to the cell—do you agree with that?”

“I would agree with that in some cases,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Would you be able to predict which alpha particle hitting which cell would cause cancer?” Spence asked.

“Not specifically.”

“Do you think that somebody that is given DPTA should be told specifically that … included in it is the risk of kidney tube damage?” Spence asked.

“We normally do that,” Dr. Voelz said. “Yes.”

“I didn’t ask you what you normally do,” Spence shouted. “I asked you: Do you think they should be told that?”

“Well, yes.”

“What does a ‘threshold dose’ mean?” Spence’s voice was soft.

“A level up to which there would be no effects.”

“Is it true, then, that it is still a question in science as to how little … plutonium you can get without [its] causing cancer?”

“That is true,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Do you think that a worker in a plutonium plant should be told that exposure to radiation might cause cancer?”

“I think that is a reasonable thing to do,” Dr. Voelz admitted.

“Why?”

“People should understand what they are working with.”

“Do you think they should be told that there never has been established a safe level of exposure?”

“I do believe that,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Don’t you think it is just plain common decency to give everybody who exposes themselves to a risk the right to know what he is exposing himself to?”

“Yes.”

“If … basic known information is hidden from a worker—so that he can’t know—would you agree with me that that is extraordinary misconduct?” Spence asked.

“Well, ‘extraordinary’ is a tough word,” Dr. Voelz said. “But I would say it is a poor policy.”

“Not only is it a poor policy, but it cheats the worker out of a right to make a decision about his life, doesn’t it?” Spence demanded.

“Yes,” Dr. Voelz said.

Next, Spence got Dr. Voelz to admit that his estimate of the amount of plutonium in Karen’s lungs, based on the chest count readings at Los Alamos, could be off by as much as 300 percent, and that if he were off by that much, Karen would have inhaled 24 nanocuries in just three days. The maximum permissible dosage for a lifetime is 16. Then Spence attacked Dr. Voelz’s postmortem analyses of Karen’s bones and organs, using repetition to make his point to the jury.

“Now, you wanted everything so you could test and weigh and analyze all the samples that you got, isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” Dr. Voelz admitted.

“Did you get … femur samples?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Did you test it?”

“No.”

“You got the brain. Did you test the brain?”

“No.”

“You got the gonad?”

“That’s right.”

“What is the gonad?”

“The ovaries,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Did you test them?”

“No, sir, we did not.”

“You got the heart?”

“Correct.”

“Did you test the heart?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you test the kidneys?”

“No.”

“Did you get the kidney?”

“Yes.”

“Now, there are portions of the lymph nodes that you got and did not test. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Did you get muscle samples from her body?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Did you test it?”

“No, sir.”

“The spleen, did you get it?”

“Yes.”

“Did you test it?”

“No.”

“Now, you still have those parts?” Spence asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“How many lungs did you take?”

“I believe we took both of them.”

“Did you take the test that you have given to the jury from both lungs or just one?”

“I believe we took them from both lungs.”

Spence pulled out the Los Alamos contamination report. “It shows that the sample was taken from the anterior right superior lobe, doesn’t it?”

“That’s right.” Dr. Voelz was confused.

“That’s the right lung, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You still have the left lung.”

“We have lung material.”

“Have you received any written authority from the Silkwood estate to keep the parts of Karen Silkwood’s body?”

“No.”

“Did you ever make an attempt to divide the samples so that some independent agency could run a duplicate test to make sure that what you did was indeed fair and just?”

“No, sir.”

“That is possible, isn’t it?”

“It could have been done.”

“Did you ever think of that?”

“We were only responsible—”

“Did you ever think of that?”

“No,” Dr. Voelz whispered.

“We have to, throughout the entirety of this case, accept your figures and your calculations and your measurements, or the figures of Kerr-McGee and their calculations and measurements, isn’t that true?” Spence asked.

“That is true,” Dr. Voelz said.

“Now, I was interested in a term that you used yesterday … You talked about number crunchers. You remember that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“After all of your number crunching, you don’t know the safe level for radiation, do you?”

“I don’t know the safe level completely, absolutely,” Dr. Voelz said.

“What you have told everybody else is safe comes out of figures and calculations, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“It comes out of number crunching?” Spence asked.

“Comes out of data behind the numbers,” Voelz said.

“And so what is or isn’t safe is a calculation and a numbers game, isn’t it?”

“It is numbers based on data of research that has gone on for years,” Dr. Voelz said.

“And so the nation’s safety, the safety of this nation, the safety of the workers in the nuclear industry, the safety of the people on the street, the safety of all of us, is actually dependent on the accuracy of these models and these numbers, isn’t that true?” Spence asked.

“And the data that is behind them; that is correct.”

“And your opinions, that you have been giving to the jury, are not anything but opinions, isn’t that true?”

“It is judgment and opinion,” Dr. Voelz said.

“And everybody, with or without numbers, using or not using these numbers, are entitled to opinions, aren’t they—we all are?”

“Yes, I believe we all are.”

“And men who have used your numbers have come to opposite opinions, haven’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And it isn’t your purpose, then, to say to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury that the people who have come to an opposite opinion from you are dishonest men, is it?” Spence asked.

“I never said that.”

“Thank you. And now, Doctor, it’s time to close out the testimony of this case, and it is time to close out this numbers game, and to put it in perspective … There are those who are crunching numbers over here who are employed by the government, such as yourself; and there are people over here who are crunching numbers on behalf of industry, such as many of those who have testified to the ladies and gentlemen of the jury; and there are those on the other side who are crunching numbers on behalf of people. Now, Doctor, in an area that is so fraught with uncertainty, so fraught with the problems that we’ve seen, wouldn’t you agree that reasonable men ought to come down ultimately and finally in a conservative way that gives the benefit of the doubt of all of that to people? Wouldn’t you agree with that?”

“I believe we’ve done that, and I believe it is true,” Dr. Voelz said. The jury could barely hear him.

Both Kerr-McGee and the Silkwood estate rested their cases.