Letter: Republicans started Yucca process rolling

Friday, Jan. 18, 2002 | 4:33 a.m.

In his Jan. 13 Sun column about the latest act in the Nevada nuclear ballet, Jon Ralston stated, "let's not forget our history -- Nevada never would have been singled out if it weren't for Democrats in 1987, including then-Senate Energy Chairman J. Bennett Johnston, the first to choose politics over science when he magically erased two other sites from consideration and focused all the attention for the ensuing decade and a half on Nevada."

Mr. Ralston needs to dig deeper to find the actual root. The 1982 elections of U.S. Sen. Jacob "Chic" Hecht, R-Nev., and Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, R-Nev., provided the dump's critical mass, with Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., presiding as high priest.

In 1983 Laxalt ordered Hecht and Vucanovich to adopt a "wait and see" attitude on the dumpsite. Washington, D.C., interpreted this to mean that Nevada public opinion was divided. The radioactive freight train started rolling west.

Speaking to a Las Vegas service club in 1997, the man Hecht defeated, four-term Sen. Howard Cannon, D-Nev., expressed little hope for Nevada avoiding the dumpsite designation. Had he been re-elected, Cannon said, he could have stopped the nuke express in its tracks.

ANDREW BARBANO Reno