The return of 'duck and cover'  abomb.JPGThe only time I can
remember not writing a story out of protest was back in the
mid-1980s. I'd just had an amazing interview with Conrad
(Connie) Chester, who headed the civil defense research program
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Chester had somewhat
reluctantly agreed to provide detailed information on what would
happen if an atomic bomb was dropped on Knoxville, more
specifically the airport. (This area was considered a potential
target during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It wasn't
because of the nearby presence of Oak Ridge, which most suspect,
but rather the location of a B-52 runway at McGhee Tyson Air
Base. In the event of atomic war, your adversary is not
concerned about your ability to produce new nuclear weapons, but
rather your ability to deliver the ones you've got.) Anyway, one
of the newspaper's top editors wanted me to "balance" the piece
by getting a dissenting opinion. I told him this wasn't an
opinion piece about the use or usefulness of nu