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.cb THE PRO-NUCLEAR COUNTER-DEMONSTRATION AT DIABLO CANYON


	The purpose of this memo is to evaluate the results of
the pro-nuclear counter-demonstration at Diablo Canyon
on August 7, 1977.

Background: Anti-nuclear groups throughout the country organized
demonstrations taking the occasion of
the August 6 anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  The San Francisco
Bay Area anti-nuclear groups announced early in the summer a
plan for a "symbolic occupation" of the site where the Diablo
Canyon nuclear plant of Pacific Gas and Electric Company is in
the final stages of construction and awaiting licensing.  In order
The Sunday Diablo Canyon action was preceded by a Saturday rally in Golden Gate
Park in San Francisco.  The main anti-nuclear speakers were Barry
Commoner and Daniel Ellsberg.  Commoner undertook to portray nuclear
energy as plot to prevent everyone from having his own solar plant
independent of the utilities.  Ellsberg connected nuclear energy with
the bombing of Hiroshima and gave the hard line self-righteousness
appropriate to encourage the future occupiers to face arrest.

	The demonstration consisted of about 600 people, many of whom
merely sat on the beach and listened to the music and speeches.  They
didn't have a "name band" to attract people.  There were perhaps 100
activists and 55 people went over the fence and got themselves arrested.

	The pro-nuclear counter-demonstration was proposed about
two weeks previously by John McCarthy and Tom Connolly.  There was
no prior publicity - through lack of experience and energy rather
than from intention.  The participants were personal contacts and
friends of the organizers.  About 60α% of those who said they would
come actually drove down to San Luis Obispo (four and a half hours).

	The counter-demonstration included the following:

1. Carrying signs with pro-nuclear slogans.

2. Distribution of the attached leaflet entitled "You are making
a mistake" addressed to the demonstrators.

3. Talking to any press, radio and TV people who were there.

	The anti-nuclear people were entirely polite and friendly
and willing to discuss the issues with anyone who wanted to talk
about them.

	The object of the counter-demonstration was two-fold:

	1. To show that the nuclear issue was not between "public
interest groups" and the utilities but between different public
views on what energy policy would benefit the country.

	2. To steal a fraction of the publicity that the anti-nuclear
side was going to get for their illegal action.

	In so far as we reached people, we achieved the first objective.
The fact that the counter-demonstration was not organizeed by the
utilities or the nuclear manufacturers was accepted.

	As for the second objective, we achieved publicity out of
proportion to our numbers.
Our TV, radio and press coverage was quite uneven.  CBS and NBC
found even the fact of a counter-demonstration unnewsworthy, while ABC
gave Tom Connolly's statement a good play.  This correlates with
the programming these networks have presented on the nuclear issue,
so perhaps nothing minor we could have done would have influenced matters.
Coverage in Bay Area and other newspapers seemed quite random, and
it remains whether this depended on whom we met and what we said or
merely on the views the journalists took of the nuclear issues.
However, it seems likely that we could
have done better if our action had been more publicity oriented.
This might have been done in the following ways:

	1. Our spokesman should have listened to the Commoner and
Ellsberg speeches, since the news media wanted answers to the
specific points they raised as well as our general
point of view.  The format of news coverage of a controversial
event confers a benefit to the side that has specific answers to
the points raised by the other side.

	2. We should have listed the news media present and made
a specific effort to reach each of them.
A press release would have helped in addition to the leaflet.

	3. We should have considered making a passive human chain
blocking the access of the demonstrators to the part of fence they
wanted to cross.  This would not have been a serious attempt to
prevent them from doing their thing, because they would have been
able to go around us, and we would have made that clear to them,
but it would have been a symbolic opposition to their symbolic
illegal action, and it might well have assured us of half the
publicity.  This would have been much more than half the publicity-value,
because of the small number of pro-nuclear demonstrations.
Even the anti-nuclear media representatives might have been
constrained to report such a symbolic confrontation, because it
would have been a distinct news event.

	It should be remarked that we were discouraged from the
counter-demonstration by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and on
their advice, people from the American Nuclear Society didn't
take part.  Their ostensible reason was that they feared a fight
that would destroy the respectability of the pro-nuclear side.
In fact, there was no mood among either the anti- or pro- nuclear
people that could have led to a fight.  One can also imagine that
the public relations professionals at P.G. and E are made nervous
by any events that aren't under their professional control.

	However, nuclear energy is too important to the country to
leave its defense entirely to the public relations departments of
the utilities.