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ryrczcbyl
bc-evansnovak-2takes 2-8   The following Evans-Novak column
is copyrighted and for use only by newspapers that have
arranged for its publication with Field Newspaper Syndicate.
Any other use is prohibited.
Release WEDNESDAY, February 8
(Transmitted 2-7)
INSIDE REPORT: Jerry's Next Vietnam
By ROWLAND EVANS AND ROBERT NOVAK
    SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In the fertile political imagination
of California's Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., nuclear power looms
as ''the next Vietnam'' -- a private appraisal casting a
little light on his murky course through state government and
national politics.
    Although Brown started wooing pro-nuclear business and labor
interests a year ago, he has stepped up opposition to building
atomic reactors in California. ''Jerry sees the public
gradually turning around against the 'nukes' just like they
did on Vietnam,'' one insider told us, ''and like Vietnam,
he wants to be ahead of the other politicians.''
    But there may be an added factor, a rule formulated in
Sacramento political circles: if Jimmy Carter says sweet,
Jerry Brown says sour. So, if Jimmy Carter gingerly advocates
limited nuclear power development, Jerry Brown wants no
nuclear power development at all.
    Whether Brown really thinks he can catch the early stage
of ''the next Vietnam'' or is just trying to be different
from President Carter, the process is part of his long-range
campaign for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination. It
may also explain why the focus of Brown's governorship seems
to be fuzzing over and opposition to him intensifying as he
seeks reelection this year.
    The nuclear question currently revolves around the proposed
Sun Desert power reactor to be built near the Arizona state
line. Brown's aides hint the governor would veto a bill
authorizing the reactor if passed by the legislature.
    Interviewed at the state capitol, Brown told us the federal
government must guarantee that Sun Desert ''could be made
safe'' --specifically, that nuclear waste could be stored
safely. But considering the difficulty of ironclad guarantees,
will any nuclear power plants be built in California while
Brown is governor? ''I certainly see the serious possibility
that they won't be started,'' he replied.
    Federal experts believe the storage problem is largely a
question of reassuring public opinion that safe storage
technology will be developed. Furthermore, Secretary of Energy
James Schlesinger privately informed Brown last year that
nuclear power is vital for this state. As for public opinion,
Californians overwhelmingly defeated an anti-nuclear ballot
referendum in 1976.
    But Brown sees that support going the way of hawkish
sentiment for Vietnam. While he publicly asserts the adequacy
of non-nuclear power, he privately preaches a passionate
anti-nuclear sermon. When a visiting Japanese journalist last
week told the governor how necessary nuclear power was to his
country, Brown querulously replied that he could not
understand how Japan could feel that way after Nagasaki and
Hiroshima.
    Brown's anti-nuclear passion has not helped his year-old
campaign to convince business he no longer opposes economic
growth. At a recent meeting in Sacramento with top corporate
officials, a 30-minute debate was set off when they declared
that Brown's complaints about waste disposal have no
technological foundation. The governor then shifted his
argument to excessive cost of waste disposal, to which the
businessmen replied: let the utilities worry about that.
fns   (more) 2-7
 
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bc-evansnovak-1stadd 2-8
1stadd (WASHINGTON) Evans-Novak (2-7)X X Xworry about that.
    Brown has been more successful mollifying the pro-nuclear
construction unions. His virtuoso performance at their
banquet in Los Angeles last December is still the talk of
Sacramento. Before that speech, state building trades council
president James S. Lee was fuming abut Brown. ''Brown just
tossed them a few bones,'' one politician present told us,
''but it was enough. Jimmy Lee and his boys have been purring
ever since.''
    Indeed, conventional politicians say Brown's ability to
charm an audience -- construction unions and many others -- has
risen in direct proportion to his diminished interest in being
governor. Since his announcement for President in the spring
of 1976, his positions -- on outer space, reclamation,
agriculture, B-1 bomber, abortion and, of course, nuclear
power -- have been consistently antithetical to the
President's.
    Anti-Carterism may be the only consistent strain. Brown's
views, while still fascinating, seem markedly less coherent
than in the early days of his governorship. Once an anti-growth
Cassandra, he now contends ''environmental protection is a
growth industry.'' He draws a pie-in-the-sky picture of the
U.S.-Soviet arms race dissolving in mutual construction of
peaceful space satellites.
    Brown told us the University of California ''faces serious
trouble'' for having ignored ''alienated'' blacks, Chicanos
and the poor; but in the next breath, he defended appointing
an elitist anthropologist to the board of regents because of
''his pursuit of excellence, which the university has
ignored.'' Isn't that contradictory? ''You might say so,''
replied the governor, without apology.
    Contradictions might puzzle newspapermen and irritate
politicians but Brown feels they do not trouble voters. He
will continue to ignore contradictions in hewing to his
anti-Carter line, seeking instead to uncover ''the next
Vietnam'' that could mobilize America.
fns   (endit Evans-Novak) 2-7
 
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