Dad was finally home in Burlington, Vermont. His two-week business trip to Moscow had turned into a two-month “visit” there. He and his committee had been detained for “passport incongruities,” in my dad’s case, because the letter “W” does not exist in the Russian language. This was a problem for my father’s name — William L. Wein. So much so that it was big news when the Russian authorities held him. The year was 1970, my dad was a manager of nuclear engineering standards for General Electric. He led a delegation of nuclear experts in an intelligence exchange with the Russians, who were entering nuclear energy production. This exchange was part of an attempt at thawing the Cold War we were locked into with Russia, our World War II ally.
His arrival home was big news. Television stations and newspapers covered it, strangers knocked on our door to ask about it, and family meetings were held about what to say and not to say. I sat at the foot of my parents’ bed along with my little brother as my dad unpacked his suitcase, brimming with happiness and relief that he was finally back home. We were playing with a notebook he had taken out of his briefcase, the pages of which instantly dissolved when touched with a mere drop of liquid. There were pens which could write with invisible ink for each of us. Dad shone a tiny penlight from his pocket on the pages to illuminate the names we had clandestinely written there. Amazed, we looked first at each other, then at our father with a newly found sense of awe — not even Batman had stuff as cool as this!
There was a folded Russian newspaper on the bed. Unfolding it, we were flabbergasted by the bizarre print it was covered in. There was a large photo on it, one I can see clearly in my mind’s eye even now: It was of my Dad sitting at a long table with a dozen other men. These men all looked happy, with plates of food before them and lots and lots of bottles. Their eyes were half-closed, and the plump cheeks were flushed and rosy, even in black and white. Except for my dad. There was no bottle in front of him. There was anger in his eyes as he leaned forward, finger in the air, mouth open and brow furrowed. Charlie and I knew that look: It was always accompanied by a loud, angry voice and a few colorful words, sometimes followed by a spanking. It was Dad, as angry as Dad got.
“Why were you so mad?” I asked him, handing him the paper. I remember the dark look that crossed his face. He looked out the window for a minute in silence. My older brother, Mike, entered the room and took a seat next to me and Charlie.
“Did they keep you in jail, Dad?” he asked.
Our father smiled slightly, putting the paper down at his side. “No. They treated us like guests; they gave us ice cream every day. The Russians have wonderful ice cream! The best I’ve ever tasted! They took us on tours to places off limits to most people. They took us to a museum where they kept the spacecraft from the Sputnik missions. You wouldn’t have believed it, boys. These things looked like they were built with parts from the hardware store. I cannot believe they sent men into space in those tin cans!” He, of course, had been in the Army Air Corps in WWII as a wing gunner on a B29 and was not known to exaggerate.
“Is that why you were so mad?” asked Charlie, looking at the paper in my Dad’s hand.
“No,” he answered. “We flew halfway around the world to help these drunken fools, and they didn’t listen to a damned word we said!” He stood up quickly, letting the newspaper fall to the floor. He strode over to his briefcase and dug for a moment, returning with a crumpled map in his hand. He spread it out on the bed. It had strange-looking words written on it in the same language as the newspaper. There were other words written in pencil on it, words in my Dad’s handwriting.
“What I’m going to show you, boys, I want you to remember. I’ve spent most of my life studying nuclear energy. I believe it is the only energy source that will be able to keep up with the demand that your kids will need someday. I’m sorry to say that men are too greedy, lazy and ignorant to make it happen. I tried my hardest, boys.”
He reached down to the map and put on his glasses. “This place right here,” he pointed, tapping hard on the crumpled map. “This place right here.” he balled his fist. “This is where it ends … they didn’t hear a word we said. This is where it ends.”
It’s impossible to say what would have happened had there been no bottles of vodka on that table in 1970 Moscow. Impossible to say what the cost of heating oil would be in the winter of 2027 Vermont had they listened to the delegation from the United States. What if they had conformed to the nuclear engineering standards the world’s scientific experts had deemed safe?
My dad died of cancer four years later at 48 years old, three years before Chornobyl completed reactor #1, 14 years before reactor #4 melted down. No one can put a number on the deaths attributed to this “accident.” The fact is, the technology’s risk far exceeded 1970s Russia’s ability, desire and intelligence to utilize it. They were one of the more advanced nations in the world at the time. With the information now available to even Third World countries via Artificial Intelligence, who can argue that more “accidents” will follow?
In conclusion, my answer lies in trust in the God of the bible. His story has a happy ending, no matter how badly men mess this world up. My Dad felt the same way. I am confident I will see him again and tell him, sadly, that he was correct. The word he had written in pencil did spell the end of nuclear energy: Chornobyl. But in the short term, when the men who create AI tell the world we need to slow it down, we need to listen. The fat cat politicians who are sitting at the table with rosy cheeks, bottomless vodka bottles and endless greed should go sleep it off. We need smarter guys at the table. The smartest guys. Guys who know they don’t know more than they really do.
A native Vermonter, Paul Wein has finally made it back home to Grafton, Vt., after 45 years in California, where he met his wife (and photographer) Angela. They have an adult daughter, Cassie, and two cats. He can be reached at pwein35@gmail.com.