Walker, J. Samuel

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Walker, J. Samuel

PERSONAL: Male.

CAREER: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, historian, 1979—.

WRITINGS

The Perils of Patriotism: John Joseph Henry and the American Attack on Quebec, 1775, illustrated by Joann W. Hensel, Lancaster County Bicentennial Committee (Lancaster, PA), 1975.

Henry A. Wallace and American Foreign Policy, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1976.

(Editor, with Gerald K. Haines) American Foreign Relations, a Historiographical Review, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1981.

(With George T. Mazuzan) Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-1962, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1985.

Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1992.

A Short History of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-1990, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Washington, DC), 1993.

Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1997, revised 2nd edition, 2005.

Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2000.

Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: J. Samuel Walker, a longtime historian for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is the author of a number of volumes focusing on the development of nuclear energy and the safety regulations that have been enacted over the years. In his book, Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, Walker addresses the concerns that arose at the time of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, finding that the public uproar over the incident was partly fueled by the simultaneous release of the film The China Syndrome, which happened to deal with similar issues in dramatic fashion. Walker explains the precautions taken in the use of nuclear energy and argues that only very small amounts of the most dangerous forms of radiation were released at Three Mile Island. He concludes that while the events at Three Mile Island did amount to a crisis, they did not make for a public health disaster. Bernard L. Cohen, writing for Physics Today, observed that “the book contains little technical information, and many of the technical explanations that do appear range from inadequate to misleading to incorrect.” However, Jack M. Holl, in a review for the Journal of American History, remarked: “Perhaps Walker’s is not the last word on the Three Mile Island accident, but his broad-gauged history of the NRC and TMI whets one’s appetite to read his subsequent official histories of his agency.” In a review for Science, Gene I. Rochlin wrote: “Presented as clearly, expertly, and gracefully as Walker has done here, Three Mile Island is more than just an interesting historical story.”