A burgeoning nuclear industry clashing with a growing unionization movement. Increasing knowledge of the effects of radiation exposure combined with the shoddy handling practices and frequent contamination incidents at a nuclear facility in a small Oklahoma town. 40-66 pounds of missing plutonium hand-waved away by a government that moved the goalposts of how much nuclear material was allowed to go "missing" before corporations had to report it. A fatal one-car crash of a union leader on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter on a desolate stretch of highway on a cold November night in 1974. These are just some of the horrifying and still-unsolved aspects of the Karen Silkwood case.
The 1970s were a very different time. We were still friendly with Iran, which had yet to undergo the Islamic revolution. Studio54 was all the rage and its patrons were powered by pure Colombian and Bolivian cocaine. Quaaludes, a powerful depressant (sedative-hypnotic) that fell somewhere between barbiturates and benzodiazepines, were handed out at anxiety clinics the same way opioids were at pain clinics in the early 2000s. The Vietnam war was just ending around the mid-70s, bringing home a generation of mentally and physically wounded men. But aside from that, things tended to feel like one big party. Baby Boomers were in their 20s and bands like Queen, Aerosmith, Funkadelic, the Bee Gees and Black Sabbath ruled the airwaves. Jimmy Carter was president, and his focus was on things like solar power and pot legalization.
But dig a little deeper and you'll see the '70s weren't all that glamorous. Musicians and celebrities routinely had sex with underage "groupies" and drugged women to rape them without consequence. Women's rights in general were abhorrent, and Black people and gays were still treated like 3rd class citizens. Homosexuality was considered a mental illness by the APA until early 1974. This was also the year that Karen Silkwood, a high-level lab technician at the Kerr-McGee nuclear plant in Cimarron, OK, died in a mysterious one-car crash on her way to meet with a New York Times reporter.
Silkwood's badly crushed vehicle.
Karen first got on her employer's bad side when she engaged in an unsuccessful strike in 1972. (Actually, she probably already had a strike against her for being female in the male-dominated factory/technician field). Strike 2 (or 3) came when Karen became the 1st woman elected to the union's bargaining committee, for which her job was to document health & safety violations. Among the many disturbing violations she noted was missing plutonium--specifically between 40 and 66 POUNDS of it.
To this point, none of the workers had been informed that plutonium could cause cancer. Sounds insane today, but it's true. Karen was informed at a September 1974 meeting and was shocked. She pulled the legislative director aside and told him:
"I work in a quality-control lab, and I noticed the lab technician would use a felt pen on the X-ray to cover over that little thin line that showed a crack in the control rod welds." And [she told me] there was some fooling with the computer data, too."
Silkwood herself had been so badly contaminated (in highly suspicious ways) she likely would've died a horrible death from radiation-related illness if she hadn't been killed in a car wreck. It's still debated how her apartment became the source of exposure of both plutonium and uranium, and how the inside of her unused work gloves came to contain dangerous amounts of plutonium despite no punctures. Kerr-McGee outrageously claimed she contaminated herself to make the company "look bad" even though she was legitimately upset to she learn the radioactive material caused cancer. She'd always taken safety very seriously, so it's unlikely she or anyone else would've done such a thing. By the end of her life she was very depressed and those who knew her cited the radiation exposure as the major cause of her low mood.
The Crash
Crash site, 2026
Silkwood crashed her car shortly after leaving a meeting with the union at a small cafe, during which she cried quietly about her fear of developing cancer due to plutonium exposure. She allegedly said the only bright spot was all the documentation she carried and planned to show the reporter later that night. She was heading Oklahoma City to meet New York Times reporter David Burnham and carrying a folder, a spiral notebook and a packet of documents with her when she left the union meeting. None of those were recovered from the car or the surrounding scene.
Her autopsy found levels of methaqualone (Quaaludes) nearly twice the medicinal dose in her system. Two tablets of the potent drug were found in her car along with a couple of cannabis joints. A marijuana plant was also present in her apartment. She was not wearing her seatbelt. Her car bore signs of possible ramming from behind, and it appeared to some that she'd been awake at the time of the crash. From Wikipedia:
The Aftermath
Nuclear bombs: then & now
Turns out, all of Karen's allegations against the plant were proven true and the plant was ultimately shut down a year later. (The company itself remained a powerful force in Oklahoma, operating a number of gas stations and other filthy businesses for decades). The plutonium that contaminated her apartment came from a part of the plant she hadn't accessed in years. Her family sued Kerr-McGee and was initially awarded a record-setting 10.5 million settlement, but it was overturned by the federal government on the grounds that "state governments can't award punitive damages due to federal regulations of nuclear plants". Never mind that their "regulation" was a fucking joke.
The real mystery is what happened to all that missing plutonium. Once you get to the bottom of that rabbit hole, you start to realize why this evil corporation might have wanted to shut Ms. Silkwood up forever. About 70 other workers at the same plant had already been contaminated, so that alone wouldn't have been motive to literally have her killed. But having concrete proof of the company selling nuclear material on the black market in a manner that broke world anti-proliferation treaties would definitely do it. Because you see, the government had a hand in allowing this material to go unaccounted for. Regulatory agencies kept moving the goalposts, increasing the amount that was allowed to be "missing" from these facilities until it reached an insane 250% margin of error allowed, according to a 1977 Rolling Stone article. There was also a media blackout on the issue of missing plutonium, allegedly for "national security" reasons. Convenient.
The attorney for the Silkwood family, Daniel Sheehan, claims the missing plutonium was actually weapons-grade material and it went directly to the uber-trustworthy Israel, who was directed to split it with the Shah of Iran and South Africa. (Remember, Iran was our ally at the time). This is the side of the nuclear power industry that's rarely discussed today when aggressive nuclear power proponents fill Reddit comment sections with their propaganda. But even Wikipedia contains a prominent section on the "dual uses" of this "technology," which can be used both for power and weapons like those used in Nagasaki & Hiroshima.
The nuclear industry has a long and torrid history of scandals that prove human beings are utterly incapable of responsibly handling such deadly material on a scale large enough to make it a viable energy alternative to oil and gas. It's not unlike the BSL-IV laboratories that handle the most deadly pathogens on Earth with no informed consent from the public, or the psychopathic scientists tinkering with "mirror life" and AI viruses. Some among us just can't resist playing God with the most hazardous killing materials in existence (I can't even say "known to man" because some of these things aren't known even to the most science-minded among us. Even those at the highest levels of government). That's a problem.
A SECOND Wreck?
Quaaludes were ultimately banned largely for their role in date rapes and causing car crashes. If not for this detail, it would be 100% clear that Karen Silkwood was murdered. The pills were prescribed legally for her anxiety and depression, but they alter judgment, coordination and cognition to such a degree that they're never safe to drive on. The irony is that depressants like benzos, methaqualone, alcohol and barbiturates can worsen depression and other mood disorders to a dangerous degree, yet they're still prescribed for it to this day (mostly benzos).
But even this detail comes into question when you learn of a little detail that's almost never mentioned in even the most thorough documentaries about Karen Silkwood. Just 2 weeks before the fatal crash, Karen was involved in a bizarre wreck at 1:15 a.m. on Highway 33 in which she drove BACKWARDS over a 13-foot embankment! Interestingly, she didn't report it to the police, instead just calling a wrecking service to have her car towed from a desolate country road West of Guthrie, OK. She did report it to her car insurance company. But here's the most important detail: she wasn't taking Quaaludes yet.
Here are the details from an official FBI report:
In regard to SILKWOOD* s accident that preceded the fatal accident, this matter was not investigated by the OHP when the accident occurred, however, it has been determined that at 1:15 A.M, , on October 31, 1974, (Thursday), at a point 3.8 miles west of Guthrie, Oklahoma, on State Highway 33, SILKWOOD* s car, a 1973 Honda, went off the highway going over backwards off a 13 foot embankment and coming to rest against a fence post. SILKWOOD left the car in the ditch until morning and thereafter contacted Martin* s Wrecker Service in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Wrecker service extracted vehicle from ditch and as he previously indicated, this accident was not reported to the OHP. It is his understanding that as result of this accident SILKWOOD filed a claim with the Allstate Insurance Company for damage to the left rear quarter panel of the vehicle. It is also his understanding the wrecker driver who picked up the SILKWOOD car after the fatal accident observed in her car a recent estimate from the Eskridge Pontiac-Honda Company relative to damage to the left rear quarter panel. It is his understanding this estimate Was in excess of $300. Inquiry by his department determined that SILKWOOD, on November 1, 1974, contacted Dr. CLARENCE in Oklahoma City, She subsequently contacted the doctor on November 4, 1974, at which time she complained she could not sleep. It is my understanding that he prescribed the metnaquaione (methaqualone) as result of SILKWOOD* s visits.
Emphasis mine.
The fact that this happened so close to the fatal incident definitely adds fuel to the murder theories IMHO. If we could know for CERTAIN that Karen wasn't taking methaqualone prior to seeing Dr. Clarence on November 4, 1974, this would all but seal the case as a murder for me. The fact that she first contacted this doctor THE DAY AFTER the first wreck suggests it caused her significant distress.
Was Karen having problems sleeping because she was being followed and feared what ultimately ended up happening? Did somebody tamper with her car in a way that would cause it to suddenly go backwards and plummet off an embankment? Was some of her depression and crying at the final union meeting due to being shaken up by her previous late night wreck? We'll never know because the only person who can answer those questions is no longer with us.
The Fate of Whistleblowers in America
Whistleblowing = a deadly exercise in the "Land of the Free"
What do I think happened to Karen Silkwood? The same thing happening to whistleblowers today. Manning was thrown in a military prison; Snowden has been exiled in Russia since 2013. Assange was tortured at Belmarsh prison for years, and they were the lucky ones because they're still living. In more recent times, multiple corporate whistleblowers have turned up dead of alleged suicide. Thus is the danger of corporate fascism.
Even if it turns out that all 5 of those men actually committed suicide, it's 100% unacceptable that an employer or ex-employer would be allowed to harass, threaten, defame and otherwise drive workers to that point for having the audacity to report blatant health, safety & environmental violations. Clearly, our whistleblower protection laws are NOT being enforced. Meanwhile our government is trying to write laws banning VPNs and other forms of internet anonymity that make it possible to report the crimes of governments and corporations in a safe manner! They want to make damn sure we can be driven off the road like Karen Silkwood or pushed out a 10 story window like Frank Olson.
Where the hell is the media? That's right: they've got corporate sponsors to suck off. I can't wait until they're put completely out of business by citizen journalists, who consistently put them to shame with faster, more accurate information and often even beat law enforcement to the punch when it comes to developing stories.
Whatever caused this woman's death, there's no question she was ultimately a very brave and important figure in the fight against corporate evil and eventually in shutting down the nuclear industry in the U.S. The Three Mile Accident in 1979 was the final nail in the coffin, but Karen's death drew enough national attention to get Kerr-McGee's shitty plant shut down. A major motion picture was even made starring Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell and Cher. Sadly, unions have lost most of their power since the 1970s as relations between regulators and corporations have grown ever more incestuous. Working conditions continue to deteriorate and whistleblowers arguably face an even more uphill battle than they did back then.
Rather than staying and fighting when things get hard, most employees just change jobs or even career paths because we've been so thoroughly propagandized and stripped of our historical knowledge of unionizing, labor strikes and civil disobedience in America. The U.S. just saw its first general strike in EIGHTY YEARS in response to the ICE killings of 2 people--a fact that would've been unthinkable to the workers of the 1930s-1950s.
R.I.P. Karen Silkwood and all victims of state-sanctioned violence whose only "crimes" were telling the truth to protect the public. For a country that pushes "personal accountability" so hard, you'd think there'd be at least a couple corporate CEOs in prison or on death row for decisions that killed hundreds of thousands of people for no reason other than enriching themselves. (BP oil spill, Bayer AIDS blood scandal, Vioxx peddlers, Monsanto Agent Orange pushers, etc). If "corporations are people," they must be held to the same legal standards as the average Joe.
Karen Silkwood
1946 - 1974
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