The Santa Susana Syndrome : Rocketdyne’s nuclear spokesman keeps his cool in the face of some challenging women.

The women of the National Council of Jewish Women had a question on their minds.

They put it, rather bluntly, this way:

“Rumor or reality? Are there nuclear hazards in the San Fernando Valley?”

In its research, the council’s task force on nuclear disarmament turned up some information that led it to think there may be.

The women wanted an answer.

To ease their minds, Marlin E. Remley, director of nuclear safety and licensing for Rocketdyne, dropped by their Valley Council House on Thursday night with a dimpled smile, a pointer in his hand and an overhead projector under his arm.

About 35 women and a few of their husbands showed up to hear him out.

As they assembled, one of the husbands nodded toward Remley and a Rocketdyne public relations man who came with him.

No Fear Betrayed

“Hope they get hell tonight,” he whispered, a gleam in his eye. “They will, too. You don’t know these broads.”

Remley, looking perfectly cool in a smart gray suit, a pink shirt and striped tie, betrayed no fear.

But he surely foresaw what was about to happen when Jeanne Londe, Valley president of the council, announced raptly that a group of doctors planned to march on the government’s Nevada nuclear test site in their hospital smocks.

“They’ve committed themselves to do civil disobedience and step over the line,” she said. “They’ll be arrested.”

A murmur of approval passed through the room.

Remley took a conciliatory tack.

“I’m not involved in nuclear weapons,” he said mildly. “My whole professional career has been involved in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

There was no applause.

Never mind. Remley launched into his subject at the logical beginning--the very beginning.

With the enthusiasm of Dr. George Fischbeck, the television weatherman, he explained the theories of fission and fusion.

At one point he held up a red gambling die between his fingers and said exuberantly that a like amount of uranium holds the power of 30,000 gallons of gasoline.

Some Fidget Noticeably

Some of the women fidgeted noticeably through all this.

They began to mumble when Remley showed diagrams of the different kinds of nuclear power plants.

They protested out loud when Remley began to fuss with a projector, telling them he intended to show a 20-minute film on the experimental nuclear reactor that Rocketdyne built in the Santa Susana Mountains in the 1950s.

“I don’t want to see a 20-minute movie,” Julie Korenstein, a young woman in the audience, shouted. “May we ask questions while you’re doing that? What happened in 1959?”

It may not be widely remembered that Rocketdyne operated a nuclear reactor in the Santa Susana Mountains for almost a decade and that an accident occurred there in 1959.

But the women in the audience knew it.

Korenstein called it a meltdown.

Remley assured her that it wasn’t. He said a leak of organic material caused the cooling system to overheat. Because of that, he said, 13 of the 40 fuel elements were damaged.

As soon as the problem was diagnosed, he said, the reactor was stopped and the elements rebuilt.

‘Absolutely No Exposure’

“There was absolutely no exposure, no exposure of people,” he said.

After a while, Londe intervened, allowing Remley to start the film.

“This is a show for us,” Korenstein muttered at that turn of events. “This is a circus act to keep us from thinking about the real world.”

In the film, workmen were shown cutting up the reactor chamber in the Santa Susana Mountains, packaging the pieces in plastic and shipping them off on trucks for burial.

After the film, a middle-aged woman stood up.

“In spite of this lovely movie, I’m not sure I’m going to sleep so well tonight,” she said. “What kind of public information did you make available in that year of crisis?

She was talking about the meltdown.

Remley slipped cleanly from that one.

Rocketdyne sent out a press release, he said. “It didn’t get much publicity,” he said. “Nobody was much interested in it.”

Another woman asked why so many of the workers appeared to be wearing no protective clothing while they washed down contaminated equipment.

‘Aware of Danger?’

“Weren’t they aware of the danger of being exposed to the contaminants?” she wanted to know.

Remley explained to her that “water goes down,” and the contaminants were captured in holding tanks.

“Sometimes a little water spritzes back,” she argued. “It happens to me in the garden.”

Remley headed for more general ground.

“We have never had a radioactive injury, a permanent radioactive injury,” he said.

During a hour of this, Remley offered but a few bits of specific information.

He did confirm, however, that Rocketdyne uses radioactive material in research at its Canoga Park plant.

“What for?” someone snapped.

He replied calmly that it was for research into irradiation of food and sterilization of medical supplies.

Remley also said that Rocketdyne handles spent nuclear fuel rods in the Santa Susana Mountains but does not reprocess them into weapons-grade fuel, as some in the audience seemed to suspect.

Pressed on Leukemia Cases

At one point, a man pressed Remley about a wave of leukemia cases reported in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks and reportedly related to Rocketdyne.

He said the State Department of Health had investigated the rumors and found a lower rate of leukemia in the alleged pocket than in the state as a whole.

Throughout this quickening recitative of questioning, there were so many hands in the air that no one was allowed the luxury of cross-examination.

And, as 10 p.m. approached, the questions grew more general and desperate in tone.

“I look around and see all the little plants,” one woman said, referring to the West Valley’s high-tech industries. “I wonder what the hell is going on in there.”

“What do we need to know for our own protection?” another woman almost begged Remley to tell her.

He said he didn’t have an answer. But he did offer a story to indicate that there are risks everywhere in Southern California.

Remember the toxic waste spill that blocked the San Diego Freeway for 36 hours earlier this month, he asked?

“I was very lucky because I was going to Washington and I got by just before the spill or I wouldn’t have got to Washington.”