Beverly Hills Youth Plays Key Role in Launch Battle

A 19-year-old college student from Beverly Hills had no idea he would become enmeshed in a legal battle over the launch of a nuclear-powered space shuttle payload when he began a summer internship in the Washington office of Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles).

But, in an unlikely saga, the student, Robert Rich, grilled top federal officials for several hours on a sensitive policy issue. He then provided testimony considered important by anti-nuclear groups who are seeking to block the launch of the shuttle Atlantis and its atomic-powered Galileo probe to Jupiter.

A federal judge Tuesday cleared the way for the shuttle launch by denying the request for a temporary restraining order, but the launch opponents plan to appeal.

Acting with the power of Beilenson’s office--without the congressman’s knowledge but with approval from a Beilenson aide--Rich gathered information about the safety of the nuclear payload. He said he was acting on behalf of Beilenson constituents--chief among them, he now says, is his sister, a Westwood environmental lawyer.

“Robert Rich has played a very important role,” said Lanny Sinkin, litigation director of the Christic Institute, a public interest law foundation that is one of three parties that filed suit against the Atlantis launch. “He provided us an inside look at the kind of thinking that has gone on regarding the press and the public being informed about the Galileo.”

Rich, a 1988 graduate of Beverly Hills High School, spent most of his summer in Beilenson’s office doing mundane filing and research on constituent queries. That changed when Rich’s sister, Catherine, an attorney whose Westwood residence is in Beilenson’s 23rd District, told him she was concerned about the safety of the Galileo’s power plant.

Rich, proceeding with the approval of Beilenson’s administrative assistant, made numerous inquiries on behalf of his sister and other constituents. This led to an offer to meet with officials of the Inter-Agency Nuclear Safety Review Panel--which was responsible for providing an independent evaluation of the shuttle’s safety.

An aide to Beilenson confirmed that Rich’s inquiries on behalf of a constituent--his sister--were approved by the lawmaker’s staff. She said she was “stunned” when NASA subsequently requested a meeting with the young intern.

On Aug. 31, Rich says, he spent three to four hours at NASA with Leven Gray, NASA’s coordinator with the safety review panel; Darrell Huff, the Energy Department’s representative to the panel, and John Madison, NASA’s congressional liaison.

“I was playing a two-edged sword,” Rich recalled Tuesday from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., where he is a sophomore majoring in Russian studies. Rich, who was president of the Beverly Hills student body and his sophomore, junior and senior classes, said the officials assumed he was a congressional aide rather than an intern.

“In my heart, I was doing it because I was about ready to blow this thing and everything they told me. But officially I was there because it was a constituent request. I made it clear that congressman Beilenson knew nothing about it. He was out of the country.

“They were scared that a congressman like Tony Beilenson, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and is rather powerful in that respect, would be making so many calls,” he said, referring to the calls he made himself to the White House, NASA and other agencies, from Beilenson’s office.

“So they wanted to give me as much information as would satisfy me.”

During the meeting, Rich was allowed to see a three-volume Safety Evaluation Report on the shuttle that the panel had prepared but had refused to make public, he said. He could take notes but was not permitted to keep a copy.

In his notes, which he subsequently turned over to the Christic Institute, Rich quotes Gray as saying: “The Safety Evaluation Report remains classified until launch approval so the public and media will not in any way influence the decision.” The notes became the basis for Rich’s affidavit in support of the suit.

Gray, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, said in an affidavit that the quote was “not factual.”