‘Jane Fonda caused my heart attack’

Press, 2 August 1979, Page 6

‘Jane Fonda caused my heart attack’

NZPA-Reuter New York Edward Teller, often known as “father of the H-bomb,” has blamed the actress, Jane Fonda, and others protesting against the accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant for his heart attack last May. Dr Teller’s comments were spread out over two pages in a “Wall Street Journal” advertisement which cost about $U527,400 and was paid for by Dresser Industries, of Dallas, manufacturer of machinery for the oil and coal industry. A spokesman for Dresser said the 71-year-old Dr i Teller was not affiliated

with the company. It wanted to promulgate his views. Dr Teller said in the Dr Teller said in the advertisment he had gone to “refute some of the propaganda that (the consumer advocate) Ralph Nader, Jane Fonda, and their kind are spewing to the news media in an attempt to frighten people away from nuclear power. “I am 71 years old, and I was working 20 hours a day. The strain was too much. The next day I suffered a heart attack. You might say that I was the only one . whose health was affected by that reactor near Harris-

burg (Pennsylvania},’’ ti« - said.

“No that would be,, wrong,’’ he continued. 'TH 1 was nof the reactor. It Was'l Jane Fonda. Reactors are not dangerous.’’ Miss Fonda and Mr NadeS ' were not available immediately for comment. Dr Teller, a nuclear physi* cist who was instrumental in developing the hydrogen bomb, and early proponent of the atom bomb, said that last March’s accident at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg would make “the nuclear way of gen* erating electricity . . . even safer.”