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In mid-March 1979, Americans headed to the theaters to see The China Syndrome. Starring Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas and Jack Lemmon, the disaster thriller follows a broadcast journalist who discovers safety coverups at a nuclear power plant and the plant supervisor who tries to avert a nuclear disaster. Variety “moderately compelling” while the New York Times was a bit more generous, a “smashingly effective, very stylish suspense melodrama.”
Whatever the critics said, The China Syndrome immediately spurred debate about the dangers of relying on nuclear power and the real-world plausibility of such a disaster. One nuclear power executive said the film was “an overall character assassination of an entire industry.” He reassured readers of the , “The systems are designed and built in such a way that a reactor will operate safely even if there is a significant equipment failure or human error.”
Whatever the critics said, The China Syndrome immediately spurred debate about the dangers of relying on nuclear power and the real-world plausibility of such a disaster. One nuclear power executive said the film was “an overall character assassination of an entire industry.” He reassured readers of the , “The systems are designed and built in such a way that a reactor will operate safely even if there is a significant equipment failure or human error.”
