Interview with Donna Whiteside

Interview with Donna Whiteside

Hanford Site (Wash.)

Donna Whiteside reflects on moving to Richland when her father moved the family from Montana. Donna worked as a patrolman working graveyard or swing before taking other security related positions until she retired and traveled for sometime in her RV.

Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities

Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities.

04/25/2017

Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.

video/mp4

The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to the US Department of Energy collection.

Robert Franklin

Donna Whiteside

Washington State University Tri-Cities

0:00:00 Robert Franklin: Ready?
Tom Hungate: Yeah, we’re ready.
Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Donna Whiteside on April 25, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Donna about her experiences working at the Hanford Site. For the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?
Donna Whiteside: Donna Whiteside. D-O-N-N-A. W-H-I-T-E-S-I-D-E.
Franklin: Great. Thank you very much, Donna. So tell me, when did you first come to the Hanford area?
Whiteside: 1953.
Franklin: Okay. And I know you weren’t working then.
Whiteside: Uh, no. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Okay. So can you tell me a little bit more about why you came to the Hanford area?
0:00:46 Whiteside: My dad had a brother-in-law who worked for DuPont, as a matter of fact. And he got him out here from eastern Montana. And Mom and three kids came later. We did not move into Richland right away, because we had to be put on a housing list. So we lived in three different places, as I remember, in West Richland.
Franklin: Okay. Now, but your brother-in-law wouldn’t have worked for DuPont in ‘53. He probably worked for GE.
Whiteside: Well, he came out with DuPont. But, yeah.
Franklin: Came out with DuPont and then stayed during the Cold War expansion of the Site. And then eventually you moved into an A house, right?
Whiteside: Yes. The summer before I started kindergarten.
Franklin: Okay. And do you know what year that was?
Whiteside: ‘53.
Franklin: ‘53.
Whiteside: It was ‘53, yes.
Franklin: And how long did you live in the A house for?
Whiteside: Until I was a senior in high school.
Franklin: Okay, and what year was that?
Whiteside: 1965.
Franklin: So your family purchased the house.
0:01:43 Whiteside: Yeah, they were the senior renters, so they had the first opportunity to buy the A house, which they did.
Franklin: Okay. Did they convert, or--
Whiteside: No. The A houses, one half had a full basement; one had a half basement. We had the half basement part. So the first thing my mom and dad did was dig out the rest of the basement, take out the coal furnace, and make a TV room and half bath downstairs.
Franklin: Okay. And then what about the other half of the A house?
Whiteside: We rented it.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Whiteside: We rented it.
Franklin: And so tell me, what was it like growing up in a--what do you remember about growing up in a government town?
0:02:20 Whiteside: It was great. It was very, very safe. You could walk home alone after dark knowing nothing was ever going to happen to you. It was just, you know. Every so many blocks, there was a little park that you could go and play in. There was a grocery store, a drug store right at the end of this park. It was just fun!
Franklin: Because these were designed to be very, almost utopian kind of communities by the architect, with those kinds of things in mind.
Whiteside: Mm-hmm, it was, yeah.
Franklin: The parks and the kind of decentralized shop—there were stores in each neighborhood and everything. And were your parents, overall, happy with the quality of the housing, or--?
Whiteside: I think so. I think so.
Franklin: So you said you lived in that house until you graduated. How long did your parents stay in the house?
0:03:12 Whiteside: We all moved when I was a senior in high school. My dad passed away when I was young. But we all moved out to north Richland the year I was a senior in high school. I didn’t graduate until ‘66. It was the first part of my senior year that we moved.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And why did you move?
Whiteside: Because my mother wanted to. And our house had been sold to a couple that lived across the street on the same street we did. And they did convert it into one house.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And did you move into newer construction, then?
Whiteside: Brand-new house.
Franklin: In north Richland.
Whiteside: Brand-new house.
Franklin: Like a ranch style?
Whiteside: Yeah, sort of. But it did have a basement.
Franklin: Okay, okay. So you said your father passed away pretty early.
Whiteside: He was 35.
Franklin: Oh, wow! Can I ask how he--
Whiteside: He either had a fishbone or chicken bone get caught in his throat.
Franklin: Oh, my. Sorry, I’m not laughing, that’s just such a--
Whiteside: No, no, no, no. I understand. He actually bled to death is what happened.
Franklin: Wow. Was he alone when this happened, or--?
Whiteside: He stayed home from work, which was very unusual for my dad to do. My mom did not work. So she was home with him.
Franklin: Okay.
0:04:18 Whiteside: The weird part about this was I was coming home from school—I was at Carmichael at the time, which was then a junior high rather than a middle school. An ambulance came down the street and, I said to the gal that I was walking home with, my mom’s in that ambulance. And she was. And she stuck her head out the door and said what was going on. So I just continued on home.
Franklin: Wow. What did your father do for General Electric?
Whiteside: He was an assistant engineer. But what he did, I have no clue, because nobody what anybody did, you know? [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Right. And after your father passed away, did your mother go work as well, or--?
Whiteside: Um. Yes, but not right away.
Franklin: Okay.
Whiteside: She got Dad’s VA and his social security and all of that stuff. The VA is what put three kids through college.
Franklin: Oh wow.
Whiteside: Yeah.
Franklin: So your father was in World War II then.
Whiteside: Yes, he was.
Franklin: Okay.
Whiteside: Yeah, he was.
Franklin: And so, you left Richland, then, in the late ‘60s, mid-to-late-’60s?
Whiteside: Yeah, I went to college.
Franklin: And where’d you go to college?
Whiteside: The first term, I went to Bellingham.
Franklin: Western Washington?
Whiteside: Yes, Western.
Franklin: And then where?
Whiteside: Then I came back and went to CBC, and then I graduated from Eastern in Cheney.
Franklin: Okay. And you got your degree in social work.
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: Right, with a minor in psychology. And tell me how you came back to work for Hanford.
0:05:40 Whiteside: Well, I interviewed for several different jobs in the social work field. Besides wanting me to have a master’s degree, they wanted five years of experience. Well, I could’ve gone back to school and gotten the master’s degree, but I still would lack the five years of experience. I had an uncle on Patrol at the time, and he said, why don’t you send in your application or get ahold of—whoever, I don’t remember even who it was I needed to get ahold of. But that’s what I did. And at the time, they were hiring minorities, and they considered women minorities on Patrol.
Franklin: Sure, because women would’ve probably been very underrepresented--
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: --in the patrol force.
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: And so--okay. So you send in your resume, and can you walk me through the process as how you got on?
0:06:28 Whiteside: Well, I went down to have—I went down to the Federal Building, in the basement, because that’s where Patrol headquarters was at the time. I interviewed with the assistant chief, whose name was Paul Beardsley. Next thing I knew, I was on Hanford Patrol. I do have to tell you, though, at the same time I was also offered a job as a Sunnyside policeman.
Franklin: And how come you chose Hanford Patrol?
Whiteside: Well, I figured I would probably be safer than I would in Sunnyside. And the chief in Sunnyside had a few concerns about the fact that I was a female and that I’d have a male partner and things could get out of hand with his wife or whatever. You know. Just because we’d be on night shift together. So I said, okay, I’m just going to go to Hanford. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Sure. That’s—given the time, the era, that would be a possible--a concern that a male chief would have. I guess we’ll put it that way. So you came on in what year?
Whiteside: January of ‘74.
Franklin: Okay. and were there other women working at Patrol at that time?
0:07:37 Whiteside: I was like the fifth one hired.
Franklin: Okay. Do you know around what time the first woman was hired for Patrol?
Whiteside: I think they were hired just prior, like sometime in late ‘73.
Franklin: Oh, okay, okay.
Whiteside: Because we all had to go through x amount of training and some of them were still in training when I started.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And so, describe working for Hanford Patrol. What were your expectations and did it meet them, and how was it—some of the challenges you might have faced?
Whiteside: Well, the biggest challenge was being a female.
Franklin: Okay.
0:08:12 Whiteside: They had to convert dressing rooms. They had to convert restrooms. They had to remodel men’s uniforms so women could wear them.
Franklin: Was that already being done by the time that you came on?
Whiteside: Yeah, it was, it was.
Franklin: How were you received by your male colleagues and then the Hanford workers at large?
Whiteside: Most—most of the patrolmen were fine with it. A few of them—you know, you don’t need to be here. You need to be at home.
Franklin: Ah. Were they older patrolmen that had that--or was it just maybe--
Whiteside: Most of them were older.
Franklin: --that’s just how they had been brought up?
Whiteside: Most of them were older. A couple of them was due to their religion.
Franklin: Ah.
Whiteside: Enough said. [LAUGHTER] I mean!
Franklin: Sure. No, that’s fine.
Whiteside: Enough said.
Franklin: Yeah, right. And what about the employees at large? Did you ever receive any kind of criticism or anything from them?
Whiteside: No. No.
Franklin: You were just another--
Whiteside: I was just there.
Franklin: You were just there.
0:09:21 Whiteside: But I will tell you, I would meet some of them in public, and they’d look at me and they’d say, you look familiar. I should know you. And I’d say, yeah, and if I put on a uniform, then you’d know who I was, wouldn’t you? [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Right. And were you firearms trained?
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: You carried a gun?
Whiteside: We carried .38s at the time.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
Whiteside: And we had to qualify with .38s, shotguns, and M-16s during the day and at night, at least once a year.
Franklin: Wow, M-16s.
Whiteside: Uh-huh, M-16s.
Franklin: So fully automatic weapons.
Whiteside: They were, but we didn’t shoot them fully automatic.
Franklin: Okay.
Whiteside: [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Wow, that’s quite, that’s very--that’s impressive.
Whiteside: And I was usually the last one to qualify.
Franklin: Yeah?
0:10:05 Whiteside: Because my mindset was, we can’t use these until you’ve tried everything else in the world, you cannot draw a gun and use it. And it’s like, then why do I have to learn how to shoot these stupid things? But I did.
Franklin: Okay, right, right. Yeah. But your service piece would’ve been a .38.
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: Right?
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: Where were you stationed out of for patrol?
Whiteside: Mostly out in the outer areas. I was headquartered out of 2-East and that covered East Area and al the 100 Areas. Of course, all the reactors but N Reactor were down at the time. But there was still a few checks that we had to make on the back shifts.
Franklin: On the what shifts?
Whiteside: Back. Graveyard and swing.
Franklin: Oh, graveyard and swing, okay.
Whiteside: Yeah, and of course weekends.
Franklin: Wow. Okay. And what were some of your regular duties, besides the checks? Did you--
Whiteside: We had to let people in and out the gates. We had to check classified files. There were various gates and things that we had to check. You know, just being alert.
Franklin: Just being alert?
Whiteside: Yeah. And that’s sometimes really hard on graveyard.
Franklin: Oh, I imagine. I imagine so.
Whiteside: There was a tower on the river at N Area that was manned also.
Franklin: Did you ever man that?
0:11:18 Whiteside: Oh, yeah. Because you rotated. Most of the time you rotated every two hours, unless you were at a barricade, and then it was like four hours.
Franklin: What was the most unusual thing that you saw working on patrol?
Whiteside: I can’t say there anything very unusual. It was pretty—it was pretty much like night watchman work. Other than letting people in and out of the gates and checking the files and stuff, it was pretty much just routine.
Franklin: I guess that’s good that—I guess unusual on patrol is probably a bad thing, usually, right?
Whiteside: Yeah. Yeah.
Franklin: Was there ever any kind of humorous or anecdotal incidents that you saw while doing these duties?
Whiteside: Well, I can tell you what happened to me one time.
Franklin: Okay.
0:12:00 Whiteside: Once I got my Q clearance, I had to go with various patrolmen—and it was usually on the backshifts, so I would know all the checks. Because being the youngest person, seniority-wise, I could be sent to 300 Area, to 400 Area, to the Federal Building, to 2-West or whatever, to cover for vacations. So I had to learn all of the outer area stuff. We went into a building in West Area, I think it was 222-S, I’m not sure. But it was an S building; that’s all I know. The file we had to check was in a zone where we had to put on a lab coat and shoe covers. So, I followed the patrolman into the change room. Well, it was the man’s change room. And somebody looked at me and said, you have awfully long hair to be a guy. And I said, well, I’m not a guy. And he said, well, then you’re in the wrong change room. Anyway. I continued with my lab coat and shoe covers and we went and checked the file and we came back out. The patrolman said, now, you go in there and you drop off your shoe covers and your lab coat and then meet me on the outside. So I went through the women’s change room on the way out.
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Oh, thank you. And so how long did you work as the watchman, night thing--?
Whiteside: I was on patrol for eleven-and-a-half years. And then I went to the PUREX building and helped with the special authorization badges and the security. Then I went back to 100-N.
Franklin: So that whole first eleven-and-a-half year chunk, was it pretty much the same kind of duties?
Whiteside: Yeah, it was.
Franklin: Considering that you didn’t train for patrol work in college, was there anything about patrol work that surprised you or stuck out to you in any way?
Whiteside: Not really.
Franklin: No?
Whiteside: Mm-mm.
Franklin: Did you find it pretty satisfying to do, given that it wasn’t something that you had trained for initially?
Whiteside: Yeah.
Franklin: Okay. And so then you said you went to PUREX.
Whiteside: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: And what did you do at PUREX? Was that work different from the--
0:14:02 Whiteside: It was like clerk work, but they also had one section of the building, you had to have a special badge to get into. So all the people that wanted badges for that area, the paperwork was sent to me.
Franklin: Okay, and then--
Whiteside: Then I sent it to the manager of that section for him to sign off on.
Franklin: Okay. So it was much more of a cler--still security-related, but more--
Whiteside: Right, but more clerical.
Franklin: More clerical.
Whiteside: Yeah.
Franklin: And did you enjoy that work more or was it nice to be in a single spot or--
Whiteside: Well, it was day shift.
Franklin: Oh, yeah. Was--
Whiteside: It was day shift. Of course, on the last couple years of patrol, I was on days, too. But, yeah, it was just—you knew it was Monday through Friday and--
Franklin: No covering for vacations.
Whiteside: No covering for vacations. [LAUGHTER] Any of that kind of stuff.
Franklin: How many people worked at the PUREX facility at that time?
Whiteside: You know, I really don’t know.
Franklin: Okay.
Whiteside: I really do not know.
Franklin: I guess, by that time, though, you had a pretty good idea of what was happening, what was going on at Hanford, what was being made, and why.
0:15:05 Whiteside: Yeah, I guess it got a lot more open, you know, than it had been when I was growing up.
Franklin: Sure, sure. And how did you—did you feel safe working at Hanford?
Whiteside: Oh, yeah. I mean, I grew up here. Didn’t bother me at all.
Franklin: Okay. Even from the kind of--you know, because Hanford wasn’t isolated from political or international incidents. So did any of the events in the Cold War ever cause you to worry, you know, or did you ever sense a kind of heightened sense of anxiety?
Whiteside: Mm-mm.
Franklin: Okay.
Whiteside: Nope.
Franklin: And so you said, after—how long did you work at PUREX for?
Whiteside: You know, I don’t know for sure. Because the last five years was PUREX and then it was back to N Area. And I can’t tell you where the division came.
Franklin: Oh, sure. By the time you worked at PUREX, were the attitudes towards female employees in security and patrol, had they largely changed by then? Do you think people were more used to seeing females in the--
Whiteside: Oh, yeah. They were.
Franklin: --in those kinds of roles?
Whiteside: Because we had female lieutenants and all of that by that time.
Franklin: Do you ever think about it or does it ever surprise you how kind of quickly that change happened, from no women in that workforce to women being kind of commonplace or not out of the ordinary?
Whiteside: Well, I guess, being there, it really didn’t.
Franklin: And so you said for the last part, you went to work at N Reactor.
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: And what kind of job was that, what kind of duties?
0:16:34 Whiteside: Basically I worked for the security guy at N Area. I was in charge of all the keys for all the 100 Areas and for Rattlesnake Mountain.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Whiteside: So if somebody needed a key, they had to come to me to check it out.
Franklin: Did you approve those requests, or--what was that process like?
Whiteside: Well, if they needed the key—I can’t remember exactly, but probably the guy or the woman that was ahead of that had said, okay, so-and-so needs a key to get in here. Of course, we’d have to call the locksmith if we were shorthanded on keys or whatever then.
Franklin: What were the kinds of reasons that people would need keys, especially to go up to like Rattlesnake Mountain or into a reactor that had been shut down?
Whiteside: Just for safety checks, more or less.
Franklin: Safety checks.
Whiteside: Yeah.
Franklin: Same with Rattlesnake? Because was that facility still active when you were doing patrol?
Whiteside: No, it wasn’t.
Franklin: Okay.
0:17:29 Whiteside: It was still there. And it could’ve been made active, but it wasn’t. But it’s quite a facility.
Franklin: Why don’t you tell me a little bit about it.
Whiteside: It had sleeping quarters; it had a kitchen; it had big meeting rooms. Because that was where all the important people would’ve gone, if something had happened at Hanford.
Franklin: Right.
Whiteside: They would’ve bussed them up there. But it was a neat building. It really was.
Franklin: So you went inside of it?
Whiteside: Oh, yeah.
Franklin: Was that part of your patrol duties?
Whiteside: Well, no, that was not. One of our checks, if you worked in the 300 Area was to go up there and check the gates. But since I had the keys, just before I quit--I got to retire when I was 42 years old--we, a bunch of us, decided we wanted to go up there. Because I had the keys, we got the okay to go.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So this was kind of like before you retired kind of checking it out kind of thing.
Whiteside: Yeah, yeah.
Franklin: Okay. Did you socialize mostly with people from--that worked at Hanford?
Whiteside: We did, because my husband and I were both on the same shift.
Franklin: Oh, so did your husband work patrol as well?
Whiteside: No, no. He ran N--he was one of the shift managers at N Reactor.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So you kind of worked together for the last--
Whiteside: Well, we--no. When I went back to N, he’d retired.
Franklin: Oh, okay, okay.
0:18:49 Whiteside: Westinghouse was coming in and the benefits he would get from UNC were better than those he would’ve gotten from Westinghouse, and he was 62 years old.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Whiteside: So it was an optimum time for him retire.
Franklin: Sure, yeah, a little earlier retirement and--
Whiteside: Yeah. For the most part, we worked the same shift. So our family, essentially, was the shift you were on. Because you had long changes together, you had days off between swing and days together. So we did a lot of things with them.
Franklin: You say your family, you mean like your work family?
Whiteside: Yeah, yeah.
Franklin: Okay. So the people you socialized with were the people that were on the same shift.
Whiteside: For the most part.
Franklin: Would you say that was pretty common throughout--
Whiteside: I think it was.
Franklin: --all the shift people, like graveyard people were associated with the graveyard people?
0:19:35 Whiteside: I think so. There were some straight day people that we did things with, too. But for the most part, if you wanted to do anything in the middle of the week, it was with the people that you were on that shift with, because we all had that day off.
Franklin: Sure, sure.
Whiteside: You know.
Franklin: That makes sense. And did you meet your husband working out at the Hanford Site?
Whiteside: I met my husband when his daughter and I started kindergarten at Spalding.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So your husband was--
Whiteside: 23 years older than me.
Franklin: Okay! And how did you become involved with your husband? Were you working out at the Site at the time?
0:20:04 Whiteside: yes, I was. I got my clearance, and the night that the patrolman took me to N Area to show me the checks, he told me that he thought Bob Whiteside was the shift manager. And I said, well, did he used to live in Richland and he’s got two kids and he moved back to Sunnyside and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And of course, the patrolman didn’t know. So he went into his office and he was not there. So, another guy--I don’t remember who it was--took me around and showed me the various parts of N Area. When we got back to Bob’s office, he was there. And somebody had told him that I was looking for him. Of course, he admitted later, he had no clue who I was. To me, he looked the same as my friend’s dad, 20-some years before. But I didn’t look the same to him, of course. [LAUGHTER] I mean, you know?
Franklin: Well, sure, yeah. So that’s when you kind of I guess reconnected with him.
Whiteside: Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was.
Franklin: And then you guys started dating at some point.
Whiteside: Mm-hm, yup.
Franklin: Interesting. And so you retired when your husband did, right?
Whiteside: No, I worked for three more years.
Franklin: Oh, you worked for three more years.
Whiteside: Yeah, yeah.
Franklin: Okay. And that was that split-time between PUREX and N.
Whiteside: And N, yeah.
Franklin: So why did you choose to retire from Hanford?
0:21:28 Whiteside: He wanted to sell our house. We had an RV and he wanted to travel and see part of the country. And I was all for it.
Franklin: Okay.
Whiteside: So we did that. Our house sold and we moved into the RV and covered most everything on our side of the Mississippi.
Franklin: Oh, wow. Did you live in an Alphabet—the house you sold, was it a newer construction?
Whiteside: It was new. It was on Spengler, right across the street from the 7-Eleven that’s on Spengler.
Franklin: Oh, okay, gotcha.
Whiteside: And you know what used to be where the 7-Eleven is? A drive-in theater.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
Whiteside: Yeah.
Franklin: Interesting. Yeah, kind of a shame that those went away.
Whiteside: Yeah, they were fun. They were fun.
Franklin: Yeah. I’ve heard. It’d be nice if they could come back. They’re almost extinct now.
Whiteside: They are, yeah, and that’s too bad.
Franklin: Yeah. And so eventually, though, you came back to the Tri-Cities, obviously.
Whiteside: Yes.
Franklin: And why did you choose to come back to the Tri-Cities?
Whiteside: Bob always knew that eventually, I wanted to come home.
Franklin: Okay.
0:22:26 Whiteside: And I wanted to come home with him, not after something happened to him. So in ‘05, well, can we move home now? And he was 80 years old at the time. He said, yeah, it’s time. He was from Sunnyside, so essentially he was home, too. So he said, okay, you better call a realtor. So I did. And we bought a house.
Franklin: Okay. And did the rest of your family still live here in the area? Your mother and--
Whiteside: My mother did, yes. My sister and the oldest of my brothers were in Spokane. One was in Salem; one was in [UNKNOWN] California at the time.
Franklin: Okay. And so is your husband still with us, or is he--
Whiteside: No, he passed away almost five years ago.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And so what have you been doing since you came back?
0:23:13 Whiteside: I volunteer at the cancer center; I volunteer at the book room at the library. I do all the cards for the local Goldwing motorcycle chapter. I wear about three hats at church. I belong to the Cancer Guild.
Franklin: So you’re keeping busy in retirement.
Whiteside: I keep busy, yes, I do. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: As just about every retired person I know seems to be more busy than when they worked.
Whiteside: Oh, believe me, it’s true. It’s true.
Franklin: Were you—I’m wondering, this is probably going back a ways, but do you remember when JFK came to dedicate N Reactor?
Whiteside: I do. I do.
Franklin: Did you go out--
0:23:52 Whiteside: I was not let out of school. My parents didn’t want me to get out of school. But I knew he was here.
Franklin: Oh, okay. Did you have friends that went to see him?
Whiteside: I probably did, but I can’t remember.
Franklin: Okay. Were there any other events or incidents that happened in the Tri-Cities or Hanford that happened when you were a child or later on when you worked at Hanford?
Whiteside: No. Just regular stuff.
Franklin: Okay. What would you like future generations to know about living or working--living in the Tri-Cities and working at Hanford during the Cold War?
0:24:31 Whiteside: Well, I still think it was a very, very safe place. I think that perhaps, if it wasn’t DOE at the time, whatever it was, it would’ve been a little bit more open with what was going on. I think there would be not quite as many negative thoughts, ideas, whatever, about Hanford and Los Alamos and Oak Ridge and all of those.
Franklin: So you’re saying, then, that that level of security is kind of—there’s been a legacy cost associated with that.
Whiteside: I think so. I think so.
Franklin: In terms of people’s maybe mistrust of nuclear.
Whiteside: Well, you fear the unknown, and it was unknown. I mean it really was.
Franklin: Sure, sure. And then when releases did happen, they were very hushed—you had to kind of pry that information out of them.
Whiteside: Yeah, you did. Yeah.
Franklin: The level of mistrust grows from the unknown, I guess.
Whiteside: Yes, it does.
Franklin: Well, Donna, is there anything else you’d like to mention before we close up today?
Whiteside: I don’t think so.
Franklin: Okay, well, thank you so much--
Whiteside: Thank you.
Franklin: --for coming in and interviewing with us.
Whiteside: You bet.
Franklin: Okay. Great.

00:25:39

9980 kbps

Hanford Patrol
2-East
100 Areas
East Area
300 Area
400 Area
Federal Building
2-West
West Area
222-S
PUREX
100-N
N Reactor
Rattlesnake Mountain

71

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