The oddities one stumbles upon … in January 1957 the trade journal Nucleonics trumpeted in a two-page article that “World opinion places U.S. in nuclear lead.” This was a period when a real sense of competition existed between U.S.A., U.S.S.R., and U.K. in the field of power reactors, even though it was also a period when next to no power reactors actually pumped out electricity.
“Nucleonics correspondents,” the article said, “polled four categories of people (as shown in the chart) in 11 countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, France, West Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico and Spain. Insufficient responses were obtained in England. The questions asked were aimed primarily at getting two pictures: how people rank the U.S., U. K. and USSR, and what people think of the U.S. atoms-for-peace program.” How many people? 102, hardly enough to warrant any statistical conclusions, especially when broken up into the four categories of officials, industrialists, editors, and “men in the street.” And Lebanon, Mexico? Really?
“Significantly,” Nucleonics opined, “the USSR received its highest percentages of voters among editors and opinion former (Class III) and men in the street (Class IV).” That is, the people who knew least… And the anecdotal answers at the end seem to this reader to be dull in the extreme.
That such a dubious “survey” was even published indicates the heat of the public relations battles taking place between America, England, and the Soviet Union. That America “won” in the survey surely is the only reason it was published at all.
Nucleonics. 1957. “World opinion places U.S. in nuclear lead.” Nucleonics 15, Jan., p. R6.
