Description

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On November 13, 1974, Karen Silkwood, chemical technician and labor activist, was driving on a deserted Oklahoma highway when her car crashed into a cement wall, and she was killed. On the seat next to her were doctored quality-control negatives showing that her employer, Kerr-McGee, was manufacturing defective fuel rods filled with plutonium. She had recently discovered that more than forty pounds of plutonium were missing from the Kerr-McGee plant.

Fifty years later, her death is still steeped in mystery. Did she fall asleep before the accident, or did someone force her off the road? And what happened to the missing plutonium? The Killing of Karen Silkwood meticulously lays out the facts and encourages the readers to decide. Updated with new, vital information as well as the author’s chilling new introduction Silkwood’s story is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago.

For this updated edition, the author has added the latest information as to what happened to the various people involved in the Silkwood case, given real names to people who heretofore could not be identified, and presented new angles on the lasting effects of this underreported piece of the history of the antinuclear movement.

About the Author

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Richard Rashke is a lecturer and author of ten non-fiction books including Useful Enemies: America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals (2013), Escape from Sobibor (1982/1995), and The Whistlerblower’s Dilemma (2015) from Delphinium Books. Rashke is a featured expert in the award-winning international television series Nazi Hunters. His works have been translated into thirteen languages and have been the subject of movies for screen and television. In 1975, Rashke transitioned from educator to freelance journalist and eventually to national correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. His experience and success as a screenwriter and playwright give his investigative work added urgency for his reading audiences. Rashke also appears in the 2019 Netflix series The Devil at Home about Nazi war criminal living in Cleveland, OH. At home, he is an alto sax player and composer. First released in 1981, this revised and updated release of The Killing of Karen Silkwood is finding increased relevance in the current socio-political atmosphere. He lives in Wisconsin where he keeps up his research and writing.

Praise For…

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“This riveting book gets beyond the surface facts and simple emotions of the Silkwood case to the fundamental and in some cases frightening aspect of a story that may never be completely told.” — Christian Science Monitor

“An impressive and vital new book, or better yet, just call it ‘impressive and vital...’ meets a demanding test of objectivity.” — Washington Post

“An admirable job of separating what is fact... from supposition, what is theory from what is documented evidence. For that alone, the book is valuable.” — New Republic

“Nobody—not Ian Fleming, not Agatha Christie—could have concocted a murder mystery/spy thriller as intriguing as the Karen Silkwood story.” — The Trial Diplomacy Journal

“First-rate reporting and tight, edgy writing.” — Kirkus Reviews

“A true-life thriller... raises serious and disturbing questions.” — Playboy

“Exciting... important.” — Boston Globe

“A powerful indictment of one nuclear corporation and the nuclear industry as a whole.” — Library Journal

“Chilling.” — Atlantic Monthly

“Suspense is ever-present. Shocks are electric.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“This jam-packed little thriller has all the elements of a best-selling novel.... There is one catch. It’s all true.” — Florida Sun-Sentinel

“Enjoy this book at a number of levels.... It carefully reconstructs all the clues.... It's a quick primer in legal maneuvering, as maverick attorneys challenge the corporate suits. And, finally it's the tale of one resolute but frightened young woman, fast maturing as she stares at death daily in the yellow uranium clouds that choke her workplace.” — Livingston and McLean Counties Union News

“Rashke's account of the massive documentation on the Silkwood case stands up to critical review.... It will remind students of industrial relations of an earlier anti-union period, replete with examples of coercion, espionage, cover-ups, and illegal wiretapping.” — Robert Sass, Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations

Praise for The Whistleblower’s Dilemma: “A thinking man’s thriller of the moral and legal issues that surround the Snowden saga. Indispensable reading for those concerned with the balance between national security and deeds of conscience.” — Asllan Gerson, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legal Counsel and co-author of The Price of Terror

“A thoroughly absorbing dual examination of what compels people to risk everything to expose secrets. I couldn’t put it down.” — Kristen LePine, executive director, Historic Heroines

Praise for Useful Enemies: “A richly researched, gripping narrative about war, suffering, survival, corruption, injustice and morality.” — Kirkus Review, starred review

“Useful Enemies is a fascinating story, abounding in irony and irony's bad twin, hypocrisy.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Useful Enemies is a remarkable and riveting account of how good people in a great nation can do very bad things and fail to do good things.” — Alan Dershowitz

Praise for Escape from Sobibor: “Information on the Sobibor concentration camp was sketchy at best until Rashke tracked down and interviewed as many of the survivors as possible. The result, said LJ's reviewer, is ‘the first reliable history of this camp. A well-researched and well-written work.’” — Library Journal, copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

“Brilliantly reconstructs the degradation and drama of Sobibor.... A memorable and moving saga, full of anger and anguish, a reminder never to forget.” — Jordan E. Cohn, San Francisco Chronicle

"A sensitive, thoughtful, and well-researched account of the ‘biggest prisoner escape of World War II.’” — Samuel Gold, Jewish Chicago

“A journalistic account in the tradition of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.” — Choice

“The authoritative version of the breakout from the Nazi experimentation camp at Sobibor.... Gives us a very good idea of how the will to survive can lead quite ordinary people to surmount the most extraordinary obstacles.” — Meir Ronen, Jerusalem Post

“This moving and angry book deserves to be read.” — Susan Osnos, Washington Post

“A unique, unforgettable, deeply-moving and effective account of a death camp.” — Allen A. Warsen, Detroit Jewish News