The China Syndrome Effect

The China Syndrome (1979) opened on March 16, twelves days before the TMI event, and is almost a prescient view of the disaster.  Starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Micheal Douglas, its sensational treatment of a possible nuclear meltdown had lines wrapped around theater’s blocks.  In response to this, reporters all over the country were reaching for magazines whose covers were graced with Fonda’s image as source material.

What was intended as a warning of disaster had become a briefing film for the press.  At a major newspaper the assignment editor waves the wire copy an shouts for attention.  “How many of you guys have seen The China Syndrome?”

Three reporters raise their hands.

“You, you, and you.  You’re going to Harrisburg.” (1)

(1) Mike Gray and Ira Rosen, The Warning: Accident at Three Mile Island (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 142.