Mr.
Bogart, whose given name was Herman, but who
used Larry all his life, died of injuries from
an accident on June 19 when he was struck by a
vehicle, said his oldest son, Roger.
Mr.
Bogart was among the earliest and most
knowledgeable independent critics of the nuclear
power industry, beginning in the mid-1960's when
he abandoned a career in public relations in New
York to organize community groups and speak out
about the hazards of using the atom to generate
electricity.
In
1966, Mr. Bogart founded the Citzens Energy
Council, a coalition of community environmental
groups that also published "Radiation Perils"
and "Watch on the A.E.C.," newsletters on the
Atomic Energy Commission and the nuclear
industry. Both publications warned that nuclear
power plants were too complex, too expensive and
so inherently unsafe they would one day prove to
be a financial disaster and a health hazard.
Government officials
joined utility executives and university experts
in condemning Mr. Bogart's work as
scientifically absurd, but the 1979 accident at
the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in
Pennsylvania underscored much of what Mr. Bogart
had been saying.
Mr.
Bogart was born in Brooklyn on Jan. 20, 1914,
the son of a printer. He was educated at
Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and
spent two years at Harvard University. After
serving as an infantryman under Gen. George
Patton in World War II, Mr. Bogart became a
public relations executive with the Allied
Chemical Corporation, now Allied-Signal Inc., in
New York in the early 1950's.
Allied
was an participant in the Government's efforts
to promote nuclear power, and Mr. Bogart wrote
many of the company's news releases and other
material before his views changed.
Mr. Bogart is survived by his wife, Florence,
three sons, Roger of Avon, Conn.; James of
Woodcliff Lake, N.J., and Steven of Worcester,
Vt.; a sister, Mary Dicker of Boynton Beach,
Fla., and three grandsons, Peter, Christopher
and Tino.
Original
NYT Article
