To the Editor:

The September issue contains a number of letters from readers commenting on an article by Samuel McCracken concerning nuclear power [“The Harrisburg Syndrome,” June]. In one of these, from Mike A. Males of Helena, Montana, my name has been used as an improper reference. Mr. Males states that I am “. . . now with the UCS [Union of Concerned Scientists] . . . ,” and that I have produced a correlation between “. . . nuclear cost increases and the number of orders processed by regulators and industry. . . .” Neither of these statements is correct. I am now in my sixteenth year at the Rand Corporation, in Santa Monica, and have never been associated in any way with UCS. I have published several widely used studies of the capital costs of light-water-reactor power plants, including statistical correlations, and have shown that the constant dollar costs of these plants have been increasing steadily. But I have never produced anything that could be interpreted to be the correlation that Mr. Males ascribes to me.

William. E. Mooz
The Rand Corporation
Santa Monica, California