Profile in courage: When Jimmy Carter saved a nuclear reactor
In 1952, the United States military needed leaders for a new kind of mission. It involved a treacherous journey into unexplored territory, with danger a certainty.
Twenty-eight year old Navy Lt. James Earl Carter Jr. answered the call.
“Unexplored territory,” in this case, was the aftermath of one of the world’s first serious nuclear accidents. On Dec. 12, 1962, the NRX research reactor at Chalk River, Ontario, in Canada had suffered a partial meltdown. Ruptured radioactive fuel rods were stuck inside the reactor core. Radioactive water filled the reactor building’s basement.
Lieutenant Carter was an officer in
