Los Alamos Heart Break

The Los Alamos whistle­blower story has gone national, with the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the AP all pick­ing up the tale of Tommy Hook’s assault. All the accounts are painful to read. But the most heart-​​breaking moment in the cov­er­age comes at the end of this Santa Fe New Mexican piece.

Susan Hook cried as pho­tographs of her dis­fig­ured hus­band were shown to news reporters. She said today is their 30th wed­ding anniver­sary. She said she had to can­cel a Hawaiian cruise they had planned to take. When a reporter asked whether her hus­band could be lying, she said he was not the type to go to bars. “We just aren’t dancers or bar peo­ple,” she said. “And he’d been in bed.“
He usu­ally accom­pa­nied her to Albuquerque, but he was too tired and over­whelmed with the upcom­ing hear­ing, she said. He suf­fers from a heart con­di­tion, and he is recov­er­ing from a stroke and shoul­der surgery. He had been back to work just three weeks. When she talked to him on the phone after 10 p.m. Saturday, he told her he had a last-​​minute meet­ing with the audi­tor at a bar… “I’ve known Tommy for many years, and this is not in char­ac­ter with him to be going to bars,” [Hook’s part­ner Chuck] Montano added. “He’s been my boss, and we’ve never even had a drink together.”

Ian Hoffman, the dean of the nuclear lab reporters, has a good round-​​up, too, not­ing that the local and fed­eral author­i­ties seem to be tak­ing the case very seri­ously. “FBI agents are inves­ti­gat­ing the beat­ing as a civil-​​rights vio­la­tion, but imped­ing a con­gres­sional inves­ti­ga­tion also is a fed­eral felony,” he writes.

June 7th, 2005 | Los Alamos and Labs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.