Kitty Tucker: Anti-nuclear activist who helped bring America’s Silkwood case to world’s attention

She pushed for a lawsuit against a plutonium-plant owner whose whistleblower employee died in a car crash while on the way to a meeting with a New York Times reporter

At a 1984 press conference, Tucker describes how Karen Silkwood was killed (Getty)

Anti-nuclear power campaigner Kitty Tucker was a law student when Karen Silkwood – the American labour activist played by Meryl Streep in the film Silkwood – died.

While juggling her academic responsibilities and caring for her young children, Tucker successfully lobbied an American women’s body to push for an investigation into Silkwood’s death in a car accident in 1974 – a labour union investigator suggested her vehicle may have been forced off the road.

Silkwood was a technical worker at a nuclear plant in Oklahoma and became contaminated by plutonium. She was killed while on her way to discuss alleged safety shortfalls in her workplace with a New York Times reporter.

Tucker, who has died aged 75, played an instrumental role in bringing the case to national and international attention.

In 1979, she cofounded Supporters of Silkwood with Sara Nelson, an official at the National Organisation for Women, of which Tucker was also a member. The women used their own money to send newsletters around the US.

Rolling Stone journalist Howard Kohn, author of the book Who Killed Karen Silkwood?, credited Tucker as the “lead organiser” of the lawsuit that pitted Silkwood’s family against Kerr-McGee, the company she had worked for.

He credited Tucker with mounting a fundraising campaign in the push to recruit a legal team that came to include the celebrity lawyer Gerry Spence. “That turned what had been a quixotic piece of litigation into a serious piece of litigation,” Kohn said.

In 1979, an Oklahoma jury found that Kerr-McGee had acted negligently in allowing Silkwood to be contaminated and awarded her estate $10.5m, including $10m in punitive damages. In 1981, an appeals court reversed that part of the settlement, contending that a state jury could not lawfully award damages against a federally licensed nuclear facility.

The US Supreme Court reversed that decision in 1984, sending the case back to the lower court for further proceedings. Two years later, the parties reached a settlement of $1.38m.

“The point is that what Kitty started led to this precedent-making litigation and verdict,” Kohn said. “She didn’t take no for an answer.”

Kathleen Marie Payne was born in Carroll, Iowa, in 1944 and grew up in Clear Lake, Wisconsin. Her father taught business at a local high school, and her mother was a part-time postmaster.

She received a bachelor's degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin in 1967 and a law degree from the Antioch School of Law, now part of the University of the District of Columbia, in 1978.

After her involvement in the Silkwood case, she served as executive director of the Health and Energy Institute, a Washington-based group campaigning against nuclear power, the irradiation of food, and other issues.

Tucker's first marriage, to Charles Tucker, ended in divorce. Their son, Shawn Tucker, died in 1994. Survivors include her husband of 44 years, Robert Alvarez; their two daughters, Amber Torgerson and Kerry Rochester; two brothers; a sister; and two grandchildren.

In 1999, Tucker and her husband, who was employed at the time as a senior US energy department official, were arrested after their daughter Kerry, then 16, reported them to police for growing marijuana in their home. Tucker, who suffered from conditions including migraines and fibromyalgia, said she used the drug for medical purposes.

Alvarez was fired from his government position. He and his wife each pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanour charge and received six months’ probation, a $150 fine and a suspended 10-day jail sentence. Their records were later expunged, Alvarez said.

He attributed the action by his daughter to a “fit of teenage pique” and said that they bore no animus towards her over the episode. He said that his wife campaigned for the legalisation of medical marijuana in Maryland, which took effect in 2013. At her death, she was a member of the Nuclear-Free Takoma Park Committee.

Kitty Tucker, American political activist, born 28 February 1944, died 30 March 2019

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