living in the Mojave Desert town of Needles, California, and was looking for help to stop the proposed low-level nuclear waste facility at Ward Valley. Gofman referred him to the Abalone Alliance Clearinghouse in San Francisco. With less than two weeks before the closure of the Environmental Impact Statement, the Alliance was able to mount a letter writing campaign that helped delay the EIS for an additional 90 days. This initial delay gave activists the time to form Don't Waste California and build a grassroots campaign that eventually stopped Ward Valley from opening. Gofman also did work on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. Support to nuclear deterrence Gofman considered that "nuclear deterrence is important", for he did not believe that comprehensive test bans were enforceable; thus he favored underground atomic bomb tests while acknowledging that "They are harmful, a little will leak out. A small number of people will get hurt." He claimed "I don't understand the disarmament movement". More precisely, he was of the opinion that if the US were to disarm unilaterally, "the Soviet leaders may well try to make [the US] a slave state. […] There will surely never be a solution to human problems by any coercion or force. But there will also never be a solution through unarmed freedom as long as powerful bullies exist who will use force." Birth and death Gofman was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Jewish parents, David and Sarah Gofman, who immigrated to the US from czarist Russia in about 1905. His father had been "involved in some of the early revolutionary activities against the Czar." Gofman died of heart failure at age 88 on August 15, 2007, in his home in San Francisco. Bibliography Dietary Prevention and Treatment of Heart Disease, (with E. Virginia Dobbin and Alex V. Nichols), 256 pages, 1958, Putnam What we do know about heart attacks, 180 pages, 1958, Putnam Coronary heart disease, 363 pages, 1959, Charles C. Thomas Population control through nuclear pollution,(with Arthur R. Tamplin, Ph.D.) 242 pages, 1970, Nelson Hall Co. Poisoned Power, The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants Before and After Three Mile Island (with Arthur R. Tamplin, Ph.D.), 1971, 1979 Irrevy: an irreverent, illustrated view of nuclear power, 1979, Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, Radiation And Human Health, 908 pages, 1981 X-Rays: Health Effects of Common Exams (with Egan O'Connor), 439 pages, 1985 Radiation-Induced Cancer From Low-Dose Exposure: An Independent Analysis