FOREIGN RELATIONS: The Microwave Furor

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No Link. How much danger do the waves present? "All we've been told," one employee in the Moscow embassy noted wryly, "is that the waves might cause slight insomnia and irritability. What difference would that make in Moscow? We're all irritable insomniacs anyway." In fact, U.S. Government studies say there could be harmful effects from microwave exposure due to their "cooking" of human cells. But no link to cancer has been demonstrated.

Back home, the Democrats have not made a campaign issue of the affair—so far. But cold-warring Scoop Jackson will probably speak out sharply if the waves are not completely switched off pretty soon. Meanwhile, some former employees are considering legal action. One tactic may be to sue the department for more details, under the Freedom of Information Act. Anxieties about long-range effects of microwave exposure persist. Said one angry former Moscow resident: "One of the things I'm not going to give up my life for is intercepting the conversations of Leonid Brezhnev in his limousine."