NADER'S 'UNSAFE' AT 40

William Greider writes: Ralph Nader and dozens of old friends got together recently to celebrate the fortieth birthday of a book--Unsafe at Any Speed, his auto industry exposé. It had its origin in "The Safe Car You Can't Buy," which first appeared in The Nation in 1959. The book was the starting gun for the consumer movement and, much more, for citizen activism. At the gathering Nader introduced some early collaborators-- Village Voice columnist Jim Ridgeway, who wrote a riveting account of Nader's campaign in the then-liberal New Republic, and publisher Richard Grossman, who created a hard-hitting genre known as "Nader books." Some of his young deep-digging associates described their work in what is an ongoing fight. The old crusader, we are pleased to report, has not mellowed.

FALSE ENCOUNTERS

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