JASON CHERKIS
KENTUCKY’S
KING
ramifications well beyond the
homebuilding industry, lifting almost every business in the region.
Even the local brothel expanded.
Paducah embraced the plant
and its patriotic celebration of
nuclear power. It called itself “The
Atomic City” and envisioned thoroughfares bright with shiny, pastel-colored automobiles, a downtown humming with Cold War
money. “The plant just made the
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
town, you know?” Buckley says.
He still remembers when they
first raised the American flag in
front of the plant’s administration
building. He was there, standing
at attention.
Nobody understands the plant’s
importance more than Mitch McConnell. For the past 30 years, the
Senate minority leader, now 71,
has been the plant’s most ardent
defender in Washington. The Republican lawmaker knows its 750
acres located just 12 miles from
downtown. He’s walked its grid
Fred Buckley
(left) with
the Paducah
plant
union’s vice
president,
Jim Key.