It was the first step in a Nuclear Nightmare as far as we know at this hour no worse than that. But a Government Official said that a breakdown in a power plant in pennsylvania today is probably the worst Nuclear Reactor accident to date. There was no apparent serious contamination of workers but a Nuclear Safety group said that radiation inside the plant is at eight times the deadly level, so strong that after passing through a threefoot thick concrete wall it can be measured a mile away. The accident occurred here at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant a dozen miles south of harrisburg. At about 4 00 this morning two water pumps that helped cool reactor number two shut down. Officials say some 50 to 60,000 gallons of radioactive water escaped into the reactor building and that the radioactivity penetrated the plants wall. Steam escaped into the atmosphere and radiation was detected as far as a mile away. At least 50 workers and perhaps twice that number were at the plant when the accident occurred. A spokesman admitted that some were exposed to radioactivity and may have been contaminated but he claimed no one was injured. All workers were given extensive checks with giger counters as they left the plant. Reporters were not permitted inside the facility today but this is what reactor number twos control room looked like last september when it was still underg is what president carter said just a few days after the accident occurred. The president came to the plant for one very simple reason. To assure the people that if the president of the United States and the governor of pennsylvania were standing there together, right at the plant site, that obviously there was no reason to believe that the whole thing was going to blow up at any minute. Obviously, that would reassure the population that were going to have plenty of advanced warning if we have to get out of here. Back to middletown, the president praised local officials and then without actually using the word referred to what everyone here has been thinking about for days. Evac was evacuation. I would like to say to people who live around the plant that if it does become necessary your governor will ask you and others in this area to take appropriate action to ensure your safety. F he does, i want to urge that these instructions be carried out calmly and exactly as they have been