The nuclear-plant faults that Tokyo Electric Power Co. tried for years to cover up may not have been serious in themselves, but the effects of the coverups on Japan's nuclear debate will be catastrophic.

From the beginning it should have been obvious that the entire nuclear industry here has been sitting on a powder keg. Japanese organizations see themselves as tight communities concerned solely with their own prosperity and survival. Mistakes and mishaps were bound to be covered up. And while this might not matter greatly in other industries, it was a formula for self-destruction in the nuclear industry. Eventually word of some serious coverup somewhere would leak out. The delicate balance of public opinion tolerating nuclear power in Japan would collapse.

Japan is not like France, where opinion is mature enough to make a rational choice when confronted with the gains and risks from nuclear power generation. Japanese opinion remains fickle and emotional, rather like that of Anglo-Saxon and other North European societies, which Japan resembles in quite a few other respects as well.