Well I thank you for your compliment, I'll take genius every time
However, if you meant the staff of the nuclear facilities (cough) then no, they don't need to be geniuses (genii?) or insane. If that is a problem, then perhaps we ought to start locking up the staff in all of our nuclear facilities as well.
I'm not putting all my faith anywhere, but for a government to pull off the kind of thing people are worried about here and for it to escape the repercussions is almost beyond implausible.
What does make me worriy is how easily some people will believe the nationalistic line (both in the West and elsewhere) and that seriously does worry me.