The late, Wilford Brimleyesque Ronald Speer was one of the mid-level editors who made The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, of Hampton Roads, one of the best regional newspapers in the 1980s. He would tell reporters: Never assume anything. Double check even the seemingly obvious conclusion.

Words I should have recalled when I wrote Sunday's column on the fraught relationship between France's EDF Group and Constellation Energy. The two companies have agreed to build a third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs on the Chesapeake. EDF Chairman and CEO Henri Proglio was in Maryland on Friday, on his way from the World Energy Congress in Montreal.

The relationship between EDF and Constellation is on an edge, and so is the Calvert Cliffs project and the future of U.S. nuclear development. I got to speak to Proglio on the phone for 10 minutes on Friday when he was in town. In the interview he gave the strongest warning yet from EDF to Constellation about exercising a put option that would transfer some of Constellation's U.S. generation plants to EDF, against EDF's desire.

When I asked in the interview what he was doing here, Proglio said he was working on "the project, of course," referring to Calvert Cliffs. I assumed this meant meeting with his Constellation counterpart, CEO Mayo Shattuck, and other Constellation officials about their partnership. I said so in the column. I was wrong, which EDF quickly pointed out after the piece went on line Friday night. The column required an embarrassing correction.

But the fact that Proglio was here and didn't meet with any Constellation folks seems to support the column's thesis that the companies aren't exactly bosom buddies. He's based in Paris. Constellation is here. So top officials can't have many opportunities to consult in person. Yet according to EDF (and Constellation has not disputed this) Proglio was here for the Calvert Cliffs project but had no meetings with project partner Constellation. The odds for Calvert Cliffs 3 seem to be getting longer.